I mentioned in another post, I had met Fr. Leo Patalinghug (he told us during the keynote that his last name is pronounced ‘Smith’) I was so impressed by the preview of the webisodes of Grace Before Meals. There’s a lot to see and hear at Gracebeforemeals.com.

It seems he almost had a deal with the Food Channel, but it fell through. Fr. Leo has a way to help promote Grace Before Meals. It would be a gift to have Fr. Leo’s work seen all over the world.

I didn’t get much time to spend with Fr. Roderick. I ran into him in the foyer and grabbed this pic. He gave a very good presentation on the 7 steps to podcasting. It was a decidedly non-geek approach. His points were 1. Deal with your passion 2. Who are you trying to reach? 3. Learn their language 4. Take your tools 5. Start to speak… you know, I didn’t list the final two. I hope SQPN releases these into the wild soon.

I’ll post some more pics soon.

I really enjoyed the Catholic New Media Conference and I applaud Greg and Jennifer Willits for organizing that event. They did a super job! It was great to meet people from around the country who shared this same passion for evangelization through new media. So much talent in one room was amazing. People have so many personal gifts and talents to give to the Church.

However, no matter how great anyone’s media product is — and I think some are truly great — without a strong distribution network to the greater Catholic space, the Church can never truly benefit. I am exhausted by three things in the Catholic media world: 1) we are so tickled and delighted by response in the 100s and 1000s. One guy said he had “84 hits” on his website one week — and he was totally thrilled by this (but, hey, I’d take 84 hits on this web site any week!). Someone else had a product utilized by about 33,000 Catholics. Yes, better, I know, but with a Church numbering in the millions in North America, 33,000 is a drop in a bucket; 2) we keep hitting the same orthodox audience each time. I’ve got a message for all the wonderful orthodox Catholics out there — Hey, the new evangelization is NOT about us. It’s about that cultural, pew-warming Catholic who knows diddly squat about their faith. Good news is that they keep coming to Mass (many are now part of the second largest denomination in the US — ex Catholics). Bad news is they don’t know why. Those are the folks that the New Evangelization is for. We need to find a way to go directly to them; 3) The idea that we make good media evangelization tools, but the audience needs to come to us. We need to wake up and realize that those cultural, pew warming Catholics are not interested in our media and are never going to seek us out. Out of pure love for their souls, we need to find a way to go to THEM with our messages.

This gets me to my point. All this great Catholic media — both new and old - is useless unless we crack the biggest nut in the Catholic space — distribution. We all need to collaborate to create the biggest and best distribution network that takes great Catholic content right to the average pew-warming Catholic who desperately needs this message, whether they know it or not. We have to find a way to take the media to them, put it under their nose and pray the Holy Spirit uses it to form their hearts with greater love for him and understanding of him.

Any ideas…?

New Media Celebration 2008 isnow history. It was a very good start. By rough count there were around 200 attendees. My favorite talk was the keynote by Fr. Leo. It was funny and inspiring. He was very charitable in how he said it but he made it clear that Catholic media needs to raise the bar in terms of quality. I loved how he said that we need to find our sense of “style” and if we don’t have one, then we should find someone who does.

I bought his book “Recipes for Family Life” I had a picture taken with him. I’ll get them uploaded when I get home tomorrow. Fr. Leo has a blog entry on his experience at the Celebration, as well.

It was a good first year. The panels were weak, and the flow of the day needs to be tweaked. I am very greatful, however, that the folks at SQPN put all the work in to make it possible.

Now, I’ve got to get some sleep. I need to be up by 4am.

Next weekend I will be at PodCamp Ohio. I’ve never been to a PodCamp before, it should be interesting.

One of the joys of working in New Media has been the opportunity to work with such amazing and gifted individuals and groups. It ha been strange to have collaborated with so many of you years before we met face-to-face.

That is one reason I am excited about the New Media Celebration. SQPN always puts on a good show, but I am most looking forward to seeing my online friends and getting to know others I know only by reputation.

If you plan on being in Atlanta this weekend (August 20-22, 2008) drop me a line at mkreidler [at] catholicmediapartners {dot} com.

BTW, I am writing this on my new Asus Eee PC 2G Surf. I used it during my six day trip to Missouri. The keyboard is a challenge since it is so small. Once I added an external mouse I found general navigation a snap. I bought it as a webmail and general web machine I don’t regret the $299 price.

I’ll have it with me in Atlanta at the New Media gathering. I look forward to seeing you there.

Yes, it’s a new day! A new day for Catholic media professionals. A new day for professionalization, for networking and for connecting with other like minded Catholics desiring to evangelize through modern media. Michael Kriedler and I have dreamed of this day for four years — a day when all talented Catholic media professionals could have a place to come, to share talents, ideas, and creativity “outside of the box,” outside of the current gatekeepers that for too long have defined what good and acceptable Catholic media should be.

Yes, it’s a new day. A new day for evangelization. It’s time to stop aiming all of our evangelization efforts at a small core of faithful Catholics who are already evangelized and starting cracking the nut of all those pew-warming Catholics who are still in the Church, but are vastly uncatechized and unformed in their faith. It’s this group that the New Evangelization is geared toward — not the orthodox few. Our efforts needs to be geared toward those methods that reach the culture — both Catholic and secular. By harnassing the best of old media and the potential the new, we can begin to reach all those souls who do not even know they need to be reached.

Yes, it’s a new day. It’s a new day for media and evangelization and Catholic Media Partners is humbled to serve these arenas. Take time to check out our site. It’s here… for you. It’s free…for you. Come on in, join, network, grow your business, reach more souls.