THE VIBRANT PARISH NEWSLETTER

Is Your Parish Ready for Visitors This Easter? Use This Checklist to Be Sure!

Churches all over the world welcome visitors every week, but Easter and Christmas take the cake when it comes to the number of visitors attending Mass at any given church. They are your parishioner’s family members, friends, and significant others. They are folk who are new to the neighborhood looking for a church home. They are Catholics returning to Mass for the first time in years as they remember the joy of the Easter season or want to experience the Easter Vigil again. They may even simply be people curious about the faith and encouraged to visit during this special time. Regardless of who they are, who brought them, or where they come from, be sure that your parish is prepared to welcome them to Mass with this handy checklist of ideas.

1. Are your Mass times updated on your website, bulletin, and anywhere else they are displayed?
2. Is your website optimized to be mobile-friendly? If not, we can help you!
3. Are your entrances and bathrooms clearly marked?
4. Are you welcoming visitors at the ambo before Mass?
5. Do the bulletins you are passing out at Easter services have visitor information prominently featured?
6. Do you have ushers or greeters signed up for each Mass to both welcome and answer visitor questions?
7. Are there welcome cards in the pews that visitors can fill out if they want to receive more information about the parish directly to their email or via a phone call?
8. Do you have visitor information (like a handout, brochure, or visitor gifts) readily available?
9. Is your pastor planning on inviting everyone to introduce themselves to their neighbors at the beginning of Mass?
10. Are you planning on inviting those attending to share a prayer request with their neighbors before Mass?
11. Do you have a printed Easter program that explains the Mass parts for visitors to reference?
12. Is information about your faith formation programs for youth and adults displayed in a place where visitors can easily see?
13. Is information about your ministries and services easily accessible on your website?
14. Are your buildings, including your sanctuary, disability friendly?
15. Do you provide tools for families with small children upon their entrance? For example, a coloring page that corresponds with the readings and some crayons, or directions to the nursery if they have an infant and need a quit space. We have resources available like this in our WeCreate library of Catholic content for you to use!
16. Do visitors have access to free masks in the event that somebody wants one or your church requires them?
17. Do you have extra bulletins ready to be passed out to accommodate the larger crowds?
18. Do you have engaging photos of your parish community members prominently featured on your website and social media feeds, so people interested in visiting your parish get a glimpse of your welcoming environment?
19. Is your parking lot and property clean and clear of debris or anything that might make someone trip?
20. Do your Mass announcements include information on how to register or how to gather more information about the Parish and what your community has to offer?

We at LPi wish your parish, and all of those who will be visiting you this year, a very Happy Easter season. May our hearts and minds be open to everyone we encounter during Mass and may our greetings of “Peace be with you” resound with genuine love for our neighbors — whoever they may be.

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SOCIAL MEDIA INFOGRAPHIC

Find social media prompts for Lent, International Women’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and more inside this month’s social media infographic.

CHECK IT OUT

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Six Web Trends for Church Websites in 2023

The new year is off to a great start and high on the list of New Year’s resolutions that keep popping up for our church partners is, “update our parish’s website!” With this in mind, we decided to give you a head start and share a list of some of the most important trends our web design team has identified so far for 2023 — all of which can be applied using our church website builder WeConnect.

1. Video Headers as the Hero Image

The hero image is the very first thing that visitors to your church’s website see before they begin to scroll. More and more we are seeing churches use a short video clip that showcases their parish community as the hero image on their website. We’ve got to say, it’s a powerful way to make a great first impression! This is a built-in, super easy function of our web builder, WeConnect. With it, you can drop in your own video or even link to another video that is already being hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, or Dailymotion.

2. Real Customer Testimonials and Reviews

Also known by designers as “social proof,” having positive reviews prominently featured on your website for visitors to easily view has become the norm for many organizations. Consider featuring a few parishioner reviews on your homepage to encourage people to visit your vibrant parish.

3. Clean Layouts

New year, new commitment to de-cluttering your homepage! Remember, keeping your layout clean and well-designed helps your community navigate your site and find what they need quickly. WeConnect has great custom options with sections that are pre-formatted for users to drag and drop into their pages. This can get you ahead of the game.

4. Embedded Instagram Feeds

You already spent the time to populate your parish’s Instagram account with awesome pictures of your community, advertisements for events, and more! Now, be sure everyone sees it, even if they don’t have an Instagram account, by using our social media widget and embedding your Instagram feed into your website! It will automatically update your website’s image gallery in real time as you upload new content to your Instagram account!

5. Modern Branding

Don’t be left behind with a website that includes branding elements or a logo that looks like it was designed in the 90’s —or *gasp* before! Make sure your church’s branding and overall image is updated with modern colors and a modern design. Not sure where to start? Our team of designers loves working with parishes to update their brand!

