As people spend more time online, many parishes might be looking for ways to connect with parishioners in places other than in the pews – or even in person.

The days when a weekly bulletin was enough to keep parishioners engaged with the goings on of their spiritual homes have passed, and we all need to find ways to connect from Sunday to Sunday.

More parishes are going the app route, and more companies are tailoring their business for the trade.

Edmundo Reyes, founder and CEO of Catholic Parish Apps, told the Catholic News Service that in the less-than-one year since his company launched, he’s gotten 65 parish apps off the ground, has several dozen more in the works, and has contracted with the Diocese of Orange, California, and the Archdiocese of Detroit.

 “We wanted to found a company that would really be at the intersection of technology and ministry,” Reyes told CNS. “We want things for the parish to be easy to use. We want our app to be flexible. Each parish is different, each ministry is different.”

So could a parish-based app be right for you? (If your parish has an app – we already know about one from St. Robert Bellarmine, Freehold – please be sure to let us know!)

It really depends how it would be used.

If you decide to go to the app route, you should make sure you’re getting the most out of it to justify the time and expense needed to create and update it regularly.

Some recently released apps showcase Mass times, pastoral messages from bishops and pastors, aids for confession, bulletin announcements, tweets from Pope Francis, information about the given parish’s many ministries and more.

Those apps can cost thousands of dollars to get off the ground, but there is a way to cut some of the costs: Volunteers.

According to the Catholic News Service report, Holy Spirit Parish in Dubuque, Iowa, took eight months to develop its app. It launched on Easter, and 119 people downloaded it right away.

“It’s a tool for collaboration in the parish and it’s a tool for the new evangelization,” Brandon Kuboushek, a member of the parish’s evangelization committee, told CNS. “We want people to use it to get more information, get questions answered about the parish. We also hope people walking down the street will download it and it’s a way to evangelize. People are being bombarded with media all the time. This is a way to use that new technology.”

Kuboushek spent more than 40 hours volunteering, working with members of the committee and parish officials to get the app started, according to the Catholic News Service report.

“We did this based on how can we get the attention of younger people or anyone who has gone away from the Church; (we thought) ‘what are some ways we can appeal to them?’” Leslie Foley, another member of Holy Spirit Parish’s evangelization committee, told The Witness, Dubuque’s archdiocesan newspaper.

If any of this resonates with you as a way you’d like your parish to connect with the faithful, you can learn more about different apps from around the country by searching “Parish” in the app store for your respective device.

Brittany Wilson is the social media coordinator for the Diocese of Trenton. She can be reached at [email protected] or 609-403-7137.