"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.