By Vernon Khelawan

Last time around, a little less than four years ago, a major effort was made to improve overall communication in parishes. It was done through the formation of parish media teams, if for no other reason than to allow parishioners the opportunity to know what was happening in the parish.

As with many things in our world, some units have done very well, while others have experienced varying degrees of success.

To build on the success achieved so far and to encourage growth in the parish communication environment, a CAMSEL team led by Vicar for Communications, Msgr Cuthbert Alexander, has launched a series of meetings to review the work of the teams since those training sessions were completed in 2007. The goal is to learn what has worked and what has not, and discuss best practices to achieve supreme results.

According to Msgr Alexander, “It is hoped that through this exercise, CAMSEL will be able to sharpen its vision for parish media teams and develop a plan for working with the parishes.”

But while the importance of communication within a parish is critical to the enlightenment of parishioners, any parish communication has to be regarded as a vehicle for evangelisation.

It must be recognised that communication through any medium is critical to successful evangelisation and every effort should be made to capitalise on each and every parish communication module.

Living in the digital age allows us the use of so many different vehicles to evangelise, and that to miss the opportunities provided would be a disservice not only to all those involved in the new evangelisation, but to the entire Church body as well.

It is incumbent on all therefore, to assist in the growth and development of your Parish Media Team in a positive way. It can open the door to greater and more sustainable evangelisation opportunities, something which must be borne in mind if we are to really engage in meaningful evangelisation.