The impetus for this blog-post is 3-fold, a confluence of a prophetic blog-post, a dove-tailing episode of The Journey Home, and the frustration of an opportunity lost to talk out these ideas with a local social media apostle.

For this one you need to do a little homework.

Firstly read Patricia King talking about the connection between cyber evangelism and the long awaited great harvest of souls. An excerpt: "I feel the Spirit of God inviting every Believer and ministry who has access to the internet to use this tool with intentionality for reaching the lost. Every effort small or large can make impact!"

Secondly watch the Kandice Longsteth episode of The Journey Home, and pay particular attention to how much of her journey was done online before ever talking to a Catholic or going to a Catholic Mass. Pay attention too, to the questions she gets towards the end of the episode.

There was another Journey Home episode, a repeat episode, which aired recently, Kelly Nieto's maybe, that also contained internet browsing as the first step where her journey home to the Catholic church began to accelerate.

There are a multitude of good Catholic resources available online, but there's also plenty of less useful stuff.

Many Catholic parishes have reasonable websites, but few of them are user friendly for outsiders wondering about what life is like on the inside. It would take so little to have an extra web-page entitled, 'Investigating Catholicism?' or similar and to then have curated lists of good resources for topics like Who is Jesus?, Mary, Authority, Sacraments, Salvation, Church History, the Mass, the Rosary etc. Lists with links to video, podcasts, books, articles etc that provide useful answers.

Making those curated lists should be easy. Chat to those who have been through the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) over the past 5 years, and their team members and ask them which resources helped them the most. Write down their answers, make sure the links still work, and prepare lists and put them online.

But every path must intersect at some point with a person with skin on, a Catholic who can be the interface between the outsider and the local community of faith. This is where your Social Media Apostles come in.

Many outsiders don't know someone who is visibly Catholic. How will they find one? If they are already investigating the doctrines of the Church through online means, chances are they will either look for or stumble across someone online through a blog, an article, a comment, or a social media posting.

The primary way outsiders will find a local Catholic to connect with is through Facebook, because Facebook is the most locally connected of the social media sites. We need more Catholics who are willing to be visible Catholics to be online, particularly through Facebook.

What does that mean? It means posting and liking and sharing content that is more than holidays, pets and family gatherings. It means getting some Catholic content coming into your social media feed, eg from the Vatican, your local diocese, your local Catholic news service (eg The Catholic Weekly, The Catholic Leader) and international Catholic news services (eg Catholic News Agency, ChurchPOP), and then liking and sharing anything with quality.

Will you get negative feedback if you do? Sometimes. It is part of the cost of being a disciple of the One who died on the Cross for us.

Part 1 is get some curated Catholic content on parish websites for inquirers to find. Part 2 is getting parishioners active on social media. However, a part 3 is also needed, and that's a combination of regular training and encouragement: Training in helping people through the Catholic maze and encouragement to withstand the negative feedback: and encouragement to be patient and welcoming with any inquirers who make contact with them.

A monthly get together of parish Social Media Apostles would be enough.

At that monthly meeting you could pray for each other, and for all the inquirers who have made contact, (past and present) and you could also pray and ask God's blessing over your devices (phones, iPads, computers etc). At such a meeting you could also share any good content you found and discuss whether it should get added to the parish's 'Investigating Catholicism?' page. Obviously if the answer is 'Yes', waste no time in getting it added!

These three Parts can be begun now, and should be begun now, and with urgency, so as to get people positioned to welcome and handle influxes of inquirers as they begin to increase.

I'll finish with Patricia King's challenge…

'If 500 or maybe 1000 new believers were to come to the Lord in your church or area overnight, how would they be discipled? Your church might not be ready for this yet. In the coming harvest it is probable that hundreds of thousands and even millions will come to the Lord in one sweep of the sickle. Through the internet we can be assured that they can have access to all they need for foundational teaching, and through social media we can reach them relationally with pastoral mentoring and input.'
​
St Maximillian Kolbe, pioneer of mass media evangelisation, pray for us
Blessed Titus Brandsma, patron of Catholic bloggers, pray for us
Our Lady, Help of Christians, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us

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PS. When you curate your resources for inquirers, and find that there's a hole you can't fill - that's your cue to write some new resources or to commission some.

PPS. You are likely to have a lot of links to books on your inquirer's page, so investigate Amazon Associates. (links below). Small referral fees for promoted books could add up to a tidy income stream for your parish.
Beginner's Guide
Affiliate Link Tutorial​
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PPPS. I have added two new webpages, 'Could God be real?' and 'Could Catholicism be true?', and have begun to create lists of resources. You are welcome to use them as templates or starting points for your own personal and parish websites.

Finding a Way Forward – Dr Ruth Powell- Part 2

Between talking about the third and fourth trends in the National Church Life Survey, Ruth Powell took us on a tour of the Hillsong website and invited us to compare it to our own parish websites. http://hillsong.com/

When you scroll down the home page you get to a section which reads, 'Free this weekend? Join us in church!' and then shows a page of icons with locations around the world. This website is unashamedly set up with newcomers in mind.

So we'd click on Australia. http://hillsong.com/australia

And what message greets us? 'Welcome home. You belong here!' and 'Find your place' Followed by church locations grouped by state, options to check out the leadership team and options of special events coming soon.

