Preaching through the web
Since I'm writing a blog on the scriptures and my experiences at church, it's pretty likely that I believe in this topic. However, I didn't believe in this in the past. I used to think that if members did things on the internet it would be more likely that they would think that their internet efforts were all that they needed to do, and that would be enough. Then they wouldn't proactively think about talking to people about the church.
I now think that if you're thinking about missionary work enough to do things on the internet involving the church, you're probably thinking about the church more often, and are therefore more likely to do missionary work in all parts of your life.
A great place for missionary work on the internet is actually mormon.org. My brother who returned home from his mission last month reinforced this by sharing the following story:
They had been teaching a lady in one of their areas who was married to a less-active Mormon and was a strong Baptist most of her life. She had a tough time believing in some of the fundamental doctrines of the church that did not coincide with what she learned as a Baptist. However, she was slowly progressing. One day, she started the lesson by saying, "I'm 97% sure that the church is true." What! That's some very fast progress. What happened? She replied, "I went onto mormon.org and found myself. There was a girl there who was raised Baptist and explained how she came to be converted. In particular she explained how she overcame the obstacle of not believing the Book of Mormon. It really helped me understand the need to pray about the Book of Mormon in a sincere manner. I did it for the first time (even though she had told the elders in the past that she was praying about the Book of Mormon), and I believe it's a true book."
She was baptized a few weeks later.
Everyone put yourself on mormon.org. It's not too hard to do. I really see the value in investigators being able to find someone like them. And, obviously converts from other churches have a powerful story to tell that can help converts from those same churches. (In fact, in my internet searches I've found that there are "ex-Mormon now Catholic websites, but the sheer number of our converts from all churches and walks of life would easily overwhelm those stories, but it's important to have a great database of all convert stories so that people aren't left to only have the negative stories that do exist on the internet). However, I think everyone has some unique things in their backgrounds and have unique conversion stories and unique testimony development, that each individual can help someone else with their conversion story. For instance, my wife and I have had very different testimony processes. But, I don't think either of our testimonies is weaker than the other. Also, I could see someone interested in learning about the church from a person who played community college basketball, or was from the same small hometown, or speaks Spanish, or worked at a strategy consulting firm, or grew up on a dairy farm, or lived in Central America, or has two kids, or lives in the Bay Area, or works at a startup in internet technology. Each of those is true about me, and my wife has many other characteristics that make her testimony unique and her story interesting to someone who finds similarities in backgrounds.
So, please post your profile to mormon.org and consider other ways you can fill the internet with light.
Here's a great video in which Dave Neeleman, a prominent church member (founder of Jet Blue) explains the value of internet missionary work.
What is the link for the Neeleman video?
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