mormons – Stay N Alive

Category: mormons

Moving Forward From My "Mormon Moment"

Posted on by jessestay

As some of you may be aware, I have spent the last, almost 3 years, helping to grow Social Media in what some have perceived as very much a pioneering role for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Consulting for them for years before, I started just over a year after Barack Obama was elected and Mitt Romney had lost the Primaries to John McCain, myself being perhaps the first person at the Church with the word “Social” in their title. My, thanks to the work of many, have we accomplished a lot since then! It is with sadness and a sense of completion and accomplishment that I now move on from that role, to now serve as Director of Social Media for Deseret Digital Media.

When I first met with the Church, back around 2007, the beginning of Twitter and Facebook, social media was new, and foreign. In many ways, in a time that pre-dates Romney’s run for President, the Church was too. I still remember when Venturebeat “scooped” that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was trying to purchase Facebook (which, in case for any reason you were wondering, was completely and as far from the truth as you could come). What was funny was I had been on contract with Facebook shortly before that (writing tech docs for the company), and had been consulting directly with the Church at the time the article was written. I smiled as I saw the news, but mostly kept my mouth shut. These were 2 foreign organizations that people were very curious about!

Since that time, I remember the vision of a technology that could, just as in the Bible, and just as in The Book of Mormon (as Mormons believe complements the Bible), allow a religion’s message to reach “every nation, kindred, and tongue”, without the need for door-knocking, street preaching, or soapboxing. With these new technologies, one could truly reach the people that were actually interested in and seeking a message, rather than finding a needle in a haystack. The “small villages” of scriptural times were back with the advent of social media.

Within that time we were able to go from just a single Twitter account at Twitter.com/LDSNewsroom (now Twitter.com/MormonNewsroom), to now hundreds of Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts, and Google+ Pages, as well as Youtube channels with views in the millions. We worked on growing the strength and understanding of social media within the organization. I remember at the beginning much of my work was just in training people the value of what social media could do. Now that’s no longer a question, but rather a point of “how has it helped us?”

We achieved Facebook “like” buttons on all articles on LDS.org and began to grow shares of our message. We built numerous campaigns. We were able to expand our advertising efforts. We built community. All of this was the work of many, and I appreciated every person I was able to work with and help in these efforts. I also appreciate the amazing trust people put in me as I helped each of those that needed it.

What I appreciated most during this period though were the individuals I was able to touch, both directly, and indirectly. From training individuals at the Church, to working with ecclesiastical leaders and those at the local congregational level. I appreciated the opportunity to reach out to people during the New Zealand and Japan earthquakes, and especially my dear friends in South Asia who so sincerely want to use these tools to spread a beautiful message to the people of India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Hong Kong, some of Social Media’s largest audiences. I hope these relationships will continue as I move onto other professional pursuits. I feel the momentum is finally in place to where I can move on and help in my next pursuit.

What will I be doing next? As I mentioned, I have accepted a position as Director of Social Media for Deseret Digital Media. As some of my friends may know, I previously worked in publishing, and love the publishing industry. Deseret Digital Media, actually still owned by the Church (but keeps itself at a distance to an extent), owns the digital presence of KSL.com, DeseretNews.com, OK.com (a crowd-sourced movie and TV ratings site), and many other digital presences that span from Salt Lake only, to an entire global presence targeting wholesome, family valued content for its viewers and readers. It is a for-profit company of which I’m excited to begin work on finding ways to increase those profits, find new and better ad products for their advertisers, and to grow their presence to an even greater capacity globally and help families around the world connect better. It is a fun and exciting challenge for the next phase in my life, and one where I think I can again, just like I feel I did at the Church, make a dent for the good of the world. I’m excited to learn from, lead and grow with those I’ll work with there.

I debated strongly in this move of going back to an entrepreneurial effort (where I was before the Church). For varying reasons including a family of 8, I felt I could accomplish more in this role, and could still on the side keep the efforts I have with SocialToo, this blog, my books, and my training courses on Pluralsight. I anticipate all those efforts, and perhaps more, to continue to grow and prosper as I push forward in this new role.

I will miss all those I worked with at the Church – from Church Ecclesiastical Leaders, to Managing Directors, to the employees getting things done and helping move the work forward. They were some of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with – former Novell execs, successful entrepreneurs, and Microsoft execs to name a few, to successful scientists, businessmen, and doctors. It has been one of the most amazing, rewarding, and fulfilling jobs I’ve ever had.