6. Interactive Displays/Micro-Animations

Lots of websites are incorporating interactive micro-animations. These are often small features found on a website that, when a visitor clicks, a little animation is triggered. These could also be described as interactive layouts where sections might have a transition animation when a visitor scrolls past them. Want to see an example? Check out an animation on our website by going to our main website and scrolling down to the bottom where we link to our most recent blogs. When you do this, you will notice that our blog sections “slide up” into the main page via micro-animation. These transitions are easy to apply to sections on your website in WeConnect.

Now it’s your turn! Be a trendsetter and start implementing these features into your parish website for an updated look in 2023!

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Tips to Increase Disability Inclusion in Your Parish

According to the CDC, 1 in 4 adults in the United States has a disability. These disabilities can include challenges with mobility, cognition, independent living, hearing, vision, and self-care. Recent estimates also show that about 17% of children, or 1 in 6, have one or more developmental disabilities . These can include challenges with learning, physical development, language, cognition, and behavior. The CDC has found that Autism Spectrum Disorder alone, affects about 1 in every 44 eight-year-old children in the U.S.A. and 1/3 of children with ASD also have intellectual disabilities.

Despite the prevalence of those with disabilities in our communities, schools, families, and churches, many parishes still don’t know what type of services or guidance to provide to those in their number with special needs. In fact, people with disabilities are often said to be one of the largest unchurched populations in the United States. The Society for Disability Studies found that persons with disabilities are 40% more likely than those without disabilities to report that they never attend worship and that this trend is a direct result of barriers to participation — those being architectural, communication, or attitude.

So, how might a parish become more friendly to those with disabilities? Here are a few ideas and resources.

Check Out the National Catholic Partnership on Disability

This organization has a plethora of resources and information for parishes who are working toward expanding their worship, ministry, and other practices to better include those with disabilities. They link to best catechetical practices and family support resources. The organization provides services like trainings, consultations, keynote talks for events, and accessibility surveys/assessments. Their LAMB Inclusive Participation Assessment Tool (Language, Accessibility, Meaningful Participation, Belonging) is specifically designed according to the website to guide “the development and evaluation of programs, materials and/ or other resources for use in the Church, relative to accessibility or usability for all persons.”

Start a Parish Advisory Group

“Nothing about us without us,” is a commonly used slogan among minority groups to communicate that no rules or policies should be made by anyone in the organization without the full and direct participation of members of the group(s) affected by those rules or policies.

Inviting individuals and families to participate in a group specifically made to advise church leadership on the needs of those members of your church with disabilities not only creates a bridge between those with disabilities and those without but can also ensure that your parish uses its time and resources wisely. This type of ministry can also provide a structured environment for people with similar experiences to connect with each other and can deepen and enrich a parish’s overall community development.

Train Ministers to Invite and Recognize

Including disability sensitivity training in the process of learning how to serve at Mass or minister in different programs at the church is a great way to increase options for those with disabilities. Consider this — when was the last time that the sacristan asked someone using a wheelchair to help take up the gifts, or might it be possible for the point person to invite a family with a deaf child to be the 9 a.m. Mass greeters? Pope Francis, again, reminds us that everyone is encouraged to participate in their faith and contribute in their own unique way to their community.

Increase Disability Awareness for Visitors:

• Have signage clearly visible near the entrance to your sanctuary and other buildings for resources like a quiet room or hearing aids and any other support you provide to visitors. Include this information on your website homepage as well.
• Continue to invite and assure parishioners that their family members with disabilities are welcome to Mass, youth events, and more! Even better — invite families with disabled members to share their needs with parish leadership through your advocacy group or parish advisory group.
• Make sure to include disability access information and resources whenever you host a newcomer’s gathering!
• Include disability access info in your bulletin every week with who to contact if a visitor wants more in-depth information. Don’t forget to include both an email and a phone number so that those who may have hearing or sight problems always have an option.

Find even more tips on how to make your parish more disability-friendly to visitors and new members, in our blog “How to Comb Your Experience Through the Eyes of a Visitor.”

In his message for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in 2020, Pope Francis said, “Prayer is a mission, a mission accessible to everyone, and I would like to entrust that mission in a particular way to you. There is no one so frail that he or she cannot pray, worship the Lord, give glory to His holy Name, and intercede for the salvation of the world. In the sight of the Almighty, we come to realize that we are all equal.” So, how does your parish work to include members with disabilities? For more resources, ideas, and information about advocacy organizations that include a variety of Christian denominations, check out the Collaborative on Faith & Disabilities.

