DM006 Digital Ministry with Cliff Ravenscraft, the Podcast Answer Man, on techniques and technology around all things podcasting. Recorded live on February 10, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Be inspired by technology, technique, and theology.

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Guest: Cliff Ravenscraft, the Podcast Answer Man

Cliff Ravenscraft is the founder of GSPN.TV and is a full-time podcast producer and consultant. Among his shows is Podcast Answer Man, a weekly broadcast on techniques and technology around all things podcasting!

Topic: The nuns talk with Cliff about podcasting, what it is, how to get started, tips and secrets to a successful podcast, and growing online community.

We welcome  your questions for our guest. Please submit them using the comment box below or you can type them in the chat room during the live broadcast.

Show Notes

• what is a podcast and podcast basics
• The 11-step Checklist to Starting a Podcast in depth
• how does a podcast compare to a blog?
• what does an RSS feed have to do with a podcast
• deciding to go from podcasting as a hobby to podcasting for a living
• how do you make money as a podcaster?
• gaining financial insight from Dave Ramsey
• understanding podcasting and online community as a form of ministry
• the influence of Leo LaPorte
• the Generally Speaking Production Network – gspn.tv
• growing online community
• getting past the dreaded episode 7
• crossing multiple genres (entertainment, tech help, spiritual, etc.) in a single brand and keeping consistent
• do you need special equipment if you are starting out as an amateur?
• how do you “structure” your daily “work” day when there’s so much to be done to produce a podcast?

Digital Ministry covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month (today was an exception) from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Visit the Digital Ministry web page for more information including how to download this podcast after the live broadcast and our full podcast schedule.

DM005 Digital Ministry with Father Robert Barron on the theology of ministering online, how to proclaim the Gospel in a digital age. Recorded live on January 13, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Be inspired by technology, technique, and theology.

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Guest: Father Robert Barron

Father Robert Barron is a sought-after speaker on the spiritual life-from universities to YouTube to national conferences and private retreats. The Catholic theologian and podcasting priest is one of the world’s great and most innovative teachers of Catholicism. His global media ministry called Word On Fire has a simple but revolutionary mission – to evangelize the culture.

Topic: The sisters talk with Father Barron about WWJD? What would Jesus do given today’s digital technology and media? Does Scripture give us any clues on why or how we might use digital media for the sake of the Gospel? We discuss these topics and more on this episode of Digital Ministry.

Show Notes

• Fr. Barron’s ministry at WordOnFire.org and teaching at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake Mundelein seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago
• the variety of media that Fr. Barron uses to minister online
• the importance of reading and studying theology and the faith before ministering online
• using other people’s language to communicate the Gospel
• talking about the Gospel to people who are unchurched, or unfamiliar with religion
• like Jesus, hanging out in the “courtyard of the Gentiles,” a place where unbelievers can engage with the Catholic faith
• YouTube and the Internet as a virtual Areopagus (cf: Saint Paul preaching in the Areopagus, Acts 17:16-34)
• how ministering online affects one’s own prayer life
• the influence of Fulton Sheen
• the “YouTube heresies”
• Father Robert’s reviews of the movies Gran Torino and True Grit
• responding to people who show anger in their comments on YouTube or other websites
• thoughts on WWJD — what would Jesus do in today’s digital world
• themes from scripture that can encourage us in our online ministry
• the spiritual needs of people online and adapting to them
• balancing multiple ministry responsibilities and interacting online
• and thoughts on what sermon Fr. Barron would ask Jesus to preach!

Digital Ministry covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month (today was an exception) from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Visit the Digital Ministry web page for more information including how to download this podcast after the live broadcast and our full podcast schedule.

For more information, including upcoming guests and our full podcast schedule, visit the program page of Digital Ministry.

Continue the conversation day or night at the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.”

DM004 Digital Ministry with Avinash Kaushik on web analytics, search engine optimization (SEO) and getting visitors to your website. Recorded live on December 9, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Be inspired by technology, technique, and theology.

