How to get a Church Administrator's Attention

It can sometimes be difficult to get the attention of high ranking church administrators when facing a problem in your local church with which you need their assistance. This is not surprising considering who is competing with you for their attention. Other petitioners are certain to include (Oh, how can we say this nicely?) those with “new light” to share, individuals who are complaining about something just to get attention, conspiracy theorists, and even the flat-out mentally imbalanced. And all of this is on top of the administrator’s regular day-to-day business. So how can someone with a legitimate problem or grievance get noticed among this crowd of mind-numbing communications?

1. Direct your communications to the lowest appropriate level of church organization. No church leader is going to get involved in a situation if it can be handled by someone at a lower level. So if your problem is with a fellow lay member, direct your communications to your pastor. If the problem involves the pastor, go to the conference. If the conference can’t help, or is involved in the problem, go to the union. (Next comes the division, and last is the General Conference.) If you jump a step on the ladder you will at best be instructed to go back down and at worst simply be ignored.

2. Don’t assume they know what you’re talking about. It is all too easy, when caught up in a situation, to forget that others may not know anything about it. Let’s assume that the problem in question is that the first elder of your church has taken to bringing his saxophone to services and spontaneously playing it at random points during the sermon “to add emphasis.” Let’s also assume that your pastor finds this highly flattering and refuses to put a stop to the behavior. And to add insult to injury, it just happens that the elder does this from a seat that is angled just right for the sunlight to reflect off the saxophone and into your eyes.

If you start your letter to the conference leadership by saying, “You can’t imagine how upset we all are. This has been going on so long that it’s starting to affect attendance. And that high note last week after having the awful glare in my eyes for over 20 minutes just gave me the most terrible headache. What’s it going to take to stop this incredibly unchristian behavior by Elder Green? Pastor Yellow certainly isn’t going to!” the reader isn’t going to have any idea what the problem is, other than that it has been going on for a while and involves Elder Green. What’s more, they probably aren’t invested enough to do the detective work to put the pieces together.

But let’s try that letter again. “For six weeks now Elder Green has been punctuating the sermon with spontaneous saxophone playing. Pastor Yellow likes it, but the congregation finds it distracting and irritating and many are attending church elsewhere because of it.” The reader now knows exactly what the problem is.

This advice can apply even if you have spoken to the administrator about the problem before. If you have communicated previously you probably don’t need to go into as much detail, but a quick statement to help them remember the previous communication is still a good idea. It could be something as simple as, “Per our informal conversation in the lobby of the bank on March 3, I am writing to formalize my complaint about Elder Green’s saxophone playing during Pastor Yellow’s sermons.”

3. Come to the point quickly. A brief salutation such as, “I hope this letter finds you well,” can be an appropriate beginning to a letter of complaint. This is especially true if you happen to be personally acquainted with the person you are writing to, but if you spend too long getting to your point the attention span of your reader may expire before you reach it. So skip the, “I really liked the sermon you gave when you visited our church three months ago. I hope you enjoyed the potluck afterward. We usually have a better attendance than that, but it was raining that Sabbath. By the way, how’s your dog doing?” This also applies to details of the actual situation. If you spend a paragraph listing all the people who are no longer attending because of Elder Green’s saxophone playing—before you get around to explaining that it is spontaneous saxophone playing during the sermon that is driving them away—you are equally likely to have already lost your reader.

4. Minimize the emotions. If your church problem is causing you emotional distress its fine to include that fact in your letter, but dwelling on it at length is likely to make the reader less sympathetic, not more. You will almost certainly be having some sort of emotional reaction to the problem; don’t let that emotion be so overwhelming in the way you write that it obscures your actual content.

What to avoid: “I could just kill that AWFUL ELDER GREEN! And PASTOR YELLOW just keeps egging him on! This is just RUINING my nerves! That awful screeching and wailing, I just can’t stand it any longer! And it’s not even something consistent that you could get used to! Every time I calm down and get focused on the message he starts right up again! After last week’s sermon I couldn’t sleep the night through. I kept waking up with NIGHTMARES ABOUT THAT HORRIBLE SAXOPHONE!”

Getting it right: “My frustration is growing because of Pastor Yellow’s unwillingness to discourage Elder Green’s playing. It would be one thing if Elder Green played a quiet melody all through the sermon, but the stops and starts are startling and distracting. I find that I’m jumpy for hours after each sermon.”

