Are You Thinking Easter Yet?
Easter, Ash Wednesday and Christmas are the three times a year when many people who are not regular church goers look for a church. That includes many inactive Catholics. Will you be putting your parish name out there with a welcome message? Now is the time to put your plans in place.
There are a number of ways to get a welcome message out to your community. One of the most effective ways is a short, upbeat video. Once again, I will create a welcome video for your Easter Vigil and Sunday Masses to place on your website, Facebook page or send via email. If you have your own photos, I will use them. If you do not have photos, I can provide backgrounds. Here is the sample video.
If you would like to order this video customized for your parish, click here.
Whether we use a video or not, the important thing is that we put the welcome word out to all in our community. We need to say welcome with no strings attached and we need to say it in as many ways as possible. If you say that your church is already packed on Easter, that is not the point. We want to make sure that everyone who is there or is thinking about coming knows that they are really welcome on Easter and always!
If you have already made your Easter outreach plans, please share them with us below. Thank you.
Comments (6)
Caroline Cerveny, SSJ-TOSF, D. Min
February 23, 2016 at 9:52 am
Sr. Susan, Wonderful suggestion here. And for those folks who are wondering if you could do this yourself – yes you can? And the tool to use is Animoto. Just go to Animoto.com where you can create a FREE 30-second video with the images you have. Once you learn the tool, you can look at other membership levels. Often organizations with NPO status are free.
Sr. Susan Wolf, SND
February 23, 2016 at 10:01 am
Free is always good if you have the time, talent and interest to learn the tool. My offer is for those parishes who do not have someone who can do that and want a professional looking video to use this Easter.
Pilar
February 24, 2016 at 4:19 pm
Sr. Susan, if I may ask, which program do you use to create your videos? Thanks!
Sr. Susan Wolf, SND
February 24, 2016 at 4:31 pm
Pilar,
I use Video Maker FX-Video Creation Software. It is for marketeers and businesses, but I have adapted it for parishes, religious communities and ministries. I can only use a fraction of the templates as they are for businesses. I have had to purchase additional slide templates and supplement with other software but I get the results I want.
Dorothy Valla
February 24, 2016 at 8:43 pm
This is a really lovely video. Thank you for the information. Hoping to be able to do something with it.
Keith Alberts
February 29, 2016 at 5:29 pm
I always receive a postcard from a non-denominational church. Our websites receive more traffic on Ash Wednesday than any other single day of the year. You can find some tips on Lent comunications on our blog – http://www.vibrantparish.us/blog/BUILDING-A-VIBRANT-PARISH-BLOG-FOR-YOUR-CATHOLIC-CHURCH/70-000-phone-calls
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