February 7, 2010 edition

Guest Commentary
Web-based strategies integral to evangelization
by Kevin Driscoll

This week I passed along to youth ministers news of a study released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation that showed that kids 8-18 use entertainment media—computers and web-enabled cellular phones, mostly—an average of nearly eight hours a day.

Yes, that’s about as much as their parents spend at their full time jobs.

I wrote in my notes, “If you are not connecting with teens using technology, you are not connecting with teens.”

But the more I reflected on the study, the more I realized that this is more than a tidbit of information for youth ministers. This is a study all church leaders who have ears would hear.

Ten years ago church leaders could possibly get away with treating the internet as a gimmick, and little more than an electronic version of their bulletin. Now we have statistics that show today’s generation of youth is spending about three times as much time using technology than that same group of teens did in 1996, the year I got my first online account. How will they perceive the church in 2024?

Relatively few Catholic dioceses and churches kept up with the rapid migration toward internet-based communication in the 2000’s. Teens in the 90’s and early 2000’s are now starting families, having babies, making decisions about how religion fits into their family lives, if they haven’t already. A generation that helped fuel the growth of the internet rarely reads a newspaper and sees the Yellow Pages as an environmental atrocity. Can they find us, and if they do find us, what do they know about us from our online profile?

If you are not connecting with Catholics using technology, you are not connecting with Catholics.

Still reeling from the sex abuse scandal, Catholics are wary of how we connect with those we are entrusted to serve. It’s a natural reaction for us to watch those numerous MSNBC specials on child predators and dismiss the internet. It’s not worth the risk, I’ve been told.

By not utilizing internet strategies to connect with Catholics—including and especially youth—we risk losing credibility, relevance, and, naturally, participating Catholics.

The more we connect online, the more important it becomes to have something tangible with which to connect offline—yes, human contact!—and the Catholic faith provides real, tangible ways in which we touch the face of God across salvation history. But our Sacramental traditions need real humans inside real walls. We believe in the transformational power of Eucharist. We have the best party in town, but are our invitations colorful enough to grab anyone’s attention?


Today’s internet is about participation, engagement, and community. What could be more Catholic than that? Social networking (Facebook being the most popular) may be the best opportunity we’ve had in years to evangelize the Gospel outside the comfort of our own parish walls.

The Source and Summit of our faith is Eucharist. As Source, we are fed to live a life of Christ in the Monday-Saturday world. It is that technology-driven world that leads us back to the Summit again next Sunday.

Questions and comments welcome: friend me at facebook.com/yyakev .