Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO — Friday, missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Jacksonville, Florida, are challenging thousands of Facebook users to help share the gospel through an unusual channel — selfies.
The challenge is simple: post a picture of yourself holding the Book of Mormon in front of your face, just below your eyes, with the accompanied hashtag #discoverthebook. Then, include a simple description of how you discovered the Book of Mormon and link to this video that describes what the Book of Mormon is.
The main goal of this challenge is twofold. The first is to share positive information about the Book of Mormon as the "Book of Mormon Musical" is playing in Jacksonville. The second is to invite the 45,000 young single adults in Provo to participate in missionary work by putting their social media skills to use, according to Jenessa Hutchins, a recently returned missionary from Jacksonville and host of the event.
“The whole idea that members are missionaries applies so perfectly on Facebook and all social media for that matter,” Hutchins said.
This will be the second Discover the Book challenge the Jacksonville missionaries have hosted. They launched it last June and saw great success, Hutchins said.
“We were at a point when we were struggling to find people to teach in general, so we were trying to do something that would create some traction, hopefully get our members involved and have people start asking questions,” Hutchins said. “It was incredibly successful. We quadrupled in baptisms once we started doing events.”
Hutchins’ mission was one of the first to become involved in the LDS Church’s effort to use the Internet to share the gospel. For one hour each day, the Jacksonville missionaries spend time on Facebook contacting people who might be interested in the gospel and teaching lessons over Skype and Facetime.
“The Facebook mission is effective because it helps you keep in contact with people. That daily touch helps strengthen who you’re already teaching,” Hutchins said. “It helps you reach all the people that are not reachable by knocking on their doors because people are more comfortable talking behind a computer screen.”
To join the Facebook event “Discover the Book,” like the Facebook page.
