Scottsdale and Ward Updates

Whoa! The team God sent here is awesome. I really, really love them and it’s a great honor working with them and pleasure through and through. Yesterday we went to Temple Square and they hit the ground running. Very cool. Today we went to a Christian church then to wards. I took a few of them to my own ward. It was really hard for them to go to ward meetings.

 

Today my ward got split. It was getting too big so they divided it up into two separate wards that are split by address. I was so angry. I wanted to yell and throw something. I can’t believe how unloving this church is. I don’t like going to wards but that ward is the most welcoming and loving I have experienced yet. The people are warm and friendly and so is the bishop. But now friendships are split and that bishop got released to go back to his home ward. I was talking with a friend after and he came up and was talking to us and he is genuinely heart-broken over it. He is an unregenerate man but he loves his students and he is warm and kind. And now he will probably never see them again. Because the LDS Church is a well-oiled machine. It is very well organized and amazingly efficient. But God’s church is a body oiled with grace and propelled by love. It gets messy but there’s joy there. I hate that these people in this ward are hurting very badly but cannot do anything about it. The worst part is that they can’t complain or be frustrated, even for a little while, because they have to believe that the Church is infallible. They can’t even hurt and come before God to seek comfort because they are so far removed from it. That really bothers me.

 

I can’t help thinking that this is an attack. I do think that God will use it, but the 16th Ward in Ogden is the only one that has a Christian missionary going there regularly, at least of all that I know in the area. They are a loving environment that is great for showing love and directing them towards truth. I started going there because the time was convenient and I didn’t want to end up at the Institute building because of the run-in with the Brother there and because that building knows more of the Blue House and warns people against it more often. It turns out (I only realized it today) that this is the Ward that I am assigned to based on my address and the people that I have been getting close with are my neighbors. These are awesome things! But now they are split and will have a possibly less welcoming bishopric. Most of the people I’ve been getting close with will still be in the 16th Ward which is still my ward. However, they are now meeting at the Institute building which makes me uncomfortable. There are also a few girls who know who I am and approach me on Sundays that will be in the new 10th Ward which will still meet at the old building. This seems like not that big of a deal and to an extent it’s not. I will just go to a different building, but Satan made it work out pretty perfectly that in order to continue to build the relationships God is developing, I have to go somewhere I am a little bit afraid and risk being removed.

 

I do think God will do something good with this. I don’t doubt his abilities. But I am frustrated for the people I have grown to care about and that things just got more difficult with the whole trespassing deal and such. So please pray that God will thwart Satan and use this for good.

 

Because I had kids with me today and because there was the whole mess with the ward split, I told people where I live today. They know and are told to distrust the Blue House, so that worried me. But I think Kasie, the girl God is telling me most loudly to love, is going to come over this week for dinner. I am SOOO excited about that! I think we are going to worship with her. I do think that the literature at the Blue House can be very intimidating and even feel evil (“spirit of contention”) to a Mormon, but seeing the organic love between group of believers (Christ’s apologetic, John 13) and watching us worship the God we are so in love with is attractive. Please, please, please pray that this will happen. It’s risky to invite her over, especially when there is a group of excited, zealous high school kids who want to argue with Mormons. I don’t doubt them, at all. In fact I trust them and love them a great deal. However, I need to keep this relationship beyond this week. I am not trying to plant seeds of doubt in Kasie. I want to show hints of Christ. Our goal is NEVER to make ex-Mormons. Our goal is to glorify God and proclaim liberty to the captives. A lost Mormon is no worse off than a lost Jack Mormon (inactive Mormon). So please pray for a miracle there.

Oh yeah, if you didn't know, UPFC is trespassing when they go on LDS Church property. I'm not officially affiliated with them, but that could get me into trouble. We're going to places we are very unwelcome this week and Russ isn't here. Please pray that it'll be okay.

 

There is probably a lot more to talk about since I last blogged but I’m exhausted and getting a headache. I love you all and I love God the mostest! 

Two Gospels, One Good News

Colleen’s visit was really cool. It was also busy so a few highlights: going down to Provo where we stepped inside the Temple and Missionary Training Center (which felt an awful lot like the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in which Harry, Ron and Hermione go inside the Ministry of Magic). Provo is located in Utah County, which has the highest population of LDS people (and places). It is a different world down there even than in Ogden (which is less than two hours away). It is home of Brigham Young University (where a white guy received the diversity scholarship because he wasn’t LDS), the temple and MTC already mentioned, a Missionary Mall and a great number of LDS churches and bookstores. We went to a used bookstore that was not LDS but about half of the books there were LDS publications.