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Guest: Avinash Kaushik

Avinash Kaushik is the Analytics Evangelist for Google, author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day, and co-founder and chief education officer for Market Motive. He is also the author of the popular blog Occam’s Razor on web analytics.

Topic: The sisters talk with Avinash about how what web analytics and search engine optimization (SEO) are, how to attract people to one’s website, how to keep them coming back, and how to track and measure one’s website.

Show Notes:

• a first for Avinash: being interviewed by nuns!
• how Avinash got into working online
• what it means for Avinash to be an “evangelist” in his line of work
• a basic primer on web analytics and search engine optimization (SEO)
• a free downloadable PDF: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
• how to increase ranking on the search engines
• things search engines like
• things search engines don’t like
• what is meta-data — tags, keywords, descriptions — and how to use them
• a few ways to promote a website at no cost
• using Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with one’s website
• the value of making comments of value to other readers
• starting up with web analytics
• using WebsiteGrader.com to see how well is your website doing, if it’s getting traffic, if it has any SEO problems, and how popular is it in social media
• being yourself when writing a blog
• good content is always queen or king
• a case for why web analytics is important to have for any website
• understanding what a bounce rate is … see Avinash’s blog post on bounce rate for more info
• and more!

Digital Ministry covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month (today was an exception) from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Visit the Digital Ministry web page for more information including how to download this podcast after the live broadcast and our full podcast schedule.

For more information, including upcoming guests and our full podcast schedule, visit the program page of Digital Ministry.

Continue the conversation day or night at the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.”

DM003 Digital Ministry with Sr. Christine Ereiser, OSB, on using Twitter and providing meaningful content in 140 characters or less! Recorded live on November 9, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Be inspired by technology, technique, and theology.

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Topic: Using Twitter and providing meaningful content in 140 characters or less!

Guest: Sister Christine Ereiser, OSB

Sister Christine Ereiser is a Benedictine nun and the prioress of Saint Joseph Monastery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and an avid user of Twitter to promote Benedictine values. Sister Christine encourages the use of the Internet and social media within the Benedictine community and at Monte Cassino School, a pre-school through 8 grade school started by the Benedictine Sisters in 1926.

Listen to her story and be inspired!

Show Notes:

• ministry in 140 characters or less
• getting started with Twitter
• tweets and ministry potential
• getting retweets
• choosing topics or themes to tweet
• when not to tweet
• tweeting in support of corporate ministry
• the Benedictine values of hospitality and of stability on the Internet
• amount of time needed to tweet
• Twitter: distraction or ministry?
• advice for Twittering beginners
• a leader’s advice on getting leadership involved in today’s Internet communication
• and more!

Digital Ministry covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month (today was an exception) from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Visit the Digital Ministry web page for more information including how to download this podcast after the live broadcast and our full podcast schedule.

For more information, including upcoming guests and our full podcast schedule, visit the program page of Digital Ministry.

Continue the conversation day or night at the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.”

DM002 Digital Ministry with guests Maureen McCann Waldron and Father Andy Alexander, SJ, of Creighton University Online Ministries recorded live on October 14, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Be inspired by technology, technique, and theology.

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Guests: Father Andy Alexander, SJ, and Maureen McCann Waldron

Father Andy and Maureen are partners at Creighton University’s Collaborative Ministry Office and Online Ministries. Online Ministries has a 12-year history of responding to people’s needs in real language and real-life experience.

They have visitors from around the world and are conscious of tailoring their resources to fit people’s spiritual needs as well as their language, culture, and available technology. One of many current projects is to translate their resources (including their very popular online retreat) into a variety of languages, most recently Chinese!

Listen to their story and be inspired with new ideas for how you engage in  your online ministry.

