Can We Reclaim the World for Christ This Christmas?

I woke up the morning of Friday, November 29th, with a vision: to build a viral video marketing campaign for the purpose of reclaiming the world for Christ and giving Him the best birthday present ever.

Step 1. Praying for Support

I began praying a series of novenas to every saint I could think of to help me in the work:

Sacred Heart Novena

Memorarae Novena

Holy Spirit 3-Day Novena

Our Lady 3-Day Novena

St. Joseph Novena

St. Boniface Novena

St. Charbel Novena

St. Francis of Assisi Novena

St. Gabriel the Archangel Novena

St. Lucy Novena

St. Louis de Montfort Novena

St. Andrew Christmas Novena

And, of course, the St. Thomas Aquinas prayer before Speaking, Writing, or Studying.

Step 2. Preparing the Scripts

I put everything else in my life on hold and focused on creating the scripts. But on day 6, I realized I’d made a couple of critical errors in my work.

First, I’d failed to prepare people for how to handle success and the inevitable critics and adversaries bound to pop up in their comments section if they went viral. I also realized I'd not prepared them for what happened if they failed. Failing to prepare them for this could harm their mental health and lead the challenge to do harm rather than help people as I intended it to do, so I made sure to address these things.

Second, my video scripts were inconsistent in what they provided. I needed to give my videos a consistent structure by creating a show format. I reworked to revise the video scripts and, by my birthday, December 13th, I was ready to record.

Step 2. Putting the Plan into Action

Each day, for the next seven days, I worked to record, edit, and post the videos. I used Canva to create the thumbnails and packed as much valuable content in each video as I could.

Day 1: https://youtu.be/TLCrUVKltho

Day 2: https://youtu.be/UzN5R30UHs8

Day 3: https://youtu.be/795Lns1BIa0

Day 4: https://youtu.be/ITSnS-uCujk

Day 5: https://youtu.be/gEeYDDw00-k

Day 6: https://youtu.be/9axd8E_Bdao

Day 7: https://youtu.be/o4LrFZR-pA4

Step 3. Analyzing the Outcome

My initial attempt did not succeed in going viral, but that didn’t mean it was time to give up on the plan. It meant it was time to analyze the outcome and see what I could do to improve.

Day 8: https://youtu.be/Ba6nACeiLd8

Step 4. Recruiting Help

As I sat brainstorming what I could do to improve, I decided I would try a 4-step plan:

1.   Create a blog post to outline my plan and share my strategies with other Catholics who might also be interested in reclaiming the world for Christ.

2.   Email the Catholic friends and family I know to recruit them.

3.   Post shorts, snippets, and quotes from the series each day across a variety of social media channels.

4.   Each week, do a recorded update for those who are following the channel to see how well we’ve done and how close we’ve come.

Join the Quest

If you’d like to participate in this quest, here are the steps I recommend:

1.   Watch all 8 videos (the first 7 plus the debrief on day 8). It should take less than 2 hours.

2.   Follow along with the challenge but also make notes about what you think could be improved and offer feedback in the comments section.

3.   Let people know you’re participating on your social media channels and encourage them to join with you.

4.   Email your family and friends to let them know about the plan and to encourage them to participate.

5.   Record your own viral videos and see what results you’re able to achieve.

Let’s make this Christmas Christ’s best birthday ever!