I spoke to a woman recently that was looking at podcasting and social networks as a possible way to reach out to lapsed Catholics. Since these folks aren’t found in a church, she thought that reaching out to them in places they congregate online would be effective. I’d say that is some out-of-the-box thinking. Will it work? Possibly. Is it a bad idea, definitely not.

One wouldn’t think that religious organizations aren’t early-adopters of technology, but you’d be surprised. Even though you might not like TV preachers, they were quite visionary when they created their own stations and got themselves into your livingroom. Podcast Alley, the largest directory of podcasts list over 2500 shows in the religion and spirituality segment. Clearly there are a lot of producers of content.

She also was thinking of looking at social media outlets such as MySpace, Twitter and Facebook as possible places where these “lost” Catholics hide.

At this stage who knows, but it is the out-of-box thinking that I admire.