Tuesday Eve Service - Zoom Only

Responding to Questions about Access to Our Directory

The directory can't be public.
Cartoon of a spiral notebook with a silhouette of a person with blank lines under it. Image courtesy of account 849356 via Pixabay.

While we cannot give everyone access to the directory, we encourage you to share your information with one another as you need or want to.

4 comments

Can I Have Access to the Entire Church Directory?

Some folx have been asking about the digital directory and how everyone can have access. Unfortunately, times have changed and we’ve become far more aware of people’s legal right to privacy. The days when we leave printed copies of the directory in the kinship area for anyone and everyone to have are in the past.

Essentially, to protect people’s personally-identifiable information everyone cannot have access to the entire membership directory. Erika has written a great blog post on the specifics of this and I encourage you to read it if you are interested in understanding why this is the case.

Who Has Access Now?

Staff and some church leaders have full access to the membership directory. Information needed to complete church business will be shared with those who need it. Teams may also be given contact information when it is needed to serve the community.

How Can I get the Information I Need?

The best way for you to get contact information is to ask individuals for it. You can do this any time we gather on Zoom or in the room. If for some reason, the person you want to contact is unavailable, you can ask me to facilitate a connection.

You can also you use internal posts to share your information as needed or desired. For example, you may choose to put your address and phone number in an internal post if you are hosting a gathering and want Living Table folx to attend. You may have noticed that I included my cell number in a recent internal post, which I would never do in a public post.

What if I Still Have Questions About the Directory?

If you have any other questions or concerns about the directory and who has access and why, please put them in the comments or ask me when we meet. This is not about keeping people apart but, rather, protecting people’s rights and keeping our community safe.

About Rachael Keefe

Rev. Dr. Rachael Keefe is the pastor of Living Table United Church of Christ. She was called to Living Table in 2015 after serving in many varied ministry settings since her ordination in 1992. She holds graduate degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Seminary at Yale (formerly Andover Newton Theological School). Her ministry and leadership often center around advocacy and accessibility. Her writing has been published by Chalice Press, The Christian Century, Red Letter Christians, Working Preacher, RevGalBlogPals, and others. She is grateful to be in ministry with Living Table today.

Share this Other Ministry

post from Rachael

4 thoughts on “Responding to Questions about Access to Our Directory”

  1. Thank you for making this post, Rachael, and for sharing a link to my blog post about online membership directories, in which I say a lot more on the topic.

    I also updated my write-up today to include a recent, and very moving, testimonial from a client that I heard just yesterday, and which helps illustrate what is at stake with privacy. If anyone has questions, please click thru and read this detailed article on the topic.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Rachael Keefe Cancel reply