Good Fridays: Matches, Kindling and Freebies

Here are some good things I found this week going on in the Church:

Catholic and Single? - CatholicMatch.com just launched a new blog aimed at the record 22 million Catholic singles in the United States. It’s a good lookin’ blog with lots of great contributors (I’m excited to be contributing as well). And it is geared toward a demographic of Catholics who, IMHO, we need to be making extra efforts to reach out to. Check out this post on Why Singles Should Unplug Periodically.

Sheen Reborn? - I’m really excited about this bit of news. Fr. Robert Barron is going to be the first priest since Archbishop Fulton Sheen to have a regular, national program on a commercial television network. He’ll be on every week on WGN starting October 3rd. Father Barron has a unique ability to speak to a segment of our culture who is thirsting for the truth. I can’t wait to see how his show does. And I pray for its success.

Reaching Out to Inactive Catholics - Just heard about this ministry. Sounds like a good idea to me. We have an unprecedented number of inactive Catholics right now. Our evangelization efforts need to adapt to who we’re trying to evangelize. Many of them are just waiting to be invited and welcomed back.

From Atheism to Catholicism - Jennifer Fulwiler shares her faith story plus 7 lessons she learned about conversion. It’s free audio and definitely worth a listen.

Kindling Catholics - This blog is starting to collect free Catholic resources for your Kindle. One of the reasons I love my Kindle is because of all of the free or cheap Catholic books. It’s a whiz bang deal. I’ll be checking back to this site as they gather up more greatness.

Webinar: Using Social Media and Best Practices - The Catholic Press Association is holding a webinar on September 24th. It is a “presentation on how the Church can use social media, offering us guiding principles, major challenges specific to religious organizations, definitions of social media, suggested guidelines for personnel using social media, special concerns regarding minors, and more.” Might be a good exercise for your parish or organization to attend. If you do attend, please let me know how it goes!

Getting Quality Catholic Content Online - Interesting article on the quality of Catholic content online. It’s true. We need to adopt a standard of excellence and work to get the right people into the right roles for the Church online.

National Catholic Development Conference - A Sept 18-22 conference focusing primarily on the ministry of Catholic fundraising. I’d be interested how much they emphasize a connection between orthodox Church teaching -> passion -> how much parishioners are willing to give of their time, treasure and talent.

Chesterton for FREE - If you like Chesterton (who doesn’t?), you should check out the American Chesterton Society’s podcast. They’re free. And about Chesterton. ‘Nuff said.

Simply St. Philip - I like simple websites. This is a simple website. It displays a new quote from St. Philip Neri each day. That’s it. Can you think of any other simple websites we could make to promote the faith well?

Have a good Friday! And please feel free to Tweet or email me (email address found in right side bar) any stories you come across that you’d like to see in a Good Fridays post!

Good Fridays is a weekly series highlighting some good things going on in the Church - especially those using new media or innovative ideas to more effectively live out the mission of the Church.