Ministry and parish traditions are an exciting part of practicing the faith and a deepening spiritual life. These activities are great at bringing people together as a community; however, some situations may arise when not everyone can attend. Luckily, your eCatholic-powered website provides you with tools that will enable anyone to participate in ministry, no matter their location.
Create an interior page for your content so that there is one central location for visitors to access your ministry materials. Consider giving your page an alias like, "virtual ministry" or “parish mission” so that you can easily communicate it to your parishioners.
Example used: Stations of the Cross
A Gallery module that uses multiple images can help inform, instruct, and even step participants through a process like prayer. Use pictures of your parish’s stations and include additional modules with the words to the prayer, a link to download a worship guide, or even a video for participants to listen to and follow along.
Example used: Children’s Catechesis
A Documents module makes it easy to present all necessary pages of information in one place. After uploading your PDF files to the file manager, you can easily make them available for participants to download and use at home.
Note: You may also upload .docx, .xls, and other file formats; however, remember that not all site visitors may have the same computer programs for viewing specific file types.
Example used: Small Group Meeting
eCatholic's Section Layouts offers a Tabs section that is often thought of for communicating frequently asked questions; however, the feature can also walk page visitors through an experience or even direct small groups in a series of questions.
Example used: Volunteer Training
Video modules give you several options for using video directly on your program page. Recorded content posted to an organization’s YouTube or Vimeo channel can easily be embedded right onto your dedicated ministry page by simply using the video’s URL. If you have an eCatholic LIVE subscription, you can live stream speakers or feature archived videos for people to watch at their own convenience.
Example used: Questions & Answers with a Pastor
A Forms module makes it incredibly simple to collect feedback from participants, or encourage more involvement. If you host a Q&A with your pastor, create a form for parishioners to submit questions ahead of time.
The opportunities can be almost endless. And even though ministry programs offered online may not be ideal, it is still a way to engage those who are homebound, ill, or even traveling.
Learn more: Create a remote worship experience online