Adult Education

Lent in a Social Media World

by Lorene Hanley Duquin

Look around your parish. Do you have a lot of young people coming to Mass and getting involved?

If you don’t have as many as you like, maybe this Lent is a good time to take a close look at how your parish uses technology.

Did it ever occur to you that Catholics under age 40 are probably not going to look in a phone book and call the parish office to ask what time ashes will be distributed? Or whether there will be a Lenten penance service? Or what time Mass will take place on Palm Sunday? Or what’s happening on Good Friday? Or whether Father will be blessing Easter baskets? Or what the options are for Easter Masses?

Young adults today are hardwired into the Internet. A recent study revealed that 80 percent of young Catholics will check out a website before they decide whether or not to go to a particular parish.
Chances are you’re shaking your head right now and saying, “I don’t know that much about the Internet and I don’t have time to do all of this!”

I’ve worked in parishes and I know that Lent is an overwhelmingly busy time. But there is an opportunity here that you don’t want to miss. And it doesn’t have to be as difficult (or as time-consuming) as you may think.

The First Step

If you don’t have a technology committee, now is the time to start one. Invite anyone in the parish who is computer savvy to come together for a brainstorming session on how to begin or improve your parish’s image on the internet. You might want to engage high school students, college students or technology professionals who can help start a website if you don’t already have one, or evaluate the technology that you already use.

The First Meeting

At your first meeting, tell your committee members that you want to keep the initial focus on Lent, which will give them a time-line for what can be accomplished in a short amount of time. Everything doesn’t have to be in place by Ash Wednesday. You can add new elements throughout Lent, and in some ways, this is a good thing because it will keep people coming back to your website!

Don’t be surprised if you discover that your committee members are very knowledgeable about technology and not so knowledgeable about Catholicism. Here are some of the basic things you might want to suggest during the brainstorming:

Finding a way to have a Lenten calendar of events on the website including Ash Wednesday, Stations of the Cross, Lenten retreats or lectures, the schedule for Holy Week, and other Lenten activities.
Finding a way for people to contact a parish priest, deacon, or staff member through the website.
Finding a way to post daily reflections or meditations during Lent.
Finding a way to post photos of Lenten events that take place in the parish as quickly as possible.
Finding a way to create a page on the website for newcomers who might like to join the parish and fallen-away Catholics who might want to come back.
Finding a way to create a page of frequently asked questions about the parish or the Catholic faith.
Finding a way for people to submit prayer requests on the website.

You may be surprised at some of the other things that surface during your first meeting. Your committee members may suggest things you never even heard before!

Don’t be intimidated. See this as an opportunity and immediately begin to delegate responsibilities to various committee members. See it as a way to get more young people involved in parish life. See it as a means of reaching out to more people.

Beyond Lent

Once you engage your committee members, you’ll discover that they will probably have other technology ideas. Here are some things that your committee members might tell you:

The importance of setting up a parish page on Facebook.
The importance of having one or more parish staff members or parishioners write a blog or tweet.
The importance of setting up podcasts of homilies, lectures, bible studies, art shows, and other adult education information on the website.
The importance of having streaming video to the website so people who can’t attend Masses, funerals, weddings, First Communion, Confirmation and other things that take place in your parish church can watch via the Internet.
The importance of tapping into the webinars that are offered by Our SundayVisitor and other Catholic organizations for adult education and enrichment.

If you’re already doing all of this in your parish, that’s great. If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, keep in mind that you don’t have to do all of this yourself. You don’t even have to understand how all of this works. You just have to support and encourage the people who can make it happen. You will also have to help them understand the basic messages about the Catholic faith that need to be communicated, and you will have to monitor the information that is being put on the website.

New opportunities are being developed every day for the Internet. We are living in a technology savvy world, and even Pope Benedict XVI recognizes this. He encouraged parishes to “proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources, images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites.”

So why not take the opportunity this Lent to make your parish more technology savvy. You won’t be sorry!