With holidays on the horizon, I appear to have the energy to blog again. At the risk of this year’s posts seeming like a random collection of a few fatigued rants, I’m going to blog about something that gets on my nerves and has done so for many years.

Letters from Christian organisations asking for money.

Many of them are really bad.

Of course, at this time of year, I’m getting a fair few of them, mostly by email. Some of them make me so very concerned about the state of Christianity, with the elaborate emotive appeals and attempted manipulation.

They are deliberately crafted in that manner: it’s pretty obvious.

How can we call ourselves Christians and yet ask for money in this way? We seem to be all too happy to follow the ways of the world on this one.

I also receive letters and emails from organisations that are not faith-based ones, asking for money as well. The exact same strategies are used by those who aren’t in the Church as those who are inside it. How can this be OK?

It genuinely makes me worried.

As Christians we are supposed to have given up on “secret and shameful ways” and the use of deception and should be “setting forth the truth plainly”.

I don’t think that just means we explain the teachings of the gospel clearly. I think it also means that when we need to ask for money, we acknowledge the need and then “do so plainly”. That is, without disguised manipulation.

The Bible warns of people in the church who are lovers of themselves, lovers of money…having a form of godliness but denying its power.

If we engage in manipulation when asking for money as Christians that’s an example of having a form of godliness but denying its power – because we think we’ve got to use our powers of strategy instead.

The Bible gives a clear command about those who behave like this.

Have nothing to do with such people.

That’s pretty blun,t but the Bible explains why:

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women…

That last bit reminds me of another element of letter writing connected to these monetary appeals: considering your audience.

In this area, I think some Christian organisations are actually losing the plot because they are reverting to the ways of the world. Let me explain.

On more than one occasion, I’ve received letters asking me to give money to mothers living in poverty. And, on more than one occasion, I have given money to these women.

However, I’ve got to say that these letters, for me personally, are some of the very worst written letters coming out of Christian organisations.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know how terrible women living in poverty have it.

I’ve visited two of my sponsor children and other children living in poverty in Indonesia. I understand just how little some people have and that access to effective healthcare is not even something they can dream about, because they don’t even have a frame of reference for those dreams.

I get it.

But these letters have got to stop. Or change, and fast.

They’ve got to change because there are some terribly naive assumptions being made by the writers of some of these letters. Namely, that everyone who reads the letters is married with children.

The commentary, which is used as an emotive attempt at manipulation, frequently revolves around lines such as “Said woman living in poverty and her husband with her baby and other children cannot do x, y, z. But you and your husband would always do this for your children, wouldn’t you?”

Um… what husband? And what children?

Ironically, in their endeavour to highlight just how little the woman in poverty has, they’ve just highlighted to me all the things she actually does have, which I do not.

I’m left standing there reading the letter and feeling a little bit weird.

What is a single, childless woman to do with a letter from a Christian organisation that reads like that?!

Well, I’ll tell you what I normally do. I normally stand there for a bit. Then tentatively add the letter to my pile of letters and leave it there for a good long while.

If there was less emotive manipulation in that letter, it would have inspired me to give.

I don’t really know what the solution is here, both for this particular letter and Christian organisations asking for money in general.

The financial times are tough.

However, perhaps step one might be to better consider your audience when you write. You never know, but perhaps in doing that you might write a better letter.

A letter that actually appeals to your audience without unholy manipulative strategy.

Maybe. What would I know?

Yours believing that less is more,

Alison