Redes sociales: La relación entre el evangelio y el internet | David A Bednar

El could could come quickly but it's made up of a lot of little drops of rain opportuni going forward the church has done a lot of things a lot of campaigns I'm going [Music] to they can't post regularly and turn into a full-time gig they don't do it at all and can you help [Music] understand all right okay here here H the bedar I appreciate you taking the time thanks for joining us today thank you it's a privilege to be here so 10 years ago you gave a talk called sweep the Earth as with the flood and you basically invited the members of the church to use the inspired tools of social media to share the gospel online and personally speaking and I'm sure these uh people here here today can say the same that inspired a lot of us to put ourselves online and really try and be a part of the work I'm glad to know that three people listen yeah frankly though it's a challenge it's hard and we we've talked about it personally I've talked to many members of the church and it's easier said than done to uh use these tools and and to put yourself out in those vulnerable situations and so we're excited to have you here and we we wanted to get a follow-up interview 10 years later let us know how are we doing what has changed what can we do better well if I use numbers we need to keep in mind that their estimates they sound more precise than they really are but 10 years ago there probably were about two billion people using social media today that's more than doubled some people would say it's more than five billion people we've made remarkable progress uh if you consider for example president Nelson Easter and Christmas messages have gone to hundreds of millions of people so that's the good news the bad news is that the audience is now two at least two and a half times bigger so even though we've made a lot of progress we're not keeping Pace with the evolution of social media uh the nature of the content is different yeah uh a lot of textual material initially now uh textual material takes a distant second to short form video so it's not only the substance and the content but the mode of delivery has changed a great deal as well for me personally I think the greatest uh thing is the inspiration that attended so many people in the church prior to co imagine where we would have been in the work of proclaiming the gospel if we had not started working with soal social media and digital content uh it was a a miracle how well things went during covid but we had to have a few years of practice to get ready y so I think we've made remarkable progress but this field moves so fast that we have to learn to run even faster than we're running Elder you're talking about remarkable progress can you share with us some of the good things that you have seen online that having going well I think we we tend to emphasize what the leaders of the church are doing and so we talk about the young women president and how many people are following her and so forth all of that is magnificent what I love the most is ordinary unknown members of the church with very unprofessional very auth authentic short simple messages of a bazillion different kinds so a flood doesn't come uh well depending on the rainfall it could could come quickly but it's made up of a lot of little drops of rain that aggregate very quickly I think that's the right metaphor for what we're talking about it's those little drops of rain from unknown people and to the degree that that gains momentum and continues to increase then that helps us to keep pace and speaking of that inviting members to be those little drops of rain you mentioned we as members being authentic just every uh posting Every Day messages about how the church how the gospel has changed their lives is there anything that that you would say that we need to focus on as members as far as what to post I wouldn't prescribe what people ought to do uh I think as we focus on the work of proclaiming the Gospel we emphasize just be normal and natural in regular conversations at work uh simply describing what you did over the weekend which included going to church and perhaps teaching a Sunday school class that's very un usual to most of our friends who are not members of the church so to describe the most ordinary things that we think everybody knows about in many instances hardly anyone knows about so I would just invite people to be prayerful consider the normal natural flow of your life and what can you do about your life about your family about your children that highlights the gospel but it's not a a an in yourface overt uh come have the missionaries come to your home just live the gospel let some of that be in your social media posts and it will create a curiosity we live a distinctive lifestyle and if we just have natural elements of that lifestyle some folks are going to find that pretty interesting concerning that lifestyle to be authentic and what you're talking about we love as members um to see the brethen and general authorities be out there and do that and we wanted to know a little bit more about that experience for you to be influencers in a way or like to share the gospel in simple ways well I'll give one example I had one segment that was a day in the life of Elder Bednar and what absolutely made me giggle was that as a bazillion people online said what do you have in the bag at the end at the end I was walking out of the Church administration building just carrying a plastic bag I have no I don't remember what was that and even if I remembered I wouldn't tell anybody but they were what do he have in the bag was he going to the store for his wife you have eggs in there what was it that's what I mean about just normal and natural the thing that's enjoyable about doing those is that it Parts the curtain a little bit for people to see the normal sea of much of what we do obviously we cannot record what takes place in our Council meetings and other things but to just see the flow of the day I think people were surprised to see what was done in one day I had another segment which was following us on a weekend people said my goodness and that really wasn't that busy of a weekend so it's fun to help people just see behind the curtain a little bit it's it's not a secret it's not mysterious it's really quite normal and it's fun to be able to part the curtain it's fun for you and I feel it's an example for all of us that we can do the same right yeah I agree I think one of the challenges that when I've talked to members of the church is they kind of feel like they either have to go all in or not at all they have to be an influencer