One of the books I’m reading at the moment is The Church and the New Media. It’s an excellent resource for anyone who wants to “evangelise the digital continent,” as Pope Benedict puts it.

One of the authors suggests that every parish should assemble a committee of volunteers, which meets regularly, and is dedicated solely to co-ordinating the parish’s digital communications. A static website just doesn’t cut it anymore. It won’t be long before electronic media supersedes the old-and-reliable Sunday bulletin, and websites need to be developed which can enable this.

The St Mary’s Hamilton website is on the way to achieving this. A lot still remains to be done. The parish hasn’t yet waded into the new media — Facebook, Twitter, etc. An ‘iTeam’ will be started in the next few weeks to start work on this, and develop the website further.

What’s good for a parish is sometimes good for a seminary too. The Corpus Christi College website was redeveloped earlier this year, so that it is well equipped to “launch out into the deep” of new media. I see that the seminary blog was recently updated to relate news of this weekend’s national inter-seminary soccer tournament, and the upcoming Raffle Night. An excellent start!

Perhaps in the future an ‘iGroup’ can be added to the number of ministry groups which keep seminary life humming. It would not only breathe life into the seminary’s foray into digital media, but also prove excellent preparation for an increasingly important component of parish life.