Helping Catholic Parish Ministers unlock their ministry and defeat burnout forever. ❤️🔥
LIVE Webinar This Friday
This Friday Feb. 8th, 8:00 pm EST
Join me as I'll be hanging out LIVE G+ style with some great Catholic bloggers to talk about the New Evangelization. We'll be discussing ways to engage in the New Evangelization and be able to take some questions and comments from YOU (if you decide to join us). Sign up here to join the conversation with us this Friday.
Meet the Crew:
First and foremost, Amanda is a woman after the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. Amanda is also a Colorado native and can hardly imagine living anywhere else. She graduated from Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina in 2009 with a BA in Theology, as well as minors in Psychology and Philosophy. Amanda is a youth minister and loves leading teens in a journey towards Christ. Her blog can be found at worthy of Agape.
Sr. Theresa Noble is a novice, aka nun in training, with a religious congregation of sisters in the US. She left her job in California with eBay to follow God two years ago. She currently lives in a convent in Boston where she prays, evangelizes, bakes bread and blogs at Pursued by Truth.
Ryan is a young Catholic convert. He evangelizes by teaching people how to achieve their career, business, or entrepreneurial goals. Follow Ryan on twitter by clicking @RyanEggenberger or jump over to his blog at EntreCatholic.com to say hi!
And this guy.
We’re going to have a great time talking about the New Evangelization, and we want as many people as possible to join us for the event. Be sure to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and even Email folks who you think would enjoy the discussion!
Go to www.EntreCatholic.com/Hangout to sign-up. Share this link with your friends!
The Lost Gentlemanly Art of Insult
An enjoyable piece by the affable George Weigel on the lost art of rough critique. Here's a taste:
"One of the (many) signs of our cultural decline is that verbal insults, these days, are almost invariably scatological or sexual, provoking a blizzard of asterisks whenever A wants to put the smackdown on B. Once upon a time, it was not so. Once, the ability to come up with a clever insult that could be repeated in polite society was thought an important, if not necessarily essential, component of being a gentleman.
... Told over dinner by Lady Astor, the American-born female member of the House of Commons, that, “If you were my husband, Winston, I’d poison your soup,” Churchill immediately replied, “And if you were my wife, Nancy, I’d drink it.” And then there was the great man’s take-down of the austere Labor minister, Sir Stafford Cripps: “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
It's The End of The World
[youtube=http://youtu.be/Z0GFRcFm-aY]
Have a Happy End of the World!
How to Get 112% Parish Engagement
What if 112% of Parishioners read your Church bulletin/website/Facebook page?
"No one reads the bulletin" is a commonly heard lament in Catholic churches, right up there with "No one cares about our parish website" and "No one ever knows what is going on in the parish". Our churches have plenty to offer and plenty going on, but getting the members of your church to listen can be like trying to yell through a brick wall.
In 2001 in the small town of Dunn, North Carolina the local newspaper The Daily Record achieved 112% market penetration. In laymen terms: they were selling more newspapers on a consistent basis than there were homes in the town. Either people from outside Dunn were buying the newspaper, or some homes in Dunn were buying multiple copies. (Not enough to go around the house maybe?)
To say everyone read The Daily Record was literally an understatement.
How does a small local newspaper get over 100% penetration in their town?
Enter Hoover Adams
In 1950 the World War II veteran Hoover Adams founded The Daily Record. Hoover began coordinating a military-like campaign to make his paper the best and most read newspaper in town. Hoover's strategy: "names, names, and names."
Hoover had a laser-like focus on two things: getting as many names in the paper as possible and reporting on local news over and above everything else.
Names
Hoover was known for stating that if The Daily Record printed the entire phone book in the next edition of the paper, people would pick it up and read it just to see if their name made the cut. He impressed upon his staff that reporting on the lives and events of people in Dunn took precedence over everything else.
It is a simple fact of human psychology that we are interested in ourselves first and foremost, then people we know, and then events or people indirectly related to us. Think about it - when you see a group picture of you and your friends, whose face do you look for first?
Community
The local story, no matter how mundane, was more important than anything happening outside of Dunn. For example, in 1995 fifteen people died in an airplane crash in nearby Raleigh. The front page of The Daily Record covered the story of a bear hit by a pickup truck in Dunn.
This created a strong community aspect of the paper. You felt in touch with the community by reading about people you knew about. In a way, the entire town of Dunn connected to each other through the newspaper. And it made sense that the people of Dunn were interested in the local story. If you see two news stories online, one about your neighbor and one about a man from another state, which do you read first?
Being Relevant
In a past post, I argued that being relevant means addressing the cares and concerns of people above anything else.
Hoover Adams knew people in Dunn had plenty of options when it came to newspapers, but The Daily Record would speak to the most important concerns and cares of his readers more than anything else. No event was too small, and if you go to their website you'll still see pictures and stories on everything from the local salvation army to birthday parties.
To figure out how to address the cares and concerns of your parishioners when creating a bulletin, website, Facebook page, or any other communication media, ask yourself the question "Who is involved?" and "Why would people care about this?".