a content creator they have to make these elaborate posts and edits I feel like because they they they're worried that they can't be that they can't post regularly and turn into a full-time gig they don't do it at all and can you help us understand where's that middle ground of just being consistently sharing your faith online line upon line precept upon precept here a little and there a little if an individual or a family would consider just their normal natural routine what's something that they would be interested Ed in posting and just sharing it doesn't have to be a gospel message we are the gospel message yeah I I think it could help people to understand that what we do is much more important than what we may write or say it may be that someone would simply highlight one aspect of a family home evening and it might be that a young child six seven years of age would be giving a lesson now we all think that's normal that's abnormal in a home to have a child taking the lead in providing some instruction well a few segments about that a little commentary about here's what we focused on we were talking about prayer because in our home we believe prayer is important Y and then have the little kid what was it like for you to give this lesson people would just be blown away to think that a six seven-year-old kid could give a lesson so it's just so normal natural small increments line upon line that's how you get started you gain a little experience you see what works what doesn't work MH that's what we do there are things that we say let's try this well that didn't work very well so but you learn something about what your next episode will be speaking of posting and being consistent that goes along with one of the four um things that you mentioned 10 years ago but when we try or sometimes members try to post things like that negative comments will come you probably even saw it in your video of uh one day in the life of Elder Bard sure what can you tell us on how to react to these negative comments oh I have to do this and not sound snarky I don't know how you translate snarky we'll find the right word I promise and that is uh you'll never be acknowledged accepted or recognized by everyone it really doesn't matter what you do someone will find fault be critical and the question is are you and I grounded enough to be able to receive that incoming flak and say well this person clearly didn't appreciate this this post but if you if what you did was true it was you then I I don't see how you let that stuff bother you uh we're not trying to please people we're just showing aspects of our lives and if they don't like it there's nothing I can do about it I don't control it so my option is to not let it bother me too much I think that works for everybody and that would probably go along with even spreading the message sometimes we invite someone and and and they disregard it however the invitation was was made and I think that's what is important isn't that what you're trying to say see a part of what you're suggesting by the invitation in everything in social media it's a pull it's not a push you're not in their face you're not deriding them or denigrating them because they don't respond to the message if they choose not to pull it or if they pull it and their choice is I don't like this we we respect that we can also learn from it we may have said something in a way that after the fact we recognize ah that probably wasn't as effective as it needed to be I can see how someone might have not responded to that so we learn a lesson but you can't live in a world of constantly looking back oh I wish I had if that's what you wish you had then do that the next time and it will help it to become more effective one of the things that we notice is that general authorities leaders are being more open about mental health and you're also being more open and inviting to use social media but I feel like right now one of the challenges that a lot of people have is that it's hard to find a balance do you have any advice on how to make we find that balance uh social media can condition us to adopt patterns in our lives that are contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and that has a whole array of ramifications so uh we all know that institutions do research to find out how long someone sticks on a post and it has to endure more than 1.7 seconds or whatever the number is that doesn't work very well with line upon line precept upon precept here a little there a little and wait upon the Lord so people become conditioned NOP I've made a I don't like this nope I'm not sticking with this nope I'm G to go over here and they're moving so quickly from thing to thing to thing they make conclusion judgments so rapidly no I don't want this Nephi had to go to Jerusalem three times to obtain the plates of brass Drew Lots tried it didn't work gold and silver riches tried it didn't work both of those I would suggest were necessary learning experiences for Nephi so the third time he could go not knowing beforehand the things that he should do I wonder how many opportunities we miss because we only endure 4.9 T of a second and make an immediate judgment I listen to members of the church who say well I prayed and God didn't give me an answer my experience is you typically don't get one answer and you certainly don't get it quickly you get lots of little answers over time I think in the church when we talk about well I received an answer an answer no I reive a series of answers over time but the world of social media almost negates that so I think this is where I'm saying you asked about mental health I think it's our overall intellectual and emotional and mental health uh we have to be wary and not be seduced by the patterns that social media can introduce into our lives did that make any sense yeah yeah yeah I did is it responsive to your question yeah I feel it is okay if I can change the topic from mental health I grew up thinking that only messages from the Church would be acceptable in my life and probably it's that same thought it's still out there what can you tell us on how to find good inspiring messages and if we can consume anything else that is not coming from the church uh again let me begin with a short answer we have to uh identify the sources from which they come and do the necessary homework to know if it's a trustworthy reliable source so sometimes you find members of the church who will find critical information on the internet about uh the Brethren about the church about its Doctrine whatever it may be people will say well brother Bard what about that and I say well who who wrote it and it's astounding to