Lastly, on a personal note as a member of the Church, which I am still an active part of, my testimony of this Church, after working “in the trenches” and seeing it from the inside, remains stronger than ever. I have seen our Leaders – the President and Prophet himself (Thomas S. Monson), to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, to the members of the Quorum of the 70 that aid those with the keys, truly lead this Church through God. They are certainly not perfect, but what they have to say is important, and their callings and the mantle they hold is divine. They have my full support and love moving forward.

I can’t wait to see where the foundation that has been laid for social media in the Church takes us. The future is bright, and full of opportunity – while “the Mormon Moment” may be over for me at least as an employee, the best of “the Mormon Moment” for the Church I think is yet to come.

"Super Indexing Sunday" Breaks World Record With 2 Million Records Indexed in a Day

Posted on by jessestay

Facebook has quite a database with 500 million active users, and rumored total users in the billions.  There are few that can relate to the types of problems engineers and architects encounter with a database of that size.  FamilySearch.org is one of those, with a claimed database size of over 1 billion individual records, and possibly comparable numbers in associated documents and files.  Their Facebook Page claims over 400 million records indexed since 2006, and a goal to do half that number in just 2011!  Today FamilySearch.org broke another record, with an organized “Super Indexing Sunday”, claiming over 2 million records indexed in just one day, breaking their previous record of 1.9 million.

What is Indexing?

For those unfamiliar with Family History or Genealogy research, “Indexing” is the process of taking scanned in images and putting them in searchable, text form that others can easily find.  Similar efforts are going on in smaller scales with Archive.org, the Gutenberg project, and other organizations, but FamilySearch.org seems to have mastered this technique (arguably, Ancestry.com is pretty good at this as well).  With modern technology, FamilySearch has found ways to quickly and efficiently scan in records, then use its army of 400,000 volunteers (over half of those aren’t Mormon, the LDS Church being the parent owner of FamilySearch.org) to index those records for searching and attaching those records to applicable individuals in users’ Family History.

Example records indexed are Census records, Birth Certificates, Death Certificates, Civil Registrations, and Marriage Certificates.  With such a worldwide effort it is becoming easier and easier for individuals around the world to prove their lineage and ancestry, and know more about their ancestors.  See the video below for a glimpse at what goes on to make this happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KLea_DPxb4

“Super Indexing Sunday”

That’s why today is particularly important.  Today, as others were watching the Greenbay Packers play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Superbowl, potentially hundreds of thousands of people were participating in breaking a new world record in the number of records indexed in a day.  The event “Super Indexing Sunday” was organized by a person not affiliated with FamilySearch.org, Ken Sisler, a Family Historian who lives in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada.  It was a grassroots event started on Facebook, and spread to hundreds or even thousands on Facebook as all rallied around this event.  I’m sad to admit that despite my employment at the LDS Church, I had not even heard of this until the event was over.

This evening the FamilySearch Indexing Facebook Page announced that over 2 million records had been indexed in a single day.  Assuming the 1.9 million record from before is correct, that would make this a new world record, and goes to show that Family History and Genealogy are things that aren’t going away any time soon.  To me this is an amazing feat!

If these types of efforts continue, FamilySearch.org is going to have no problem growing by almost half its size in indexed records for the year.  As the world’s largest database for genealogical information, I think they could easily say that they could compete for the title of one of the largest databases of individual data in the world.  To me, this makes FamilySearch.org one Web 2.0 website that is worth paying attention to.

You can participate in the FamilySearch Indexing effort at http://indexing.familysearch.org/.

Disclosure: FamilySearch.org is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my employer.  While I am employed by the Church, the statements herein are my own opinion and do not constitute official word or doctrine from the Church or its counterparts.  To be clear, I have not recently talked to FamilySearch.org and the information contained is all information I gathered from publicly available resources – I have no insider information.  I’m sharing this because I think it’s cool technology and something my readers might be interested in.

