Recently I told you about a group of Carmelite nuns in New York who were able to find a lot of recruits for their Vocation Day retreat.
Today I have another success story – an unexpected one.
I had received an email from the mother superior of a contemplative community, who had responded to one of my Vocation Director’s newsletters. (Sign up here for the newsletter and get a fee ebook.) The newsletter had asked if I was getting through to readers in how they could could use social media advertising to promote vocations.
No need of this
She wrote back, saying she had no need of this, explaining that they were getting a good number of vocations. Here’s what she said. (Mother superior requested anonymity.)
Dear Kevin,
Peace and blessings! We just want you to know that we are receiving so many contacts from prospective candidates and have received a good number of young sisters into our novitiate program, that we do not see a need, at this time, to actively promote vocations.
It is like a miracle that we now have 10 in the novitiate, and we are so grateful for all of your help!
May God bless you!
Well, I was pleasantly surprised.
But Mother proved me dead wrong.
I have to admit that I was surprised that a contemplative community, hidden away from the world, could be discovered by the world around it without much outside effort. Since I am a marketing man, my thinking was that you need to have a vigorous promotion and referral system in place to let such a community be known.
What’s your secret sauce? I wrote back in so many words. Whatever you’re doing should be shared with other communities, so that they could grow their community with new postulants and novices, too.
She wrote back recently, and here’s what she said:
Dear Kevin,
Praised be Jesus!
We are happy to share what we have been doing in the hope that it will help others to attract and keep vocations. Primarily of course, our first source for vocations is through prayer and sacrifice. Also, one of our Sisters had passed away in 2010 and we begged her to intercede before the Throne of God for postulants, and they started coming!
Also, we have a monthly holy hour (on First Friday) in the evening for the intention of holy vocations. We also take turns making an extra visit to the Blessed Sacrament, joined with a sacrificial prayer, offered for this intention. We have had several “Come & See” days and a few “Nun Runs” pass through.
Most of all, though, I believe the website has attracted a lot of prospective candidates. Then I correspond with them for some time (through email), invite them to visit, and journey with them in their discernment.
We are amazed at how the Lord has blessed us!
We pray He will do the same with many other communities!
The Lord be with you!
(Mother also added that they have a blog.)
Hmm….
What attracts so many candidates, when it is difficult for others to attract vocations to contemplative communities? Could it be one of these?
- They are all Olympic prayer champions
- Their member in heaven has a special place next to St. Peter
- They have Pulitzer-prize winning blog writing skills
- All members are “buying in” to their goal of vocations
- Great milk shakes on their discernment retreats
(OK, forget the last one.)
Vocations for contemplative communities
I took a closer look at their website. It has 17 pages, each with different themes of prayer and the contemplative life. Nothing remarkable. The website is a simple one. While it can be read easily on a desktop, is not well suited for mobile viewing. Since we fixed some features on their site several years ago, I was able to peek into their viewer analytics. They get 230 visits per month, which is about 7 per day – a good, but moderate amount. The average viewer spends 1:37 minutes on the website – a good amount also, as websites go.
Twenty-six percent of their visits come from their blog, which is a high amount. Their blog is hosted on Blogspot, a free blog hosting service. They wrote six posts on their blog this year so far, and six all of last year. Not a whole lot. In previous years they wrote forty or fifty or more posts per year. (Guess they are too busy accommodating the new members now.) The posts are written accounts of their new members upon their investiture.
Broken the marketing rules
You have to admit that their website and blog contribute a good amount to their steady flow of members, as mother attests. Email communication is also important. Besides that, however, when it comes to vocations for contemplative communities, they have broken most of the marketing rules, and yet are happy with new members.
Aside from miracles, you might need social media marketing to promote vocations. See our Come & See Vocation Promotion Program.
