FIMariaSteve

I decided to choose St. John the Baptist Catholic Church because it was the church I attended as I was growing up.I was interested to see what type of changes the church has made to motivate people to attend church. I remember the masses or services were always done in a very traditional way, just like they did for many, many years. I recently attended a mass and it was actually pleasant and motivating, The music wasn't a traditional choir, it was more upbeat and the priest delivered his sermon in a more friendly and encouraging way.They also have masses in English, Spanish and in Filipino. I was surprised to find out that St. John the Baptist Church has a web page: []. They use their website to inform parishoners of their events and to reach out to the community by providing information of the services they provide to help people. Some of the examples are:
 * __St. John the Baptist Church__**
 * **Life teen** - reaches out to youth to get them involved in the church with a Teen Life mass on Sundays targeted for teens.They provide a Teen Life Room which is a place to do homework or hang out on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Teen Prayer on Thursdays, Life Nights which are social activities within the church environment.
 * **Christian Social Service Program** - has contacts with government programs and agencies and companies to help those in need with Medi-cal, WIC, immigration, domestic violence, family problems, English and nutrition classes
 * Al-Anon -helping families of alcoholics
 * Unemployment/Employment - Christian Social Service offers the following employment assistance: How to prepare for a job, interview, agency referrals, job training, how to fill out a job application. We also attempt to help people secure employment through references and direct referrals. Placements for Domestic help, and Child Care. Christian Social Service also offers services in other areas, such as motivation, self esteem and communication.
 * Marriage Encounter - This service helps provide a solid spiritual foundation for marriages.

Now that St. John's is beginning to use technology to reach out by means of their website it would be nice if they could expand on it.Podcasts of their sermons or masses of the week would be great for those, that for some reason, cannot attend. They would be able to receive the message that the priest was getting across in his service. They could also use some of the Social Networking sites to collaborate with church members and also to promote upcoming events to nonmembers. Maybe they could possibly skype a special mass from the Bishop, the Cardinal or even from the Pope, That would be fantastic! Using Twitter on occasion during some of the masses would also be beneficial. While the priest is giving the mass, people from the congregation could tweet comments an/or questions. This would be one effective way of making the masses a bit more interactive.

I learned that St. John the Baptist Church may be heading in the right direction in order to reach out beyond the surrounding community but they are still behind the times compared to other churches. I spoke to a friend about her church. She attends Pomona First Baptist Church [] and she says that not only do they have a website, they also have podcasts of sermons and for the teens, they also are involved in Social Networking such as Facebook and Blogging. They also have videos for information and motivation. When she shared this with me I realized that technology can be a powerful tool to reach out to others and spread the message of God. There is no limit to how we can effectively and powerfully use technology to spread the Gospel and keep the Body of Christ connected. The only limits are our expertise and imagination.