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.

Our beloved prophet President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last night at 7 PM. Since then, we’ve seen a flood of online interest in him, his successor Thomas S. Monson, how leadership and priesthood succession works in the Church, who current members of the Twelve are, and many other questions.

In the coming days, members of the Church have a great opportunity to answer these questions. If you have a blog, it would be helpful to write something on what President Hinckley’s service meant to you, your thoughts on President Monson, your understanding of how priesthood succession works, and related topics. It would also be helpful if you link to additional information like these:

Gordon B. Hinckley (Mormonwiki.com)
Gordon B. Hinckley (Lightplanet.com)
Thomas S. Monson (newsroom.lds.org)
Thomas S. Monson (Mormonwiki.com)
Thomas S. Monson (Lightplanet.com)

You might also participate in forums like Yahoo Answers or our own LDS.net.

If you have a Web cam or digital camera, you might record your thoughts on President Hinckley and post it to YouTube.

Tags: gordon hinckley thomas monson mormon church leadership

Today Elder Ballard spoke at the BYU-Hawaii graduation and urged graduates to use the Internet to share the Gospel. He mentioned blogging, podcasts, Facebook, video-sharing sites, and “people using … search engines to hunt for topics about the Church.” Here are selected portions:

The emergence of New Media is facilitating a world-wide conversation on almost every subject including religion, and nearly everyone can participate.
…
Conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches.
…
The challenge is that there are too many people participating in conversation about the Church for our Church personnel to converse with and respond to individually. We cannot answer every question, satisfy every inquiry, and respond to every inaccuracy that exists. …some who seek answers want them to come directly from a member of the Church, like each one of you.
…
May I ask that you join the conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the New Media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration. Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true. You can download videos from Church and other appropriate sites, including Newsroom at LDS.org, and send them to your friends. You can write to media sites on the Internet that report on the Church, and voice your views as to the accuracy of the reports.
…
Others have recorded and posted their testimonies of the Restoration, the teachings of the Book of Mormon, and other gospel subjects on popular video-sharing sites. You, too, can tell your story to nonmembers in this way.
…
Use stories and words that they will understand.

Elder Ballard also cited the Indy Books blog, where Bookslinger chronicles his daily missionary work.

I think this will prove to be a landmark talk.

Full transcript: Using New Media to Support the Work of the Church

Press release: Apostle Urges Students to Use New Media

(Thanks to several people who sent me this.)

There were powerful ideas in the Church Newsroom’s recent podcast about the Truth Restored campaign. Elder Quentin L. Cook and Scott Swofford envision a future in which the Internet is used for finding, and missionaries teach and baptize.

The newly redesigned Mormon.org includes a chat feature which connects interested parties with “missionaries and trainers at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.” Brother Swofford said, “A number of baptisms have resulted.”

We previously mentioned that a virtual world like Second Life could be an avenue for sharing the Gospel. Having had some success with the chat feature, it seems the Church may even consider a “virtual mission”:

“We hope to continue to expand both the hours and the scope of that [chat] program to include perhaps a virtual mission at some point where missionaries who might be disqualified for other health-related or other issues can continue to serve as a virtual missionary.” (Scott Swofford)

In a recent Church Newsroom podcast, Scott Swofford, Media Director of the Missionary Department, said new media and the Internet should be used to find people for the full-time missionaries to teach:

“There’s no way missionaries can do what they do now and shoulder the burden of finding. We’re going to have to do the finding using new media. And then, because new media can’t baptize, teach, convert, and testify, we’re going to have to feed that funnel, the product of that funnel, to the missionaries so they can do what they do best. Wouldn’t it be great if my grandson goes…on his mission…and gets to just teach nonstop because media and the Internet have finally picked up their rightful role and are funneling people who want to know.” (Emphasis added.)

Elder Quentin L. Cook said many people will prefer to learn about the Church through the Internet:

“There are a lot of people today who would like to know more about our faith but they are concerned about having their privacy invaded. They want to look at things in their own time and in their own way. They do not want to feel like they have any pressure…. We feel that the Internet and the privacy that it affords people is a wonderful way to do that…. There are a lot of people who are just not going to call a number…. But they will go to the Internet and look into it and we think that’s happening on a significant scale.” (Emphasis added.)

Faithful Church members who share their beliefs online accelerate the Internet’s “rightful role” in finding people for the missionaries to teach.

Source: “Truth Restored” Campaign [mp3]

Online missionary work can be like fishing or like hunting.

Sometimes we cast our line and then wait for someone to come along. For example, our website about Mormon beliefs sits idly until someone types “Mormon beliefs” into Google, and then it is found. Other fishermen are there too.

18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
(Matthew 4:18-19)

Other times we hunt; we seek out people interested in learning more about the Church. If you want a missionary opportunity right now, visit Yahoo Answers and type in “Mormon” or join the forums at LDSForums.com. You’ll find plenty of people with questions about the Church.

16 Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the LORD, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.
(Jeremiah 16:16)

Among the most recurring themes in scripture is “seek and ye shall find“. We should make that true for people searching online.

