Catholic Media & New Evangelization

From New Evangelizers

I got the idea to write this post from reading CatholicMom's charge to go to silent yesterday. While I did not officially go silent yesterday, I did devote a brief post to the topic. Today, Lisa Hendey challenged her readers to answer the following question:

“What in Catholic Media has had an impact on me during the past year?” 


The Short Answer
I became serious about becoming a new evangelizer by utilizing social media to spread the Gospel of Christ. My first major step was relaunching Joe Catholic in a serious attempt to blog on a regular basis.

The Blogathon

This time last year I was completing my participating in the 2011 WordCount Blogathon. While I successfully wrote 31 posts during the challenge, I didn't have a true sense of what I was doing with the blog. In fact, I was all over the map. Michelle Rafter, the organizer of the contest and author of WordCount, recommended I focus my writing on a particular interest. I decided on devoting my time to developing the Joe Catholic blog that had only been a place to post notes from the gatherings.

The Book

I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I was posting sporadically and hadn't learned any of the tools of the trade. In late July, Brandon Vogt's book The Church and New Media was published. I read the book in two sittings and it opened my eyes to the possiblities. I recognized that social media was a means to cast the nets into deeper waters. It was an opportunity to evangelize within and outside of the Church.

The Result

Now, one year later, Joe Catholic has seen a dramatic increase in its readership. We went from barely getting 200 page views a month to nearly averaging that number per day now. We certainly aren't one of the most viewed Catholic sites, but we have become a resource for the men in our parish and hopefully a few others. We know we have a lot of work to do. In fact, we are planning a meeting to story board some upgrades to this blog and incorporating our Twitter and YouTube presence into one comprehensive site.

What in Catholic Media has had an impact on you during the past year?” 

Comment below and at the New Evangelizers.