Elder M. Russell Ballard urged graduating students at Brigham Young University-Hawaii today to use the Internet, blogs, and other forms of new media to contribute to a national conversation about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Ballard asked the students to “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.”
He explained that conversations about the Church would take place whether or not Church members decided to participate in them. “We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches,” he said. Church leaders “can’t answer every question, satisfy every inquiry and respond to every inaccuracy that exists.”
He said students should consider sharing their views on blogs, responding to online news reports, and using new media in other ways. Read his full talk Using New Media to Support the Work of the Church.
For more ideas on using modern technology to share the gospel, see the category Sharing the Gospel on this blog.
allrightee!
I read Elder Ballards entire talk yesterday, I thought it was excellent! So in line with his admonition, I am commenting here!
He also mentioned social network sites like Facebook. I know the usage of Facebook over the past few months at my Singles Ward has grown tremendously. We often use it to communicate activities, parties, what’s going on, how things are going in each others lives, who’s dateing, breaking up, engaged, and married! We even use it to coordinate groups like our writer’s club and dance class!
Facebook has been a tremendous help and a great tool for shareing the gospel and accomplishing the work of the Lord in our ward!
Elder Ballard is awesome!
But how responsible are we who are blogging up a storm on LDS-related Web sites and elsewhere? Are we being constructive in our comments or are we airing too much dirty laundry? What kind of impression do those who are not members of our church receive when they read some of the comments and banter on the more popular LDS blogs? We would do well to remember what Elder Ballard said that our words are there forever, long after we have overcome whatever momentary crisis of faith we were discussing in our blogs.
Thanks for the discussion! I too loved Elder Ballard’s talk!
I know I have alot to learn about getting my blogs up and going. So I was thinking, for anyone who would like some tips on effective blogging, visit my mom’s blogs, ConnectSimply.com/Blog or WinningLadies.com. Heidi is a great resource.
By the way, ldswebguy, I wholeheartedly agree with your post on good domain names and urls. Lots of good info there.
See the Deseret News story on Elder Ballard’s talk at http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695236498,00.html
Not only is blogging important, but also your plain old Web site! There are many Web sites out there that could be better optimized for search engines to help combat the negative listings found on page one of the search engines. The sites I’m referring to in particular are those that talk about LDS experiences or information. It would be great to be able to beat recovery from Mormonism off the first page of all searches for Mormon because other pro-LDS sites were suddenly improved!