There, at a conference called Reaching the Facebook Generation, I was thrown off my horse and came to see that the Church ignores the new media at its own peril.
It was there that the benefits of social media like Facebook and Twitter were brought home to me with force, as the case was made that if they’re important to young people, they need to be important to us as well.
They now are.
In recent weeks The B.C. Catholic has stepped up its electronic presence in several major ways. We’re blogging, Facebooking, and Tweeting, and we’ve launched a new website that will allow us to get local stories online in real-time.
As we now go into more Catholic homes than ever, thanks to The B.C. Catholic’s expanded readership campaign, we also need to go into more homes electronically.
This issue of The B.C. Catholic is our last for three weeks as we take our annual summer break. This year, for the first time, readers will be able to stay in touch with the archdiocese, the newspaper, and the news that concerns them through our blogs, tweets, and posts.
For instance, on our Facebook site (www.facebook.com/bccatholic) you can find out about upcoming events and announcements.
On our blog The Busy Catholic (http://busycatholic.blogspot.com) you can get a daily mix of news and views affecting Catholics in B.C.
On Twitter (http://twitter.com/bccatholic) you can get updates on the above in 140 characters or less.
And of course we hope you’ll consider our new site (www.bccatholic.ca) THE place to go to find out what’s important in the archdiocese.
I hope you’ll subscribe to all of them, and spread the word to as many people as you can. We may be coming late to the game, but we’re swinging for the fence.
And for good reason. A recent U.S. study by an Internet marketing firm showed that churches are not taking advantage of social networking.
“Thousands of churches are not walking through the unprecedented number of open doors social networking has provided them,” said Bob Hutchins, owner of BuzzPlant.
“American churches have millions of people on their rolls who do not feel connected today because churches, as a whole, have failed to effectively connect with them as the times dictate.”
Only 28 per cent of surveyed churches post a blog, only 32 per cent use social media to get feedback from the congregation, and only a quarter always use social media to promote special church events and activities.
Although the study is American and probably applies more to Protestant churches than Catholic, this is beside the point. The kind of electronic community building that social media can promote applies across the board.
The New Evangelization that both Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have promoted demands that we use this technology, especially considering more than one-third of local Catholic communities in the world are still regarded as mission territory.
Catholic News Service reporter John Thavis writes, “That is why evangelization experts at the Vatican say the task of bringing the Gospel to non-Christians has barely begun.”
At home and abroad, our work is cut out for us.