Last week at the Utah Open Source Conference, Tom Welch, Technology Community Manager for the Church, spoke about his work as CTO of Linspire. While at Linspire, they created a tool called IRMA, by which volunteers could participate in the translation of their software. For example, a volunteer with a few minutes on her hands might visit IRMA to translate text like “Your file was not found” into Spanish, Arabic, or Swahili. The IRMA project resulted in the full or partial translation of their software into 59 languages. Instead of paying for the work, the company was able to harness the collective intelligence of the community to get the work done:

• 59 languages
• 3,246 translators
• 2.6 million translations
• top translator completed over 13,800 message translations

This is precisely the type of project that would be interesting for sharing the Gospel. The Church member might visit a website and be presented with a few options:

• Will you please translate the phrase “Joseph Smith is a prophet of God” into Portuguese?
• Will you please write a paragraph about what it’s like to visit a Mormon temple?
• Someone at Yahoo Answers has a question about the Book of Mormon. Please follow this link to answer his question.
• Will you please hit record and look into your web cam as you explain how you gained a testimony of the principle of tithing?

The work produced by volunteers would be published where persons of other faiths could find it. The site would have to be as accessible and easy to use as FamilySearchIndexing.org. There would be plenty of work, and this would make sharing the Gospel easier for Church members.

Two years ago, I started a niche website with my BYU roommate, which became very popular, drawing thousands of people every day. When we sold the website this May and said our goodbyes to the readers, Brian posted a link to his personal blog.

On his personal blog, Brian posts photos of his family and newborn son, writes on a variety of topics from being a father to owning an iPhone, and, importantly, shares elements of his beliefs. After writing about tithing recently, Brian discovered that one of the visitors to our website had begun reading his personal blog.

Brian, you don’t know me in person but I’ve been reading [your] blog for a while. (I found it thru freemacware.com when you owned that.)

Anyway, I’m not Mormon but I appreciate [the] things you write about. There’s just one thing I have a question about with the mormons. every other religion (including mine) sees commandments as burdonsome and limiting. But in your posts and other mormons I know seem like they appreciate commandments. Why is that? maybe you or some of your mormon readers care to respond.

Several of us responded to Michael’s question, and eventually he asked to be visited by the full-time missionaries. I spoke with Brian today and he confirmed that the elders have now visited Michael and his family several times.

Brian didn’t intend to preach a sermon, but by simply sharing his faith online, he was able to reach someone who wanted to hear it. I think this is an exemplary model of online member missionary work.

Do you want to start a blog? We’ll help!

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:

1. If we participate on the Internet, people who interact with us may see our good example and ask about our religion.
2. If we participate on the Internet, people who don’t even know us may find our thoughts and feelings about the Church.
3. 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?

Mormon Testimonies is growing but we need more written and video testimonies, especially conversion stories.

These are a few new ones that you may like:

Susan Easton Black (link to the site)

Valerie Finnegan, a convert from Scotland (link to the site)

Ott Dameron, a convert from the US (link to the site)

Giuseppe.. I know this guy very well. (link to the site)

Francesco Lepore (another convert from Italy) (link to the site)

In his Utah Policy newsletter, Deseret News columnist points out that the Mitt Romney presidential campaign has brought the Church into the national spotlight and asks whether the Church should respond to the increased attacks. “Romney obviously will have to deal with these matters forthrightly and aggressively…but what about the LDS Church?” He answers his own question by giving two suggestions to be implemented by Church members:

1. Create an anti-defamation organization.

[P]erhaps some Mormon version of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League could be established. This organization could be more aggressive than the church itself in pointing out error and bigotry. Such an entity could also conduct a grassroots education effort outside the formal church organization.

2. Church members could run ads in their local newspapers.

Local Mormon groups could purchase full-page ads in their local newspapers with a message something like:

“We’re the Mormons. Because so much is being written and discussed about our church, some of it not fully factual, we want to tell you a little about ourselves and who we are. We’re your neighbors. We’re your friends. We’re doctors and plumbers and lawyers and carpenters and business people and housewives and school teachers. We’re part of the community fabric here in Omaha.”

The ads would include names and photos of local Mormons who are leaders in the community and also names and photos of prominent national Mormons, such as major business leaders, sports figures, politicians, entertainers, etc.

Along these lines, the More Good Foundation helped create LDS News Watch to point out inaccuracies in media reporting, and I’ve blogged previously about similarities between anti-Semitism and anti-Mormonism. But the Mormon Anti-Defamation industry is a tough industry to be in, since anti-Mormonism hasn’t been entirely pushed outside the realm of political correctness and we’d have to be careful not to embitter ourselves in a victim mentality. Maybe it could be pulled off, but it would be tough.

On the other hand, I very much like the idea of reaching out as Church members to explain our beliefs. (Sounds like a neighborly thing to do.) Many prominent Church members have already done so — Clayton Christensen, Donny Osmond, Glenn Beck — as well as many “locals” from across the globe.

The Internet is the next frontier of member missionary work.

UPDATE: I should point out, however, that any group effort by Church members may be construed as an official act of the institutional Church, which we may not want. It’s probably best that Church members focus on being good neighbors and on personally sharing the Gospel, including on personal blogs.