My friend Lisa Hendey pointed out this article on the Aggie Catholic website.  I thought it was a neat way of using new technologies for the age-old problem of getting people to register for their parish/campus ministry.

The article states well how hard it is to get college students to take the time to fill out a registration card.  Using the context of Mass, when the students are all gathered together, is an idea that most campus ministries already use.  The idea of doing it by cell phone while they are sitting in the pews is new and innovative.

I know that some people will complain about doing something like this during Mass, with good reason.  However, in my opinion, the benefit of actually knowing who your community is and how they can best be served by your ministry, outweighs this one time disruption.

Let’s be honest, is this really worse than having DDF or mission appeals during homilies?  I don’t think so.

http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-we-asked-our-parishioners-to-bring.html