Dale+Brown+ARTICLE+for+Publication

 DDBC Article for Publication   My name is Dale. I am a parishioner at St. Peter Claver Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida. During this past year I participated in a program, described as a “boot camp” that focused on utilizing technology in ministry in the church. As a person that is interested in and not afraid of technology, I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn more about technology and social media and be able to bring it to the community in which I minister. There are several reasons why I thought this would be a good thing: 1) our church population consists of mainly older adults who often express not having a lot of free time; 2) our parishioners generally do not live in close proximity to our facility, so on-site meetings and gatherings are often not well attended; 3) we don’t have a lot of money to spend so our facilities don’t necessarily have the greatest of resources and suffer somewhat from a lack of on-site technology; 4) we need to make sure we are providing resources that will encourage and enable the young adults and youth to willingly and enthusiastically participate; 5) if we plan to be here in the future, our parish needs to be more visible and accessible to the community, the diocese and the world.    Our boot camp consisted of on in person gathering, a blog for our class information, webinars for our class time, and a wiki for our class work. The final piece of the boot camp was an optional capstone project utilizing technology in ministry in some way to communicate or teach. Because of the items mentioned above, I decided to do a blog that could also be a teaching tool, using various types of technology and social media. The point was to tie in the readings and homilies we hear on Sundays in a way that people could go back to the blog and have a discussion about what they heard or what they thought about what they heard.  I involved the religious education teachers by asking them to review the Sunday readings during the prescribed time period, to make commentary on what they got out of the readings, and to indicate any aspects of the liturgy that might be applicable in the readings for that week. One very enthusiastic friend volunteered to collect email contact information from parishioners so they could be sent an invitation or direct link to the blog. I set up the blog and put a notice in our weekly parish bulletin informing the parishioners about it. I posted the blog for the week either using information provided by the catechists, what I heard in the readings or homily that week, or even the homily of a visiting priest we had one week. I use pictures and videos in the blog, and posted links to other info or websites. I created a parish Twitter account and posted links to the blog. We had an existing Facebook page, for which I was able to get administrative rights, and also began posting information there, as well as links to the blog. The Facebook page is also linked to the Twitter. I created a bulletin page specifically focused on the technology and social media accounts and links and used QR Codes to post information and links.  Although it was a first effort in this community with something like this, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with the response. My disappointment was from the fact that I know our folks are using technology. I see them on Facebook (not so much on Twitter) and I know they know how to use web pages and the internet in general. They post quotes from Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and to the “nth” degree defended the faith beliefs of Barak Obama when questioned by the opposition. Yet when given the opportunity to share or discuss their faith, they didn’t respond. I was disappointed that when I showed my pastor what I had done, he was more intrigued by my iPad and whether he should get one, than he was with the content and intent of what I had done. I had consulted him prior to the start of the project, but there is a language curve. I was disappointed, but not discouraged. There is much more I want to do with technology and social media in the ministry work that I do. I am hoping that this is not a condition of us as a community. We are often at the end of the learning and acceptance curve it seems. I am hopeful that we (meaning my fellow parishioners) will open our eyes and see what is happening around us and awaken to a new day of involvement and commitment and dreams, and be open to new learning and new technology to help realize those dreams. We can’t keep sitting back being comfortable with the old. How often have I heard from someone that they don’t need a smart phone or a tablet or even to use the internet. Yet this is what makes the work go around today. So I plan continue to use technology and will find ways to integrate those things I did not get a chance to use this time around. I want to continually encourage people to use the technology that is available to them and not be afraid. There is so much to gain by being connected, especially for those with children and our young adults. One of the things I learned through this process is that there is a learning curve for people and because of that some are reluctant. Knowing your audience is also important as it will put your expectations into perspective. I did not use some of the things I had planned to because I began to realize that the audience was not there for them (surveys, building the content into the faith formation program, Glogster ). In time these may be used. It was very helpful to have the catechists involved in the process and to get their input.

Group Capstone Proposal Page