Virtual Platform Help:
Zoom Meeting Tip Sheet
Social Media Platforms
The Domestic Church & Creating Sacred Space in Your Home:
- Watch the Mass on EWTN or online. Some of our own diocesan parishes are even streaming Mass each week on their website or on their Facebook page, including the Bishop doing one on the diocesan YouTube channel at 10am on Sundays! Trying to find a live one and not sure where to look? Check out With Your Spirit – they are compiling a list of every Live Streamed Mass schedule in the world!
- Look up the readings on USCCB, read them together or listen to them proclaimed, and listen to a homily via YouTube or a podcast. A podcast homily to start with is Bishop Robert Baron.
- Pray An Act of Spiritual Communion when you can’t physically receive Holy Communion.
- Read a reflection on the daily readings from the Magnificat – it is offering complimentary access to its online version in response to the coronavirus.
- Pick a space in a room to be your sacred space. Move a chair to face a crucifix or saint icon, dim the lights, light a candle, and spend time with the Lord. If you have a hard time sitting in silence, start by playing your favorite worship song or Gregorian chant to help you enter into your prayer time.
- Change your phone background to something that helps you remember to pray throughout the day or reminds you of the liturgical season.
- Does someone at your house play an instrument? Look up the music for your favorite church song and sing praise to God together as a family!
- Pray a rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet. If you’re looking for a recording, check out different options on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify to pray along with.
- Meditate on the Stations of the Cross each Friday in Lent! Read it together as a family on EWTN’s website.
- Have a favorite saint? Look up what their rhythm of prayer would have been every day and pick one or two ways to incorporate that into your own life.
- Attend virtual Eucharistic Adoration around the world by checking out Virtual Adoration
- Pray a Novena for the end to the Coronavirus. Check out the Pray More Novenas website!
- Need to liven up your family’s daily prayer routine? Hear To Pier: Daily Family Prayer for ideas!
- Part of the Domestic Church is maintaining a strong relationship with your spouse. The Joyful Marriage Project has pdf pages with conversation starters and ways to pray together.
- Help your family stay safe in the virtual online world by looking at the website Protect Young Eyes
Practical Ideas for Virtual and Remote Young Adult Ministry:
- Host your Bible Study through a platform like Zoom or Google Hangouts Meet.
- If you need ideas for online studies, check out The Wild Goose or org
- For women’s group resources, look at Endow, Blessed Is She and Take Up & Read – they have lots of good online studies as well as social media engagement!
- Send out podcast suggestions and then have everyone share their favorite thoughts through a text chain or conference call. Head to our PODCAST PAGE for suggestions!
- Have a few men who want to stay connected and build up their faith? Have them commit to doing Exodus 90 together! Click here for more details.
- Looking for faithful information to share with young adults about health, wellness, relationships, careers, and finance? Connect them to the Grotto Network!
- Think about an activity that your group of young adults like to do together – doing a cooking class, having a painting night – and do it virtually! Send out a list of supplies needed ahead of time so people can be prepared, and then meet-up over a platform like Zoom or Google Hangout for the actual activity.
- Contact a local foodbank, Catholic Charities, or parish and purchase an extra bag of food during your next grocery trip to drop off at the location they suggest! Your small group of young adults can make a huge difference right now.
- Challenge each other to each find one older adult to check on once a week. Maybe it’s a grandparent, maybe it’s a next door neighbor. Call them or knock on their door and talk to them through a window – you can find out if they need anything, share stories of your favorite moments in life, and ask them how you can pray for them!
Practical Ideas for Virtual and Remote Youth Ministry:
- Provide families with modified Life Night or Youth Group outlines so that they can do them as a family at home.
- Host small groups through a platform like Zoom or Google Hangouts Meet. Make sure to have at least 2 VIRTUS-trained adults as the first 2 people on the call!
- Be creative with group messaging apps to help foster small group conversations outside of traditional youth group meetings. Look into resources like GroupMe and Remind
- Call each one of your teens every week that you don’t see them and pray with them on the phone.
- Host a Trivia night through
- Play creative versions of normal youth group games through Zoom
- Invite your teens to Life Teen’s Global Life Night Experience every Sunday night at 5pm
- Sign up to have your parish join Project YM Live! Click here for details.
- Encourage your teens to join Life Teen’s “Lectio Live” YouTube event on Wednesdays at 6pm.
- Share Life Teen’s Summitwebsite with families, and use this time as a way to immerse your youth ministry in the Word of God.
- Ramp up your ministry’s social media game and be interactive: do surveys on Instagram stories, post daily reflections or videos on Facebook, or consider hosting your own virtual Life Night through Instagram Live
- Try out a virtual small group Bible Study from Robert Feduccia
- For online lessons on the intersection of our Catholic faith and current events, check out the Sophia Institute
- Sending birthday cards to teens during this time!
- Have a game night over a platform that lets you share your screen using Jackbox! Just make sure to turn the family settings on for the game you choose.