"Be a Mormon!" – Making Things Go Viral

Posted on by jessestay

I’m sharing this partly because I’m excited Mormons were mentioned (I am in charge of much of the social technology integration and strategy for the LDS Church as one of the many things I do), but also because there’s some truth to it.  As Mormons, we get Marketing and Social Media, but I argue it’s not because of process – it’s natural.  That’s why it was exciting, but no surprise to see Jonah Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed and co-founder of Huffington Post, talk with Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch, sharing his “Five Rules for How to Make Things Go Viral“, listing the fifth as “Be a Mormon, Not a Jew”.  Of course, as he said, his statement was a little tongue-in-cheek, and as any good Mormon will tell you they admire and respect the Jewish people and faith (and perhaps more than many Christian religions, we take the Old Testament almost as seriously as any Jew – we love and respect their law, as it sets much of the foundations for what we as Mormons believe). Peretti’s statement was that “Mormons are better at evangelism”.  Mormons are, quite simply, whether better or not I’m not here to debate, but they’re naturally great marketers and it shows by the exponential growth shown since the 50s in the graph Peretti shared.

As a Mormon, I served a mission in Thailand when I was 19 (yes, I speak, read, and write fluent Thai, which I was taught in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah for 2 months before I left to Thailand).  When I was a missionary I was taught to teach a message, follow up on that message, and “build relationships of trust”.  As members of the Church we follow Jesus Christ’s direction to “come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:16-18 in the New Testament).  We love the message we’ve learned, and we feel compelled to share that message.  Building relationships is also something we love doing, again, not out of process, but because relationships, to us, are a core of what we believe in.  We are taught about the origins of God’s family before this earth, and we believe we are all literal brothers and sisters in God’s plan for us.  We enjoy the relationships we have with those around us, and more importantly, we believe most strongly in building a true relationship with God.  It is these “relationships” that, in my opinion, make Social Media, and modern-day marketing a natural fit for every Mormon, whether they realize they are doing it or not.

It’s because of this that the Church tries to enable members to share this message in ways they are capable of doing.  Just to feature some of the highlights of what the Mormon Church does, from my perspective:

  • Mormons send over 50,000 missionaries worldwide to help evangelize the Gospel.  Most of these are under the age of 25.  And when you think, “oh, these are those white-shirted young men (featured in the picture in Piretti’s presentation) going from door-to-door”, we’re not quite even that any more.  While we still have many going door-to-door, you’ll see missionaries sitting in call-centers, answering questions and chatting with you on Mormon.org.  You’ll see missionaries volunteering on service missions, helping out the poor and needy in places like Haiti (which efforts you can donate to over there on the right).  We’re even taking some more modern approaches like in New York, where Missionaries are even using Facebook and Twitter to reach out to people.  Imagine the potential of those 50,000 people, rather than going door-to-door, using technology instead to share the Gospel in a more modern, less-intrusive, more targeted fashion and reaching those that are truly interested in the message.

  • The Church just launched a brand new Mormon.org, featuring members as the main focus.  The Church wants its members to speak for themselves.  In Social Media this is crucial and necessary for the focus to be on the individual and not the organization.  Now, you can go to Mormon.org, find people of similar race, gender, ethnicity, or even locale and learn what they believe.  You can even follow them on Twitter or Facebook or read their blog.  We’re allowing you to see what a real Mormon is, and not just from a big organization standpoint.  You can peruse articles and share them on Facebook and Twitter via like and share buttons.

  • The Church has Youtube Channels, the most popular being “MormonMessages“, which, no matter what your faith, you can get some pretty inspirational messages encouraging you to do better and grow.  Each of those is embeddable on blogs and shareable on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere.  Mormons are encouraged by leaders to share what they believe, and are provided with the tools to do it.

  • The Church has mobile apps where you can read the Old and New Testaments, as well as The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (3 books that Mormons believe are also Testaments of Jesus Christ and are provided through modern, prophetic, revelation).

  • The Church has Facebook Pages and Twitter Accounts that members, as well as non-members can subscribe and learn more about the Mormon Church, gain inspiration, and discuss that content with other members and non-members.  I love reading the comments of these Pages because you hear such great messages of peoples’ lives being changed from this message and the best part is these stories are just coming from every day members (and non-members)!  They are unedited, spoken from the heart and the soul.  That’s what Social Media is about and the core of who we are.  It’s all about technology that allows us as humans to bare our souls.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Technology has enabled Mormons to take the “marketing” Peretti mentions to an even greater level.  I think we’re pretty good people.  We’re genuine.  Social Media and modern marketing have enabled Mormons to share who they are to the world, and they’ll continue to do so.

