Young Catholics are waiting to find your community!
Our new program brings them in.
We can reach vocation candidates —
with a guaranteed program
"The Church has confidence in the young."
Vocations are down nowadays — blah, blah blah.
Folks, I’ve heard enough.
It’s time to stop moaning about a lack of candidates for the priesthood and religious life. Let’s take a cue from Pope Benedict, who said just a few days before his announced retirement, “The Church has confidence in the young. She hopes in them and in their energy. She needs their vitality.”
God calls people to consecrated life, and we must step up to the plate, with the Holy Spirit as our batting coach.
In the last few weeks, we at Vocation Promotion have discovered a new technique — in reaching young Catholics who are thinking about a religious vocation.
There are in fact thousands of young, single, church-going Catholic men and women who have thought about such a vocation — and you can connect with them.
Curiosity about consecrated life
But before I tell you about this method, I want to share with you some profound discoveries about this. First of all, there is a curiosity, an admiration, and an interest in the consecrated life. Yes, there are Catholics out there who, at various levels of maturity, have one thing in common — they have a real interest, even if nascent, in consecrated life — a life devoted completely to God.
But there is something else that we have discovered: vocation directors working with us on this project are energized over the results of our program. They are happy to meet these young people on the internet, and find out about their needs and questions.
“This is better than a brochure and a website,” says one Franciscan Sister, who adds that she has found two or three potential vocations among the group we have provided.
Peter’s boat
You must fish in the right boat.
If you have found your vocation program in the doldrums, perhaps it is because you have been looking in the wrong place. The Gospel this past Sunday was that Peter’s boat was filled with fish, and it seems that the other boat was empty. Conclusion: Ya gotta be fishing in the right boat, friends.
Here’s our secret: We have developed a “Come & See Quiz” survey, developed over years and years of experience working with religious communities and vocations. (I myself spent six years in a lay Dominican community.)
Our survey probes the interests, religious practices, and qualifications of young people, and gathers their names and emails. The survey is placed on your website with a simple line of code that your webmaster can put in (or we can do it). We bring people to the survey with our time-tested advertising (I won’t go into how much time and money, and the failed efforts we put up with to develop this technique. But now it works like a Swiss watch.)
Surprised at results
Frankly, I was surprised when I looked at the results of the final survey. After seven months of work, and so many false trials, I had almost given up, and was ready to tell my Sisters that it was a flop. And then, there it was, displayed on the survey spreadsheet — the hearts and minds of our next generation of religious.
Here’s what some of these candidates said:
“On a serious note, where is your motherhouse located? Where would I go for a retreat? I have not heard too much about your order before….”
“I came to your website via [your ad] the day after I asked for some help to learn what I’m being called to. I don’t really think that’s a coincidence!”
You see, our secret combines the best of communications techniques — garnered with years of marketing and advertising experience, with the best of tech-savvy internet techniques.
With this method, dozens of these candidates to religious life can be brought to your doorstep so that you can communicate with them, help them along, and eventually bring them into your community. That goes for both active and cloistered communities.
