November 20, 2012

404 Error, Page Not Found???

A few years ago, I was putting the Advent schedule on the parish website and had the impetus to make some other improvements to the site, but I managed to crash most of the pages of our website and a 404 error was generated when you tried to view it. That is, anytime someone went to click on that link, they saw, “404 error, page not found”.

Yikes. Thankfully, it only took me the rest of the afternoon, albeit panicked, to figure out my mistakes in the page code and then once again, all was right in our little patch of cyberspace.

When I saw the video “404, the story of a page not found,” a TED Talk by Renny Gleeson, a light bulb went on in my head. Not only for how I might redesign my 404 page to make it less annoying, but also with other areas of my ministry.

In his talk (a short four minutes, I highly recommend), Mr. Gleeson shares his insight related to how experiences, such as reaching a broken link, make us feel and, the power we have to manage that feeling. His examples of companies intentionally using humor, inspiration, and other creative means within the design their 404 error page illustrate ways to transform the annoyance of reaching a broken link to an experience that could even be fun, or at least not such a disappointment. Those moments become opportunities to build better relationships, or as Mr. Gleeson put it, “A simple mistake can tell me what I’m not or remind me that I love you.”

In so many ways, this is a fundamentally Christian principle.

Managing a website is invariably complicated and so is our life together in the church. We will inevitably get things wrong from time to time. Whether in history, when the church poised itself as the perfect institution, or in our congregations today, where we promise people so much, we’re bound to let people down. So as a leader in a congregation, how are our ‘404 page’ moments going to look like when someone encounters that broken experience?

Recognizing that ‘404 page’ moments are inevitable, how might we, as congregational leaders, prepare ourselves and those we serve for those moments where we will be left vulnerable despite our best efforts to put everything in place to function smoothly. What will someone encounter when the system is broken, when things don’t work, or we let them down? How will we present ourselves when things fall through the cracks, when stuff don’t go right in the liturgy, information about members is not kept accurately, or pastoral relationships are not being maintained with members at the sidelines of the parish?

Paying attention to experiences – and how they make people feel – is a good first step towards reminding people that they are loved. Whether we create a humorous 404 page for the broken experiences on our websites, or at least try to keep track of our relationship ‘404 page’ errors (which I hope you will be doing), we have the power to make such encounters far better. What will your 404 page look like?