"Mormon Mingle" - The Cottage Meeting in the Digital Age

LDS missionaries have organized "cottage meetings" for many years -- gatherings in homes where church members and investigators could meet in a comfortable setting where religious topics could be discussed but less formally. It has been a tried and true method by which good relationships could be built among missionaries, members, and friends of the church. Many such investigators have joined the church in this way.

Recently at the MTC the Referral Center missionaries (who are full time online missionaries with whom people chat at Mormon.org) have begun to pilot what they are calling the "Mormon Mingle" -- a version of the cottage meeting updated for the digital age. Instead of meeting in someone's home, those invited either meet in a group chat room or through a telephone conference call. The Mormon Mingle format is still in its infancy, but early efforts have proven so positive that these online missionaries are very encouraged and are now expanding their efforts.

This is how it works.

Publishing Media as a Missionary

Online missionaries need to be smart about using media. Whether they are blogging, using online chat, or updating their Facebook status, Elders and Sisters will engage people more meaningfully by using various kinds of media. What kinds?

1. Images
   Yes! But whose? Where? How? How many?
2. Videos
   Great! But from where? Embedded or uploaded? Personal or church-created?
3. Audio
   Good! But what are we talking about: music? podcasts? recordings of church events?
4. Presentations
   Super! But what kind? Your own or by others?
5. Links
   Important! But how and where?

Important Doesn't Mean Serious

One of the problems missionaries can face in using New Media is being too serious or too formal. Don't get me wrong -- our messages about Christ or the Restoration are super serious! But the way people understand the importance of our message isn't always through stating that message like a sermon or a formal lesson. (Remember: A blog is not a pulpit.)

Let's say I want to tell the world about the importance of families. I could quote the Family Proclamation (which I believe in strongly). But I think I'd rather start with a clip from some family time at the Burton home:

Princess Bride performed by two year old on Yahoo! Video

Check Your Spelling!

No one expects graffiti artists to spell right, but you do expect people who are attempting to be taken seriously online to make their best effort.

Maybe it's the English professor in me coming out, but as I've been reading a number of missionary blogs, I've discovered that some posts are not conveying the right impression because the spelling isn't so good.

Here are a few misspellings found on missionary blogs:

Three Things a Missionary Blog is Not

This follows up on my previous post about the power of the personal and also my post about considering the audiences for one's blog. I've noticed in studying some early efforts at missionary blogging that blog posts can sometimes be either too impersonal or too personal. I think this is happening because people are assuming that a blog is more like other forms of communication than it truly is. So, at the risk of sounding like I'm contradicting what missionaries might expect to be legitimate for their blogs, here are three things a missionary blog is NOT:

• A Blog is Not a Pulpit
• A Blog is Not Letters Home
• A Blog is Not a Journal

Details follow the break.

Consider Your Blog's Audiences

Missionaries who are blogging probably have these three audiences in mind when they write posts:

1. Family Members
2. Potential Investigators
3. Current Investigators 

I'll review each of these, then propose several more audiences that missionary bloggers should consider. Keeping these other groups of readers in mind should help missionaries create posts that are better targeted, more appropriate, and more effective.

The Power of the Personal

This is a stone home built in the 1850s on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake by my ancestor, Fielding Garr. That's my son, Fielding, in the red shirt with my father. Yesterday was Pioneer Day here in Utah, and the occasion for a Garr family reunion on the isolated desert island. We passed antelope and a large herd of bison getting there. The distant Wasatch mountains that ring Salt Lake City made shimmering reflections in the still lake water.

What does this have to do with New Media or with missionary work? Read on.

Social Networking for Missionaries?

Should LDS missionaries be on the online social networks?

A few missionaries from the New York, Rochester mission have been approved to set up Facebook accounts for a pilot program. The photo shows some of their Facebook profiles.

In the spirit of my last post, calling into question why missionaries might blog, I'd like to think through why they might participate on Facebook or any other of the social networks now available.

I have some of the same concerns I expressed with blogging. Is this really the best use of a missionary's time? Doesn't this risk reconnecting missionaries with the world they left behind at the expense of keeping their focus on where they are called and their proselyting purposes?

I want to be an advocate for missionaries doing social networking. But first, how could it go wrong?

Should Missionaries Blog?

Should missionaries blog?

This is a question that will seem very silly both before and after missionaries really take to the blogosphere. Of course missionaries don't blog! (in general, as of mid-2010). Those that do are breaking rules. Give it a little time, however, and we'll find it odd to have questioned such an effective missionary tool.

But I do question it now, precisely so we can have our eyes open to the true challenges and possibilities of missionary bloggers. This blog is all about helping missionaries use New Media effectively. But I'd like to begin by questioning the very assumption that any sort of blogging is appropriate or effective for those who are set apart to proselyte.

What are the "New Media"?

The New Media -- that's stuff like blogging and Facebook and Twitter and all that, right?

Yes it is, but the New Media are far more than simply a set of digital tools and services. The New Media together reflect a new culture -- with new ways of finding, sharing, and creating that do not go by traditional rules. Those who want to succeed with the New Media better know something about this new culture and its principles, especially so they do not try to use the New Media as though they were the old media.

And that's a good starting point for understanding New Media. Just how is it that they differ from old or traditional media?

The Restored Gospel as New Media

When we think about New Media and Mormonism, it is tempting just to dive into the technology available in the digital age. But before getting too caught up in the tools, we should recall that Christianity itself is based upon the concept of mediation, and that Mormonism itself constitutes a new medium for Christianity. 

I think these facts are terribly important to keep in mind, since it is very tempting simply to imitate how others are using new media secularly. We have a better vantage point; we can view our own uses of media as continuous with our core beliefs and our own religious history. Let me explain just what I mean by relating Mormon history and beliefs to the New Media.

Answering an Apostle's Call to Action

In what by now has become a ground-breaking and memorable moment in LDS church history, Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, has challenged church members to take to the Internet to spread the word of the Restored Gospel.

In his stirring call to action (first given as an address to graduates of BYU-Hawaii in December 2007, then later reprinted as the cover article for the Ensign magazine in July, 2008), Elder Ballard urged Latter-day Saints to

join the conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the New Media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple, clear terms the message of the Restoration.  

Members have responded, posting their testimonies as videos or on blogs. And now, selected full-time missionaries have been assigned to pilot the use of New Media. These include missionaries who chat online with people through Mormon.org (the Referral Center Mission at the MTC and certain Visitor Center missionaries), as well as field missionaries who have begun blogging and using Facebook (such as in the New York, Rochester mission beginning in May 2010 under the direction of Pres. Michael Hemmingway).

Precisely because the New Media are new, they take getting used to. A blog, a chat room, or a Facebook wall are places where conversations happen, but according to new rules and customs. How can those who have been asked to use the New Media do so effectively? This blog attempts to answer that question.