The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is continuing its expansion into social networking and the social web with its beta of its new Mormon.org website. Members of the Church are able to create profiles that allow them to share their testimonies and personal experiences with those who visit the website. These profiles will start to go live later this year. Here is a sample profile from the website (click on the image to enlarge it):
I think it is great the Church is trying to personalize its websites. After all, mormon.org specifically is designed for people who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so it is part of the missionary work of the Church. Missionary work is always more effective when general members are involved rather than just full-time missionaries. Soon people who are not members of the LDS Church as well as those who are will be able to connect with each other through these profiles. Those who have profiles are able to link to their Facebook profiles or Twitter accounts or personal (non-business) blogs if they wish to share these links. The purpose of these new profiles is to demystify the Church by allowing normal people to share their testimonies of the Savior and of His restored Gospel.
I think it is great that the Church remains current with the times and engages new technology in ways to share the gospel and expand the habitations and tents of Zion (see Isaiah 54:2).