Friday Focus — Salt Lake City, UT
When I say I live in Salt Lake City. The first question most outside of Utah ask is “Are you Mormon?” That question is evidence of a perception rooted in some reality, that the people of Utah are overwhelmingly members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. About 65% are and the Christian (mainline, evangelical, Orthodox and Roman Catholic) population totals 8%. This divergence is important, but not in the ways most who ask that question think.
Christians are a small minority in Utah, but we are not a defeated people. In fact being a minority faith is an advantage, not a detriment.
Being an outsider forces the church to regain its role as servant. When Christianity is not the dominant faith and forced to take the lowest seat at the table, it renews its understanding of service and reconnects to the promise that the greatest is the least (Luke 22:23-30). From this position of cultural weakness, the church renews her dependence upon the Lord. This is evidenced by a renewed emphasis upon prayer. Being an outsider drives us to pray, not as a duty to be checked off the list, but as a means of survival. The church that grasps the human impossibility of its task will become a movement grounded in prayer.
Being an outsider gives power in evangelism because it forces us to listen. When we are not driving the cultural agenda, we have the luxury of being able to listen, and to do so with genuine curiosity. When we aren’t maintaining a predetermined status quo, we’re free to ask sincere questions. “Why do you say that?” “What do you mean?” “How does this work?” These are they keys to opening a dialogue. The simple art of conversation becomes a highway the gospel travels. As we understand another’s story, thoughts, and troubles we find openings to serve that person the good news of grace. The future of the church lies in asking questions.
The position of being a cultural outsider forces us to rethink our practices in light of the Bible. Because our worship and behaviors are not like those of the normative culture, we regularly have to explain and defend our positions. The servant church finds only one source sufficient in guiding these interactions — the Word of God. Yes, our traditions and history guide us but they always guide us to the Word as our unalterable source of Christian practice. The future of the church is guided by the Bible.
Serving, praying, engaging and re-founding our faith in scripture is an exciting way to live and makes Utah an incredible place for ministry.
This is a blog — so the goal is conversation, not just head-bobbing. Here are some assumptions that living in Utah has brought me to reevaluate:
1. Mormonism in not a cult. It is an emerging non-Christian world religion. While organized and well-funded, individual Mormons are not “brainwashed.” This has changed my approach by ending the fear-factor that many have in approaching LDS folks “they won’t change” “they know their theology cold” etc. These assumptions create a straw man that does not exist. Mormons, like any human, have questions, fears and anxieties that only the gospel can meet and as much as they try to make their faith work, there are obvious and deep cracks.
2. Traditional American approaches to evangelism won’t work in emerging America. Most forms of popular evangelism rest on the assumption that you are reminding people of their third grade Sunday School lessons. But in emerging America no one was in Sunday School ever. For me in Utah, concepts and words have huge differences in definition. God, gospel, grace, sin, mercy… words that Protestant-heritage-America have used and defined no longer have the ability to carry truth without significant discussion.
Grace and Peace,
Sam
PS Release the hounds 
Sam Wheatley is the pastor of New Song Presbyterian Church in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. www.newsong.org Sam@newsong.org 801-597-2061
Posted: November 7th, 2008 under Friday Focus.
Comments
Comment from Sam Wheatley
Time November 8, 2008 at 9:52 am
Thanks for the confirmation Daniel I’m not bagging on the EE approach or 4 laws, etc. I’m just saying those approaches here don’t move a conversation forward. Questions like “How do you think we can build a just culture?” or “Do you think it’s possible for religious and non-religious people to ever get along?” or “What do you think is wrong with the world/us?” seem to get things going better.
Comment from Josh Eby
Time November 12, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Sam,
Thanks for the brief report on how God is at work in Utah and for the reminder of how we are to engage our ever-changing world.
Related to evangelism, I think it’s also helpful to remember that the church is simultaneously listening and speaking to its culture. The church is to live out the hope of Christ’s death and resurrection by hearing and identifying with the particular needs, dreams, hopes and fears of a community. Simultaneously, the church is to speak to its community with a distinct story and language. One without the other either conflates Christ and culture or separates Christ from culture.
Comment from Daniel McKinney
Time November 7, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Right on Sam! After living here for only two years, I have had to completely rethink evangelism: why do it? How to do it? I have been convicted of my dualistic approach to it: “I’m here to meet your spiritual needs; someone else can meet your physical needs.” It is an approach that the bible knows nothing about. In trying to separate myself from the LDS, I have found myself talking a lot more with folks about the justice of Jesus, the need for community, and a willingness for the church to serve. This seems to go over a whole lot better with the “non-religious” than it would if I started with the two diagnostic questions from EE. Thanks for the post. Thanks to pcacoversations.com to putting the focus on Salt Lake City.