For a busy parish pastor, a blog has the potential of becoming your most effective and time-efficient tool for evangelization.

A pastor’s fantasy

Think of it this way. Suppose that after Mass next Sunday, you are shaking hands and saying goodbye to parishioners as they leave. A new person greets you and says, “Father, I’m thinking of becoming Catholic. Can you tell me what I would need to do?” Now suppose the rest of your Sunday is completely free. And suppose you are not exhausted from the killer week of meetings, weddings, and funerals you just completed. (Hey, this is a fantasy. Bear with me.) If you had all the time and energy in the world, you could spend the next couple of hours just chatting with the seeker that the Holy Spirit sent to you at that moment.

But you don’t have all the time and energy in the world. You’ve got the next Mass or the emergency finance council meeting or lunch scheduled with the capital campaign chairperson (and largest contributor to the parish). And even if you have nothing else scheduled, you’ve been looking forward to your first free Sunday afternoon in a month to just kick back and watch the game.

Now imagine there are ten such seekers and imagine there are ten more next Sunday and ten more the Sunday after that. Because in a medium-sized parish with three Masses on a weekend, that’s the potential. You can’t possibly meet, individually, with each and every one of those seekers. But they can “meet” you—if you are blogging.

When you put yourself out there on a blog, people get to know you as a person. Even if you are blogging about what you had for dinner, over time, people will discover your level of integrity, what you are passionate about, what you know about, and what you think is important in life. And they will also encounter you as a person of faith—which is what they are seeking in the first place.

No time to blog

But doesn’t blogging take time? Precious time that you don’t have to spare? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Evangelization is the number one job for parishes. Take out your calendar and add up the number of hours you are evangelizing this week. Then add up the number of seekers your evangelization efforts are touching this week. What do you think? Are you spending enough time on job one? Are you reaching enough people? If so, maybe you don’t need to blog. But most pastors are caught up in a lot of “smaller” jobs related to just keeping the parish afloat.

What if you could carve out one hour a week for evangelization and touch hundreds or maybe thousands of seekers? That’s what I’m suggesting. Write two short posts a week. Spend 30 minutes on each. And get yourself out there in the blogosphere as the evangelizer-in-chief for your parish.

And really—if you think you are too busy to blog, check out this guy! You can’t possibly have more on your plate than he does.

What to blog about?

I think what stops most pastors from blogging is not the time it takes. It’s writer’s block. What in the world would people be interested in that you would have to say? Okay, you’re going to have to imagine with me again. Or better yet, remember.

Remember back before you were a priest. Maybe remember all the way back to childhood. What did you think of priests? Weren’t you wildly curious about what kind of people they were? What they did? Why they became a priest? Did they pray all the time? Do they talk directly to God? And does God answer? Just because you have come to realize that priests are flesh-and-blood people like the rest of us doesn’t mean the rest of the world has. Seekers in particular, who are not likely to know any priests personally, are fascinated with the whole idea of “priest.” So draw back the curtain a little, and let them peak inside. You can blog about anything. It doesn’t have to be about faith or the church. In fact, it’s probably better if some of your posts are more “secular.” Here is a short list of some ideas to blog about, but don’t limit yourself to these:

• The last movie you saw
• The last book you read
• A joke someone told at the priests’ retreat
• A Scripture passage you are struggling with as you try to write this Sunday’s homily
• A great meal you had at a parishioner’s house
• What the bishop said to you the last time you spoke with him
• How you pray
• Your best (and worst) golf score
• What you would do if you weren’t a priest
• A list of hopes you have for the parish in the coming year
• Pictures from your last vacation
• The last time you blessed a car and what you think of blessing cars
• The hobby you wish you had more time for
• Your favorite musician / your least favorite musician
• How you will be spending the next holiday
• Saint of the day and why that saint is important to you
• What the upcoming Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist holy day means and how Catholics should think of it

Guidelines

When I said you could blog about anything, I meant anything within reason. The U.S. Bishops have recently posted some very helpful guidelines on social media that you should read before you start blogging.

And here are five reasons you don’t need a social media policy!

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Are you already blogging? Good for you! Post a link in the comments because your example will help the rest of us learn.

Do you have questions about getting started? I can help. Post a comment or send me an e-mail.

In his letter on ministry in a digital world, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged priests to use digital media:

Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.

 
 
Here are five reasons the pope gives for being active in social media:

1. Make God present in today’s world
2. Present the church’s wisdom
3. Offer new forms of encountering Christ
4. Help people grow in expectation and hope
5. Help people draw near to the word of God

What is your experience? Are there other reasons for pastors to be active in social media? What about other parish leaders and volunteers?

I know of a pastor who still buys a display ad in the Yellow Pages. Seriously. When is the last time you went to the Yellow Pages to find a phone number?

Most parishes are probably not advertising in the Yellow Pages anymore, especially since the recession, but how are you getting the word out about your parish? If your community isn’t already on Facebook, drop everything and set up a page for your parish this week.

Why Facebook?

Facebook has more than 400 million users, half of whom are online right now. Of those 200 million folks who are chatting, searching, and playing games at this moment, about 130 of their “friends” (on average) are watching what they are doing and saying. If one hundredth of one percent of them say something about your church, that’s 20,000 mentions, and each mention gets read by about 130 people. Try and get that kind of coverage in the Yellow Pages. And it’s free!

How to get started

Get help from your parishioners. A Facebook account is drop-dead simple to set up. And did I mention it’s free? So why do you need help?

