THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF LOOKING TO SUNDAY

Looking To Sunday® began in May of 2008 as a short weekly email sent to parishioners of Our Lady of Czestochowa Roman Catholic Church in Jersey City, NJ where Father Tom Iwanowski was serving as pastor. It had a short reflection on the coming readings for Sunday and information about what would be taking place in the parish during the coming week. It was sent to some 250 email addresses.


When his time as pastor came to an end in June of 2009, Father Iwanowski was granted a one-year sabbatical. He decided to continue writing Looking To Sunday but now its focus would only be on one or more of the scripture readings for the coming Sunday. This would give Looking To Sunday the potential of acquiring a wider audience.


Gradually the number of subscribers increased. This increase was due to subscribers telling others of this free service and also to Father Iwanowski informing those who attended his workshops and talks about this weekly email. Currently Looking to Sunday is sent to more than 3,600 subscribers.


Looking To Sunday is sent out through Constant Contact®, an email marketing firm. This allows us to manage contacts, enhance the design of the emails, and track readership.


In the beginning Looking To Sunday included only text. Photographs were added within the first year of its publication. The photos are chosen to enhance the message of the text and to capture the attention of the reader. The photographs are generally selected from a fee based online photo provider.


Soon after the emails started to be sent out, Looking To Sunday established its presence on the web. LookingToSunday.com not only contains the current edition of Looking To Sunday, it also contains an archive of past emails and audio files of the reflections found in Looking To Sunday. The website is hosted by CLOVER® which provides the template and other services and features associated with the site.


In early 2011, the name, Looking To Sunday®, was granted official trademark registration by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.


Looking To Sunday has grown during the past years. In 2014 a Looking to Sunday page was created on Facebook. In the future, with the Lord’s continuing help, we hope to expand the presence of Looking To Sunday in the digital and social media world.


We thank you for your interest in Looking to Sunday and we sincerely hope the weekly reflections are helping you to grow in your appreciation of God’s word. A word given us each Sunday so that little by little, Sunday by Sunday, we may become those faithful and loving Christians that Jesus calls us to be!