Tag Archives: Oops

Oops! More to come

Posted on 06. Oct, 2008 by .

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I know, the two mistakes I wrote last week were fairly small ones. Typos. Who doesn’t do that? A good friend and fellow co-worker (she’s practically family… I call her Nene) from a previous church really would like me to share two of my biggest oops that she experienced first hand. What can I say, I was young and she was there to experience them. I’m sure we’ll be laughing about them many years from now.

Typos are one thing. These oops are on a whole different level of mistakes!

I always enjoy hearing about or reading about other people’s disasters. It makes me feel a little better about the dumb mistakes I’ve made or the total flukes I’ve experienced. So, I’ve got three more Oops for you this week. Get ready for a good laugh… I certainly wasn’t laughing when they happened!

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Oops! Major email typo

Posted on 02. Oct, 2008 by .

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Yesterday’s post reminded me of a very funny typo from an email I sent out last year. I was working at Cross Timber Community Church and we were getting ready of Venture Quest (our version of VBS). We had close to 1000 kids registered and I was sending an email out to all the parents of the kids, close to 1500 emails.

The email had instructions on what the week would look like, what they should expect and how they could be prepared to have the best experience possible.

I’m smart enough to know that before sending an email out to that many people, I should have the email proofed. So I typed up the email and sent it to my assistant. I emailed the letter to her just as I would everyone else, but in the subject line I said, “hey, will you proof this before I send it out?” My assistant proofed it and sent it back to me. This is usually a good plan as I usually then take out the forwarding mark-up, take out any editing notes and then add all the recipients to the BCC line. Then I hit send. I always include myself in the list so that I know when the email is delivered. Just a few seconds later I was horrified by my error. In my inbox was a an email from my mass mail out with the subject line of “Hey, will you proof this before I send it out?”

A very funny thing happened though. Within an hour, I had at least 20 responses of parents happily offering me suggestions of how I could make the email better. Fortunately there were no typos, so the only suggestions were personal opinions and thoughts. I was getting emails from people I didn’t even know. Certainly there were hundreds of people who were thinking, “Why in the world does this guy want me to proof his emails?”

I was able to resend the email later that day with a humorous response to my faux pas. After this experience a thought occurred to me. Perhaps this mistake could even be used as an intentional strategy. If I’ve got some information that I need a group of leaders of volunteers to really understand and know, I could send them an email or letter asking for there help in suggestions and thoughts. Letting them be a part of the process lets them feel like valued contributors as well as a crystal clear way for me to communicate my thoughts to them as well. I’ll let you know when I try it.

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Oops! Email typo

Posted on 01. Oct, 2008 by .

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Since I’ve arrived at Gateway a few months ago I’ve made it a point to communicate with parents just about every week. Many changes were in process and it’s very important that all of our parents feel informed and like they are in the loop. One of the ways I communicate is through a weekly constant contact email that points to posts on the Children’s Ministry blog.

Just last week I was sending out the weekly email and I was in a rush. I was trying to tie up all my loose ends before going on vacation and I had a deadline. I skipped my normal routine of having my assistant proof the email before sending it out and depending completely on Constant Contact’s spell check.

I had one major typo that I saw seconds after the email went out. Of all places, it was in the subject line. What complicated word did I misspell? Gateway, the name of my church. How does one misspell that? Not only was it embarrassing to know that 1100 emails went out with the glaring typo, but certainly when a fellow staff member’s wife (who used to be an English teacher) let me know about the typo.

I learned a lesson. When sending emails to thousands of people, don’t skip your processes!

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Oops!

Posted on 30. Sep, 2008 by .

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In the 11+ years I’ve been a Children’s Pastor I’ve made my share of mistakes. There is nothing I love more than sitting around a table with others and hearing the mistakes they’ve made. It makes me feel better about some of the bone-headed things I’ve done in the past. Trust me, I’ve got some good ones. I’d like to think that some of the big mistakes were because I was in my early twenties and I really just didn’t know any better. Mistakes are a part of the growing process. I can tell you about all kinds of things that I do differently today because of mistakes I’ve made. So as long as we learn from our mistakes, don’t beat yourself up when you make them.

Over the coming weeks I’ll share some of the bone-headed things I’ve done over the years, hopefully to help others feel better. What prompted me to start this post today was a mistake I made last week. It was one of those “oops” that you wish you could take back. Actually it reminded me of an even bigger oops from a little over a year ago. Tomorrow and the next day I’ll share two very careless email oops.

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Reggie Joiner… I apologize.

Posted on 30. Apr, 2008 by .

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Okay, probably one of the most embarrassing things happened tonight. I’ve been hanging out at Orange with an old friend… a youth pastor I served with several years ago. Like many youth pastors, he’s a little crazy and not afraid to make a little noise.

Well, for the first two sessions we sat up high and in the back. For the third session I sat with my youth pastor friend and some others in the front on the far left-hand side of the stage. So, were were pretty close to those on the stage. They were good seats.

Well, Reggie was making some general announcements and then he threw a t-shirt out to the crowd directly in front of him. At that very moment, the YP friend sitting right next to me yelled as loud as he could “Hey Reggie!” He was trying to get his attention to get a freebie thrown in his direction. Since we were so close, he heard, turned to us and said “Yes?” I don’t think he immediately understood. At that moment, the band started playing the old batman theme. Reggie turned around to the band and signaled for them to stop… it wasn’t time for that.

Yeah. My friend yelling at Reggie and him responding confused the band into thinking it was their signal to start the song for a segment that wasn’t supposed to happen for another 10 minutes or so. I think I turned 10 shades of red and shrunk down in my seat.

So, on behalf of my friend, I’m so sorry. Next time my friend has a urge to yell at the person on stage, I’ll knock him in the back of the head!

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Marshmallows on carpet is like gum!

Posted on 15. Apr, 2007 by .

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We’re doing a series right now with the elementary kids called Oops. It’s a fun series on forgiveness. The idea behind this series was to really live up the “Oops” part of it by making a mess every week. This week we had kids digging for gummy worms through 5 gallons of chocolate pudding (all in a baby pool) with their faces. It was great fun. [...]

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