Several months ago, I was at a diocesan meeting of priests and pastoral leaders. I told them it would take five minutes to set up a free Facebook account. More than half the room groaned. They all claimed they don’t have five minutes. If getting your parish onto Facebook seems exciting and energizing to you, you’re probably already there. If you are reading this post, it’s probably because you think you should be on Facebook, and you are looking for a simple way to do that without adding to your workload. Like calling up the nice sales lady at the Yellow Pages and asking her to run your ad for another six months.

So get help. Right now hundreds of your parishioners are on Facebook. Dozens of them have already set up pages for their businesses on Facebook. Make an announcement this Sunday asking for volunteers to create a parish Facebook page, and you are pretty much done.

Do it yourself

If you want to take a stab at it yourself, here are some simple steps.

1. Go to Facebook.com and sign up. Sign up with your name, not the church’s name.
2. Click on “skip this step” until you come to the Welcome to Facebook page. (You can go back and complete the steps later if you like.)
3. Now check your e-mail for a “Welcome to Facebook” message. Open the mail and click on the green “Get Started” button.
4. Now go to facebook.com/pages/create.php
5. Click on “Local Business” and choose “Religious Center” from the drop-down menu.
6. Enter the name of your parish in the “Page name” box.
7. Click on the box that identifies you as an official representative.
8. Click on Create Official Page.

That’s it. Your page will be pretty bare, but you can add to it gradually as you have time. Also, see above about getting parishioners to help. If you want to do something right now, click on the Info tab, then click on “Edit Information,” and start filling out the boxes.

Also, click on the big question mark on the upper left of the page and then click on “Change Profile Picture.” Then upload a picture. Many parishes upload a picture of the church building, but I think it’s better to put up a picture of happy parishioners.

There is a lot more you can do to promote your parish through Facebook, but the simple page you created with these eight steps is already way better than a Yellow Pages ad. If you want to learn how to do more, get some Facebook savvy parishioners together or Google “Church marketing on Facebook” or keep watching this space. I’ll post more ideas in the future.

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Do you already have a Facebook page for your parish? Click on comments to tell us about it.

Harvard Business Blog: Become a teaching parish

The most idea-driven organizations have a chance to become the best teaching organizations — and we never forget our best teachers.

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Scott Eblin: The Six Factors That Drive Confidence in Leaders

According to a study by Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, there are six key factors that have the greatest impact on Americans’ confidence in their leaders. These factors are:

• Trust in what the leaders say
• Competence to do the job
• Working for the greater good of society
• Share my values
• Get good results
• In touch with people’s needs and concerns

Read more.

Market your parish

The United Methodist Church as put together an online tutorial for developing a church marketing plan. Why should you create a marketing plan? According to the site:

• To fulfill your church’s God-designed calling and purpose.
• To prosper and grow in the areas where God has uniquely gifted your church.
• To improve how you communicate with and impact the people you want to reach for the Kingdom.
• To be good stewards of church resources (time, energy, money, people, facilities), ensuring they are working together for your church to be most effective.

Read more. (Hat tip to Church Marketing Sucks)

John Allen: Are blogs good or bad for the church?

The extent to which blogs and the other features of the new digital landscape help to carry the church into the future, rather than keeping the church stuck in its present pattern of division, thus depends upon how Catholics choose to use them – and right now, there are some worrying trends.

Read more.

Mike St. Pierre: Why Time Management Still Matters

Here are three skills that every time management workshop could include:

• Get things out of your head

• Create a master project list
• Plan your day

Read more.

Harvard Business Blog: What It Takes to Lead Now

Only 48% of managers surveyed believed that they need to inspire and only 46% believed it was their responsibility to provide direction during this crisis.

Read more.

Internet Evangelism Day lists 21 tips for reformatting church Web sites into tools for evangelization. The first point they list is key:

1. Most church websites are designed entirely for their members, or unwittingly exclude non-Christians because of their choice of language and content.

The tips are written from an evangelical Protestant lens, but all of them can be applied to Catholic parish sites. For instance, take a look at number eight, the most evangelical tip on the list:

A primary task of the Web site is to convince non-Christians of these four things:

• Our church is made up of ordinary, real people
• We understand their life problems
• We are community, family, and there is an unconditional welcome waiting for them
• In that context, God can meet them and help them

That should be the mission of every Catholic parish, shouldn’t it?

You can see all 21 evangelization tips here, as well as suggestions for the Webmaster, design ideas, readability guidelines, testing suggestions, and navigation principles. Make this part of your next staff or parish council agenda.

Tim Schraeder (TimSchraeder.com) is the director of communications at Park Community Church in Chicago. So it will come as no surprise that he thinks churches should be hiring professional communications staffs—just as I think they should be hiring professional liturgists and just as a musician would make the case for professional musicians. Even so, give him a chance to make his case. He bases his argument on Luke 14:16-23:

Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.” Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.

Schraeder says that the only tool the servants had to work with to get the invitation out was word of mouth. “We have a lot more at our disposal today,” he says, “and many new ways to be modern-day prophets… be it through the art we create, sounds and melodies, images that move or cause people to be moved, words, expression, or anything else, we are communicating God’s Story and inviting other people to find their place in it.” (Read his entire post here.)

What do you think? Should communications be a primary ministry of the parish? Does it require a professional staff person? How do you get the invitation out from your parish to assure that God’s house is filled?