Subscribe Feed (RSS)The Church’s three-fold mission and the Internet
August 22nd, 2007 by Richard K Miller | Filed under Online missionary work, The Church.If you're new here, read more about the More Good Foundation. We help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) share their beliefs on the Internet. Learn more about what Mormons believe or talk with Mormons at LDS.net.
This month’s Ensign has an article about using the Internet to do family history work. Anyone in the world can visit FamilySearchIndexing.org to signup as a volunteer and begin doing “extraction work,” the work of transcribing names from old court documents, birth certificates, and death records. This family history work, along with temple work, brings about the redemption of the dead, one of the threefold missions of the Church. The Church’s Family History Department has long been adept at using technology in its mission.
What about the other two missions of the Church: “Perfect the Saints” and particularly “Proclaim the Gospel”? If the Internet is to be used to proclaim the gospel, how will it be done? How can the Church use the Internet to proclaim the gospel as effectively as it has used the Internet to enable redeeming the dead?
How can we use the Internet to proclaim the gospel? Here are some ideas that come to mind:
- If we participate on the Internet, people who interact with us may see our good example and ask about our religion.
- If we participate on the Internet, people who don’t even know us may find our thoughts and feelings about the Church.
- Perhaps we can use web applications and other Internet technologies to better manage our real life missionary work.
What else comes to mind for you?
In the Ensign article, Sister Susana Doty said she never intended to get an email address, but she became actively involved on the Internet when she was able to do family history work online. How can we make proclaiming the gospel online equally appealing?
How do you make public speaking appealing?
1. Get people to know what they’re talking about. If someone knows their material, they’ll be confident three ways from Tuesday in their ability to share that material.
2. Motivate them. Preferably intrinsicly. Get people to see that there is value in their knowledge, and they’ll be more willing to share. Intrinsic motivation go hand-in-hand with goals. I’ve recommended keeping a journal in Sacrament meeting before. Why should a blog be any different.
3. Filter out the bad by making the good more accessible. When I first joined the Bloggernacle, I knew I was on the lookout for positive things to read about the Church, its history, and my fellow Saints in Zion. But unfortunately, my experience also included a run-in with some anti-Mormon propoganda that shook my testimony at the time. Fortunately, someone passed along some links that countered what I had read. But how many others have attempted to find the Bloggernacle and instead find a shattered testimony? I think the mission of the Bloggernacle should be to make our presence know in all ways possible so that we ARE easier to find when people go searching. When they get their first dose of the positive, they’ll be more willing to contribute their own experiences.
Great website Richard!
Hey! I discovered the site from an initial posting about the firefox scripture search plugin, even though I’ve been aware of the moregood foundation for a while.
I think the best way to do missionary work (preach the gospel) online is to fill the web with good, honest content about our faith. The more solid, honest members there are out on the web, the better we’ll do at it. Of course, a lot of people value “intellectual discourse” over their own testimonies, and in the process destroy their own faith and that of others as well.
I guess that’s their choice.
Nonetheless, the more we put out, the more there is to be found. People will chose what touches them.
MRKH
Mark, we completely agree.
Part of what I find scary about the “bloggernacle” is that someone searching for strength could find their testimony weakened not by the distracting anti-mormon websites, but by the bloggernacle itself.
On the other hand, everyone has the right to say what they wanna.
MRKH
[...] written previously about using the Internet to fulfill the three-fold mission of the Church and suggested some ways members can be involved in proclaiming the Gospel online. Elder [...]