Tech and Ministry Tips

Since 2018, we've been writing weekly tech and ministry tips to help pastors, parish clergy, staff, and volunteers supercharge their ministry. Some of our greatest hits are below.

Articles

How Spammy is Your Email?
Parishes are sending more emails than ever, and billions of messages crisscross the globe each day. For every legitimate message that needs to get somewhere, there are probably 3-4 that are scams, viruses, or unwanted marketing schemes. This begs th...
Do Parishes Need Hashtags?
We get this question a lot – “The church down the street has its own hashtag. It seems to be everywhere. Should we be doing the same?” In short…yes! Like a parish mission statement, logo, website address, or Facebook vanity URL, a parish hashtag ca...
Returning to Old Social Media Posts
Our director, John, recently had an interesting conversation with a Catholic Social Media subscriber in Nebraska. Her question was this: How can our parish return to old posts or initiatives and provide updates in the best possible way? It’s a g...
Auditing Your Parish Website
The dream scenario for any parish is that when people type its name into Google, the parish website is the first result. The nightmare is the reverse – despite your best attempts, you can’t seem to get your church into the first page of search engin...
Praying Digitally
Smartphones have forever changed the way we live, and more than 90% of people in North America are now carrying around what are essentially ultra-compact, Internet-connected computers. It’s also impacting the way we pray, with hundreds of Christian ...
Archiving Parish Livestreams
Since the coronavirus pandemic hit America in February 2020, almost every parish in the country has livestreamed or pre-recorded Masses. Several months into our “new normal,” the question is coming up more and more: how long should we keep these Mas...
Publishing Mass Times Online
The liturgical year is complicated, which means you regularly need to re-publish your Mass times… everywhere . This is important because many nominal Catholics start searching for Mass times around Christmas or Easter to help decide where they will ...
Protect Your Computer from Cyber Attacks
With the uptick in working remotely since 2020, cyber-attacks are happening more and more often. The FBI reported a 300% increase in reported cybercrimes since the COVID-19 pandemic began. According to a study by the University of Maryland, attacks ...
Using the Bookmarks Bar
You likely have at least a handful of websites you visit every day. You may have them bookmarked or you may simply rely on your web browser’s history to fill in the address as you start typing. But are you using the very convenient and visuall...
Using Grammarly
We all know about the spelling and grammar tools built into Microsoft Word or Google Docs, but a few years ago I was introduced to another tool that I now rely on for a little help any time I am writing or proofreading. It's called Grammarly and c...
Common Facebook Scams and What You Need to Know
Scammers are always at work and it's important to be aware of the latest scam going around to protect yourself and the parish. Here we'll document common Facebook scams you should be on the lookout for. Fall 2023 Many Facebook pages have received...