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Tech Should Be a Doorway to the Church, Not the Destination

Tech Should Be a Doorway to the Church, Not the Destination

Last updated on: October 6, 2026 at 11:34 am by William Hemsworth

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Tech Should Be a Doorway to the Church, Not the Destination 2026-10-06T11:34:48-07:00 William Hemsworth

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Technology has become part of almost every aspect of our lives. We use it to communicate with family, pay bills, find directions, watch videos, and search for information. Whether we like it or not, technology has also become a significant part of how people encounter the Catholic Church. This presents the Church with both an incredible opportunity and an important challenge. We should use technology to assist the mission of the Church, but we must never allow technology to become the mission itself.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Michael MacKinnon, Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Strategic Account Management at Ministry Brands. His work over the last decade has focused heavily on serving churches, including the Catholic Church, through technology. Ministry Brands works with more than 90,000 church organizations and provides technological solutions involving parish management, online giving, finances, websites, and communication. During our conversation, one theme continued to come to the surface: technology can help the Church evangelize, but technology itself cannot evangelize. Ultimately, evangelization is about people encountering Jesus Christ through His Church.

Technology Is a Tool, Not the Mission

There is sometimes a temptation to look at new technology and assume that it will solve our problems. A parish gets a new website, starts livestreaming Mass, develops an app, or begins using artificial intelligence, and suddenly we think we have entered the modern age of evangelization. These things can certainly help, but they are tools. They are not the mission.

MacKinnon discussed how technology can automate things such as financial reporting, scheduling, translation, communication, and retrieving information. When used properly, these tools can free parish staff to spend more time doing something technology cannot do: ministering to people.

Think about what that could mean in the average parish. If technology saves a priest an hour of administrative work, perhaps that becomes an hour he can spend with a grieving family. If automation saves a parish secretary time entering information, perhaps that time can be spent helping someone who walks into the parish office looking for assistance. Technology becomes useful to evangelization when it allows us to spend more time with people. The goal should not simply be efficiency. The goal should be freeing people to do the work of the Church.

Data Knows Behavior, but People Know Stories

One statement MacKinnon made during our conversation really stood out to me: “Data knows behavior, but people know stories.” That is an important distinction, especially as parishes increasingly use data and artificial intelligence.

A parish database may tell us that a family has not participated in parish life for six months. That information can be incredibly valuable, but the database cannot tell us why. Maybe someone became sick. Maybe a family member died. Maybe they moved. Maybe they are struggling financially. Perhaps they had a bad experience at the parish or are experiencing a crisis of faith. The data knows they disappeared, but it does not know their story.

MacKinnon explained that technology can identify families who have stopped engaging with the parish, but human beings must take the next step. The information should prompt someone to reach out, listen, and discover what is happening in that family’s life. This is where technology and evangelization can work together. Technology can alert us to an opportunity for ministry, but a person still needs to make the phone call. Someone still needs to listen. Someone still needs to care.

Image by GDJ from Pixabay

The Digital Doorway to the Parish

Another important part of our conversation involved parish websites. We sometimes underestimate how important a parish website can be. For someone who has attended the same parish for twenty years, the website may seem insignificant. They already know when Mass is. They know where the church is located, and they probably know the pastor personally. However, someone searching for the Catholic Church for the first time may have a completely different experience.

Their first interaction with your parish may not happen when they walk through the doors on Sunday morning. It may happen when they search online. Someone may be searching for Mass times, Confession, OCIA, Catholic teaching, or simply a Catholic church near them. A website, livestream, email, or social media page could therefore be their first encounter with the parish.

MacKinnon described technology as a doorway. Someone may initially encounter the parish through a website or another digital platform, but the goal is to move that person toward something deeper. We want them to attend Mass, join a small group, enter OCIA, or connect personally with someone in the parish. The website is not the destination. Jesus Christ is the destination. The sacramental life of the Church and participation in the Christian community are the goal. Technology simply helps open the door.

This is also why something as simple as an outdated parish website can become an evangelization issue. MacKinnon, who is himself a Catholic convert, spoke about traveling and trying to find Mass times through parish websites. Sometimes the information is surprisingly difficult to find. A person may have to search through old bulletins, outdated calendars, and multiple pages just to answer one simple question: When is Mass?

A faithful Catholic who is traveling will probably keep searching until they find the Mass time. However, imagine someone who has been away from the Church for ten years and suddenly feels the desire to return. They search for the nearest parish and encounter a website that has not been updated in years. Will they keep searching? Maybe they will, but maybe they will not. We should not place unnecessary obstacles in front of someone who may already be hesitant about approaching the Church.

