Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

In The Episcopal Church (and maybe all churches), we have lots of listening sessions. These are times for the stakeholders to come together and talk to the leadership about their wants and desires. The leadership, in turn, is supposed to listen with open minds and hearts.

In my opinion, these listening sessions accomplish very little unless the people who are talking truly feel heard. One of the best ways, I think, is to make sure that some of the suggestions are incorporated into the work at hand. Then the leadership should acknowledge the role of this input: You talked. We heard you – and here’s how. 

Over the past few blogs, I have shared about the communications survey and how it is shaping my ministry with the diocese. This week, we went live with a re-designed diocesan website that seeks to incorporate many of the desires people expressed, such as easier navigation, quick access to calendars and forms and a more up-to-date design. 

But the give-and-take shouldn’t end there. When I announced the new site, I thanked folks for their input in the survey and gave some examples of how their input shaped the re-design. Then I asked for the feedback again: I think I heard you, and I tried to implement these suggestions. How’d I do?

I have received several notes back. Interestingly many of them have thanked me not only for the work in re-building the site but also for the willingness to incorporate their suggestions and acknowledge their input. 

Not all of the feedback will result in changes to the site. And it shouldn’t. Part of my job – and yours – is to sift through the input and see which suggestions make sense, which ones are possible and which ones should be postponed or discarded.

A few e-mails pointed out some typos or outdated information. I’m so thankful for these additional copy-editors! First, it means they’re poring over the content, and secondly, we could all use fresh eyes after ours have gone blurry from hour-after-hour of computer work. After all, I once wrote about the Presiding Bishop dedicating a special plague (Bubonic? Frogs, flies and locusts?) instead of a commemorative plaque.

One user suggested changing some of the typeface and background colors so that older eyes could more easily read the pages. Great idea.

Another e-mail recommended developing a companion site with static pages that were easier to download for people with dial-up service. This one stopped me in my tracks for a bit. I use broadband service so I really wasn’t sure how long the new site would take for folks on a slower Internet connection. I googled and found a couple of programs that would calculate the size of my site and determine how long it would take different users to access it. (There’s even an add-on that has a little clock in my toolbar to show me the speed of every site I visit). Even with the vast number of pages and images on my site, the program indicated that the website takes under a second to download for a broadband user and between 7-9 seconds for dial up users. After some due diligence, I weighed the option of having a secondary, static site and decided against it. I plan to share with the writer the decision and the reasons behind it. 

Not every piece of feedback must be incorporated but all should be listened to. This give-and-take can create an environment of mutual accountability and excellence beyond what we could achieve individually. 

Free advice can, after all, be worth much more than you paid for it.