Day 1 - Recap

We began at 9AM by meeting with the brothers from Gospel Grace and a few other short-term mission teams that are here serving this week. Gospel Grace is calling this week "Plant Camp," which means they are investing in the teams as we partner with them for the sake of the gospel in Salt Lake City (I'll talk more about this later in the week). 

At 11AM we went for a tour of the Temple Square. It was a very eye opening experience for our group. After studying LDS doctrine and teaching for so many months, it brought it all together to hear the missionaries talk about their beliefs. I wish you all could have been there, our young people very graciously and with much discernment asked question after question to our tour guides. It truly broke our hearts to see so many people in bondage to this false religion. They are so devote and sincere, but sincerely lost. We left more burdened to pray for and share the gospel with those who have believed this lie called Mormonism. 

This afternoon we spend a few ours in Liberty Park in SLC distributing fliers about Gospel Grace Church and the children's club tomorrow morning. Again, our young people faithfully did gospel ministry. Many of them had opportunities to share the gospel with those they invited to the children's club and the church. We spent time after dinner talking about the opportunities that we had to invite people to Gospel Grace Church, children to the bible club tomorrow, and the opportunities to talk about Christ and His grace. Please continue to pray for boldness and opportunities to share the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We sat in the shade of the capital building after dinner and looked at Galatians 1 together. The warnings of the Apostle Paul to stay faithful to the gospel and to flee any perversion of the gospel are vivid in this land dominated by a false gospel. We also shared how we can pray for one another and most of the team members requested prayer for clarity and boldness with the gospel. Please pray for us in this way. Pray for "captain obvious" opportunities to share Christ, and pray that we would be able to clearly "give a defense for the hope" that we have in Christ. 

On a funny note, we were all sitting on the capital lawn together. No one was around - we just were having a wonderful time talking ... then we heard a strange noise and all the sprinklers immediately turned on! We were not exactly close to the sidewalk, so we all jumped up and started running. After we stopped laughing, we all agreed that we hadn't seen a pregnant woman move so fast in quite sometime, as Katelyn got out of there pretty quick! 

We finished the night hearing an excellent sermon from Lucus Counterman (the lead pastor of Gospel Grace Church). He preached on the priority of the Church form Ephesians 2. It was excellent! He challenged us with the question, "do you value Christ's Church as much as He does?" Each night we will be hearing from one of the pastors of Gospel Grace. It is a really great way to finish a day of serving the King!  

Tomorrow, we will be doing the back yard Bible club. Pray for Ben Cassidy as he teaches the Word of God. Pray for the other students who are leading other parts of the club. Please pray for us as we will continue to invite people to Gospel Grace Church and share the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Justin - for the team 

below are a few pictures from the day for your enjoyment :)