WhizFish Honored to Develop Mobile App for St. Barbara Catholic Church

Erlanger, KY, January 29, 2016 --(PR.com)-- St. Barbara Catholic Church, in Erlanger, Kentucky has published a mobile app that helps the parish engage with parishioners, and prospective members on their mobile phones and tablets. The mobile app, published in iTunes and Google Play, was directed by Parish Development Director, John Mikula, who believes that society's "mobile first" behavior also applies to the Holy Catholic Church.

The mobile app allows the church to interact with members through innovative features including, push notifications sent right to users' phones and tablets, mobile sign-up forms, daily readings, podcasts of homilies, music, a direct link to the parish social media channels including YouTube, mobile giving, prayer walls, ministry schedules, church newsfeeds and more.

"Growth in any parish is truly a wonderful problem to have," said Mikula. "You can add mass times, parking spots and increase the number of bulletins you print, but how do you increase your communication efforts.

"At St. Barbara Church we have been lucky enough to have such a problem. The parish has grown from 400 families to just over 1300 within the last five years. The major contributing factor to this growth can be seen in the joining of younger families to the parish."

Mikula elaborated further on modern day outreach for the Catholic Church, "Younger families and the world in general, communicate differently today. People want to communicate through their mobile devices vs. having to sit at their computer. Our parish realized that the tried and true methods for getting information to the masses via the website or bulletin wasn’t doing the job.

"With the launch of our new App developed by WhizFish we have an exciting new way to reach parishioners. This app allows us to reach a broader spectrum of people with our message. It’s also a great way for keeping up to date with the parish event calendar, office hours, ministry contacts, and even daily bible readings. Even our senior parishioners are finding that it’s a great resource and a valuable tool for communications."

The number of native mobile apps being published by Catholic parishes is increasing steadily. Some think that Pope Francis is responsible as he has spoken favorably about using modern technology to spread the Good News. He has his own Twitter account and can be seen stopping in St. Peter's Square to take "selfies" with those visiting the Vatican. Those "Pope selfies" later show up as viral social media posts.

St. Barbara is a part of The Diocese of Covington, Kentucky. and its mobile app was developed by WhizFish Interactive, a digital company that specializes in mobile apps for Catholic parishes, schools and organizations. The founders are practicing Catholics involved in a number of social justice causes.

The St. Barbara Catholic Church mobile app can be downloaded in the iTunes App Store or Google Play.