What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Sermon

07/04/2018

A number of years ago, I was put in charge of the Information and Communications Board of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

This meant that I was in charge of trying to formulate the church’s internal news and helping to work out our message to the outside world.

I think it was fair to say that there were one or two people who thought this might be just a little risky.

In the end, I did what I could and for much of the time I set about commissioning things from other people and getting them published and with the help of many others worked very hard.

Unfortunately though I had a weakness. I could cope with being serious and good for 364 days of the year (well, more or less) but there was always April Fool’s Day.

There were a number of articles over those years which I wrote myself but which I probably shouldn’t have published in the name of the church.

Amongst them was the one in which I announced that a committee that had never existed had come up with a new corporate image for the church. I changed the slogan from “The Scottish Episcopal Church Welcomes You” to “The Scottish Episcopal Church Welcomes You on Sunday”. Silly though that was, it didn’t seem to bother most people. Rather more startling was that I published a new version of sign that hangs outside all of our churches and in the middle, instead of a bishop’s mitre, I put a kneeling Buddha with the stated hope that this would improve interfaith dialogue.

I think that it would be fair to say that this venture did not particularly improve anyone’s dialogue.

I still treasure one response that I had to this in which someone never mentioned the slogan or the picture but remonstrated with me at great length for choosing colours that were not good for those who are colour blind.

Similarly the next year when I published an article advertising in the name of the College of Bishops that henceforth we would be using a new algorithm for calculating Easter and that Easter would align with Easter in the Church of England only every other year and on the alternate years we would keep an entirely different date in company with the American Episcopal Church.

Again, I got some correspondence about this. The only advice that I have for anyone wanting to go into church communications is never to publish something thunderously stupid in the name of the College of Bishops. The danger is, people believe every word.

All this seems a little redundant in these days of Fake News. Every day is All Fools Day and everyone has trouble working out what is true and what is false.

Carefully constructed April Fool’s day absurdities seem rather inadequate in the face of international politics in which the most outrageous candidate anyone could imagine became the leader of the free world and suggests arming teachers as a way of keeping gun crime out of schools; and domestic politics which seems to be carried out as though food banks are a normal part of the welfare system and not a daily crisis of people crying out for bread.

These things are not jokes. But they make fools out of us all.

As it happens, it is surprisingly rare for Easter Day and April Fool’s Day to fall on the same day. It is sixty years since it last happened and it won’t happen again for another 21.

But must not that first Easter Day have seemed like a day of utter foolishness?

The first witnesses to the resurrection were women, whose testimony was not taken seriously. Not simply because they were women, I suspect so much as because of how everyone had seen him die.

Here in St Mary’s we go through the story of the crucifixion four times. Firstly in the readings on Palm Sunday and then three times on Good Friday.

People are shocked when I say it but the honest truth is that by the time I get to the end of the fourth time through, I really want him to stay dead.

After all, Jesus is far easier to deal with if we think he is safely buried away not making any more demands on us.

But the news of Easter Day is that what seemed like the greatest foolishness is the greatest wisdom. What seemed like the greatest defeat is in fact the greatest victory. What seemed like the ravings of mad fools is in fact the great truth that will help us to defeat the foolishness of homelessness, war, violence and social exclusions of every kind.

For no matter what you do to people, hope springs up.

No matter how bad things are, the news that love conquers death is still true.

No matter what you say to people, someone will always sing Alleluia. And alleluia will always win in the end.

Over the course of Lent, the cathedral clergy have been giving Lent addresses on a Sunday evening in which each person has been asked to address the question – why am I a Christian?

Let me tell you why I am a Christian.

I am a Christian because of Easter Day.

I am a Christian because we are an Easter people and our song is alleluia.

I am a Christian because the utter foolishness of the first news of Easter turns out to be the truth.

The women were the first to spread the news and it was greeted as foolishness but that is now the faith to which I cling. For I can make no better sense of the world.

The first person to wish me a happy Easter this year was a Muslim writing on behalf of his community not just to me but to all of us gathered here to wish us a happy and joyful day.

And in a land riven with Islamophobia, that makes my heart sing.

Easter is about those moments when your heart sings. When you know for sure that love will make a fool of prejudice, will make a fool of sorrow and will make a fool of death.

Jesus Christ is risen.

For if Christ were not risen from the grave we would not be gathered here in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN

7 responses to “Twitter and the Church”

Justin

18/06/2009

First, congratulations Kelvin on your appointment as I&C Board convenor, and thanks to you and all who contributed to the SEC’s Synod Twitter coverage, which worked really well.

Some thoughts:

Next year, as was suggested by some of the Synod ‘Twitterarti’ we should have a proper Synod 2009 Twitter account, like that set up by the Church of Scotland for their Assembly. And it needs to be integrated into the Synod pages on the Provincial website from the outset.

It would also be good to integrate the #pisky Twitter stream into the Provincial site on a permanent basis, or to set up an SEC account for that purpose. I would also suggest making the site’s SEC blogroll more prominent. And the SEC Flickr streams.

I understand the concerns some have about the impossibility of monitoring what’s said on Twitter and the blogosphere, and its undeniable that sometimes people will say insensitive and daft things that will offend and hurt.

But that is part of the very nature of online communication. The days when organisations could manage their channels of communication through press releases and a limited number of printed publications are gone. The web has democratised communications media, offering a low cost platform for all members of an organisation: the concept of gatekeepers at the top approving and filtering information is redundant.

