Just textin' the bishop, yo--keeping with the times or is something off in etiquette?

[Guest]

Me and my husband text our bishop to make appointments and such with him I don't see anything wrong with that... Our bishop is more likely to get back to us with a text rather than a phone call :)

Now, I consider this an inappropriate use of text messaging. And the reason is - in my ward (and I think this is true for all wards) - we make appointments through the Executive Secretary.

So, just because a Bishop doesn't mind text messages, it doesn't mean that we can throw out the appropriate pathways of communication in a ward.

Of course, if the Executive Secratary accepts text messages, it would be appropriate to send him a text message to make an appointment with the bishop and then it would also be appropriate for the Exec. Secretary to text message the Bishop his calendar...

Edited September 20, 2012 by anatess

[Blackmarch]

Brother-in-law was in town, so he and husband and I went out to lunch. Part way through the meal, BiL (who is in the middle of his missionary paperwork) pulls out his phone to respond to his bishop's text. Turns out this is how they've been communicating when not at church. I didn't think anything of it, but Husband thought it was odd.

In my mind, texting is what we all do know and is a handy way to communicate. I imagine in the case of big sins, frequent texting might be a great tool.

Or... is texting just breaking through the bishop/ward member barrier in a too-much-contact sort of way?

depends on the bishop. There might be a respect the other parties time schedule aspect to it, but i can't see anything specifically wrong with it. If someone doesnt want to take texts or calls they can ignore, turn down or off the phone.

[Magen_Avot]

Texting. .

Could there have been a similar thought when the phone was invented?

...or postage stamps?

[Misshalfway]

A member of the bishopric txt-ed me to invite me to accept a calling. He wouldn't tell me what the calling was. But he started to interview me in the texts. It was lame.

[idahommie]

A txting interview with a member of the Bishopric is WRONG WRONG WRONG........

[szorgalmasan]

Personally I think that Texting is more respectful than a phone call...not less. A text allows the recipient to respond in his or her own time instead of being pulled away from whatever they were doing to have a chat. I liken it to my paralegal walking into my office with a message on a sticky note and walking out as opposed to sitting in my office and interrupting what I am doing to give me a verbal message.

When I was a seminary teacher I would text my students when class had to be cancelled on short notice...so much more efficient than a phone call to each individual. Our branch pres. used to text quite a bit too. "Bro. Can you bring sacrament bread this morning?"

I agree with the above post though that a texting interview is wrong. I think that interviews are (in theory) supposed to involve the bishop "feeling" things about the person they are interviewing, and that's probably easier when the meeting is face to face.

Edited September 27, 2012 by szorgalmasan

[NightSG]

I agree with the above post though that a texting interview is wrong. I think that interviews are (in theory) supposed to involve the bishop "feeling" things about the person they are interviewing, and that's probably easier when the meeting is face to face.

I could see doing it in a pinch if there's just no other way to get it done quickly. (Assuming some duty of the new calling needs to be taken up very soon.) On the other hand, some very confidential things might come up in such a discussion, and I'm a lot more comfortable discussing those in the bishop's office than having them floating around the cell company's server.

For that matter, my bishop once left his cell phone laying on the desk at work. Had I been particularly dishonest, I guess I could have texted out a bunch of new callings

Edited September 27, 2012 by NightSG

[JosephP]

My bishop prefers email to text for routine matters. In a time sensitive situation text is the obvious answer. Why not just text him and ask? ;-)

[JosephP]

My bishop prefers email to text. In a time sensitive issue obviously text is better. Why not simply text him and ask what he prefers?

[mrmarklin]

IMNSHO

The church does not use the electronic media enough. Look how long it took to get the missionaries cell phones!

I remember doing splits with them in the pre cell phone era. I had one and we called all the appointments ahead. Turns out only one person was at home, whereas normally we would have gone to several houses and wasted a lot of time.

email should be a standard thing in the church communications. Almost everyone has it and it would save a lot of postage for general communication purposes. Now that there is Wi-Fi in all the chapels the program could be downloaded so people could view it on their iPads, also saving a lot of paper.

I could go on, but you get the picture.

[mrmarklin]

Now that I've read the entire thread I'll comment as follows.

Of course texting or emailing interviews and callings is not correct, because these are supposed to be confidential.

But for non-confidential information emails and text are certainly state of the art and the reason the Post Offices around the world are having financial problems.

We need to get into the 21st Century!!!!

[NightSG]

Now that there is Wi-Fi in all the chapels the program could be downloaded so people could view it on their iPads, also saving a lot of paper.

Taking it a step further, if we don't want to worry about the integrity of the existing network or having to firewall the heck out of it to keep people from using it to play games during sacrament meeting, just grab any old WiFi router that can run OpenWRT or DD-WRT, and write a standard package for it. Set it up as a second, wide open WiFi network with no Internet, just an old computer, NAS, or even just a flash drive on the routers that have a USB port, and serve up the program, church news, etc. Even better would be if it could somehow mirror the complete Gospel Library (updates would run faster from a local source) and LDS Tools databases so those apps would still work as normal.

Guess I should go run this by the LDSTech forum.

[bcguy]

texting are for FYI and that is about it in my books. Kind of LAME to use it as a primary form of communication.

[Yehshen]

Oh my I am having a bad day at work today.....it is triggering my snarkiness

Test Text to my Bishop

Hey Man -

Boy those kids are noisy during church. Can't you do anything? And money is tight these days - any chance the church can help out? You don't have to c me - just deposit in account #9999999. BTW, can you have it there by 2:00 p.m? Whoops, gotta go. Be seein' ya.

Yeh Shen

Maybe its generational - I hate texting. My offhand thought should be that one should follow the Bishop's lead in choice of communication. My Bishop seems to prefer e-mails on his Ipad - I think he uses his commuting time on the train to handle some of this work.