me that well I have no idea I just saw it on the internet it was on well if you don't know who wrote it how can you possibly give it any credibility your Credence uh the lives of the Brethren are pretty much open books uh the life of Russell M Nelson who's almost 100 years old you can read every sermon he's ever written you know about his life his background someone who's critical of him where' they come from what's their background what's their possible motive if you don't know those things you have to be wary of the information and sometimes people are trying to obscure that because they don't want people to know so I think it's incumbent upon us to exercise our agency to do the homework to know what's the source who's the author to the best that we can discern and understand what's the motive I'm simple-minded enough to believe that if we do that kind of work the Holy Ghost will help us recog ize and discern whether it's a good source or a bad Source president Nelson said early in fact it was in his first message that the day will come that the only way you'll know is by the power of the Holy Ghost we're in that day you can feel the difference if it's not real things as they really are did I miss your question no it was perfect that that wasn't perfect uh I've talked to a lot of members and asked the question what impedes you personally from feeling comfortable putting yourself out there and and sharing a bit of your faith people that I've talked to and me included have felt this we have family friends close people to us that don't agree with us that don't believe in what we believe that are even offended by the things we believe in and that seems to be what impedes people the most based on my research is they are afraid of offending the people closest to them that they love what advice do you have for them to help them get over that fear of sharing publicly because it might offend some people close to them that they love and affect those relationships we often talk about the spiritual gift of Revelation as the what uh you know here's the answer to the prayer here's the issue at hand here's what I need to know so that I can move forward I would suggest that many times it's not so much the what the what may be very clear it's the when so I think there's a real need to seek for the wisdom the judgment and the spiritual discernment to know when you shouldn't as much as when you should now the what you do you know each person has to develop that but my experience is that the when too is as important maybe even more important than what to do so I would invite people to seek for the spiritual gift of discernment that's more than just recognizing the difference between right and wrong or good and bad discernment is by the power of the spirit recognizing the capacity inside of a person that perhaps that person has not recognized himself or herself and the ability to help them recognize it and develop it now I know that sounds like you know 80,000 ft in the clouds but I believe that if you're thinking in those terms it's not like I'm supposed to put a post out so what do I say who's the person who's the audience what is it about this person that I love so much what might be of benefit and a blessing and you're not afraid of offending them you're just trying to have the right message that might be at the right time of exactly the benefit that they need I think that's a different frame than trying to think well I set a goal I'm going to have three posts by the end of the MTH and I can't figure out what to do in the third one yeah that's not the issue who's the person when does it make sense and if that all lines up here's what I might try to say yeah help help me know if that is responsive yeah I think that's great uh one of the very first posts I did one of uh somebody close to me who was a little bit offended by what I had posted asked me who's your audience who are you speaking to when you share these and I hadn't thought about that yeah and I said that's a good question I'm going to pray about that and it helped me hone in my messaging and the way I presented and shared online because I wasn't just putting it out to the world I was thinking about who am I actually speaking to and sometimes that's not going to be the people who are offended by and don't want to maybe it's somebody who really needs this particular message but if you have in mind that that audience in front of you it changes the way you approach the messaging I I believe too that if that pattern of trying to address the needs or the questions or the concerns of different audiences people will pay attention to that and across all of those different posts they'll begin to see a part of what you're trying to do I'm not blasting this to everybody everywhere and all of a sudden that helps them better interpret the intent of the message it doesn't feel like a personal attack that's right when they start to see your intent yeah so speaking of attacks how can we be peacemakers in social media I think sometimes it's it's hard for a lot of lot of people to defend their their faith their beliefs but also be respectful uh and a peacemaker it's like a like a fine line sure I don't know that we have to defend it I think we have the responsibility to Proclaim what we know but as we've said a little bit already proclaiming is not in your face and there's something wrong with you if you don't accept it as soon as I tell you uh we learn about the gospel in increments small increments over time so if you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints if you are living the gospel there will be people who do not agree with what you believe and what you do and some of them will have a disposition to want to attack uh you become a peacemaker when you don't respond in kind now not necessarily on social media if it's an interpersonal interaction can you help me understand what what's irritating you what's upsetting you what is it that you are concerned about uh I think many times we have the the propensity to respond but we don't know what we're responding to can you help me understand where you're coming from with this it seems like you're kind of attacking is this intended to be an attack the fact that you're trying to clarify and understand where they're coming from is the first step in peacemaking because if there's an attack and a Counterattack it escalates and so you and I have the control in many situations not every situation but in many situations how we respond is the first step in De escalating and trying to make it more calm and peaceful that's right I love that uh that response and Elder bner quoting part of your talk uh from 10 years ago