Throughout her visit we met with Mormons and Christians and learned a lot. On the last day we brought a new friend, Patrick, from Intervarsity to go down to Salt Lake where we talked with missionaries at Temple Square, did research with a street evangelist (where we learned about a lot of debates about doctrine…I hope to put some research together and give a more informative entry in the near future), met Sandra Tanner (she and her husband basically started the current approach to ministering to Mormons and have done a great deal of research on the LDS Church), and went to an ex-Mormon meet-up where we got to meet people who have come to Christ and got to hear great testimonies. It was a very informative day. I’m afraid Patrick’s head may have exploded. J

I was convicted that I have had conversations with several LDS people at Temple Square and other places that I most likely will not meet again, but did not actually give them the gospel. I still have chances to talk with people at the ward, but I regret putting discussion over the gospel. I am considering a new approach in those conversations. Mormons have a deep sense of being persecuted people which is not incredibly accurate but is still there. They think that one of Christian’s greatest goals is producing anti-Mormon literature and they label Christians that want to talk to them as anti-Mormons (as if I would label myself according to them). Most Utah Mormons besides missionaries do not really know people who aren’t LDS so they can only assume that what their church teaches of these strange people is accurate. I don’t want to get into a conversation and have them retreat to bearing their testimonies (an ex-Mormon who worked in Temple Square for 14 years said that is where their brain clicks off and you lose the opportunity to talk with them). So here is my approach:

The center of both our religions (Christianity and LDS) is what we call the gospel. We are not the center of our systems, the gospel is, so we don’t need to bear our testimonies or say what it means to us or how it affects us, let’s just talk about the gospel itself. The word gospel means “good news” and both religions profess to have this good news. Let’s talk about what each are and see which (if any) is what is professes-good news. I also would like for each of us to pray, either to begin or close. Mormons don’t like how we pray-it is informal and conversational which is a stumbling block to them. This is the kind of stumbling block that does not cause them to sin, but causes them to stop and consider what we just did. Can we talk to God without using “thee” or “thou” and is it possible to be reverent and respectful? Let them think about it.

Here is the Mormon gospel (as far as I understand it-they may call a specific part of this the gospel but this is where their hope is placed): Heavenly Father (who was a man from a planet orbiting the star Kolob) and his wives had lots of spirit children in heaven not through creation but sexual union. I am one of them, and so are you, so let’s all praise…never mind. But there we all were, spirits living in paradise with Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother(s). One day HF called a great council together and all of us showed up. He told us that he wanted us to become like him (gods vs spirits) and that to do that we would have to take on mortal bodies, forgetting all about our premortal lives, and would be tested and tried so that in the end we could be like him. The problem was that we would mess up because that’s what being human is, so how would he rescue us? His firstborn (literally our eldest brother) Jesus said that he would go to earth and be our example and atone for our sins. His second born (Jesus’ younger, our older brother) Lucifer said that he would force us all to follow HF. HF liked Jesus’ idea better so Lucifer and a third of the spirits rebelled. HF sent them to earth without bodies and those are what we call demons (our brothers and sisters). So that is our origin. Then we came to earth and started out alright (the Fall is a positive thing because that’s how we became truly mortal) but then each time we would lose the gospel and it would be restored through a prophet. There are seven dispensations of people who restored the full gospel after an apostasy. These are Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ and, finally, Joseph Smith. The LDS Church is the only True Church because it has modern revelation and looks more like the early church because it has Apostles, Prophets, Missionaries, and Elders and it has the authority of Israel because it has the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods and it has temples. All people will be saved because all will be resurrected. All will also have the chance to hear the gospel preached after death. There is 1000 years of hell for the worst sinners but after the resurrection they won’t be there anymore. There are three levels of heaven: the telestial which is for sinners and they will be visited by the Holy Ghost, the terrestrial which is for good people and bad Mormons and will be visited by the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ and the celestial which is for good Mormons who have completed their temple rites. The celestial is made up of three kingdoms also, the highest part being exaltation and the people in that kingdom become gods which is the original goal. In the celestial they get to be with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost. There is also Outer Darkness for those who knew the fullness of the gospel and rejected it (apostates). What makes this all appealing is that you and your family get to go to the same place and be together. They want to be with their families more than they want to be with Heavenly Father.

