When we hear the term the “New Evangelization,” we think of large scale ways to spread the Gospel and the message of Christ. While most of the world may know about Jesus and His mission, the Bible and God’s mercy, there is still much to evangelize. Many people tend to fall away from their faith for several different reasons.

Blessed Pope John Paul II said every Christian is called to the New Evangelization. In responding to that call, we have many more tools available than they did back in apostolic times.  Today, we have technology to help us out. With a click of the mouse we can be well on our way to spreading the Good News to the entire world.

What are some ways we can use technology to answer this call?

Before I was aware of the call to the New Evangelization, I realized the need for children to understand the faith in their hearts as well as their minds in order to resist some of the world’s temptations. This led me to develop and run an online Catholic children’s magazine.  I heard the call in my heart and even though I was afraid it was too big for me I put my trust in God and answered the call.

This is a large scale way of evangelizing. However, we can participate in the New Evangelization on a smaller scale, yet still preach to the whole world. We can blog about our faith by setting up a free account on sites like Blogger, WordPress, or my favorite – St. Blogs. Many of my Facebook and Twitter friends have accounts and post articles, quotes, or inspirations all based on the faith and the Gospel.

One caution on social network sites is to always be charitable in comments. The loudest way we evangelize is also the most subtle – our behavior.

Where should you start?

If you’re not much of a writer, but still want to use technology, I suggest using Twitter. There you can post inspirations, links, and quotes up to 140 characters long.

One of the producers on the Son Rise Morning Show (Matt Swaim, @MattSwaim on Twitter) does daily grateful tweets in addition to his other posts. To get an idea, check out his posts or the hashtag #gratefultweet (he has a number of other people inspired to do the same).

Setting up your account is easy. Go to www.twitter.com  and follow these steps:

  1. Fill in the form box.
  2. Click the “sign up for twitter” button
  3. Verify the information on the next page
  4. Twitter will walk you through the set up process
  5. Select some people to follow.  If you are setting up for the purpose of evangelizing, select some other Catholics to follow such as Lisa Hendey (@LisaHendey), Sarah Reinhard (@peerybingle) or even myself (@JenGl).
  6. If there’s a step you want to skip, at the bottom of the page there’s a “skip this step”.  Click that and you’re on to the next step.
  7. Upload a profile picture and put a little bio to tell people who you are and what you will tweet about.
  8. Then you are done. Think of your first tweet and you are on your way to spreading the good news!

What’s great about Twitter is if you see tweet you liked, you can retweet it so your followers will see it as well.  Enjoy the ride. You can tweet as much or as little as you wish. Visit some of the people you follow for ideas on what to tweet about.

Happy evangelizing!

Read more of our Tech Talk columns.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Gladen