Reaching out…

Email campaigns: I have learned a lot about this in the last four years. Here is what I know. This is an easy thing to keep track of and has a huge impact on the bottom line of communication. I send out an email once a month to friends, family and donors. Each month, I receive requests from other people who had my emails forwarded to them. What started as a light effort of 30-40 people has grown into a distribution list of almost 200.

I have heard back from people sharing that:

• they were on the verge of quitting ministry, and it was my email that rekindled their heart for doing God’s work.
• my emails are being used as discussion in the Youth Ministry program at Seattle Pacific University
• it would be sent out to the entire mission of Young Life
• God has moved their heart to a lifetime of ministry
• they were moved to tears and ultimately to pray for our mission, but ultimately the world around them

Honestly the responses bring me to a place of humility, and awe. Now I want to be clear that the reason that I am sharing this is not for the sake of braggery ( not sure ‘braggery’ is a word ), but to set the stage for how things can be done.

Email does not sound like a “new” idea, as anyone in ministry is probably already utilizing email. There a couple of distinctives that I would like to point out.

Be a good story teller. One of things that I love to do is tell stories, long tangents that may just possibly bring us back to the point. Each night I tell my kids an ongoing story about Obi-wan, Darth Vader, a ham sandwich a stick and  an Ice Cream cone that talks. Each night the story changes and involve some permutation of those characters ( there may be an occasional Hippo, or talking tree ). The kids look forward to it, they laugh from their bellies, and that makes me feel good. The point is that I love to tell stories, moments, that captivate, whether it be a funny story or a story that makes us cry, the point is that they are worth telling.

One Young Life staff person was having a hard time raising a budget. He pleaded for help in an email, in fact quite convincingly, but it was missing something, so I emailed him and offered up a bit of advice. His reply was this. “I have only been on staff for about a year, I don’t have the same stories that you have.” The following is my response:

Here is an amazing story for you. The kids in your town need to know about Jesus Christ, the greatest story that there is. There are no effective para-church ministries reaching those schools and although there are a lot of great churches in the area, none of them are quite hitting the kid the furthest out and that is the very heart of Young Life.  To improve the story, you and your wife left a comfortable life to move toward a life of reaching kids with that gospel of Jesus Christ and you know that you were called, but you are really struggling to find people from the community willing to stand in the gap with you for kids and by that I mean $$$, leaders, committee. “Winner” stories come with longevity, and you currently don’t have the financial backing for longevity. Meaning, you take a new staff person, now screw them over on finances and you keep them for about two years. We get into ministry because: first we love Jesus Christ, and second we love kids. Not because we love to raise money. You are a gatekeeper to sharing Jesus Christ with Kids. Be that story to your community. Share that story with everyone you meet.

It is our job to tell the story in an email. I don’t think most people care about when the next All-area picnic is, or really even who is involved other than the chance that they might know of them. What they want to know is this. Are you having an impact on your world? How are you having that impact. Tell those stories. Tell the story that brings you to tears or laughter when you think about it because the reality is that we all want to be brought back to that place of caring about other people!

Effecitve emails
One of the best story tellers that I have met through email is Donn Ring, he puts together the Erthaware Report which looks at Nature as an aspect of how we connect with our creator. In some ways almost Steinbeck-esque, such that you want to read what he has say because it makes you wish that you were there with him. I tried to help him put things online, about a year ago, and all that we got up were a couple of posts, which I believe that those posts are spectacular. Check it out,  you will see what I mean: ( http://www.erthaware.org )

One of the tenants of Young Life that I have co-oped is this: It is a sin to bore a kid with the Gospel. If we have kids showing up to Young Life I want to make sure that everything that I do paints Jesus Christ to to be the Radical that he was. When I get to speak I want to leave people with the sense that Jesus Christ was amazing, and that Jesus Christ loves them in a way that is beyond comprehension.  What is the point of speaking about something you care about if you leave the listener wondering if they updated their status on Facebook. I won’t bore kids with Jesus Christ. I guess that I have the same feeling about these emails.  That we want to leave people believing that they are standing in the gap with us, because the truth of the matter is this. They are. Without the help of a caring community, our ministry is empty and lackluster.

Be consistent, I have friends that put together an email and get two or three months down, but then they fade away and I think man… That was a great start. I looked forward to their emails. I looked forward to hearing about their move or change or whatever. Email is a one sided relationship in that we write the email and then the person reading it is connecting to me and our ministry in ways that we can’t understand.

There is a gentleman that I barely know, he is a great guy, but I don’t know him very well. He has been receiving my emails, he told me that he saves all of them, rereads them and I think he said prints them out. He came up to Port Townsend and we had lunch together. He went  on to share how the emails that I have sent out have changed his heart and he has learned more about the nature of God through them. HOLY SMOKES! The point is this. The holy spirit has been working on the heart of this man through the use of technology.

God is present in technology

God uses technology.

Sample email #1 ( from YL Staff in California )

Sidenote:

There are tools that can help with this as well ( ConstantContact, InJesus, MyEmma ). They keep track of your mailing list for you and give you the ability to know who is and who isn’t opening your emails.