Show Notes:

• starting small with online ministry
• making the online experience user-friendly, especially across languages and cultures
• getting a variety of sources of content
• promoting one’s online ministry (getting people to show up)
• how working collaboratively affects your ministry
• the inspiration behind Online Ministries
• authentic Catholic websites
• key websites for connecting with young people
• having a full-time job and ministering online as an “add-on”
• creating a website and web experience based on people’s needs
• content vs. form
• Jesus’ use of the technology of his day

Digital Ministry is a podcast on using Internet technologies and social media for ministry. The show is hosted by Sister Maxine and Sister Julie of A Nun’s Life Ministry and covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

For more information, including upcoming guests and our full podcast schedule, visit the program page of Digital Ministry.

Continue the conversation day or night at the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.”

DM001 Digital Ministry with guest Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com recorded live on September 9, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Sponsored by Vision Vocation Network. Our hosts talk with Lisa about social media, faith, building community and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Guest: Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com

Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com, a web site focusing on the Catholic faith, parenting and family life, and Catholic cultural topics. The site includes Lisa’s blog, articles by a variety of columnists, podcasts, videos, and many other resources. Lisa is author of the book, The Handbook for Catholic Moms.

Topic: A pioneer’s experience using digital technology & media for ministry

Show Notes:

• the meaning of “digital ministry” compared to “ordinary” ministry
• getting started with online ministry
• how being a mom helps
• a few “ah-HA” moments
• Lisa’s book The Handbook for Catholic Moms (nuns like it too!)
  
• using Facebook as part of one’s digital ministry mix
• making a website more interactive
• getting people to actually come to one’s web site or social media page
• on whether YouTube videos or podcasts should be “professional”
• advice to people starting or already involved in digital ministry
• energy for when the batteries run out

Digital Ministry is a podcast on using Internet technologies and social media for ministry. The show is hosted by Sister Maxine and Sister Julie of A Nun’s Life Ministry and covers a mix of things covering techniques, technology, and theology in order to enhance one’s capacity to do ministry, to witness to the Gospel in every day life on the Internet. The show airs on the second Thursday of the month from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

For more information, including upcoming guests and our full podcast schedule,  visit the program page of Digital Ministry.

Continue the conversation day or night at the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and look for the topic “Digital Ministry Podcast Listeners.”

Many thanks to our program sponsor VISION Vocation Network.

Today’s Nunday has an honorary nun guest — Brother Chris Valka, CSB, of the Congregation of Saint Basil. And yes, we have his picture! Chris recently spoke on Faith in Cyber Communities at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, and was written up in the Western Catholic Reporter (March 23, 2009).

Valka presented historical highlights of the Church’s mostly positive views on communications.

“History not only gives us perspective, but it also conveys the optimistic stance the Church takes towards media. The Church has never seen the media as an obstacle,” he said.

People who cannot find answers at the institutional Church of brick and mortar are searching for answers in other places, including the cyber community. This gives people worldwide a place to gather and ask life’s tough questions. In spite of the great distance between them, they can debate, discuss and live out the answers.

Be sure to read Brother Chris’s other observations and ideas about new media and the Catholic Church in the article New media can break through barriers in the Western Catholic Reporter (March 23, 2009).

I had the pleasure of meeting Brother Chris back in 2007 when he interviewed me for his podcast series Conversations with Macrina:

A Discussion About Religious Life (June 23, 2007)

What do you think we religious should be doing online? Would you like us to do more with new media such as podcasts, live discussions, etc.? Give me some ideas about what would interest you, what you think would be helpful to people.

The Vatican has just published a message from Pope Benedict XVI in anticipation of the 43rd World Day of Communications.

New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship (January 24, 2009) is the theme for this year. Writes the Pope,

The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. These changes are particularly evident among those young people who have grown up with the new technologies and are at home in a digital world …

Pope Benedict addresses the digital generation and offers to them (and to all of us) ideas of how to use the new technologies for good “to promote human understanding and solidarity.”

These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavour to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

While noting the many practical benefits of the new media and technologies, the Pope points out that the digital communication ultimately reflects our fundamental human desire to relate to one other.

This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations…. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call – a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.

Pope Benedict encourages people “Who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.” He then goes on to explain what each of these three elements mean and concludes with an appeal to young Catholic believers to mirror the great Apostles and disciples of the early Church who brought the Good News of Jesus to the world by living the Gospel and proclaiming the Good News to all in the digital world.

