5 Techie Lenten ideas

Lent is the Church's yearly penitential "training camp."  We go back to the basic Christian practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving (acts of charity) to refresh our relationship with God and our fellow human beings who were made in God's image and likeness. Take a look at Matthew chapter 6 often this Lent.

Here are five Lenten ideas for "techie" Catholics:

1) GO COLD TURKEY - disconnect for 40 days.  No Tweets, no FB posts, no LinkedIn updates, no email, no texts...nada!  Spend the time you would have spent on technology in prayer.  This is for the strong willed though; be warned - it isn't easy! 

2) PRAISED BE JESUS CHRIST! - change your PC, iPad and Smartphone "backgrounds" to an icon of Jesus for Lent and Holy Week.  Say "Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!" every time you see Him.  Then offer a prayer for His special ones - the poor, the homeless, the persecuted, aborted children, victims of war, the forgotten elderly, etc.

3) TWEET AND FACEBOOK JESUS - make it a point to tweet or post to FB something about Jesus and your faith everyday during Lent. This is a good time to examine your "techie" conscience too...are you using technology to proclaim the Gospel or simply for personal gain?

4) PHOTO PRAYER - randomly go through your digital pics and say a prayer for everyone you see. Does someone in your photo album need a call from you?  a note?   an email?   a visit?    forgiveness?

5) A DOLLAR FOR THE POOR - every time you post a photo of yourself, or your cute kitty, or your amazing dog, give a dollar to Catholic Charities or Catholic Relief Services. 

Happy Lent!
from your friends at St. Benedict's Parish, Amherst NY.

Tech & Religious Ed. Workshop here

TECHNOLOGY & RELIGIOUS EDUCATION WORKSHOP

St. Benedict's is hosting a special Diocesan workshop on Tuesday, March 13th from 6:30 to 8:00 on using technology to tell the Story of Christ. The workshop is being led by Tim Welch who is the author of Technology Tools for Your Ministry. Tim is a consultant for the Diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota. The workshop is open to everyone, but would be very valuable for anyone interested in teaching religious education. Please Call 847-5501 to register or email esantini@buffalodiocese.org. This workshop is free due to a grant from Our Sunday Visitor.

Thank you Tom and Maureen!

St. Benedict's Parish is extremely grateful for all the hard work Tom and Maureen Kerr have been doing to get our new website up and running. It was truly an amazing feat to have it ready for the rush of Christmas website searches! Many parishioners may not realize that our new website received well over 150,000 hits in just the first three weeks of December alone. 

Tom engaging our Faith Formation students,
encouraging their participation
in our technological endeavors.

The website looks fantastic - clearly organized, easy to use, and cleanly arranged. The homepage is continually updated with new information.  This is now an ongoing project that demands countless hours of behind-the-scenes work. The new content management system (CMS) allows the parish to rapidly update our website and to extend this ministry to ever-larger groups. Tom is great about increasing participation at every step of the way. You will notice, for example, that our 11th graders in the Faith Formation program have already added their contribution to the homepage and we have been up only a couple of weeks!  There will be much more of this collaborative input coming soon. Video and audio in-house productions, live recordings of Masses and/or homilies, faith testimonies and much more will be appearing in the course of the year.

In addition, Tom wrote the $15,000 grant that the parish recently received from The Foundation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo. He shepherded us through the exhaustive grant process. This grant award will be used to "foster spiritual growth with adults, families, children, youth, young adults, and the entire community. We hope to revitalize and mobilize our parish by connecting, welcoming and engaging spiritual seekers... By more effectively utilizing digital technologies we will enhance our parish's outreach and engagement efforts." Maureen handles the substantial grant documentation as we proceed.

We will be seeing much more of Tom and Maureen's work in the weeks and months ahead. Please check the parish website often http://www.saintbenedicts.com/. 

There is no doubt that their forward thinking and technological abilities will bear much fruit for the Kingdom of God. In fact, they already have!  Tom and Maureen have already made St. Benedict's a leader in integrated technology in the service of evangelization.

Thank you both!

Technology quick survey results

A sincere "thank you" to all who participated in our technological quick survey this past weekend!
Here are the results:

SAINT BENEDICT SURVEY
SEPTEMBER 17-­‐18, 2011

RESULTS
463 Responses were received including 3 visitor responses

RESPONSES BY AGE
         6‐12                 13‐18                 19­‐25                   26­‐60                61+
  count 13                     19                        13                        203                 214
   %      3%                    4%                       3%                       44%              46%

HAVE YOU USED THE ST. BENEDICT WEBSITE?
270 Yes (58%) 193 No (42%)
        6­‐12                 13­‐18                  19‐25                 26­‐60                61+
 Yes   5                         16                         9                       150                  90
 No    8                           3                         4                         53                 124

DO YOU USE EMAIL?
354 Yes (77%) 109 No (23%)
       6­‐12                  13­‐18                   19­‐25                 26-­‐60              61+
 Yes  7                          19                       13                       162                183
 No   6                           0                          1                         41                  61

INTERESTING FACT:
92 (26%) of the 354 parishioners with email AND have not used the Parish website
       6­‐12                  13­‐18                   19­‐25                 26­‐60                61+
         4                          3                           3                        43                   39

5 Responses added a comment that they had no computers.
We received email addresses from 255 people.

Technology Group - St. Benedict's

TECHNOLOGY GROUP:

The parish has formed a committee to explore ways that technology can be used in the parish. Parishioners with an expertise in technology are invited to attend our meetings. Come and join us to discuss new ways to spread the Gospel.

For information contact the Rectory at 834-1041 or email Rectory@saintbenedicts.com.
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