"Digital Media Strategies in a 21st Century Church"

Celina M. Yebba

I am a graduate student at the University of Central Florida, working towards a Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Composition. Prior to graduate school, I was assigned to a civil engineering squadron in the United States Air Force, and was deployed to Afghanistan as a member of the 560^th RED HORSE. My research interests include digital evangelization and social media composition.

Contents

Abstract

Introduction

History of Christian Media Use

History of Christian Media Use Cont.

Religious Use of Digital Media

Religious Use of Digital Media Cont.

Conclusion

Works Cited

Religious Use of Digital Media

Many religious leaders seem reluctant to embrace digital technologies, and some simply do not see the importance of cultivating a strong digital presence, but they need to. Developing a strong technological foundation is essential for these faith-based groups, as 90% of all 18-29 year olds are now using social media (Perrin, “Social Media Usage: 2005-2015”). With an estimated 2.5 billion Internet users, if not more, in the world today, there is a seemingly boundless arena in which the church can evangelize and bring in new followers (Hunsinger, 2013, p. 19-24). But the question remains, have Christian groups already missed their opportunity to adapt to an increasingly technological world? I would argue that it is not too late, but that they had better act fast and begin engaging in digital communities.

By evaluating the efforts of digital ministries, I have uncovered areas in which the religious community has found success, and other areas in which improvement is necessary. One social media tool that is being effectively used for Christian evangelization is Twitter. Dhiraj Murthy references a “Christian Science Monitor” study which showed that there are currently at least 40 world leaders with active Twitter accounts today. Twitter has quickly become one of the most popular social media sites.  Posting restrictions limit tweets to 140 characters, which does not leave much room for open faith dialogue; however, in many respects Twitter is the least restrictive social media platform today. For example, Twitter is the only social networking site that allows engagement between people that do not actively “follow” each other (Murthy, 2013, pg. 2-5).  

The Catholic Church’s open support of this modern social trend is a great thing because networks are not restricted to users that have chosen to subscribe to each other’s creative content. For the first time anyone, Catholic or non-Catholic, can engage in conversation with the Catholic Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops. People all over the world have noticed that Pope Francis has a Twitter account, from which he tweets on a daily basis. As of December 2014, Pope Francis had composed 461 tweets. Since joining Twitter in February of 2012, he had just over 4.7 million English speaking followers. His Spanish Twitter account, Papa Francisco (@Pontifex_es), had over 7.3 million followers.

An observation that I made while examining the Pope’s Twitter account was that every single one of his English tweets had thousands of “retweets,” which means that thousands of people are sharing his content daily. In 2014 Pope Francis published 251 tweets, had posts retweeted 1,680,100 times, and had his content favorited 2,070,250 times. His most popular tweet of the year was posted on Easter Sunday (April 20, 2014) and had 38,000 retweets and 36,000 favorites. This is undoubtedly one of the greatest digital evangelization tools that the Catholic Church currently has. 

Another example of Catholic digital evangelization that is currently finding success is the website CatholicsComeHome.org. Having observed the content of Catholics Come Home, I have found the "evangomercials," an enthusiastic video campaign committed to bringing people into the Catholic Church, to be an innovative and exciting new tool for evangelization. There is also a Catholics Come Home (CCH) TV series with supplementary content focused on helping former Catholics rediscover their faith.  An invitation for viewers to visit a Catholic Church closes each video.

The Catholics Come Home multimodal strategy has worked. A survey conducted on former Catholics that have visited the CCH site at least once showed that an astonishing 53% of these viewers would at least consider returning to the Catholic Church. With as determined a focus on reaching former Catholics that have left the church as there is on reaching out to those who have never experienced the Catholic faith, the site has been able to boast a 10% increase in Sunday mass attendance in those diocese that have participate in the CCH campaign program (Vogt, 2011, p.36-39). Such a significant increase in church attendance suggests that the Catholic Church can find success evangelizing through digital media.