If you drop a salutation, it sets a tone that will raise the hackles of your reader before you can convey your message. Interestingly, if you look at the public legal correspondence to even the infamous Bernie Madoff, it begins, “Dear Mr. Madoff:” even when the legal letter then goes on to summarize horrific charges.

You further your communication by staying polite, especially when you dislike the recipient.

Hi, George or
Hello, George,

It drives me crazy to see the extra comma after the “hi” or “hello”. These are typically directed to one of the people on copy, not multiple people. Could I be wrong and this is indeed a proper way to address someone in a greeting? I find most often that intelligent people do this, but I just don’t understand why.

Thanks!

I changed the example in this post from “Dear Reverend” to “Dear Pastor” to broaden the example. It seems this issue warrants its own post! In my Episcopal church, salutations are particularly troublesome. A salutation for a male priest is “Dear Father Paul.” For a female priest, it is “Dear Mother Sarah,” which sounds odd to my ear. I’m going to check with the Princeton Theological Institute on this, and write a post devoted specifically to the issue of religious salutations. Thanks for raising this issue more directly!

Here is an excellent listing of proper salutations for various religious denominations: http://www.tanenbaum.org/etiquette_leaders.html

In your case, it sounds like your salutation is addressing less than five people. If so, just list their names in the salutation.
Mary