Senior/Lead Pastors, your e-mail is important.
First off, you need to have one. In all seriousness, the average person would be shocked at how many in your position don’t (at least not one that’s put out publicly). I get that you’re busy, I really do. I know that it opens the door to all kinds of problems, including financial requests (sometimes by people who “make the rounds” of all the churches in town). I know that there are those who would try to turn it into a 24/7 counseling/gossip/complaint hotline.
You still need one. Hiding away is not an option. Ideally, the email should be [your name] at whatever the church e-mail address is. Not your assistant’s e-mail address, yours. Now…take a deep breath and relax… It’s OK (in my opinion) if someone screens your messages before you see them to remove anything the spam folder misses. Of course, whoever that person is, they need to have VERY high integrity, since they will undoubtedly see e-mails from people going through personal crises. In fact, you can have a public e-mail and a “private” address for interoffice messages, depending on your strategy for how you communicate with your team.
The point is that our job as pastors is to serve the people that God has placed in our care – not hold them at arms length. Little things like this can help reinforce the fact that we actually DO care.
P.S. By the way, the days of the “fill in the blanks” e-mails are over. People want to send what they want to send, and they don’t want to be forced to give you all of their contact info (such as phone number, etc… – I even saw one recently that wanted an address). I get that it’s handy for the church database, but many guests aren’t ready to take that step, and – in this case – friendliness needs to outweigh efficiency.
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