Catholic Roundup

Rosary Army and SQPN are hosting the Catholic New Media Celebration on June 22 in Atlanta. Unfortunately that’s still the school year for me and it’s just too far to go for a weekend. If it were even one week later, my family would be there. I need to be with my online community to meet all of you face to face.

Even if I could be in Atlanta on June 22, I am registered for Podcasters Across Borders in Kingston, Ontario that weekend. PAB is the premier gathering for the Canadian and American Podcasting communities to meet and mingle. Last year it was a highlight of my year and I’m sure it will be again this year.

But, there’s still part of me that wants to be both places and be with all my podcasting acquaintances. Alas, it’s not possible. If you are within travel distance of either conference, I highly recommend that you try to attend one of them.

About 5 months ago Scott Maentz posted, To Join or Not to Join? on his blog about joining the Knights of Columbus.  To paraphrase his article:

One may have many reasons not to join the Knights, but the Knights of Columbus is a fraternal group of men who grow and share in their faith, are deeply devoted to Mary and the Eucharist, and who are dedicated to doing charitable works, particularly within one’s own community.

When put in those terms, I can’t see a down side.   Today I attended my 1st degree initiation meeting into the Knights of Columbus.  I’m not alone.  Along with Scott, as mentioned above, I know of 3 or 4 other men in the Catholic community on the web who have joined the Knights of Columbus this year.

When I started to get involved in podcasting I thought it was all about listening and producing  our own shows.   I came to realize that in fact podcasting (and blogging, and social media) were an invitation into a world-wide community.  My family has also experienced a deepening of our faith as we participate in the online Catholic community.  The fruit of this online Catholic community is that myself and many others are now feeling called to participate more deeply in older community building activities in their local parish (such as the knights)?

How is your experience of Social Media helping you to build real community within your home town, among your friends, and in your church?   Let me know in the comments.

After posting about 50 daily posts for my 40 Days of Catholic Media project, I thought I would take a couple days off before I got back to posting here.  Well, it’s been 3 weeks and here I am.  I originally started this blog as a way to explore the intersection between social media communities and faith communities.  I am still very interested in questions of how one grows within a community and helps a community to grow.

A few weeks ago I drove down to a podcaster meetup in Toronto.  During one of the lively discussions someone remarked that it was quite refreshing to be at a podcaster gathering now that most of the get rich quick, “How do I monetize podcasting?” crowd has drifted away.  Katherine Matthews of the Purl Diving podcast commented that we should not be concerned with how we monetize our podcasts but how we communitize them.   As an independent, DIY kind of guy and a proud hobbyist, this rang true for me.

As a participant in the Catholic blogging and podcasting communities I feel that we are in the early days of a new way to share and grow faith communities using modern social media tools.  Over the next while on this blog I’m going to continue to link to wonderful Catholic media and explore other ways to communitize what we are doing here.

You can hear some of the discussion from the Toronto Podcaster meetup  on the   Canadian Podcast Buffet Episode 99 and on Hot Fossils and Rebel Matters 137.

This week’s Catholic Carnival is hosted by blogger and musician extraordinaire,Bryan Murdaugh .

Thanks Bryan.

Here is Gonna Struggle, which he posted as a tribute to his late father at the end of the carnival.