I highly recommend reading the full text of the Pope’s message. What does it mean in terms of how we use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, forums, text messaging, and other social networking technologies? How are we (Catholic sisters, parents, teachers, catechists, vocation directors, priests, and other Catholic leaders) present on these social networking sites and using the new technologies? Let us know what you think about the Pope’s message and what it’s call is to you.

P.S. Pope Benedict also just launched a Vatican YouTube channel. Read more at the LA Times.

September and October have been a wirlwind of activity for me. Let’s see … I’ve traveled to Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I’ve seen the Fall colors change in varying degrees in all of these states. I’ve prayed, played, presented, listened, worked, prayed some more, hiked, explored, laughed, and communed with God, with others, and with the great outdoors. It’s been a trip, literally and figuratively, and hopefully in a couple weeks things will settle down. So I’ve been a bit remiss in responding to emails (hang on — if you’ve written to me, I’ll be in touch soon!) and writing about various happenings.

One such happening was my delightful visit with Catholic Mom extraordinaire, Lisa Hendey. Lisa is the woman behind the popular website CatholicMom.com as well as the blog Catholic Mom Moments and Catholic Moments Podcast. Lisa is doing a tremendously good work for Motherhood and for spreading the Good News online. Lisa has an intelligent and compassionate Catholic presence online.

I first met Lisa online in one or another social network that we both were on. While plurking one day, I saw that Lisa was going to be visiting Chicago (she lives in Fresno … probably a lot warmer there right now than here in the Windy City). I invited her to visit and she accepted! Lisa came to Loyola Press where we chatted, toured the place, had lunch and did a podcast.  It was pretty awesome. Having had a few weeks to reflect back on our visit, what remains with me is a sense of spiritual companionship — being with someone where there is a meeting of spirits. Lisa’s active engagement in online ministry and use of new media is a blessing to me personally as well because it’s helpful to have ministerial colleagues in this vast World Wide Web. Online ministry is like a new mission land, a frontier to be explored and to be present on and to reflect the light of Christ. Plus, creating and sustaining an online ministry on a shoe-string (read: no) budget, finding time amidst other responsibilities, dealing with wonky networks and technical issues, etc. — all these can be a huge challenge for those of us in the digital missions. I’m glad to have Lisa as a friend in these adventures!

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of Lisa online and hopefully for an occasional visit here at A Nun’s Life.

To catch a bit of Lisa’s and my time together, listen to Lisa’s Catholic Moments podcast for a conversation between the two of us.

As a blogger and social media explorer, I inhabit the virtual world of the Internet on a daily basis. In a sense it’s really not virtual because real relationships and connections are made. But the people I meet online are usually known only by an avatar, a name, a few words of comment, and perhaps a blog of their own. Real people, but filtered through digital media — as am I.

So it is always a good, though unsettling experience, to connect with these same folks without the filter of digital media. This happened to me several times this week …

1. the host of a radio show read my comments, emailed me, then called me to see if I’d chat about the Miss Sister 2008 beauty pageant
2. an actor playing the role of a nun contacted me so that she could portray the nun as authentically as possible
3. a blogger whom I respect was at my place of ministry (When I met Julie D. of Happy Catholic that M&M commercial flashed through my mind where the M&Ms run into Santa and they say, “He DOES exist!”)

It takes a little getting used to because as with any filtered encounter (a picture, a website, a comment) one creates an image of the person in one’s mind — perfectly normal. But then when you learn more about the person, have an actually encounter with the flesh-and-blood person, it changes everything. Even a brief encounter with a real, live person can be so much more powerful than the virtual persons we are on the Internet. It gives me pause to think about how much our persons, our very presence communicates about who we are. It’s really quite cool and quite beautiful.

My friend Denise is twittering the online conversation with Father Martin … it’s one more way that we can use online technologies to get the word — the Word — out!

Check out Denise’s twittering at http://twitter.com/Denise205 … you can also find my occassional tweets at http://twitter.com/sisterj