For the final part of our "marketing baptism" series (click to read part 1 and part 2), we're going to look at the critical piece to all of this: How to get people to baptize their children in the first place. You can't evangelize baptism families or their guests if no one is actually getting baptized. Because let me guess: Your funerals outnumber your baptisms at least 3:1. And listen, I normally focus on the evangelization side of things around here because that's obviously most important....
1 day ago • 5 min read
One of my favorite lines in the whole Bible is the very last line of the Gospel of John: "But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." (John 21:25) It gives us a glimpse at the mystery of the Word made flesh Who cannot be expressed by words alone. But it also shows us: What we see in the Gospels is just a portion of Jesus' public ministry. It implies there were...
8 days ago • 3 min read
Taking a quick break from our baptism series because this newsletter was timely given the weather this week. We'll pick it back up with part 3 next week! As I send this to you, there is currently about two feet of snow outside my window courtesy of Winter Storm Fern. And since it impacted 33 other states, there's a good chance you've felt its impact too...not just on your thermometer, but also on your Mass attendance. Unlike most places though, here in New York, it was just a normal weekend....
8 days ago • 3 min read
Last week, we talked about the opportunities we have at baptisms to encourage more young families to go to Mass and get involved at your church. (You can read that Part 1 here.) Now, let's talk about an often overlooked group at a baptism ceremony: the guests. For guests at the baptism: Now I get it: The person being baptized is the star of the show. Maybe we even have a wandering thought or two about how we can engage the rest of their immediate family to come back to Mass. But we often...
15 days ago • 4 min read
Note: Happy 2026! Thank you for all your prayers. Our beautiful baby girl arrived the day before her due date and we’ve been settling into life with two toddlers and a baby for the past two months. God is so good! As I slowly return from maternity leave, I’m not currently accepting new projects or consult calls yet, but I couldn’t wait to send out some newsletters with thoughts I had over the past few months. Thank you for being here, and hope you all had a blessed Christmas! In 2021, I wrote...
15 days ago • 5 min read
Note: Happy 2026! Thank you for all your prayers. Our beautiful baby girl arrived the day before her due date and we’ve been settling into life with two toddlers and a baby for the past two months. God is so good! As I slowly return from maternity leave, I’m not currently accepting new projects or consult calls yet, but I couldn’t wait to send out some newsletters with thoughts I had over maternity leave. Thank you for being here, and hope you all had a blessed Christmas! Whenever I ask...
22 days ago • 3 min read
Last Friday was a day I'd been looking forward to for at least six months: We reached full term with baby #3!!! (Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that my son was born at 31 weeks three years ago, and so there was a lot of anxiety this pregnancy about whether we'd have another preemie.) But praise God, we're at 37 weeks, everything's looking great, and I'm working hard to finish up some final projects before baby girl makes her arrival in the next few weeks. If she...
4 months ago • 1 min read
I always know when something I'm working on is really good. Not by my own marketing merits — but when the work being done is just truly Christ-centered. How? Because the spiritual attacks are THROUGH THE ROOF. Everything goes inexplicably wrong right before a youth group meeting? Yep, that must mean it's going to be an INCREDIBLE meeting where hearts are going to be drawn to Jesus. Working on a project for a client and met with roadblock after roadblock? I praise God for the incredible work...
4 months ago • 2 min read
"Look at this," I said to my husband, showing him the stack of ads we'd gotten in the mail. You know the kind, the ones that come in an envelope of offers from local businesses, 90% of which are home improvement-focused. Most normal people look through the stack, pull out any they want, and then recycle the rest. I, however, am not normal. Instead, I save them for my husband to rant about all of the marketing errors I see in them. (It's one of the perks of being married to me, I'm sure he'd...
4 months ago • 2 min read