5. Make your tone both emphatic and respectful. You’re writing to a church administrator to convince them to do something. Don’t be afraid to use strong, persuasive language. On the other hand, you don’t want to take it so far as to be either threatening or insulting. “If you wouldn’t mind considering our situation, you may find that Elder Green’s music is less than ideal for a worshipful atmosphere,” and “I can’t believe you’re ignoring me! For you to allow Elder Green to go on ruining the congregation’s worship experience week after week just shows what a lousy leader you are!” are equally unproductive. It would be better to say, “Our experience over the last six weeks has shown that Elder Green’s musical contributions are actually impeding the worship experience for our members by distracting from, rather than amplifying, the sermon. I urge you to counsel Pastor Yellow about more productive ways to incorporate Elder Green’s desire to contribute musically to the services.”

6. Leave off your church resume. It can be tempting when writing to church administrators to try to convince them of your worthiness to be heard by listing all your connections to, or the things you’ve done for, the church during your lifetime. This tends to backfire because no matter how much you’ve done the church administrator will likely have done more and will be bored or put off rather than impressed. This also goes back to #3, “Get to your point quickly.” You don’t want to spend so long listing all your work for the church that the reader stops reading before you start in on your real subject.

The one exception to this rule is when an item in your church resume speaks directly to the subject at hand. It would be appropriate to say, “Having spent 23 years in various church orchestras, I’m pretty sure Elder Green’s saxophone isn’t even tuned properly. The resulting dissonance makes his musical interjections even more unpleasant.” Just leave out the facts that you’re a third generation Adventist, have shoveled the snow from the church sidewalks every winter since you were 14 years old, and once shook the hand of the president of the General Conference.

7. State facts rather than judgments. Facts are less likely to anger people. In our example scenario, the fact list could include 1) Elder Green has been playing his saxophone during the sermon for six weeks, 2) during those six weeks attendance has dropped 15%, 3) the front half of the left bank of pews is undesirable to sit in because of sunlight being reflected off the saxophone, and 4) Elder Green’s saxophone is not properly tuned. Judgments about this situation could include 1) Elder Green has no sense of musical timing and 2) Pastor Yellow is blind to the distress this situation is causing the congregation. The judgments could well be accurate, but it is usually better to let the reader come to them on their own rather than stating them outright lest you be accused of being judgmental.

8. Explain why the situation is a problem. Are you concerned about Elder Green’s saxophone playing because you don’t like saxophones (or Elder Green) or because it is negatively affecting attendance? Our example scenario is so simplistic that by simply stating the facts you have already explained the nature of the problem, but actual situations are usually more complex. Often, specific problem events are only symptoms of larger issues. It is this larger issue (if there is one) that you want to address, or you will continue to have problem situations or behaviors. Take the time to think through what, if any, underlying issues may be causing your problem. If you identify any, be sure to point them out in your communication. Even if there are no deeper issues, restate the nature of the problem clearly and succinctly toward the end of the letter to help the reader focus on what you are calling their attention to.

9. Specify what you want. The obvious answer is, “Fix it,” but that’s far too broad a request to be useful. Are you asking for a conference-wide ban on saxophones in church? Do you want to know whether you can enact church discipline against Elder Green? Or do you just want the conference president (or someone) to call Pastor Yellow and advise him to find some other musical outlet for Elder Green? Think through the result you desire and make specific requests that are within the power of the church administrator to fulfill.

10. Pay attention to the technical quality of your writing. You don’t have to be a best-selling author to write to a church administrator; just double check your work to eliminate mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. If you aren’t sure, ask someone else to read it over for you. A second pair of eyes can also help you identify sentences that don’t flow well or other adjustments that could be made to make your letter clearer and more persuasive. It may be that all the church administrator will know about you is what he sees in your letter. Take the time to ensure that it is a favorable impression.

11. Be persistent, but not a pest. This applies primarily to situations where you live near, work near, or otherwise have opportunities to interact with the church administrator on a regular or semi-regular basis. If every time you’re in the same room you start in on Elder Green’s annoying saxophone playing it will not be long before the church administrator will dread to see you coming. If you are in a situation where you have regular contact with the church administrator you should still make your point and follow up on it, but keep it from consuming all of your interactions. You will do more credit to your appeal if you can demonstrate that you are a balanced person with ideas, interests, and skills beyond the issue you are appealing for help with.