Ruth then showed us the landing page for those who clicked on Sydney Hills http://hillsong.com/hills

Scrolling down you get service times, location with 'plan a visit' option, events coming up, what's available for children, youth etc, answers to frequently asked questions, a look at the pastoral team and more.

If you click on Plan a Visit http://hillsong.com/hills/plan-a-visit/ you find out about a concierge service which (if you fill in your details) will on your arrival show you around the place and introduce you to people.

Of course welcoming newcomers is important, but you also have to take steps to integrate them into the community or else they will leave by the back door and not be seen again.

Ruth then showed us the results of the NCL Survey for what Catholic parishes do to help people integrate compared with what Protestant parishes do. These are the main strategies:

1. Follow-up visit from clergy or laity
   
   
2. Invitation to join a social group or faith discussion/bible study group 
   
   
3. People extend hospitality and invite them to meals
   
   
4. Invitation to take up a task or ministry
   
   
5. Course for new Christians / orientation program
   
   
6. Other
   
   

Our Protestant brothers and sisters are twice as likely to provide follow-up visits (a), almost twice as likely to offer an invitation to join a group (b), over three times as likely to offer hospitality (c), a little less likely to tap them on the shoulder and give them a task (d), and four times as likely to offer a course for newcomers (e).

The fourth trend is an increase in acts of service. This trend is clear across both Catholic and Protestant churches where members are more likely to be involved in informal acts of service and church-based acts of service. Informal acts of service include lending money, caring for the sick, helping someone in a personal crisis, visiting a person in hospital, giving away possessions, donating money and contacting members of parliament.     

What the survey results cannot tell us is whether this increased busyness is feeding the consumer culture in our parishes or opening up avenues for conversations that lead to discipleship. Is it a case of 'look busy, Jesus is coming'?

These acts of service certainly build bridges between the parishes and the community, but it is worthwhile doing it strategically. For example, why start your own soup kitchen / help for new immigrant service etc when you could join your efforts to the church down the road that has already got a similar initiative up and running? 

Then there are many works of church based service that function like non-government organisations and never tell people the reason they serve is because the love of God impels them to. The way forward requires an integration of both words and works, since we know from experience that 'word only' and 'deeds only' doesn't work. A way forward is to get better at testifying to the reasons why we act in Christian service.

The fifth trend is a decline in inviting people to church. Here are the results of how Catholics answered this 2011 NCL Survey question:

Q. Would you be prepared to invite to a church service, here, any of your friends and relatives who do not currently attend a church?

1. Yes, and I have done so in the past 12 months (27%)
   
   
2. Yes, but I have not done so in the past 12 months (34%)
   
   
3. No, probably not (18%)
   
   
4. No, definitely not (2%)
   
   
5. Don’t know (20%)
   
   

The decline is happening in Protestant churches too. Some of the decrease in Catholic willingness to invite others to church may be attributed to the Royal Commission into Child Abuse. It is the e) Don't know category that has gone up and the a) Yes, and I have invited someone in the last 12months category that has gone down, the rest are more or less stable. Overall 3 out of 5 people in Catholic pews would be willing to invite someone along compared to 4 out of 5 people in Protestant pews (with 2 of those 4 actually doing so).

The research has not found any single stand out value that attracts newcomers. Rather it is a range of things that together make an impact. The good news is that working on even one of these values will have a positive flow on effect to the whole church community. For example…

1. Discover a sense of vision and direction
   
   
2. Promote a strong sense of belonging
   
   
3. Focus on those beyond church life (on the fringe)
   
   
4. Encourage those that  attend to invite others to church
   
   
5. Be an empowering leader
   
   
6. Nurture growth in faith and movement toward commitment
   
   
7. Aim for joyful, inspiring services
   
   
8. Introduce contemporary worship
   
   
9. Encourage informal acts of helping
   
   
10. Look after the young
    
    
11. Be willing to try new things
    
    

Summary

1. With the notable decline in society's belief in God it is important to learn about what authentic and effective evangelisation looks like in this time and in this place. Churches need to reflect and to experiment.
   
   
2. Happily there has been an increase in willingness to share faith with others. Since family members are so significant for sharing faith, how is your parish supporting them and equipping them for this role? There are people whom God has called and gifted to be evangelists in your parish. So identify them, support them, celebrate with them, and learn from them.
   
   
3. Healthy, growing churches have been orienting themselves to newcomers. For many parishes doing this will require a major cultural shift and this shift will take a long time to do.
   
   
4. There has been an increase in acts of service. They help build bridges between the church and community where authentic connection can happen. However we must guard against being busy serving consumers rather than being busy building relationships as we serve and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise to invite those we serve to discipleship.
   
   
5. There has been a worrying decline in people inviting others to church. We need to find out what is stopping them from inviting others. If some of those reasons are parish based, we need to find out what needs to change and do something practical about it.
   
   

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The next blog-post will be about the panel discussion on what is working in other Christian churches.

Some of the workshops have been made available as podcasts via www.xt3.com

To access them visit http://www.xt3.com/library/view.php?id=17454

Some of the talks and workshops are now available from http://www.proclaimconference.com.au/resources. Several video clips, transcripts, handouts and slide presentations are downloadable.