Amy-Deanna+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.

--- Maureen Rotramel St. Peter/St. Mary/Immaculate Conception, Port Washington, WI (we are a collaborative tri-parish cluster)

Response: While there are some of us (myself included) who are ready to embrace and use these tools, including our school in a limited capacity, there is still a lot of hesitation and fear among some of our other staff - mainly those who are not part of faith formation. The other people in faith formation would be willing to use these tools with training and examples of how. So overall I would say we are very slowly embracing these tools with a lot of catch up to do!

Colleen Murray St. Patrick, Tampa FL Response: I may be projecting my own feelings here, but I don't think our parish as a whole is ready to engage in this level of social media/technology ministry just yet. I don't think it's necessarily an unwillingness to do so, but having worked in a parish before I know it is hard to break out of traditional ways of doing things and its hard to find a lot of consistent, reliable volunteers to meet current needs, let alone take on a social media program. I think it will take a little more time. I'm sure there are some of us who would be willing to try incorporating one or more aspects of it in our particular ministries.

Jonathan Sansgaard Silverdale Lutheran, Silverdale, WA Response: Yes, our congregation is fairly tech savvy, and the most interesting way to me is in worship. Several older members, or those who are sight impaired, love using iPads or other tablets to download the bulletin from our website and have it as large as they need it for worship. I also have had youth use their phones to text questions when we do a "Stump the Pastor" at a Youth Night. I asked the first time for them to email questions; I gave them opportunities to write them down; only one question until we got in the room and the texts started flying! I also use text trees to communicate with groups of people if I know I need an almost interactive response. Our website and most links off of it are mobile specific in their display.

Carolina Helsel Catholic Church of St Ann, Marietta, GA We are fortunate to have a church with very tech savvy individuals. Our parish administrator is a huge advocate of the use of technology, and we have a pastor that supports this as well. We stream 2 masses on Ustream.com every Sunday, as well as the celebration of our sacraments. We use Yammer as a form of inter-office communication and in our Rel Ed dept as a way to communicate and encourage discussions with our PSR families. We send out monthly Constant Contact newsletters and post our church bulletin on our very active church website. It is a challenge to stay on top of it all and we are constantly striving to improve ourselves.