“Marketing” is a bad word in church circles. It implies manipulation, impure intentions and other chicanery. This is not without reason; corporate marketing has become a science, with companies spending millions of dollars to understand the psychological and sociological impact of advertising. Many Christians, understandably, believe it would be unseemly — if not sinful — [...]
Last year I had the opportunity to listen to Fr. Martin Pable, OFM Cap, talk about how Catholics can reach out to their family, friends and others in order to share their faith. His approach, which he calls “relational evangelism,” consists of three parts: Listen with respect to the stories that other people share with [...]
A few weeks back a colleague in NCCL asked about how I make decisions regarding social networking on behalf of NCCL and my diocese. This was my off-the-cuff reply: Some quick background: My criteria for making these decisions when acting in an institutional capacity is different than my criteria for my personal accounts, especially re: [...]
Recently I’ve been having some fun using ChatRoulette as a sort of evangelization tool/sociology experiment. For those unfamiliar with the site, ChatRoulette pairs you up with a random stranger in a chat room. If you both have web cams you can even see each other. (Note: Many people take advantage of this function to display [...]
I recently finished reading psychologist Dan Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness, an examination of how the human brain attempts to make decisions about what will make us happy — decisions that, if studies are to be believed, we don’t make very well. Gilbert’s book is summarized in this 2008 TED talk (the whole talk is [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about evangelization. This has been sparked in part by some conversations with principals around the diocese in which I work; in part because of the recent elections; and in part because of the flurry of recent surveys showing the declining adherence to traditional Christian beliefs and practices. Catholics, in [...]