This is getting long, so I’ll briefly go into our gospel. God decided to create a universe that would reflect his glory. He decided to make this little creatures that were not the greatest thing he made into his own image, so that everything about them would reflect something about him. He gave them rule over his creation and loved them and offered himself to them to be in relationship. They turned from his love to his wrath when they rebelled against him. They delivered up the authority he gave them to Satan, a long-time rebel of God and a hater of man. Though these little corrupted beasts kept running further from God’s love to his wrath and made themselves his enemies, he continued to reach out to them. He made them promise after promise that depended only on him. He came through for them again and again and they learned more and more about him. Finally, he sent his only Son, who was not a human like them to become like them (a huge step down) in order to show them who he really is. These wretched little creatures killed him, but that was his original plan. He took all of God’s wrath for their rebellion on himself so that they could be reconciled to the God that still loved them. He was resurrected and promised that those that followed him would have eternal life. He knew that these creatures that believed in him would need help and were still not fit to follow him because they had become children of wrath. He left them but did not leave them alone. He sent the Holy Spirit who was also like him to give them new life and guidance. He awakened them to the things of God that they had blinded themselves to. He promised that nothing would come against them, because they were now children of God. They had been adopted into his family, these little creatures that had already rebelled against him! Those that believe in his Son could become his sons and daughters. They still were not ready for glory completely, but he promised them he would resurrect them and they would be glorified in heaven, so that they could be with the God that is now their Father forever in heaven. Those that continued in rebellion, running towards God’s wrath, would meet their end and be forever in hell, separated from the love of God but always faced with his wrath.

Now which is good news? It is impossible to believe that the god of Mormonism is the same as the God of Christianity. So I do understand that if you believe them to be the same, our beliefs about God seem evil. If our Heavenly Father sent us out of heaven and erased our minds and then sent us to hell, then that would be evil. The difference is that we believe ourselves to be creatures adopted as children through faith. They believe themselves to be children disinherited and then put up for adoption into earthly households (not in so many words but I believe that is the idea, especially because each Mormon I have asked says the goal of their lives is to be with their families). Which is good news? 

February 10 and always.

I love God.

First Month!

Greetings! I have now been here for over a month and it has been incredible. I know that this is what God has designed me to do and I am excited to be doing it. I get to do ministry stuff all the time!

I have been doing the Bible Institute thing for a few weeks now and it is going well. It isn’t the type of ministry God has specifically built me for, but that makes me thankful for the ones God has me in that are better suited for me. I like getting to know the kids better. The woman in charge is not in good health so it’s good to be able to relieve her for some of the day.

Joe’s blood work came back clean this week which led the doctors to believe the problem was more serious than they originally thought. He was really concerned about that, but he had an appointment yesterday and they think that the problem is just the migraines. They will do a spinal tap to rule out other options, but he probably just needs to find a medication that will relieve the symptoms. Thank you for praying for him and his family.

Joe’s main goal out here is to plant a church in the North Ogden area. There have been a number of struggles barring his way to doing that. For now, the main thing the ministry is doing is starting a community chaplains group. Basically that empowers the members of the group (me and four others) to go into the community and show love, letting them invite us to share Christ with them. The training started last week and will continue for a couple months.

Other things I’m involved with include Intervarsity which is going really well. I feel a strong sense of community there and am SO thankful that God put me in that place. I’m being fed through the Bible study and I get to worship God mid-week with other believers (and that is a unique opportunity out here-be thankful that you have that so available). A girl moved up to Ogden from Salt Lake a few weeks ago. She is not a believer (nor is she LDS, she has some background in Eastern religions) but she has attended a Christian church. She’s going to church with me on Sundays and Intervarsity on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The small group Bible study is going through the book of Romans so she and I met beforehand to get caught up on the first five chapters. It was cool to go through the gospel so systematically. She was amazed by the grace she found. Pray that she will turn that amazement into worship.

I am meeting regularly with an LDS woman who is depressed and has some mental illness. Please pray that she will let the light in.

Things with ADI are slow but okay. Two weeks ago, Joe, Ross Anderson (an ex-LDS Christian pastor) and I appeared on a Christian TV broadcast called Heart of the Matter to promote the problem and encourage churches to host classes. We hope to launch the classes at churches in April and hope to have students come for the full three-month live-in experience this summer. Pray that it will move forward.

There is a girl coming tomorrow from Denver Seminary for a few days. Her name is Colleen and we’ll have a whirlwind week. Tomorrow I am picking her up at the airport and we will spend the day in Provo. We will check out BYU where we will meet up with a couple LDS friends I made last summer and learn more about the school. We will also check out the Provo Temple and the Mission Training Center. We hope to also meet up with a girl who is ex-LDS and was saved through the Blue House. That night will be Intervarsity. Thursday she’ll attend a class at the Institute, we’ll have lunch there, we’re meeting with a really tough LDS guy (who loves to debate Christians), we’re inviting LDS people over for dinner and then going to Intervarsity again. Friday we’ll meet with the LDS woman I’ve been meeting with, going to a prayer room, meeting with Ross Anderson, spending time with the Filers and going to a coffee house church plant. Saturday we’ll spend all day in Salt Lake, going to Temple Square, Lighthouse Christian Ministries, doing research for a street evangelist, and going to an ex-Mormon meet-up. This will be super busy but also super exciting! Pray for awesome opportunities to magnify Christ and build the connections God wants.