Mormons are considered a peculiar people.  Maybe it’s because of our history of polygamy (discontinued way back in the 1800s).  Maybe it’s TV shows like Big Love that give that perception.  Maybe it’s the fact we don’t drink Coffee or Tea or Alcohol, or that we don’t smoke and live a generally pretty healthy life.  Maybe it’s because we’re taught not to have sex before marriage, and, at least for active Mormons, we have long and fruitful marriages and we love having children.  I don’t think that’s much different than any other good religion out there.  I’m totally excited and stoked that technology is enabling us, as Mormons, to finally share with the world who we are, on a global and massive scale and we can finally be completely transparent about who we are.

What I do know is that Peretti’s statement is true, but it’s not at all because we teach “marketing” by process – it’s because as Mormons we’ve got a great message to share.  We’re great people to be around, and we’ve got nothing to hide.  I’m stoked that technology is enabling us to show that to the world.

See Peretti’s great video below.  Also be sure to check out his presentation:

http://player.ooyala.com/player.js?width=630&height=354&embedCode=xlaDluMToim9U0Mmz7xDG-kQdX34Rp9s&deepLinkEmbedCode=xlaDluMToim9U0Mmz7xDG-kQdX34Rp9s

Be sure to read more about this on NewYorkMag.com and AllThingsD.

Disclosure: In my day job, I am currently working as the Social Media Architect for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While they are currently my employer, this article by no means represents any official announcement, declaration, proclamation, or doctrine on behalf of the Church.  All claims or topics written are solely my own opinion and not the opinions or official word of the LDS Church.  To be clear, regardless of my day job, I am still a member of the Church and I still believe its teachings and will always have beliefs to share surrounding the Church and its teachings.  What I write here should be considered as such.

Who are the Mormons?

Posted on by jessestay

MormonFor those of you unaware, I am Mormon.  I try not to preach the religion topic too much on this site unless it has to do with Technology, but I did realize there wasn’t much on this blog talking about who I am and what I believe in.  I’m hoping to correct that and while I certainly don’t want to impose, I want you to be able to find out about it if you choose to learn.  For that reason, I’ve created a dedicated Page on this blog to this topic, and I hope you don’t hesitate to ask questions.

I may also at some point share my personal thoughts about the subject – it is a very personal topic that I think is worth sharing at some point.  My faith expands to my very root and core, and goes way beyond my belief (which I feel strongly about). It is something I was born into.  It is something my Ancestors practiced as they were persecuted for their beliefs in the early days of US History.  It is something I have challenged and tried and gained my own testimony of as I have grown up and learned of my own freedoms and choices.  It is something that “just makes sense” to me, and having travelled the world I have yet to find anything (while there are many good things out there) that matches what we believe.  This is something that is very much a part of me, just as much as my passion for technology and new media.

I hope you spend some time checking out the section I added on the right, “Learn About the Mormon Church“.  In addition, be sure to check out the official Mormon topic Page on LDS.org that was just released, talking about who a Mormon is, what the term means, and why we are who we are.  This is something very important to me, and while I respect we all have varying opinions and beliefs, I hope you can at least learn something from it.

Here are some useful links:

What Mormons Believe

Learn About the Mormons

What is “A Mormon”?

Read the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price Online

Read the Gospel Library on your Mobile Phone

Please, if this inspires you or you feel inclined, don’t hesitate to click “like” above or share it with your friends! (Retweet, post on Facebook, etc.)

Hate

Posted on by jessestay
[swfobj width=”400″ height=”300″ src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2184623&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always”]
Salt Lake City No on Prop 8 Rally from Reid on Vimeo.

I came across this video tonight after a protest they called a “hate rally” in downtown Salt Lake in front of the headquarters of my Church. You can see the temple, one of the places we worship, and the place my wife and I were married in the background. It’s normally a peaceful, tranquil place to be – I enjoy visiting, and feeling the spirit that is there. This video was not like that. From an outside standpoint, I see a lot of anger, a lot of hate, a lot of people mad at my religion, and frankly that has an affect me because this religion brought me up to be the person I am. It hurts a lot to see so many people hating something that has brought me so much joy.