you got to get better stuff better better material it's great but you said I believe the time has come for us as Disciples of Christ to use these inspired tools appropriately and much more effectively to testify of God the Eternal Father and his plan of Happiness his son Jesus Christ as the savior of the world to proclaim the reality of the restoration of the Gospel in these latter days what inspire you to extend this invitation and now 10 years later how has the invitation either changed or developed to continue moving this work forward through social media and the internet every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints should be a witness of Jesus Christ but it's not so much what we say it's what we do and what we are becoming that is bearing witness so the invitation is for members of the church to do what they have covenanted to do this is a vehicle this is a channel to stand as a witness of him at all times and in all places and in all things so it's not like well I do my social media Church things and I go to church on Sunday and do my church things we are disciples 24/7 and we're always bearing witness of him in the things that we think and the things that we do the places that we go always so the motivation for the invitation was if we understand who we are and what we have as members of his church this is is a way to be able to declare that witness and again I think people think well I have to craft a message for it no you just have to let people see what you're trying to become I guess I understand a little more now what you mean by just posting an everyday thing if we have made that Covenant if we have come to the Waters of baptism and we understand who we are we should not be posting or trying trying to impress anyone it's just our everyday thing that we do because we have made that promise is that what I understand we the scriptures describe us as a peculiar people and I guess in the language of today you say we're pretty weird we live a lifestyle that the majority of the people look at and go why would you live that way and our answer is because it's the only way that you have enduring Joy you can do lots of things that produce temporary fun but to have enduring joy in times both good and bad only the Gospel of Jesus Christ produces that uh and we think that's normal a lot of people think that's really weird so if you take the scriptural phrase A peculiar people uh my my language to describe that is we need to let our weirdness work for us and if we just live the gospel you don't have to push it onto people they say you are really weird why do you live that way and then there's an opportunity it's a response to their question rather than us trying to push it on them so if we just live the gospel uh by definition we're going to stand out from the patterns of the world in many ways so a lot has changed in those 10 years like you were mentioning before what's going to happen next social media is still changing we are still finding a lot of challenges and also opportunities what would be your advice on how to um take advantage of those opportunities going forward the church has done a lot of things a lot of campaigns I'm going to jump around here a little bit so help me if it's not making sense yeah the amount of change that we have seen in social media in 10 years will be accomplished going forward in 2 years or 3 years I don't know the exact time but it will the amount of change will increase in ever shorter time periods now the caution is if we try to keep Pace with all of that that's all you'll ever do you cannot keep pace so in a intelligent focused selected way you have to keep pace so that you have a sense of what's going on but you can't know everything about it and don't need to will you say that will apply also as um way to keep Gathering Israel through social media like keep sharing our faith um and inviting others more so more so now than ever I think uh the light that will be associated with the messages that come from authentic IC Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ will become ever more attractive in a world where people will use these tools to enhance the darkness the light will shine ever brighter thank you would you be more specific on what you warn us as members about the pitfalls that posting and thinking about the content that we create even when we are being athentic and simple in our post what would you warn us about of these pitfalls that are potentially there well I think we've discussed a little bit about the blowback and the criticism and the attacks um I don't have simple advice other than that's just natural and normal and I think some people can get to the point of almost being consumed with concern about this blowback that comes um and I you know in a general way I don't really know what to say to people to to try to minimize that and I don't want to make it sound as though it's not a big deal because people can really uh have strong feelings about that I just think that if you're focused on an audience and you use each post each episode as an opportunity to learn that then you are improving developing line upon line and precept upon precept I personally find that engaging and enriching and energizing if it just stops I posted uh and I got slammed you got to learn something from what it was that caused the slamming and the learning from that episode um I think is part of the essence of why we're here on the Earth and what we're supposed to learn in everything that we do a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn something from it if you learn something from this the mistake and then do your best not to repeat the exact same mistake over and over that's called learning there's a fascinating approach to problem solving sometimes people will be hesitant and say oh I don't want to try this because I don't want to make a mistake one way to more rapidly get to the solution to the problem is to try to make as many mistakes as you can as fast as you can to more rapidly get to the solution well I'm not advocating that in social media but I think there's something to learn from that approach and that pattern when we have experiences that don't turn out the way we had hoped or anticipated there's a lot to learn from that from what you're saying I could not stop thinking that a safe thing to Poe for us would be about Jesus Christ there is still out there a lot of people that don't think that we are Christians is there anything that you would suggest to us on how include Jesus Christ on every post that we do for I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ it's who we are I've already said it it's not Sunday only