One complaint that has arisen about Mars Hill in recent months from some of those former members who have spoken out is that Mars Hill is run more like a business than a church. Yesterday, I posted the Mars Hill approach to bringing formal charges against elders and today I want to note a policy about to go into effect at Mars Hill regarding email retention. As of this Friday, emails and church related documents may only be stored for 90 days before being deleted. Also, staff must delete any Mars Hill related documents from personal computers or other storage. See the policy here.
Let me point out what I think will be a controversial aspect to this policy:
What exactly is the risk of storing old emails unnecessarily? I asked an IT friend who told me this looks like a move by Mars Hill to try to keep employees from maintaining documents which could harm the church. If storage was the issue then deleting materials from external hard drives, or other storage would not be necessary. Some organizations implement such policies but as risk management moves.
I imagine this will not be a popular policy. Some projects last more than three months and it is convenient to keep emails in a folder or just in an inbox for reference. I suspect this will add work without much real protection against the “risk of storing old emails.”