iTunes Gospel

So my colleagues have caught on to my secret plan to convert them all. A slew of us share our music libraries on our company network through iTunes. My library is decently large so a lot of my co-workers jump on it throughout the day. In the past three weeks, though, four different people have complained to me that they’ve been ambushed… ambushed by my digital copy of the Book of Mormon. Most recently it was my partner-mentor who said he’d just been rocking out to a little Wolfmother when, before he knew it, he was three minutes into something called the Words of Mormon. While I can’t honestly claim that I set out to digitally proselytize, I relish the thought of unknowning colleagues stumbling across Nephi, Alma, or Moroni and listening to several chapters before they’re any the wiser. It’s literally kept me amused for weeks. Question is…. does this count as missionary work?

26 comments for “iTunes Gospel

  1. Only if you remix the narration to music.. you know like Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the moon

    Some ideas:

    Lehi’s vision set to Dream on by Aerosmith
    Mormon’s “O ye fair ones” lament set to War by Edwin Starr
    Abinadi;s saga set to Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash,,,(hmm that last one is borderline sacrilege isn’t it? Mods can delete it if necessary)

  2. Let your ward mission leader know so he’ll stop hounding you to go on splits–your talents are needed elsewhere.

  3. I think using the BOM that way is great…. Go ahead and use your LDS to its fullest proselytory (yes I know that isn’t a word) power! It would probably work less if you used Kenneth Cope though…

  4. Ammon: “Hey king, I just want to work for ya for a while, maybe tend some sheep.”
    Marc: “It’s just something from my church that I read/listen to.”
    Bookslinger: “It’s just a free book in Swahili from my church.”

  5. The Book of Mormon as an electronic virus–talking about hissing forth.

    Seriously, though, I think it would seriously advance the familiarity of the world with the Book of Mormon if we who comment on so many stories and blogs out on the Internet were to liberally quote appropriate passages of the Book of Mormon and get them into the public consciousness. To extend the virus analogy, it would inoculate people so they were not so afraid of catching damnation from actually opening the book, either physically or on lds.org. The Book of Mormon is one of those books that people feel they don’t need to read in order to criticize. If they could be given a taste of its value, some of them would be more willing to read it on their own.

  6. I have never known the LDS community to shy away from trickery as a missionary tool. Carry on & Godspeed.

  7. SingleSpeed, I have, uh, a book I’d like to send you. Its about unicorns.

  8. I think the downside is more than the upside. People don’t like this kind of stuff(?) I never liked little post- a- notes on my desk: “Jesus wants you to find him.” Or business letters signed: “Have a blessed day.”
    Worst, are hidden mind control messages. Like go buy some popcorn embedded in your movie. People hate this! Just be open with people.

  9. Why is this even being considered “trickery” or the like? Should Marc have to post a warning that anyone accessing his iTunes *might* be exposed to religious programming? Caveat emptor…

  10. WARNING *** WARNING **** WARNING *** (Bob, this means YOU) *** WARNING *** WARNING

    Three minutes of unexpected scripture = ingestion of poisonous chemical.

    Gimme a break, Bob. If we owe each other the duty of protection against brief encounters with words we find distasteful when we accidentally encounter them, then you and I should send up flares to shield each other from ever stumbling over each other’s comments.

    WARNING *** WARNING *** WARNING *** (Bob, do NOT read) *** WARNING *** WARNING

  11. I propose we make “Exceedlingly!” a new buzzword.

    John: “Man, this new song is da bomb!” (or whatever buzzword has replaced ‘da bomb’)

    Joe: “Exceedlingly!”

    or:

    Frank: “That new chick is a hottie!”

    Fred: “Exceedingly!”

    — — —

    We almost got a foothold with the TV commercial “Behold, the power of cheese!”

  12. #17: Again, I am honored you read my comments.
    The topic is: ‘accidental’?, ‘chance encounter’?
    Or, ‘..been ambushed’. Or, “I relish the thought of unknowning colleagues stumbling across…”.
    “Distasteful”….your word , not mine. Have a blessed day.

  13. Bookslinger,

    Are you trying to make exceedlingly or exceedingly the new buzzword? I figured I’d ask before Ms. Turley does so. I like the tounge roll of the extra L, so I vote for exceedlingly.

  14. Kari, Exceedingly good catch. Time for me to get new glasses.

    Bob, 3 points:

    1) In Marc’s case, the co-workers came to his list. He didn’t foist it on them. They knew, or could have easily known, that it was his list. And if they had read the track titles, or ID tags, or folder names, they would have seen “Book of Mormon” and the book name (Mosiah, Alma, etc), and Chapter etc..

    Therefore, in legal terms, it might be described as “coming to the nuisance.”

    2. Only if he had masked information by renaming the tracks, titles, folders, or ID tags to misleading information, would I accuse Marc of ambushing.

    3. It’s my sincere belief that in the Spirit World and during the millennium, we’ll have many more (several times more) of our friends and associates grab us by the shoulders, shake us, and demand “You knew?! Why didn’t you TELL me?!” than those who claim that they were turned off from the gospel by our awkward attempts at sharing.

  15. #21: I never said Marc’s music was a ‘Trap’ or and an ‘Attractive Nuisance’, that harmed others.
    However, Marc states he was put on ‘Notice’ by four people who said THEY thought it was an ‘ambushing’.
    Rather than remorse for a simple mistake or misunderstanding, Marc found ‘relish’ in what happened. Then Marc, and others went onto an area of of ‘praise’ for the event, and a possible ‘conspiring’, that the action should now be enlarged for their own proposes. (This is said by me with a LOT of tongue in cheek)

  16. Why should Marc B. be remorseful? Inadvertent exposure to the Book of Mormon is not, in fact, fatal. I myself listen to the Book of Mormon on my mp3 player and if any of my colleagues borrow it, they’ll just have to deal. If I was messing around with a Muslim colleague’s audio files and inadvertently caught a clip of the Koran, I think I would survive the horrific experience, probably without even having to to check myself into the hospital.

  17. #23: Again, I never said anyone was harmed.
    But you are right, I should have said *I* would feel remorse if four of my friends complained to me of feeling tricked by me. My answers to them would not be: “Deal with it.” Or “I am amused by your complaints”. I certainly understand the back and forth among friends in an office, and I may be reading too much into this.
    But the whole question of Marc’s post is this a good way to be missionary work.

  18. Bob, I understood Marc’s friends’ use of the word “ambush” as friendly office hyperbole. Or perhaps “ambush” was Marc’s hyperbolic rendition of their word choice.

    Is that how you understood it?

  19. #25: Bookslinger, No one understands hyperbole better than I do. And I had a well known record of bringing it into office banter. So you very well could be right.

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