Using Church Language

LegacyUser

Peter Williams3 said: I am loving, LOVING the videos that I am seeing. I would like them to be in one platform though rather than on facebook AND instagram. Suggestion....with over 30million contributors, it would be very helpful if the church language could be kept to a minimum. eg, ward records, temple ordinances etc.. Over half of contributors are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and this church language can be a challenge to understand and sometimes have the effect of alienating the audience due to a lack of knowledge and understanding.
The videos though? I think are a really, resally good idea. We need more of them explaining on how to do things so the 30 million of us contributing, can be all on the same page. Thank you again for your efforts.
Peter.

LegacyUser

Christina Sachs Wagner said: Varying platforms reach different demographics.

As a convert, I would agree to limit church language on generalized tutorials. But to be honest, I have not seen any of the videos. Where do we find them?

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: First, welcome to the community support forum for FamilySearch. FamilySearch personnel read every discussion thread and may or may not respond as their time permits. We all share an active interest in using the resources of this site and as users, we have various levels of knowledge and experience and do our best to help each other with concerns, issues, and/or questions.

Church language is great -- in Church. But FamilySearch is oriented toward genealogical and family history research and has a very large number of non-Church users, many of whom participate in helping each other.

Somehow, you managed to find your way into the forum to post the above material.

To be honest, even as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have no idea what you are asking. The Church, as well as FamilySearch, makes use of several social media sites as well as its own Church-owned and controlled sites.

I do not think the Church should limit where it posts its material. After all, we are a missionary Church and need to be able to reach the widest possible audience. Training materials and lesson materials for FamilySearch and genealogical research can be found through the Help Center of FamilySearch.org as well as other sites, such as The Family History Guide (http://thefhguide.com/).

Ecclesiastical (Church) videos are generally not part of FamilySearch.org, which caused me to think that you reached this forum more by accident, than on purpose.

Since the bulk of users with respect to the vast historical record resources are not members of the Church, it has always been considered by Church Leadership to be inappropriate to use the site to proselyte non-members. That does not mean that missionaries cannot use the site to introduce investigators to Family History and genealogical research, only that people who are using the site, should not be preached at on proselyted.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: Church language is kept to a minimum when it comes to family history and genealogical resources. There are a couple of handouts about why we undertake genealogical research, but that is about the limit.

As to Church videos, Christina is correct.

LegacyUser

Tom Huber said: By the way, I deleted my earlier comments, since I had misread what you were saying. The reason that Church videos are found on many different platforms is because The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a proselyting Church and as such, wants to reach as wide an audience as possible. That's why you'll find at least three outlets for the broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word (byutv, Church of Jesus Christ Channel (used to be Mormon Channel), as well as You Tube).

Proselyting media will not necessarily limit Church language, but for the most part family history videos training videos (found in the Help Center of FamilySearch.org) will do so.

For those interested, Roots Tech videos are at https://www.rootstech.org/video-archive