Claudia+Mobile+Devices+Assignment+1

Assignment #1
Mobile Devices and Ministry - Is My Parish Ready?

Expected time to complete assignment: 10 minutes

Is my parish ready to embrace and use these tools in learning environments or ministry? Why or Why not?

Please respond with the following information - name, parish, city, state and your response.

Name: Susan St. Lucy Parish, Anytown, MO
 * EXAMPLE: **

Response: As a parish we are just beginning to realize that this mobile technology is more available to us. We have a youth minister that really understands and uses technology with our youth ministry group. Our RCIA coordinator knows about Poll Everywhere, and is using this service which allows a respondent to use a cell phone in polls. But overall, we are still trying to figure out what to do. A majority of our #|ministers and catechists are hesitant to use technology in their teaching or ministry.

--- Kellie De Leo St. John Neumann, Irvine, CA I do not think our parish is ready to use this mobile technology. I am further ahead then the rest of the parish. Some people are set in there ways and they believe it is not needed. We had an event last June and I wanted to use Twitter and they refused the idea because they said it takes away from the focus of the event and were afraid people would begin to use their phones during Mass. I believe this is the way to go in reaching our youth.

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========================================================= Linda Anderson St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul Park, Mn

I don't think we are ready YET. We have staff and parishioners who are just beginning to use technology and then in ways that were used sometime ago. I did establish a Facebook page and special groups, and a blog. I think we are just opening conversation- the schools have just put some ipads in the class rooms- so who knows... We do now have wireless and a laptop for use. I think showing the possibilities will help others to see and know that this stuff is worth our time.

Jose Amaya Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA I am going to speak from the Archdiocesan perspective where I am Director of Faith Formation. The AMS is ready! The AMS website [|www.milarch.org] is the main way of connecting with clergy, lay leadership, active duty military and their families worldwide. The AMS has also developed a Faith Deployed App and a Digitial Media Center to provide digital faith resources for all. The AMS has a facebook and twitter accounts and a closed Forming Disciples Blog. In fact, digital is the way to communicate and connect with all in the global Archdiocese. My challenge is to find ways to better communicate and connect digitally.

//**Mobile Devices and Ministry - Is My Parish Ready?**//

//**Is my parish ready to embrace and use these tools in learning environments or ministry? Why or Why not?**//

Barbara Flora, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish, Spring Hill, FL

Let me preface my remarks with two unfortunate remarks directed at me who has been "computing" since the mid '70s. In 1994 I asked my pastor if I could get a computer. As a DRE I did not have a secretary or even access to a typewriter. The response to that question was that the pastor was not going to renew my contract. The next pastor I worked for responded to my 1995 request for more memory in the desktop computer because it took an obscene amount of time (90 minutes) to print out the class lists each time we had a change in the class information. He remarked "computers don't do ministry."

So here I am in 2014 in Florida at a parish whose parishioners are NOTat all ready to use mobile devices in ministry. AND I believe. . . 1) My parish is not interested is using mobile tools in ministry or faith formation. It has a pre-Vatican II mindset. Our youth minister does use his laptop, LCD projector, large pull down screen, reasonable sound system in the large 200+ seat multi-purpose hall. Some adult ed. DVD classes such as Catholicism by Fr. Robert Baron and Bible Study Programs by Jeff Cavins are presented in the hall or one of the religious ed. classrooms. We do have small flat screen TVs w/DVDs and HDMI inputs in the various classrooms but very few current DVDs. Catechists have not been given access to the Internet. 2) My very large parish has a part-time IT volunteer who is unresponsive to the needs of staff and volunteers. It took 2 1/2 years to have a battery replaced in the desktop computer I use weekly for the projection of the music sung at Mass! 3) I know many parishioners have cell phones, but they don't even know how to mute the phone during Mass! And I doubt a majority of the parishioners, older or not, would be interested in evangelizing with them. 4) Technology constantly has a need for training. More than 60% of the parishioners in my parish are over 70. Most do not have the time, patience or interest for learning. And some think it's sacrilegious to have a mobile device on durning Mass. . . even if it is the Bible, the Missal or the Lectionary readings websites that are being accessed. 5) On the positive side, one deacon always mentions something he found on the Internet in his homilies. Another deacon and his wife always have their laptops with them during bible study classes.

So there is hope that maybe by 2020 we will have more mobile devices being used in my parish's ministries as the college graduates and young adults step up to volunteer because the disappearance of the pre-computer generation dinosaurs.

Mary Smith
Church of Nativity, Charleston, SC

I know we are not ready to fully embrace technology. We do use some limited tech in Faith Formation programs and are trying to do more. Our website is static and out of date, and we are just now looking at redoing it and having it be more user friendly and interactive. We are definitely behind the learning curve. While I do think we are moving in the right direction, the process is very slow. We are a medium size parish with no young technology gurus on a very small staff. Watching the videos was discouraging as I feel we will never catch up, especially with how fast everything is moving. However...I will celebrate every little success, and have to smile when I see one of our "seniors" "Facetiming" there grandchildren.