FORWARD-O-PHOBIA?

“And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.” (Mark 3:21)

I posted on the blog for my first time in 2011 last night and behold here I am posting again, this time on 1/11/11.

That above verse where somebody’s FRIENDS said their buddy was “beside himself” (or nuts, or crazy) was said about Jesus Christ, by His own friends. I wonder if you knew there are passages in the Gospels where not only Jesus’ friends but even His family thought he was a little “off” at times. For those of us who tend to march to be beat of a different drummer and tend to be thought of as “off the wall” that IS kind of comforting.

In the past, I’ve written one or two blog pieces about why I forward certain mass e-mailings and why I’ve even originated certain mass e-mailings. I’ve decided to do that again today. For the many of you who typically say, “I NEVER forward anything on e-mail”, or “I would NEVER begin a mass e-mailing”, or even, “I NEVER open up a forwarded e-mail”, well I hope to give you a different point of view today, and I hope you’ll genuinely think about it, and if you’re a committed Christian, even pray about it.

Each day in the newspaper I like to read the little almanac section where it tells you who was born on that day and what important events happened on that day. One day in the past week, the paper said that on this day Thomas Paine published his famous pamphlet “Common Sense”. I was stunned to read that he’d printed 100,000 copies of it...in the 1700s no less! That was SOME feat in those days! It would probably be like ten million today. That document is said to have had a HUGE impact in the Thirteen Colonies and was a vital component in the American Revolution. One of the literature arms of the Assemblies of God (“Light For the Lost”) used to use as their motto, “A drop of ink will make a million think”. That’s SO true!

Let me tell you about Princess Davis. No she’s not a Princess like Diana of the U.K but that’s her birth name. Princess Davis is an African-American woman who was born in rural Arkansas some seventy plus years ago. She came to the Boston are in the middle 1950s. In the ‘60s Princess gave her heart to Jesus and became a born-again Christian. A passionate and avid writer, she used to write one page articles which sometimes addressed politics, sometimes addressed spirituality, and usually addressed a combination of the two. During the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, Princess probably wrote at least fifty of these pieces. She’d go to a copy center and pay to have piles of the articles printed. Then, she’d mail them out to friends, hand them out at church, and most commonly, go to public locations in the city of Boston and hand them out. At times, I’ve helped Princess hand out her articles. And, during the 1980s, I helped her edit a few of them. Sure, a lot of them got thrown away, BUT there are scores of people today, not only in New England but all over America whose lives were affected in a big way by one of Princess’ articles. Princess is not technically savvy. She doesn’t have a computer or an e-mail address, but a couple of years ago, she mailed me a piece that was SO good that I asked her if I could put it out on the internet and send it out as a mass mailing. She agreed to it, and I did it. I explained to Princess the power of the internet...that I might send that out to 50 people....then they might send that out to another hundred people...in a week, it may have gone to 2000 people....in a month it may have gone to 100,000 people....and so on. That’s a whole lot more than the 500 she would have touched by handing them out in downtown Boston.
Imagine if Thomas Paine had something like the internet available to him. Imagine what he could have accomplished, and how many trees would have been saved ‘cause most of “Common Sense” would be in cyber space!

I’ve sometimes been laughed at, criticized, and even ridiculed for “sending out e-mails to fifty people at a time”. I know Princess would not laugh, for she also understands that principle of “A drop of ink will make a million think”. I have a friend I’ll call “Melvin” and that’s NOT his real name. He got kind of perturbed with me last summer- saying I sent out far too many e-mailings. Ironically, Melvin is a very smart guy who holds two Master’s degrees and has some very passionate political and theological opinions. I told him what I’m writing here...that he’s failing to consider the power of the internet. I also told him that if he wanted to write a powerful and passionate article about something and wanted it mass distributed, I’d be happy to put it out as a mass e-mailing and to encourage people to forward it on. I don’t think he’d ever seen it from that point of view before. As I told him, one person on their home computer who sends out a mass e-mailing to 50 people has the potential that one day that will have been read by over a million people and (IF it’s good enough and important enough) could even be talked about one Sunday morning on those Sunday “talking heads” shows.

Listen, I’m not just taking about stuff I write! I’ve already told you of mass promoting a piece by Princess Davis. My friend the Rev. Mindi Welton-Mitchell wrote on her blog a couple of months ago about how upset she was with those offensive Toyota Highlander commercials featuring that bratty little kid who makes fun of other people’s vehicles. I’d also found those ads offensive, but I’d frankly never thought about organizing a mass campaign to have people write letters to Toyota in opposition to those commercials. But Mindi DID think of it! So, I sent out a mass e-mailing with a link to her blog urging people to read Mindi’s article and follow her suggestion.

I know, I know. There’s a lot of spam on the internet. There’s a lot of junk on the internet. I read something in the paper the other day about a guy who has started a business and website with the goal of eliminating all spam on the internet. I did not realize that 90% of the e-mails on the internet are spam. You know, the stuff about a Nigerian prince who wants to give you a million dollars, or about Viagara, or about a million other silly things. And we DO need to get rid of that stuff, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Not all Forwards and mass e-mailings are bad!

Now, here are some examples of Forwards and mass-mailings that I don’t recommend and that I don’t forward:

1. Any e-mailing that promises a happy money angel will show up and give you a lot of money within 24 hours if you just forward the e-mail on to 10 people.

2. Any e-mailing that tells you to send it on to 10 people including the one who sent it to you, or it means you’re not that person’s friend.

3. Any e-mailing that’s dirty.

4. Any e-mailing that makes racist comments about the President...that sort of thing.

5. An e-mail that supposedly contains “facts” that seem outlandish and can’t be proven...such as “aliens from another galaxy landed in Maryland in 2003” and are just about to take over the world.

BUT, there is a great value in some mass e-mailings and forwards. My friend D.G. has begun an outstanding e-mail newsletter for pastors and Christian leaders that he mass e-mails every month or so, and he encourages we recipients to forward it on, and usually I do.

Well, I don’t know how much more I can say about this, but I hope it’s caused you to see what a great tool the internet can be, and to see the value of writing and mass e-mailing on line.