Anyone else's parish not give a flaming hoot whether they live or die?

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Have another little break.

Social Media, “New Media” does assist in forming community because you have to let people know what events/groups/activities are available. It is also a wonderful tool to get feedback from parishioners.

For big events, Holy Days of Obligation, festivals, new “activities” or for polling purposes we call or text or email every parishioner (and we can target this messaging to specific age groups, family statuses, only women, only those with kids in RE age ranges, etc.)

Those two things, the “blast system” and Social Media are where we see the greatest responses. And, btw, we are a retirement community.
 
The Flocknote app offers group texting and subgroups for churches. We use it.
Older people won’t download apps though. Scared of it.
 
Maybe we need to define “old people”. In my experience parishioners in their 70s are all smart phone/ipad users.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Maybe we need to define “old people”. In my experience parishioners in their 70s are all smart phone/ipad users.
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My dad eschews technology but can program an OS if he wished.

My mom loves her iphone and watch but half the time is driven to tears because she’s run out of photo storage…and she’s in her 60’s. Ownership of an iphone/ipad does not equal technolgical savviness.
 
At the same time, hitting 7 decades does not mean luddite.

People are as varied as can be!
 
TheLittleLady9m
Maybe we need to define “old people”. In my experience parishioners in their 70s are all smart phone/ipad users.

I agree…I’m in my early seventies and have a smart phone…and yes it certainly is smarter than me

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It may be that parishes in some areas need to do outreach. Most of the parishes I see declining in the urban and suburban areas where I mostly spend time are due to population shifting and neighborhoods getting bad. The churches most hit by this had ethnic congregations where the younger folks moved to better neighborhoods and the elderly grands passed away. The poor people moving in aren’t Catholic and probably don’t even attend a church. Also, this is in an area that has about 6 Catholic churches separated from each other by only a couple miles, so it’s really “overchurched” and has already shut one church down and merged three others into one.

From what I have seen, most of these 6 churches are quite busy; one still has an elementary school operating and about half of them have significant kid and teen programs drawing many young families.

In another area where I spend time, the parishes are huge because the churches were built further apart (more like 6 to 15 miles) and a lot of new development has been booming in the area. So once again, the Parish size is due to demographics, not outreach efforts. I agree that outreach is good for things like evangelization, connecting with the homebound, and making new folks feel welcome, but it doesn’t seem likely to significantly affect parish size.
 
It’s not strictly age related, I know some younger people with a real aversion to technology.
 
I think where I am there have been historically fairly stable communities, people have kids, kids are Catholic, kids live locally and start their own families. Mine and my parents generation are both more likely to not continue to be Catholic and more likely to go to university and live their adult life elsewhere.

All things being equal you would expect some people moving to the area to be Catholics seeking a church but as threads like these show us Catholics aren’t always great at welcoming newcomers. There are loads more different types of church today and someone not serious about Catholicism could well turn towards whatever church demonstrates that they want them.
 
The trouble having people do a term for something is you can’t just go up to someone and say well I’ve done my 3 years its your turn now. You have to have people that are interested and want to take it on.

Our parish doesn’t have any social media, we just got a new website, that is really just information only, and not all that useful. However it does have the bulletin on, but that could be better too!
 
I said APPS

Most of the elderly around here refuse to download anything, much less and APP onto a phone they only use for talking.
 
TheLittleLady said:
At the same time, hitting 7 decades does not mean luddite.

People are as varied as can be!
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I didn’t say that. My point is that iphone/ipad especially as opposed to say android/windows are not uncommon devices to have among the technologically averse. Just because someone has an iphone does not mean they have a single clue how to really use it like it’s intended ie: NOT just calls/texts
 
Your experience is different than mine.

The hundreds of people I work with every day (in the 65-80 range) use apps for shopping, for information, for weather, for games, they use Social Media as well. Of the early adopters of the “Formed” app in our parish, 80 % were over 65 years old.

Remember, Apple’s "“iPhone/iPad” have been around for a decade, handheld devices like the Palm Pilot or Blackberries have been in use for 20 years. Today’s 70 year old was a working professional 20 years ago who lived and died by their handheld devices.

Yes, there are folks who never used technology in business, worked in fields that did not introduce technology early. That does not mean that everyone over X years old is a luddite.
 
This thread is getting derailed. OP, my likely unpopular response is that you could meet with the priest or deacon, (deacons are more accessible in large parishes), and consider changing parishes if that doesn’t go anywhere.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
A big difference between the Protestant and Catholic churches is that for many Protestants, fellowship is 80 to 90 percent of the reason they are bothering to come to the church.
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As being a non-Catholic Christian for nearly 40 years now I find your assessment false…wildly inaccurate, at best.
 
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I said “many Protestants”, not all.

I have heard personally from many Protestants what I posted and also seen it in action.

I am sure there are exceptions to the rule, but I don’t think your individual experience as one non-Catholic Christian in an entire world of sects and denominations makes my statement “wildly inaccurate at best”.

I’m stepping off the thread now, feel free to continue this argument with yourself if you like.
 
I never said that you said “all” either. I’ve also seen in action exactly what I said, considering I’ve spent my entire life in protestant churches. I may be one non-Catholic, but as a non-Catholic don’t you think that I’ve had quite a bit of interaction with other non-Catholic Christians having just a little more than individual experience?

I can also say that your individual experience with “many” non-Catholics saying that 80%-90% of the reason we show up to church doesn’t necessarily equate to my position and upbringing the exception to the rule either.

It’s much like the issues I’ve mention here before. I wondered why Catholics (and parishes) are so unwelcoming to non-Catholics, specifically NC Spouses. I’ve had the experience across two parishes so I’d consider that “many” Catholics. Come to find out that many parishes are far more accepting of NC’s and NC spouses and something is just weird here. I didn’t even know that at other parishes I’d could be considered a member…here it’s, he’s not Catholic, he’s not a member of the church/church family, here’s his asterisk. I’ve learned that’s apparently that’s more of an exception than the norm.
 
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