Catholic Tech Talk

One of my favorite Catholic rituals is the candle lighting at the Easter Vigil.  A few years ago I witnessed this event in a somewhat large parish from a balcony.  The whole worship space was pitch black.  In comes the newly lit Pascal Candle down the main aisle.  Candles of those in the pews on [...]

You’ve probably heard about the potential benefits for your parish.  You’ve read about it here.  You’ve heard me say it.  Even some Bishops are tweeting.  The Facebook thing looks great.  Google+ looks interesting.  So you and the Pastor decide to give it a go.  You set up all the accounts, do your customization, you tweet, you [...]

The past two weekends my wife and I traveled to visit family.  I’m a fan of traveling, but I’ve never been a fan of packing.  In addition to clothes and toiletries, now we have to be concerned with access to business stuff plus you want stuff to do.  So here’s what we took in addition to our [...]

The Parish Website is becoming more and more common.  Most parishioners think the parish needs one, and most Pastors want one.  I’m a firm believer that every parish should have a website.  It’s my firm belief that the parish website’s purpose is to serve as a community hub and 24/7 extension of your parish office. [...]

So Google+ Pages went live this past week.  Someone in your parish office or a parishioner might even suggested that your parish set one up.  Then the thought comes to your mind, “Well, we have that Facebook page they told us we should get; why do we need another one somewhere else?”  Good question, and [...]

As most know, Google+ launched a while ago and one thing I have particularly loved about it is the strong Catholic user presence on the service.  Up until yesterday the service lacked the ability for organizations and brands to have their own “page” like Facebook Pages.  So the announcement yesterday was very welcome news.  I [...]

Facebook pages can have great uses for our parishes, and any Facebook user has probably ‘Liked’ a page or two.  As ‘Admins’ of those pages we know we need to get those ‘Likes’ right?  And building the number of those ‘Likes’ is paramount often times for us too.  But have you ever wondered why someone [...]

Among the top questions I’m asked when speaking with parishes about private social networks is “Why not just use Facebook”. Public networks like Facebook are extremely popular to say the least. Setting up a company or personal page is easy and free. The ability to reach people and share information is direct and simple. Parishes [...]

As the conversation continues about technology and the Church, those advocating it’s uses encounter a lot of objections.  The objections interestingly seem to be pretty consistent.  It came up again last night in a phone conversation and today online, and a question has been going through my mind for a while now . . . [...]

There’s been a lot of good discussion on Google+ lately in regards to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Catholics over the last week. Craig Berry then came out with a great post “Catholic SEO: A Failing Grade?”  When it comes to how search engines and discovery works on the internet a lot of people get [...]

As a manager for over 17 years, numbers have a great deal of importance to me.  The biggest lesson I’ve learned in regards to interpreting data is that numbers “tell a story” and they are a key means to “hearing” your customers.  The great thing about the internet is that a lot of data is [...]

You may have been seeing these wacky-looking little images popping up everywhere.  If you don’t know what they are, they are called QR Codes.  Simply put, a QR Code is an image one can scan with their smartphone that directs the phone for a number of different purposes.  Some of these directions can be: – [...]

This morning I checked in and read Joe Luedtke’s post “Why This Blog Is Important” and one thing (plus others) really stood out to me, “I pay all my bills online except for the check I write each week to the Church. ”  It’s one of those things I’ve been suggesting at my own parish [...]

One of my favorite hymns (especially at Christmas) is “Go Tell It On The Mountain”.  In the olden days, going to a high place and yelling good news was a way to be heard over a large distance.  Compare this to everyone standing in a crowd and just yelling.  You’d never really be heard.  It’s [...]

When it comes to technology, we do a great job of telling people what they should get.  But we don’t often do such as great job of explaining why.   So we can tell Catholics and parishes all these great things they should get and do, but it’s time to back track a bit to [...]

So you want to create a Facebook page for your parish.  You may even be wondering why you are really creating one.  How do you do it?  Who will maintain it?  What do you post to it?  All are valid questions that will be touched on. First, a Facebook page provides a parish with several [...]

So you are thinking of creating a blog for your parish and not really knowing how to start or what to “blog” about.  Don’t feel like you are alone, we all started there.  The one advantage faith bloggers have over all other bloggers . . . an endless supply of content.  Ideas for blog posts [...]

There are a lot of ways that technologies can benefit a local parish.  Basically, you can break it down into two categories: Administrative Evangelizing Both are approached in different ways, but can crossover too.  For example, the website for a parish would be for both.  In my opinion, the best “recipe” for effective uses of [...]