Then, I see stories like this one of people wanting to boycott Utah because “Mormons are in Utah” and “Mormons supported Proposition 8”. Tracking Utah and SLC on Twitter I’ve seen a lot of Tweets, some from people I talk to regularly and would consider friends doing the same thing. And at the same time I’m thinking for the most part I’m on their side – I don’t know what I would have voted for if I were in California, but I do know I don’t fully understand why my faith thought this proposition was important enough to publicly announce support. Frankly I don’t care and I don’t think it should matter. Do those in other states not realize that there are people in Utah on their side?

After all, the “No on 8” campaign did raise more than the “Yes on 8” campaign so surely they can’t be blaming this election on the campaign contributions of the “Yes on 8” campaign. After all, regardless of the Mormon Church’s involvement it was its members who contributed as a whole, and many members who contributed to the “No on 8” campaign as well. What happened to Democracy and the choice of the people being the reason elections are won? Campaign contributions weren’t the cause of this proposition going through. Frankly, if the Mormon church had not stepped in, the pro-campaign wouldn’t have had anywhere near as much money as the anti-8 and the vote would have been unfair. I’m not saying I’m pro-8, but I think the pro-8 campaign won this fair and square.

Then there’s these “lists” I keep seeing passed around showing members of the Mormon church who donated for Prop 8. Ironically, many of those were put together by members of the Mormon faith, living in Utah!. Where’s the “list” of those Mormons who voted against the campaign’s contributions? Where are the “lists” of Catholics who contributed, or Evangelicals or Jews who contributed to the “Yes on 8” campaign? What about Gay people who contributed? The bias in this campaign, especially after the fact seems as though the Mormons were the only ones fighting for the campaign, when in reality, the Mormons were actually in the minority when it came to total voters voting for the proposition. Add to that the Mormon-targeted videos like this, see why I feel hated?

Yesterday, I saw article after article of protesters protesting my faith’s religious places of worship, yelling at passers-by, and much of the same things you’re seeing in the video above. Yet, I see no one protesting at Catholic places of worship, Jewish synagogues, or Evangelical ministries.

This hate hits at the very cause these people are fighting for. Bigotry, equal rights, and freedom for all. As a Mormon, I don’t feel very free right now. I feel really hated. We need to all stand up for freedom, equal rights, and liberty for all – attacking a single faith for sticking up for their own rights to worship accomplishes nothing.

Freedom is accomplished peacefully, without hate or guile, with equality for all. Hate, and even anger, gets us nowhere.

I’m closing the comments on this post for the first time on my blog – if you guys want to discuss this on FriendFeed, so be it, but I’m writing this simply to get my feelings out on this subject. Those of you on FriendFeed know my position on this. I think the approach these protesters are taking is wrong.

Proposition 8 – It’s Not Exactly Cut and Dry

Posted on by jessestay

your_vote_counts_button_3.jpgI’ve been standing back for awhile listening to the various sides in the blogosphere on Proposition 8 in California. The proposition is in response to a Judge overturning proposition 22, a law which attempted to define marriage being between a man and a woman. The Judge declared the law unconstitutional, making Gay marriage legal in the State of California. Opponents against the Judge’s decision have organized Proposition 8 to amend the State Constitution, thereby making marriage between two of the same gender illegal. I thought that since many of my readers are in California I would chime in.

As a Mormon (aka, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), like Louis Gray, I’m very torn on this issue. I had several gay friends in High School, and while I wasn’t very close with them, they were some of the nicest people I knew. Frankly, I wish the world had more people as nice and genuine as many of the gay people I know. I know many of my gay friends would never be able to change even if they wanted to – it’s part of them. It’s something as natural to them as eating is to you and me.

At the same time, my religion teaches me “that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.” To me, our church’s manifesto on this subject, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World“, is one of the most beautiful and divinely inspired pieces of writing in these modern times. It teaches me that “all human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” This includes those that are Gay – yes, we believe they have a part in God’s plan as well, and I believe this to be true. Unfortunately, in my religion it cannot include marriage.

While I’m grateful I don’t have to make the decision on whether I’m voting for or against this amendment, I do understand the great difficulty others are having showing love towards those with same-gender attraction, while at the same time following what their faith teaches them is sacred and true. Here are some of the major issues they are contemplating:

Natural/Human Rights

Those against the amendment say that Gay people are born gay. There are conclusive studies that show there could be genetic evidence of being gay in both gay and lesbian people.