If you build community and connections by addressing what people care most about (themselves and the people they know) they will feel more connected to the church community and be more willing to listen to what else is taking place in the parish - the event you really want everyone to know about. _____________________________________________________________________________
Some practical Do's and Dont's...
Don't
Don't write only about what YOU care about, write about what THEY care about.
Okay: Bible Study Group this Wednesday Better: Want to meet young married couples your age? Newlywed Bible study is this Wednesday.
Don't only communicate events and schedules to people.
No one reads a newspaper because they want to know what every single organization in their area has planned for that weekend. If you want people to be interested in what is going on in the parish, include names and stories.
Okay: Rosary Making Group - Every Sat. at 7am Better: Mary Jane is starting a "Rosary Making Group" with Sue Smith and Billy Bob that meets every Saturday at 7 a.m. They would love your help!
Do
Build community by connecting people to each other.
Include lots of pictures of people and events over and above cool graphics or stock images. Even if that photo of the basketball team isn't that great, people will recognize little Timmy and care instead of seeing a posed photo of some kid model no one knows.
Give people what they want - stories about them and the people they know.
Report more frequently about the people in your parish community. Add photos of parishioners to your Facebook page and website. Tag people on a regular basis.
+JMJ
How to Make a Catholic Meme
So you're upset because of something you read on the internet, or one of your friends is spewing hate against Mama Church, and you wants to show them the what for in a punchy, trendy, hip sort of way. What's an internet new evangelist to do?
A good (and probably a little sarcastic) ol' fashioned meme is the way to go (pronounced "meem" like team. Not "mee mee" like what you call your grandmother). They're like the religious tracts your protestant friends used to hand out, except without all the pages, and funnier.
So you went on catholicmemes.com looking for the perfect one, and after 8 hours of browsing, you still haven't found the perfect fit. Well, if no one has done it right, you gots to do it yourself.
MAKE YOUR OWN CATHOLIC MEME
Step 1: Look for a background picture.
Go to google and find a good picture. You can use any picture, or you can use an existing popular meme picture.
Get a BIG picture. The bigger the picture the better. BIGGER. We want everybody and the people next to them to see this bad boy. We're talking fill-up-an-entire-facebook-news-feed-make-your-smartphone-explode kinda big.
Jackie Chan is a good place to start.
Step 2: Copy the photo into paint.
Open up paint. (Sorry mac users, I pretend you don't exist)
Whoops. Um, just ignore that... awkward....
There we go.
Step 3: Add text.
Think up a really pithy and incendiary message to get your Catholic point across. It's got to have some bite, and maybe expose some logical fallacies. Put it in big chunky white letter with the caps lock on. WHEN THINGS ARE TYPED IN ALL CAPS PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION. 
Whoa there Kirk Cameron, too incendiary. First rule of fight club, have some class. Name calling won't work. Point out the insanity of a situation instead.
Step 4: Make it public.
Add the fruit of your labors to your favorite social networks. I suggest Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit for starters. The Reddit beasts in the Catholicism group love them some memes. While waiting for people to comment/like/share/retweet your creation, rejoice and listen to some o' this because you have done your part to spread truth in a culture of lies.
Make your own!
Do your part! Take part in the New Evangelization by spreading truth to the 10-second-attention-span-facebook-browsing culture, the Pope will thank you.
No really, make a meme and send it to the Pope. #OnlythePopeUnderstandsMe
Or you could just go to www.quickmeme.com/make/ and make one on there or whatever....
Dr. Brant Pitre Talk on the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYDSPcEoC74]
How would ancient Jews have understood the Eucharist?
This mind blowing talk by Dr. Brant Pitre on the Jewish roots of the Eucharist answers that question. Prepare to have your little Catholic brain explode - you'll never look at the Eucharist the same again.
Just a little teaser for you as I read and write a super-review of his book "Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist".
Creation of the Universe and You
[youtube=http://youtu.be/N_ZjaZmjImE] Hat tip to Brandon for linking to this well produced and simple video put out by the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston as part of their new VCAT project. The film series walks you through the Catechism using engaging youtube videos released every month during the Year of Faith.
I love this video. It captures your attention with the retro and cheesy tv production of the 1970's and is super smooth and simple, driving home a big message: "This world is not an accident. You are not an accident. You were made by God. You were made FOR God. Not because of luck, but because of love."
I would love to see more videos in the same style and genre: "Mr. Smith's Catechism Class" from the 60's. But, you know...minus all the poor catechesis of the 60's...
Baptism by Balloon
[youtube=http://youtu.be/NUKrZ1bVNRg] This is the EDGE middle school youth group, and this night we were learning about the Sacrament of Baptism, obviously. I think this raises some serious questions about the legitimacy of celebrating the Sacrament under the matter of throwing water balloons.
Right?
Toledo Diocese Publishes Video of Real Ghost
[youtube=http://youtu.be/YMcM2yEaW1E] It's hard to figure out just where my beliefs lie after viewing this video. Shocking. Truly shocking.
Happy Halloween!