it's all day everywhere all times all places all things now how we do it can't be the same in every setting and it's not just an overt act it's what we are striving to become and that becomes evident to anybody who sees us I love it on that note of kind of pitfalls I I think one of the challenges I see people falling into even myself is we start to feel inadequate or insecure about our ability like who are we who am I to share about I'm not an apostle I'm not a seminary teacher and I think that's another reason why a lot of us members just don't ever start to engage is because we don't feel like are we going to do it well are we going to say it doctrinally are we going to make a mistake and so we just get paralyzed what advice do you have for those of us who feel those insecurities and that inadequacy to share the gospel well number one I'm not sure that this is the Avenue for proclaiming you know every element of the doctrine right so I think to keep it pure if we keep it pure we keep it simple it's easy to do your homework to know that you are expressing it the way the Lord and his servants and his church would want it expressed I think the homework that one does can give you the confidence to know that you're not stepping outside the bounds so I think that's the beginning Point uh the other thing is that the principles of the Gospel are really simple and there's a lot of stuff that we don't know uh I think it's almost as important to know what we don't know as it is to know what we do know so if it's an area where there's some uncertainty about do we really know this don't mess with it stick with the simple things that we know those can be verified and then I think all of that uncertainty or that concern can be eliminated yeah like that and I think you've already addressed the other half of that which is focus Less on what to say and more on who you are and sharing how the gospel works in your life yeah if what you're doing uh you may recall the talk that president iring gave as a member of the Quorum of the 12 early in his service about uh if you will pray and ask God to help you to see his hand in your life every day if you do that at the end of the day he promised he said you'll you'll look back and reflect and see how God has reassured comforted rebuked helped you in some way during the course of the day and I I have listened to countless numbers of people who have taken that counsel and testify that I have seen things in my life that I previously had not seen or recognized well simply sh sharing something like that you know from your own experience living the principle you don't need to declare the principle yeah per se but in the process of describing your experience with the principle you are declaring it and making it relatable yeah I love that and how do we protect our friendships and families from threats coming from social media well I think that goes back to what we've discussed about the attacks I think the value is however that you've got everybody in your family to Rally in support and to assist so it's not just one person being attacked and how do I deal with that you may have parents and siblings and extended family members that can assist in helping to allay the concern about whatever the person said that was an attack they can help analyze it help understand I really don't think this is something you need to take too seriously this is somebody who's for whatever reason choosing to fire back doesn't say anything about you doesn't say anything about who you are or what you are so we love you and don't worry about it Elder bner at the beginning Parker mentioned that after your your address at BYU some of us were inspired to do this and now we are doing it and there were also some organizations created true Millennial more good scripture Central yeah sometimes members may think that they need to be part of an organization to post do they have to be part of an organization or basically just go and post I think it's a little bit of both uh at the beginning they may have no idea how to do this they may not know anything about how it works so I go well if I put this up what happens well they ought to come to somebody like you and say help me learn how to navigate this thing on the front end to get started what would you teach me about doing my first post how do I think about it so that plays a very important role once that's done then my answer is you don't have to be a part of anything you're going to be represented in something you're going to represent you as a person you're going to represent your family you may end up representing uh what you believe about the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints and being a disciple of Christ so there's a lot of things to consider I think your organizations help people navigate and learn about that process I think that equips them then to move forward and just be weird and and do to do what they're going to do in a natural and normal way we show them how weird we are hopefully they well that all started with me because I'm the weirdest of the bud well you're the the greatest example Elder bner and is there I mean what would be your invitation as we are wrapping up to to the world 10 years later my invitation would be don't make this harder than it is uh don't complicate it if you don't know what to do there are plenty of sources where you can get some basic information about how do I think about doing this and how do I get started and then do it uh it's not hard it's not complicated it's a remarkable learning process uh I am surprised I have some experience with this I'm surprised to see how people react to various things we talked about that at the very beginning you know what's in the shopping bag that's a a delightful process to try something learn from it learn how to do it better and then continue to do it so it's not hard keep it simple don't be afraid to give it a go there are great sources to get some help if you're just getting started and uh this is not going away this is the way World works now I've said to missionaries in the field you know we began in 20134 introducing digital devices for missionaries to use and a part of what I said to them is this is not just about doing your missionary work now you need to learn how to use these tools for righteousness now so that that will be your pattern throughout your entire life this is how the world communicates and you need to learn how to do it for righteousness thank you Al ber thank you for sharing all this knowledge than this is fun app it is fun it's very valuable yes thank you so Chad out of that can you get two minutes of stuff it's going to be a stretch not at all