Mormon missionary work moving online

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — For a dozen Mormon missionaries in upstate New York, the iconic tasks of "tracting" and knocking on doors are things of the past.

Instead, they're spreading the good word in high-tech fashion, posting on sites such as Blogger, WordPress and Facebook.

The images of missionaries traveling two-by-two, knocking on doors and offering tracts — or religious literature — have long been a global representation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But the church's missionary department is experimenting with its missionaries, using social networking to make contacts and create conversations with individuals who might be interested in the LDS faith.

Or, in social-networking terms, to get connected.

"We felt that this is where the world is, this is the new 'town square,' " said Ron Wilson, the department's manager of Internet and marketing. "The only way to find out is to test it."

The preliminary test program — which is currently called "Missionaries on the Internet" — was started in late May in the LDS Church's New York Rochester Mission.

Its guiding principle is simple: The missionaries selected to participate can go online if they don't have any effort more productive, such as teaching, following up on previous contacts, checking out referrals or meeting or working with members.

And this e-contacting is expected to be more productive than tracting, so the missionaries are allowed to go to the keyboard before going door-to-door.

Participating missionaries use Internet-linked computers at a local meetinghouse or a visitor center adjacent to one of the several LDS historical sites in the Rochester Mission.

A companionship of two missionaries sits side-by-side at the computer, one safeguard being that they work in tandem in composing posts and reviewing responses.

Another security is what Wilson calls "community policing." All participating missionaries are Facebook "friends" with each other and the mission president, meaning all their Facebook activity is easily accessible by the others.

The online activity is a deviation from church policy for its missionaries, which restricts computer use to exchanging e-mails with home and accessing church Web resources mormon.org and lds.org.