BYU Devotional

Tuesday's Devotional held at the Joseph Smith Building on campus was televised on BYU-TV. The presenter was Merrill Christensen, professor of Nutritional Science. He used a line from Jeffrey R. Holland's April 2007 General Conference as the basis of his talk, "Our culture's obsession with comparing [and] competing."
He quoted two of President Hinckley's talks, saying, "The world into which you will move will be terribly competitive. You are moving into the most competitive age the world has ever know."
Brother Christensen pointed out that we aren't to seek out the praise of man, but in order to be successful, we need to impress people. "If you don't impress the coach, you don't make the team. If you don't impress an employer, you don't get the job."
He asked Elder Russell M. Nelson about this, to which he got the response, "If you are well prepared in everything you do in school and professionally, and do the highest quality of work of which you are capable, your work will speak for itself and the right people will be impressed."
If you missed this BYU Devotional address, or simply wish to watch again, click on the picture below.



Here's a note about my conversation with Brother Christensen before the Devotional.
He worried about taking too much time, as he was told to keep it to 25 minutes. He then said that being a nutritional scientist, he knew the one ingredient needed for talks: shortening.

Clive Barnes, who is the chief Dance, Drama and Opera critic for the New York Post once said, "Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want."

I think, however, that while most popular programming seems to be controlled by ratings, the "truly democratic culture," there are plenty of programs and stations that are immune to such measures. BYU-TV is one such station. BYU Broadcasting, as stated in its own mission statement, endeavors to "enrich the lives of audiences through the creation and delivery of religious, educational, cultural, news, and sports programs that reflect Brigham Young University's unique standards of excellence;" hardly programming that could withstand any democratic process. While engaging a large audience is important to BYU Broadcasting, it isn't necessarily what drives its content.

One more thought:
BYU has long believed that "The world is our campus." Quoting again from BYU Broadcasting's mission statement, "[BYU Broadcasting] is uniquely qualified to expand the influence of Brigham Young University beyond its campus." Hmmm...

Book of Mormon Discussions

A popular series on BYU-TV is Discussions on the Book of Mormon. In each half hour episode, faculty members from BYU's Religious Education Department discuss a few chapters of the Book of Mormon. Among those that watch this show are a cute old lady in my ward and my mom. The cute old lady grabs my wife each week to tell her about the episode she most recently watched. My mom would watch this show each week as she prepared to teach her Sunday lesson.

Each episode is available for download (audio only) absolutely free. In fact, many of BYU-TV's programs are available to listen to, all for free. So, instead of listening to the same old 80's music that you've been listening to for 15 years each morning while you go for your 2.7 mile walk, download Discussions on the Book of Mormon to your mp3 player, and listen to something that won't make you walk faster, but will keep you on that straight and narrow road.
Here's the link for all of BYU-TV's podcasts: http://www.byub.org/podcast/
Or, if you prefer to watch, here is when it next airs.

BYU-TV on BYU.TV

So, a friend tells you about this great show that was on last night. Too bad you didn't Tivo it, right? Well, unprecedented by any other broadcasting entity, BYU-TV not only streams it's channel for free, but it records everything over the last two weeks, Tivo style. That's right. By watching BYU-TV online, you can go back in time up to two weeks, and watch anything that has aired.
Missed that classic sports Friday night, the one where Ty Detmer tears apart the vaulted Miami Hurricane defense? No problem. Log in and watch.
Missed that great devotional address that Bonny Parkin gave. No problem. Log in and watch it, pause it, rewind it, re-watch it.
The first time you log into byu.tv, you'll be prompted to install the Move Networks software, which is nothing more than a small plug-in for your browser, and you'll be ready to watch. Give it a second to download the schedule from the last two weeks, and then pick your program.
Click here to get started.
This will be important, as in future posts, I'll link to interesting shows that are airing. And remember, it's not byu.tv.com. It's just byu.tv