Catholic Husband

Love / Lead / Serve

Build Your Parish

A few years ago, my parents’ parish redesigned their website. I have an interest in these sorts of things, so I complemented my mom one day on its beauty and usability. As it turns out, in a parish full of technologists, they were paying a 3rd party company to build and run their website. My mom expressed dismay that no one had stepped forward to take on that responsibility.

Alison and I love our parish. It’s a small community in mission country, which I think binds us closer together. It’s a parish like any other, with many jobs that need to be done, all requiring a time commitment and volunteer help. We’re all busy and there can be a struggle filling those needs.

Now that we have three small children, but truthfully even when we just had two, there were many volunteer opportunities that we had to decline because of our commitment to raising these children. That’s especially true of liturgical roles. I wouldn’t want Alison to leave me alone in the pew with the kids while she went up to lector.

Web design is one of my skills, and I noticed that our parish website could be doing so much more for our community. So I volunteered to take it on as a project, to convert it to modern standards, and expand it as a tool for our community. It’s a volunteer role, but one that I can easily manage to fit into my schedule.

We each have skills that could benefit our parish community. When we contribute, we all get to enjoy the fruit. Our parishes should be so much more than a physical space where we go to Mass for an hour a week. They should be a hub of our family’s spiritual and social life. By contributing in the ways that we can, we build stronger parishes— places that we will want to gather.