At the same time the pro-8 supporters argue that despite some being born gay, regardless of whether it can be proven or not, that voting “no” on proposition 8 will encourage under-age “experimentation” for those that may not have been born with the trait. At the same time, some studies of a “gay gene” have been debunked as being biased and lacking concrete evidence, supposedly because the scientists themselves were homosexual.

The Human Rights issue simply isn’t clear enough yet to prove someone can be born gay or not to make it as clear as someone being black or white, or man or woman. And even if it were, there are other issues that come into play that add a whole lot more complexity to the legal definition of marriage and how that definition could affect society.

Parental Rights, Education About Homosexuality

This is one I can’t quite wrap my mind around (of course, I can’t quite wrap my mind around most of this). Those for voting “yes” on 8 argue that parents will lose power to control what their children are being taught in schools. In fact, there are cases in Massachusetts, where a Kindergartner was taught a story about 2 gay parents without notification of the parents. The “no” on 8 would argue that the parents were told about this in a letter sent out earlier in the school year. At the same time, in San Jose a professor was fired for quoting a textbook, stating that homosexual behavior could be influenced by “genres” and “environment”. There are also many other cases from Massachusetts legalizing Gay marriage listed here.

All this ends up sounding very bigoted however to the “no” on 8 supporters, if you can prove, and believe that homosexuality comes from birth. Based on the links above though, these are both highly contested viewpoints in the scientific community. I think you’ll find in the comments below that this continues to be contested (if I can predict correctly).

Church Rights / Freedom of Religion

If I were to have to vote, this is the main thing that would end up influencing me. To me this is the most convincing. The fact is, entire religious doctrines are at stake with this amendment. This is the main reason the LDS Church is involved (and just to set the record straight, it was the Catholic church, not the LDS church that instigated this).

If this amendment takes place, I predict there will come a time when all religions have to accept Gay marriage into their doctrines. Already, this has become an issue in Massachusetts where at least one religious faith is being sued for not allowing a Gay marriage to take place on their property. There are also other cases. This isn’t a matter of letting religions just do what they want to do and keeping the legal definition separate from the religious. Things all change when it becomes legal. I can’t have government forcing my religion to change its beliefs. That takes away from my right to worship. I’m very concerned about this one.

As you can see, the issue of Proposition 8 isn’t very cut and dry. There are many studies, and many issues, all conflicting with each other. The one fact I think we all agree on is that we want our Gay friends and neighbors to all have the best life they can possibly have – I think we all agree they have a right to that. I’m just glad I’m not the one having to make the decision to vote for or against Proposition 8. I hope I’ve presented at least some of the studies, on both sides, for you to make your own decision. Please feel free to discuss in the comments!

LDS Church Ranks Top Among Churches on Alexa

Posted on by jessestay
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An article on the website, LDSMediaTalk, pointed me to an interesting statistic today. It appears that the official website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, LDS.org, ranks at the top of all organizational Church websites on the internet. In fact, at #3,095 and having peaked at near 2,500 at the beginning of October, it is one of the most visited websites on the Internet.

Looking at the rank, and the current membership of near 13 million members worldwide, one would wonder if it’s not just members visiting the site. Could it be mere curiosity about the Church, activity of members themselves, or does the Church itself have a more technical background than others? As a practicing member of the Faith, I have to admit these numbers were surprising to me, and I don’t have an answer to those questions. It isn’t too surprising though, in that the Church has pioneered many technologies around Family History and recently has encouraged its members to blog and use the internet for good. The church has also created a Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/LDSPublicAffairs.

Amazingly, the church’s other main websites, FamilySearch.org (a website for Genealogy enthusiasts), and Mormon.org, at 11,342 and 63,314 respectively, also rank fairly high when compared to other religious websites. Here are the Alexa rankings of other large Religious organizational websites:

Catholic.org – 25,990

NOI.org (Nation of Islam) – 576,153

SBC.net (Southern Baptist Convention) – 204,346

Watchtower.org (Jehovas Witnesses) – 19,072

Venganza.org (The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – just for the non-believers) – 70,560

Being not as centrally organized, I had a difficult time finding a single source for Hinduism, Buddhism, or Judaism. I also realize that Nation of Islam is only one sect of beliefs within the Islamic faith – I would be interested to see any other major Church websites out there you may be familiar with. It would be nice to see a greater presence on more Church websites like this. What other Churches rank high in Internet visibility and traffic?