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Using the Facebook and Instagram STORIES Tool for Engagement

An awesome tool that both Facebook and Instagram have developed over the last few years is their STORY feature. This tool is so robust and a great (free!) way to engage with your community when used correctly. In this blog you will find some tips and tricks on how to utilize the social media story feature to share your own vibrant parish community with the world!

Stories? Why should I have to learn ONE MORE THING?

Social media is an extension of the wonderful community that your church has already built and, simply put, the way that the majority of your parishioners are communicating with each other in their daily lives. Did you know that 82% of people in the United States use Facebook to communicate with each other on a daily basis? Since this is the case, churches should consider using all of the tools that Facebook and other social media platforms offer in order to connect daily with their community and keep their community connected!

The story feature on Facebook and Instagram is designed specifically to encourage your following to message you and engage with each story post you make. Story posts expire after 24 hours and are usually quick and sweet while also incorporating easy to use tools for engagement. For this reason, using the stories feature makes it easier for you to engage with your followers on a daily basis! Stories are also a quick and easy way for you to collaborate with followers and repost their content — another tool you can use to engage with your community and lift up your parishioners!

So, What Exactly ARE Social Media Stories?

On Facebook and Instagram, a story is a post you can make that consists of either a photo or a short video. These posts work like a slide show and offer a new photo or video after a few seconds. Story posts show up in your STORIES FEED instead of on your regular ol’ newsfeed. Stories expire in 24 hours, so this feed is constantly refreshing. This is appealing to your users because they know that they should look at your stories if they want to find quick, current content from you. This attraction is evident in the fact that most posts using the stories feature get many times more views and interactions than newsfeed posts do. This is due to the allure of quick, current content, as well as the fact that Facebook provides more access points for users to view your stories than it does to your permanent newsfeed.

Why does Facebook prefer to promote story posts over regular newsfeed posts? In part it’s because story posts have a bunch of options for INTERACTIVE features that you can add to your photo or video which keep people using the app for longer amounts of time. These features are how you can direct more engagement with stories, and Facebook is ALL ABOUT getting as much engagement as possible.

Engagement tools you can add to story posts:

• Captions for accessibility for all users!
• viewer polls
• donation buttons
• question and answer prompts
• quizzes
• products to buy
• links
• music
• Countdowns
• Food orders
• Small business support shout outs
• mentions & tags

All responses to a story post will go to the app’s messaging feature as a direct message to you instead of being posted as a comment or a “like” as is standard on newsfeed posts. You can then message the user who interacted with your story, “like” whatever they sent via messenger, or use the engagement data collected from that story post. For example, if you are doing a poll and you get poll results, you could put those results in a new story post for even more engagement! Engagement, engagement, engagement!

What Kind of Content Should I Be Posting in Stories?

It’s this author’s opinion that all regular newsfeed posts should also be mirrored in your stories as story posts. Remember, more eyes are usually on stories than on newsfeed posts so one way to draw attention to a new newsfeed post is to also post it as a story!

Need help getting started? You’re in luck! In WeCreate, LPi’s digital library of ready-to-use content made specifically for you, there’s an entire selectin of images created specifically to be used in social media stories.

In WeCreate, these images can all be found under the section titled "Social Media Stories.” If you click that section and then use the search bar, the words you search will only turn up results that are sized and designed specifically to be used as Facebook and/or Instagram stories. Often these images are grouped in WeCreate with other images that are visually similar to them so that you can use them, one after the other, for multiple story slides! Basically, we made it really easy for you to just take our ready-made images and create in-depth stories for your church in the blink of an eye! You can simply save them from WeCreate and then drop them into whatever platform you are using — or if you are feeling fancy, you can overlay one of the special engagement tools (mentioned earlier in this blog) onto them.

Remember that for maximum viewership, it’s important to make sure that the privacy settings on your stories are set to public. This way, anyone who visits your church’s Facebook or Instagram can view them and interact with you!

The All-Important Story Highlight Menu

For Instagram users, your stories don’t actually have to have a 24-hour expiration date. To avoid this, make sure to build a library of your most important story posts by using Instagram’s Story Highlights tool. When you highlight a story, you are effectively building a catalogue of story content that you want to save permanently on your Instagram feed. You can separate these permanent story posts into categories of your choosing like news, milestones, staff introductions, polls, parishioner highlights, or whatever else you can come up with. This library of story content will show up as part of your Instagram profile and viewers will see these category options for story highlights before they even see your main newsfeed!

Conclusion — Tag us!

Want to connect with us? Tag LPi in your stories! Tagging another user in your story post makes it possible for that user to easily re-post your story into their own story feed! This is a great way to promote each other online by sharing content so, if you use our WeCreate story resources, feel free to tag us and maybe you will find your story reposted on our own social media accounts! On Facebook we are @LitPub and on Instagram we are @LPi_Community. See you in the social sphere!

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