Like all organisations the SEC needs to embrace and engage with things like Twitter, blogs and other social networking tools, or people will simply bypass the ‘official’ channels and jump straight to where the real conversation is happening, like your blog.

It’s not just Twitter we need to embrace, but the existing web platforms we’ve already got in place. I’ve been honoured to be asked to develop a number of websites for the SEC over the past couple of years, including the Provincial site and a few diocesan sites.

Some good use has been made of these – Kennedy in particular has been doing some great stuff on the Glasgow site over the past few weeks. But my perception is that the web still plays a very muted second fiddle to print as a means of communication within our church.

At Provincial level I don’t see why all the good news material should be kept for inspires magazine. I think it should go straight onto the website as soon as it becomes available. If it’s kept in inspires nobody outside the church can see what’s going on. I don’t think subscription rates to the magazine would be affected at all if inspires material also appeared online: most commercial magazines have found that putting selected material online serves to promote rather than threaten their presence on the newstands. There are now more printed magazines than ever, and they all have websites.

I think we should allow the boards and committees to post their material direct to the SEC News section. That would, I think, encourage far more of them to contribute their material to the website.

The same applies at diocesan level: nearly all the good news is kept back for the diocesan magazines, and almost none of it makes its way to the website (again, I know Kennedy is doing his best for the Glasgow site).

News and events functionality, RSS feeds, photo galleries: they are all there on the diocesan websites waiting to be used. I have to be frank and say that communicating our diocesan news through rather poorly designed newsletters (where the Comic-Sans wars are still taking place) received only by insiders, makes us look very old-fashioned and insular.

I realise that sounds rather harsh, and that people are volunteering their time to put together the magazines. But I don’t see why we are spending so much time and money doing it that way when the web is there waiting to be used. I love the church and want it to grow, not continue to decline. The web is our friend, offering so many exciting possibilities, and its importance as a means of communication will not be grasped unless we keep banging on about it!

My tuppenceworth. Very interested to hear what others think. Congrats again and best wishes in the new post.

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

Congrats and Best Wishes indeed, Kelvin. A most demanding role and requirement.

Encouraged by Justin, I shall add a penny-ha’pennies-worth.

Communication in the world of today is a serious and complex undertaking, isn’t it, not least because there are so many across-generation and accessibilty issues involved, leaving the ‘non-tech’ community disenfranchised if the ‘old fashioned’ hard copy approach is neglected – or perceived to be neglected. Hard copy will continue to be an essential medium for a while yet – and rightly so.

But equally important, and especially for reaching, including and empowering the youngest generations in the SEC, is the recognition and inclusion of new and newest technologies. Perhaps the teenagers in our midst have some useful insights to offer us for Developing Mission Outreach. The Good News was given to us to share – with everyone.

Good – effective – communication is a great thing when you encounter it. Rare Creature tho it be. Fully – and clearly intended to BE – fully inclusive, and therefore encompassing and using ALL practical and available methods of communication.

Problems in achieving Good Communication so often seem to be due to omission, oversight and a lack of appreciation of The Need To Try.

So, for instance, I Receive Information From Other, I process this internally with every intention that my Final Response will then be shared comprehensively – but I first neglected to Assure The Other that I had Actually Understood What They Were Saying. In consequence the Information I have Taken On Board may be incomplete or flawed – hence I have (inadvertently no doubt) neglected that very important step of Ensuring My Understanding Of Information Matched what Was Being Said…….

“What Is Said”, what is “Intended To Be Heard”, “What Is Heard” and “What Is Understood” are frequently 4 different things. However, effective/”good” communication requires a thorough appreciation of such likely mis-match, and also requires enormous strategic endeavour (until the skill becomes second nature) to outwit the intervention of MisUnderstanding.

As with anything in life, a little digging, hoeing, watering, general nurture and attention will reap a fine result. It takes time, and it takes effort. Such, however, are well worth investment.

But you will know these things. There is no need for me to be teaching you to suck eggs. I was just mulling out loud.

All Very Best Wishes for balancing the new hat. (I assume the new post includes a hat ?)

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

PS. If there is currently no hat, maybe we could invent one…………..

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Kennedy

22/06/2009

Perhaps one of our issues is that in the absence of any centrally provided forums for discussion – eg. we don’t normally have a letters page in Inspires – then the blogs and other social media just step in and provide the forum for the sort of discussion that people obviously seek.

If staff at GSO aren’t involved then the discussion is the poorer for that.

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jaye richards

23/06/2009

Just a little point, and I’m curious as to your thoughts on this, but how would you feel about someone tweeting during , say, one of your sermons or during a particularly uplifting piece of music ? is there a time and a place for this kind of communication, and might this include a religious service

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Kelvin

23/06/2009

I’d be bothered if someone was disturbing others with their tweeting. However, I was chastened a couple of years ago when I became a little distracted by someone near the front apparently unable to sit still and seeming to send lots of text messages.

It turned out however that he had the whole bible on his mobile phone and was simply looking up the passages as they were being talked about.

So, I’m not bothered about discreet twittering, I don’t think, though someone might well choose not to twitter in order to be able to concentrate more on what was going on. Part of a spiritual life in most traditions is about learning not to be distracted sometimes, and choosing not to be distracted during worship would be an admirable path to try to follow.

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jaye richards

24/06/2009

I have to admit to being disturbed sometimes during conference presentations by those around me twittering, although I do it myself so perhaps I shouldn’t complain ! I do think there’s a time and a place though, and for me, anyway, a sacred service is not the place to tweet from.

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