WHEN SENDING AN INTENSE E-MAIL

“A soft answer turneth away wrath...” (from Proverbs 15:1)

I wish I’d have thought of that verse a few nights ago!  It may well have been helpful.

E-mail is a wonderful invention.  Most of the time, I really like it.  This may surprise some of you, but I’m really NOT a big “telephone” person.  Yes, at the church office and many times at home I have to take calls from Church Members and others, and I certainly do that.  But I find the telephone intrusive and confining.  Well, cordless phones and cell phones are NOT particularly confining, and that’s a good thing.  I like to be able to receive an e-mail, read it, think about it bit, and then respond to it.  The fact that it’s in writing enables you to do some rewriting and editing.  E-mail is also (usually) far preferable to old-fashioned snail mail.  My good friend Ed who lives in the Midwest is quite a letter writer.  He’s even more of a letter writer than I am.  In the old days, he’d write me a lengthy handwritten letter, then I’d write back a lengthy handwritten letter, and so on.  The correspondence would seemingly take FOREVER!  Now, Ed and I e-mail each other several times a week!

The bad part about e-mail is that you can sometimes fire off a quick, thoughtless, nasty letter which is not easily explained or taken back.

One of the worst things to do with e-mail is to send a lengthy confrontational letter that the person has no inkling is coming.  Have I ever done that?   Yup.  Have I learned it’s not a good idea- listen, as one who has DONE it, it’s almost never a good idea.  Another “worst” thing to do is to fire off an angry reply as soon as you’ve received a lengthy confrontational letter.  It makes lots of sense to wait 24 hours to reply.  In some cases, it actually may not be desirable to reply at all

No one needs to know who from or what the issues were, but I received a lengthy confrontational e-mail a few nights ago.  In my case, I particularly do badly if I read a confrontational e-mail after 8 p.m. or before 8 a.m., although I guess I don’t do too well with ‘em anytime!  I fired back an angry gut-level reply, and this has ended up being a very stressful and difficult week.

There are actually VERY GOOD Biblical guidelines for writing confrontational letters or e-mails.  (I think if the issue is serious enough, you should make it a hard-copy letter and send it by U.S. mail and keep a copy.  I don’t think e-mailing something like that is the best idea.)  For all of our future references, one place where you find guidelines for writing confrontational letters is in chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation.  There, JESUS essentially sends a confrontational letter to each of seven churches of “Asia” (what we would now call “Turkey”).  In Bible College, we learned that each letter followed a pattern.  They have 4 parts.  They start with a greeting (usually a pretty warm greeting).  Next is a commendation.  Each church is praised for what they’re doing good and right.  This makes the recipient feel warmly greeted and praised and not like a total failure or something. THEN, comes the confrontational part, which in Bible College we learned was the “condemnation”.  (Actually the church at Biblical Philadelphia was doing nothing wrong so there was no “condemnation”.)  Last was a “Promise” from the Lord...an exhortation to do the right thing and good would happen.  I have actually used that pattern several times in writing confrontational letters, with very good results.   About ten years ago, a woman in our congregation was having some issues with an adult son of hers who lived far away.  She wanted to confront him in a letter, but she did not want to alienate him.  She asked my advice, and I told her about this pattern.  She did write the son a letter following the pattern of the letters in the Book of Revelation and her son received it pretty well and everything worked out!

Another pattern for confrontational letters is the little Book of Philemon.  Philemon is the shortest of the Apostle Paul’s letters.  In the Bible it is found just before Hebrews.  Philemon is one of the most SYRUPY, FLATTERING, and (frankly) manipulative letters I’ve ever read!  Does God condone writing syrupy, flattering and manipulative letters when there’s a very difficult issue to confront and try to resolve?  Well, based on the fact that Philemon is in the Bible, I have to say “YES”!

Paul wrote Philemon from prison in Rome.  It was written to Philemon in Asia (“Turkey”, remember?) hundreds and hundreds of miles away.  Philemon’s slave Onesimous had run away.  Somehow the runaway and Paul had connected in Rome.  Onesimous regularly visited Paul.  They really liked each other.  Everything was all “palsy-walsy”.  Good, right?  Well, NO.  The wealthy Philemon was a personal friend of Paul.  The law said Paul needed to report this runaway, out of respect for Philemon, and that if Onesimous got beaten or jailed or killed or all of the above, well, so what?!  Paul kind of let the situation go and let the situation go.  Paul really wished Philemon would just forget the whole thing, forgive Onesimous, free him from slavery, NOT be angry with Paul, and also be all “palsy-walsy” about the whole thing. What were the odds of THAT happening?!  Well, I’d say FAT CHANCE!  Nevertheless, Paul wrote that SYRUPY, FLATTERING and very manipulative letter.  How did the matter turn out?  Unfortunately, we don’t know!

I have also used the Philemon pattern in writing confrontational letters.  About ten years ago, an elderly woman in our congregation was frustrated because her grandson who was about 24 had stopped attending our church and stopped visiting and paying attention to her. It really bothered her.  I actually wrote this young man a syrupy, flattering, manipulative letter following as closely as I could the pattern of Philemon.  He never actually wrote me a letter back, BUT he came back to the church and began visiting and paying attention to the grandmother.  IT WORKED!

So, for all of you in the future who decide to send me a confrontational letter or e-mail, there are some great tips for you!  Seriously!

And, when I get a confrontational e-mail, from now on, I’m not answering it for at LEAST 24 hours, so you’ll need to please respect that!