Elder David A. Bednar recently issued a challenge to members of the church during a landmark address on the topic of social media at BYU’s annual Education Week. “I exhort you to sweep the earth with messages filled with righteousness and truth-messages that are authentic, edifying, and praiseworthy-and literally to sweep the earth as with a flood.”
With such an invitation from an apostle of the Lord, many members of the church will certainly answer the call and become more engaged in the work of spreading the gospel online-but many wonder where to start.
One effort that has many engaged is the “I Love the Book of Mormon” YouTube channel. The creator of the channel, Ben Arkell, originally from Hingham, MA had a dream of opening up the Book of Mormon to the world. When searching for the term “Book of Mormon” he noticed many of the messages on YouTube were negative, and Arkell feared that honest seekers of the truth would never be able to find what they were truly looking for.
That is where the idea to “flood the earth with the Book of Mormon one verse at a time” was born. He has challenged each member of the church to record a short video reading the one verse of the Book of Mormon that they feel the world needs most. As they share their feelings on these videos, the hope is that this amazing book of scripture will be opened up to the world through the authentic voice of those who revere the book.
As President Benson said in a conference address thirty years ago, “The Book of Mormon is for both member and nonmember. Combined with the Spirit of the Lord, the Book of Mormon is the greatest single tool which God has given us to convert the world.” By pumping positive, authentic content about the Book of Mormon onto YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world, those seeking for understanding about what the Book of Mormon is can find real answers.
Started last year, the channel which currently contains over 150 videos in 19 different languages, has over 40,000 views from people in 166 countries. Arkell also has a page on Facebook with over 5,000 fans and a Twitter handle with 18,000+ followers.
Those who are willing to submit a video to the YouTube channel can email bo************@gm***.com.
“Like” this project on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ilovethebookofmormon
Follow it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BookMormon2day
