Having said that, he didn’t command us all to run out and sign up for a blog account and spend 24/7 in front of a PC or risk of eternal salvation. He tells us to be an “active participant” and to “engage personally with blogs, to write thoughtful, online letters to news organizations, and to act in other ways to correct the record with their own opinions.” Too many people spend more time on the frilly bells and whistles of the gospel and neglect the foundation. Ture, people who watch tv every night could put that time towards blogging but I’d bet they need more foundation work as well.

It’s not just about blogging, it’s about doing missionary work. It’s about having conversations with others both online and offline.

Elder Oaks once said regarding familiy history work that it was his desire that everybody do something rather than that we try to do everything. I think the same applies to missionary work. If you want to give out Church literature at the gas station, invite personal friends to that ward bbq, or feel more comfortable sharing your testimony on a blog, I view it as another option–not one more task for overburdened members–for fulfilling the divine mandate to share the gospel with others.

For all those people who plant their backsides on the couch from 7:00-11:00pm each night (and more on the weekends) to watch TV, I say they absolutely could afford to do something more cognitively productive. I almost wish I could be so privileged as they are to have the free time they do. Time enough, at least, to justify a cable/satellite subscription, which we don’t currently have.

I think more people reading this blog can identify with me (# of things you’re supposed to do > time in the day to do them) than with the group Shirky’s describing. But I could be wrong.

I don’t think the encouragement to blog about the church will increase the risk of burnout at all.

You should really watch the following excellent video of a presentation by Clay Shirky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky), the author of “Here Comes Everybody” where he talks about “where people find the time” to participate in wikipedia, blogging, and other new media.

http://blip.tv/file/855937/

The whole presentation is excellent, but the crux of his argument is that people have the time, but that they have been wasting it watching TV.

He estimates that all of Wikipedia represents about 100 million hours of cumulative thought. He compares that to 200 Billion hours of TV Watching in the U.S. alone every year. In the U.S. we collectively spend 100 million hours every weekend watching just the advertisements.

That is equal to 2000 Wikipedia projects a year.

I don’t think members will burn out, they will simply allow the time participating on the web to replace time spent in other activities–most notably TV Watching.

Watch the whole video.

The recent push by the Church for members to get into the blogging habit does provoke an interesting question – perhaps rhetorical, perhaps not: with all the Church asks its members to do (and to be sure, those most motivated to start blogs will be those most committed to the Church in other areas), are we increasing the risk of member- and family-level burnout as we cram more and more things to do during the course of the day?

As someone who’s been blogging for nearly three years, I can attest to the high level of commitment involved. Does sharing the gospel online bolster the reputation of the Church and its members? Undoubtedly. Does it make me a better husband and father? That’s a bit more uncertain.

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs. Good, Better . . . Best?