A few months ago I made a change to my daily routine. I predicted it would connect me more personally to some of you. I didn’t predict it would reduce my time-consuming e-mails or remind me that some prayers work better than others. I switched to “high-bandwidth” communication.
Bandwidth more or less describes how much information can move from person to person. In the early days of connecting computers, low-bandwidth dial-up modems allowed text to move between people. Faster, higher-bandwidth modems enabled images. Higher bandwidth communication enabled both larger images with more colors and streaming audio. Even higher bandwidth communication enabled streaming video and then HD video. So here’s the high-bandwidth switch I made in my daily routine: I started writing fewer e-mails and making more phone calls.
I had forgotten how much more communication bandwidth the phone enables. In e-mail I get words and a few clues about the feelings behind the words from things like punctuation (and in theory from emojii except my eyes can’t really make out what the tiny little dudes are doing). In phone conversations I get tone and speed of voice, and real-time, two-way dialog where either of us can clarify what we’re saying or help each other find the right words.
I expected that moving to the higher-bandwidth communication of phone conversations would help me connect more personally to you who I’ve been calling, and it did, but it had other significant impacts too. It reduced misunderstandings, reduced the time I spent poring over the right words, eliminated many e-mails bouncing back and forth to question and clarify, and one more thing.
Quite a few of my phone calls resulted in you saying something like, “While I’ve got you on the phone let me share this big news” or “I wasn’t going to bother you, but since we’re talking…” We’ve been sharing celebrations and concerns and over-the-phone prayers that we probably wouldn’t have through the lower-bandwidth communication of e-mail.
If I’ve started to sell you on the idea of replacing some low-bandwidth e-mails with higher-bandwidth phone calls, let me also suggest trying higher bandwidth communication with God. Praying to ask for help connects you to God. Listening to a pastor read scripture connects you to God. Giving what you can spare of your money and time to participate in the ministries of the church connects you to God. But these are all low-bandwidth forms of divine-human interaction. Praying, “God, what do you want from me?” increases the bandwidth. Reading, studying, and praying over scripture increase the bandwidth. Committing consistent time and money first to the ministries of the church and using what’s left over for other parts of life increases the bandwidth of divine-human communication.
If all that sounds tougher than the alternative, I’ll offer that making phone calls initially sounded tougher to me than the e-mail alternative. Yet I discovered three things: it got easier with practice, it produced unexpected benefits for me, and it connected me far more deeply with the other party.
I hope you’ll join me for some super-high-bandwidth face-to-face communication this Sunday from noon-2pm in Mays Hall. It’s our first Access Launch Summit. We’ll eat, worship, and break into groups to discuss what sermon themes would be most relevant to you and to brainstorm how to make worship as engaging as possible when our morning services launch.
See you Sunday!
Rich
Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson