Question About How to Make a Suggestion to the Church

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decjlc

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I just came into the Church this Easter, and I am SO happy to have finally come home considering that I first began considering the Catholic Church about five years ago.

Anyway, I’d love to get involved with the Church, and I can think of a very helpful way. Our Church has no online presence at all – no website, Facebook, etc. I’m not super young (32), but I feel this would be a great way to reach out to the youth and other people in the community. Catholics are very much in the minority here. In fact, our priest/pastor is the only priest who serves the entire cluster (4 churches), each with small congregations (sorry if congregation is not a Catholic term, not sure what else to call it).

I have experience setting up basic websites and blogs, and I’m also experienced with managing Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. However, I’m reluctant to mention my suggestion because I’m “new”, I’m somewhat shy, and I don’t want them to think that I’m trying to overly-modernize the parish.

Do you think this is a worthwhile pursuit? If so, should I mention it now, or should I wait until I’ve been there longer?
 
I would approach your pastor in the same manner you have done here. I can only believe he will jump at the chance to use your knowledge to expand the parish contacts. Very often online contact is neglected for want of a talented individual. Thank you for offering to fill such a void … and blessings on your endeavors.
 
decjlc said:
I just came into the Church this Easter, and I am SO happy to have finally come home considering that I first began considering the Catholic Church about five years ago.

Anyway, I’d love to get involved with the Church, and I can think of a very helpful way. Our Church has no online presence at all – no website, Facebook, etc. I’m not super young (32), but I feel this would be a great way to reach out to the youth and other people in the community. Catholics are very much in the minority here. In fact, our priest/pastor is the only priest who serves the entire cluster (4 churches), each with small congregations (sorry if congregation is not a Catholic term, not sure what else to call it).

I have experience setting up basic websites and blogs, and I’m also experienced with managing Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. However, I’m reluctant to mention my suggestion because I’m “new”, I’m somewhat shy, and I don’t want them to think that I’m trying to overly-modernize the parish.

Do you think this is a worthwhile pursuit? If so, should I mention it now, or should I wait until I’ve been there longer?
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If you attempt a FB page for the parish, stick to a read only format. Parishes don’t want to have to be liable for what others post… i.e. controversial or inappropriate posts.
Use it to get the word out about events or anonymous prayer intentions. 👍
 
Absolutely volunteer to set up a website! I rely on the websites of the parishes around here so frequently. I’m often checking them for mass times, confession times, bulletins, rectory phone numbers, etc. When I’m traveling, I look up the websites of churches in the area to see where they’re located and when they offer Mass. It would be a huge blessing to your parish community (and to visitors to your parish) if you got one up and running!
 
Hi, as another as said, I’m sure the Pastor will jump at the chance of having someone do a webpage. Using a catholic web provider (especially if free) is better than using google, etc.

Few suggestions:
  1. you could host for free with one of the following Catholic Web-Hosting groups:
    ---- catholic-church.org/
    ---- catholicweb.com/dsp_free_websites.cfm
    ---- parishsoft.com/
    ---- rc.net
  2. a few for pay solutions (the above have paid options too) include:
    ---- solutiosoftware.com/ << these guys do have a pretty good free option which includes adds
    ---- catholicwebsitehosting.com/
  3. this site has many more links for Catholic Webhosting providers and services.
    catholicity.com/links/164/
Also, in regards to the word “congregation,” I don’t think there is an official rule about it’s use. However, I think the word means something different to us vs our Protestant brethern. I usually consider a Catholic “congregation” to be a subset/subgroup within a Parish. For example, the people who are currently at Mass (especially since most Parishes have more than one Mass) could be considered a “congregation.” Or if a Parish has more than one Church, each Church would have it’s own “congregation” within the Parish.

Good luck and God Bless
 
I have no idea why I was so nervous about presenting this. The Pastor said that they only reason they aren’t online is that they’ve not had anyone to set these things up and maintain them and that they’d be thrilled for me to get them online.

I’m so excited to be able to help out doing something that I love to do!
 
That’s wonderful. The internet can be such a powerful tool for evangelization and many people first look to a parish website for information about the parish. Another idea would be to look at other parishes websites and also maybe form a small tech. committee who can give you ideas about what needs to be included since you are new to the faith,
 
Then all the best to you. We look forward to hearing about your great success sometime in the near future. Continued blessings and prayers for your work
 
decjlc said:
I have no idea why I was so nervous about presenting this. The Pastor said that they only reason they aren’t online is that they’ve not had anyone to set these things up and maintain them and that they’d be thrilled for me to get them online.

I’m so excited to be able to help out doing something that I love to do!
Click to expand...
This is most usually the case in my experience. If there’s no one in the parish who does websites, then it doesn’t happen.

Conversely, parishes that have a website also have a person who was willing to set it up and maintain it.

My only suggestion would be for you to prepare about 5 bookmarked sites that show a variety of formats, all of which you are familiar with how to set them up. Show the priest these examples and tell him what you can do based on what he would like to have. Let him know that if he changes his mind or if someone has another idea, that you can make changes to the website to accommodate that.

.
 
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