The sheer irony of it...

One of my issues having served in lower-level-leadership in a megachurch is the gross lack of communication from the higher-ups. There are several tiers of leadership, with "ministry servers" being near the bottom, just barely above the "general public". The Sr. pastor is well guarded like a celebrity, and we "ministry servers" were only afforded the ability to communicate with our next-higher-up-tier of leaders.

Then our concerns or ideas were NEVER heard, usually we were given some ridiculous answer like

"Your thoughts have been duly considered. It is our [the true identity of these people referred to in the word "our" being quite mysterious] belief that these ideas or concerns are not [insert some apathetic terminology meaning "significant"] to the vision of this church at this time. We appreciate your input. God bless you."

About as personal as the computer system you get when calling a credit card company.

Press 1 if you have an impractical idea.
Press 2 if you have an unimportant concern.
Press 3 if you if you are in need of useless or outdated information.

Then you are put on hold for an ungodly amount of time, listening in turn to some Muzac butchering of "Southern Cross" by CSN, and a gentle female voice explaining how they "value. your. call. someone. will. be. with. you. shortly."

Then, when you finally get to speak to a real-live person, you are "accidentally" disconnected.




So today I got an interesting and ironic e-mail from the church I am out-of.

A link to an online anonymous survey about "communication practices" among the leadership of the church, designed to give "ministry servers" a "voice".

Examples (I just picked a few of my favorites, in reality there are 40-some questions):

The support I get from leadership is:
VERY STRONG | STRONG | ADEQUATE | WEAK | VERY WEAK | NON-EXISTANT

If I could tell leadership about my experience in service, I would share the following ___.

If I could make suggestions on how to improve ministry effectiveness, I would suggest the following ___.

I would say I feel well listened to and my ideas are heard.
STRONGLY DISAGREE | DISAGREE | AGREE | STRONGLY AGREE

In my opinion the most important communication issue in leadership is ____.

I think leadership does an excellent job communicating with me about my role as a leader.
STRONGLY DISAGREE | DISAGREE | AGREE | STRONGLY AGREE

Etc. Etc.

Hm.

Truly ironic. Don't I wish I had received this e-mail two years ago? Of course, at that time I would have likely been afraid to tell the truth.

And it just goes to show how slow the information "gravel road" is around there, since I was released from most of my "ministries" over 18 months ago, I'm still on the leadership mailing list.

I told my hubby how tempted I was to respond to the survey. OOH boy! What an opportunity to have a "voice"! However, since I am no longer attending there, much less serving in leadership of any kind; and since it was sent to me in good faith due to my former leadership roles, I must err with good judgment and choose not to respond. And since I am working to practice "grace" toward my brothers and sisters...I'm better off keeping my mouth shut.

How sad that servers are lost due to the sore lack of open communication channels.
How sad that churches so rarely bother to ask their servers how they feel and what they think.
How sad that churches become so large that they don't know who their servers are/aren't anymore.

In any case, too little too late for this chickie.

*Sigh*