I continue to be amazed at the ability of one hastily written email message to tear apart relationships in a community. In fact, I recently watched in dismay as a member of one Christian organization distributed a message that included references to another member as being like a “Nazi” and went into great detail over their frustrations with a decision they opposed.
While the “Nazi” references may have been intended to be humorous (compliments of the Seinfeld “Soup” episode), most folks found the reference more offensive than any decision this person opposed. The message was sent from a well-intending individual, but it came across wrong. Amplifying this fact, it was sent to a large distribution list - all of whom were taken aback.
In the business world, organizations setup policies to mitigate the risks of an incident like this. I believe churches and other Christian communities can learn from this practice. If your church or other Christian organization has email distribution lists or an online community, consider requiring members to read and agree to email policies before they send their first message. Many community sites today offer this functionality and if yours does not, you can simply distribute the policy to all new members.
These policies should address common areas of risk such as:
1. Make sure you review your message before sending
2. Consider your audience; put yourself in their shoes - how will they view the message when they read it?
3. Avoid using any terms the community may find offensive, even if intended as humorous
4. Consider the distribution list, should everyone be receiving this message?
You can also get more specific with suggestions such as:
1. Avoid using CAPS (it is equivalent to “yelling” in person).
2. Do not reflect negatively on any other communities of faith
3. Never email financial or other sensitive information
4. Do not use the community for forwarding messages (aka no email forwards of jokes, etc…)
5. Do not use the community for solicitation
To get you started, there are many resources on the net. Here are a couple that you may find particularly useful:
Peace,
- An IT Servant
I recently heard about an IBM beta project called “Many Eyes”. This site allows users to upload data and analyze it through several different visual formats. As someone said to me, make sure and leave plenty of time free before visiting the site - you will be fascinated by all the information.
While all the data there is fantastic, two particular sets were most intriguing to me: The Words in 2nd Timothy and Christian Church Membership by Denomination. Both of these data sets can be found in the search results located at http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/browse/data?q=Christianity.
Words in 2nd Timothy
In particular, the Words in 2nd Timothy, viewed through a Tag Cloud were really interesting. Through the use of a Tag Cloud, different words that reoccur throughout a text are emphasized according to the count of references. For example, because Christ, God, Jesus and Lord appear 13 to 17 times, they are, by far, the most prominent. But how some other words referenced in comparison with others, such as message (5 times), faith (8 occurrences), truth (6) and ashamed (4) can also be rather insightful.
Church Membership Denominations
Check out the Church Membership by Denominations as a bubble chart. Everybody knows the Roman Catholic Church is massive (though admittedly, visualizing membership in this manner is still clarifying just how large the population is), but there are a number of smaller denominations that I had never even heard of represented as well. Some of these lesser-known denominations still have millions of members.
After looking at this information and comparing the data through several different visualizations, it was clear to me that information technology can also be used to analyze the data of Christianity. Undoubtedly, there are scholars and theologians doing far more impressive work with technology in this area, but the fact that the internet continues to extend resources such as this to profoundly simplify data analysis can have far-reaching impact. I have no doubt my Bible study group will be impressed when I bring the Tag Cloud of our next reading with me to share!
Peace,
- IT Servant