Technology Requires Human Follow-Through

The same principle applies when someone actually reaches out to a parish. A parish may create a beautiful website with a contact form where someone can ask about OCIA, Baptism, marriage preparation, or returning to the Church. However, what happens after someone submits the form?

MacKinnon described situations in which these messages essentially fall into a “black hole.” Parishes create the technological vehicle for engagement but sometimes fail to follow through once someone actually uses it. Imagine someone finally gathering the courage to ask about becoming Catholic, filling out the form, and then waiting three weeks without receiving a response. Technology did its job. The human part failed.

Technology can certainly help solve some of these problems. An automated system can alert the appropriate person that someone has requested information. It can provide reminders and make sure people do not fall through the cracks. However, at some point a real person needs to respond. The purpose of the automation should be to make the human encounter more likely, not eliminate it.

AI Cannot Replace Christian Community

Artificial intelligence makes this conversation even more important. AI is becoming increasingly capable of producing content, answering questions, organizing information, analyzing data, and automating communication. There are legitimate ways that parishes can use these tools, but there is also a danger.

Technology can create the appearance of relationship without actually creating a relationship. MacKinnon warned about allowing simulated relationships to become substitutes for genuine human ones. For Catholics, that distinction is especially important because Christianity is incarnational. God did not save humanity simply by sending us information. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus walked among people. He ate with them, listened to them, touched the sick, wept with those who mourned, and called people by name. The Church continues that incarnational mission. No chatbot can administer the Eucharist. No algorithm can hear Confession. No automated email can sit beside a grieving widow. No parish database can replace a priest, deacon, catechist, volunteer, or fellow parishioner looking someone in the eyes and asking how they are doing.

Technology can help create the opportunity for that encounter, but it cannot become the encounter itself.

From OCIA to Lifelong Discipleship

One of the most practical examples from our conversation involved OCIA. At Easter, parishes joyfully welcome new Catholics into the Church. These men and women may have spent nine months or longer preparing to receive the sacraments. They finally receive the Eucharist and enter fully into the sacramental life of the Church.

Then Easter Monday arrives.

What happens next?

MacKinnon suggested that technology could help parishes remain connected to these new Catholics. A system could remind parish staff to reach out after thirty days and ask how things are going. It could help identify opportunities for involvement or ensure that people do not simply disappear after receiving the sacraments. William Hemsworth and Michael M…

Again, however, technology can only take us so far. Eventually someone needs to ask that new Catholic how their faith journey is going. Someone needs to ask what they are struggling with, where they feel God calling them, and how the parish can support them. Those are human questions because faith is ultimately about our relationship with God lived within the community of the Church.

Using Technology for Evangelization

None of this means that Catholics should be afraid of technology. Quite the opposite. The Church should use technology and use it well. Our websites should be current. Mass and Confession times should be easy to find. Parish calendars should not look like they were abandoned five years ago. Messages should receive responses. Someone visiting a parish website for the first time should quickly understand who we are and how they can become part of the parish community.

Technology can also help connect people with ministries, small groups, youth programs, support communities, and opportunities to serve. MacKinnon pointed out that these tools can make it easier to connect parishioners with communities where genuine relationships can develop. This is where technology can become a tremendous asset to evangelization. It can help people find the community they are looking for, but that community must ultimately consist of real people walking together in faith.

The Catholic Church has always used the tools available to proclaim the Gospel. The printing press changed how Christian writings were distributed. Radio brought Catholic preaching and teaching into people’s homes. Television expanded the Church’s reach even further. Today we have websites, podcasts, livestreams, social media, smartphones, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. These tools provide incredible opportunities for evangelization, and we would be foolish to ignore them.

The Doorway Must Lead Somewhere

At the same time, we must remember what these tools are supposed to accomplish. A parish can have the best website in the diocese and still fail at evangelization if nobody welcomes the person who walks through the doors. We can have sophisticated databases and still fail if nobody calls the family that suddenly disappears. We can automate emails, analyze engagement, and use artificial intelligence to save countless hours of work, but none of those things can replace Christian community.

Technology should help us find people. It should help us communicate with people. It should remove unnecessary barriers that prevent people from encountering the Church. Most importantly, it should free us to spend more time actually ministering to people.

Technology can open the door, but eventually someone has to be standing on the other side ready to welcome them home.

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