I have been reading a lot by Seth Godin lately.  This author and speaker has been very successful in the world of business helping a variety of companies and small businesses be noticed by others. At the end of the day, make money. Seth also has the ability to peer over the horizon and see what will be the future. I find his ideas fascinating and very applicable in church.

So we are in ministry, trying to promote stewardship as a way of life, all the ministries in our parishes, and evangelize at the same time. Much of this overlaps but our parishes are actively promoting one very good thing or another. What I am asked over and over is, "why don't more people show for fill in the blank ministry" and a variations of the same question. If you read anything by Seth, you will quickly learn that people are ignoring what we in church are saying. Why? Were are busy!

I have several possible solutions but lets take a quick look at why we are being ignored. Take a look at about any church bulletin, is there very much that pertains to your specific age group and family situation? For my family of five there might be one or two things that directly speak to me. The rest of the information has little implication for us and is filled with bad clip art and more begging than invitation. So that is one problem, add to that, websites that are not updated regularly will old content and again bad clip art and you will find that many parishioners will ignore the parishes message in favor of other things.

Do not give up hope, God gives us everything we need so let us use what He gives us. Will a million competing messages our parishioners hear every single day, it will work in our favor to a much better job telling our story. Throw away clip art in favor of live photos from your parish. If you are promoting a new event or program, use the communication frame work I speak about in my video blog. Is the ministry unique or something that was not working, re-branded and tried again?

This is only scratching the surface of what is possible and I hope each reader will ask the question, "is our parish a place people want to be?". Keep the conversation alive on our Facebook Page or email comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it