We are excited to announce some good changes that will be implemented in our parish as we start this new year. Like all of you, our online browsers, inboxes, voicemails, search histories and data usage are bombarded by multiple sources with constant information regarding appointments, activities, deadlines, and well, LIFE! Knowing people have strong preferences of one medium over another, we originally set out to excel in each of the four media options available to us as a parish -- Facebook, website, the myParish app and the Spirit and Truth newsletter. We wanted to reach the most people in the most ways. Over the years, we’ve accumulated a lot of experience and knowledge. This brings us to rethink what’s best for the parish community and what we’re doing presently. A lot of things have to be considered: number of office staff, hours of weekly media maintenance and original writing required, ministry support and participation, duplication of content across our media, the total number of parishioners accessing each online medium monthly, and the number of our supporting advertisers. To continue communicating clearly but also efficiently, we feel the need to proactively revamp our media “reach”, our staff resources and what needs to be accomplished. Everything points to concentrating especially on St. Philip’s Facebook page and website as these media forms receive the most online traffic from parishioners, friends and visitors. Therefore, the myParish smartphone app will be discontinued January 30th. Our Spirit and Truth newsletter will be set to 3 pages (plus one page of supporting advertisements). We want to make basic changes to the newsletter emphasizing practical “go to” essential information including human interest items. Our goal is for it to become more relaxed and flexible. Articles, news, photo spreads, announcements, calendar items, stories, and other content will be rich, important, brief and “to the point”. Very important, Spirit and Truth will continue to be a “living history” of St. Philip parish and our community of faith. Clearly Facebook is most preferred by parish families for accenting activities, human interest and who we are as Catholics living out our best lives day-to-day. It’s also the most timely way to know what’s going on at St. Philip. So we’ll be upgrading our Facebook presence, improving its look, content, photos and variety. Our parish website www.stphiliphuffmantx.org remains the second most-accessed medium we have. People understand that the website is St. Philip’s “official” presence on the world wide web and our online medium of “record”. So we’re going to streamline this medium considerably, making it much easier to navigate and to find critical up-to-date information with the least difficulty. This will be a great help to visitors and new parishioners especially. We’re working very hard on our end to make sure we’re connected in the best ways possible. After all, our St. Philip media offers a living portrait of what our parish looks like and also the character of our faith family. Ministries will be updating their articles weekly to keep our parishioners aware and involved. We want everyone to discover and share the vibrancy of our parish families, to see with their own eyes, engage with their own hands and commit with their hearts. St. Philip is ready for this new chapter in its evolving history! Sincerely in Christ, Your Parish Office Staff. +++