God Loves Mormons Videos Part 1

I'm prepared to engage Mormon missionaries may not work. Perhaps the book is 101 will help Mormonism 101. Published by Baker is your favorite Christian bookstore .1 examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a perspective view .1 Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ with answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism welcome to this edition of viewpoint on Mormonism on your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson.

My colleague at MRM, but we also have with us two good friends of ours Rich Sanford and Bradley Campbell you guys work on the God loves Mormons.com. Now, if you've never seen the videos that these guys produce, you are really missing a lot because they are quality productions and that's what we want to talk about today in the next few days. What kind of videos you have.

Why you did what you did, why you have a certain content that you have the first of all, let's introduce you to our listening audience because Rich, you have not lived in Utah. Your whole life. That's right.

And neither have you Bradley you both came from Illinois. In fact, why don't you give the story behind that rich from the what I was born and raised in the western suburbs of Chicago born and raised in a Christian household. There, God used that area in my life that help me come to know and love and honor him.

I served in ministry as a pastor at a church in Naperville for seven years before my wife and I felt called to move to a missionary landscape and to help be part of sharing the gospel and spreading the kingdom growth in an area that that was eating more more people do them. So do various wonderful series of events graduates out to Utah.

Prior to us having any knowledge of Mormonism. Any contacts with people in Utah we we knew nobody out and we never been here so you never did any kind have different graphics that he or anything like not prior to first hearing about Utah first having it on our hearts that we should come as a friend of a friend said he know you guys are looking for a missionary landscape.

Have you thought about Utah and of all the different thoughts that were in our mind and our hearts.

At that point. This was the only one that we flat out to said that the first one every other possibility. what entertainment will pray about that. and so, the largest preston hearts that were supposed to come here and i never quite had that type of experience i did not categorize that in my thinking and think about now. it is open our hearts, but a love for mormons and the people of utah in and then i started studying and i realize only goodness. this landscape is severely under churched it is filled with well with evangelical churches that yet you churches on every corner and sabrina's demographics. i started going only goodness, lord. i think this is why you're sending us here as i think he has been doing with others in recent recent years. i think were seen that more and more, so we were amongst a group of people who got called out here. laura and i my wife leah, parachuted in utah came out alone and started a bible study in our household and slowly grew that into a church, the mission church in south jordan and we been out here now for about seven years. where is the mission church people want to attend. it is right off of i 1506 s. it's in south jordan, the cytosol jordan were literally just west of the south towne mall across the highway, bradley. you came out at the same time or later, later, as i also grew up in the western suburbs of chicago also had a good godly family who raised me to love the lord and i went to the same church that rich was a youth pastor at the time and so he was a youth pastor of a high school when i came in as a freshman and i remember when rich went out to you that he did some other things of the church. some of the positions then moved out to utah. i remember he was like we were all excited about that ministry that he was connected to do in utah. we talked about it under what is getting to do and after i graduated high school i went to moody bible institute, and i was a church planting major there is a part of that program.

i had to fulfill her residency internship at a church plant and the only church planter. i knew really well was rich so i called them up and said hey would you like an intern and that he was like out yet certain live in my basement for a little bit. now you come out here. it's a couple years ago i moved out here to utah to just fulfill the internship requirements of my major. i had no intentions of staying i i knew nothing but you taught me nothing about mormonism and it wasn't even on my radar at all.

i got out here and was here for a month maybe two months and up pretty quickly. i was like think stay in utah permanently is a really compelling missions field and so i finished up my internship and i went home, got married and then moved back up here permanently.

just a couple years ago.

so yeah i am a couple years later than rich.

tell us a little bit about your families because it's one thing for you guys to be in the ministry, but the wives and children. rich you have children have to be a part of this as well tell us a little bit about your families and how they have acclimated themselves to a place like utah, laura, my wife was equally if not more eager to move to utah than i was. she just really felt the ministry desire to be out here and together we just fell in love with the mormon people and while we have learned more and more about mormon doctrine and learn more more about the things that are maddening and the distinctions in the way we talk about it.

that's just by god's grace has been a measured in with the heaping amounts of love that we does have for the people as well and so she has had that i had that and that we brought to little kids out with us.

my oldest to work very young when youngest was a four month term youngest of that time was four months old we moved here and we have added three more babies. since being here so this is effectively the only home that those kids had ever known. and so utah is second nature to them. if you look at dual citizens of different parts of the country for people mistake you for being lds are having violence. oh my goodness, my blend right in. that was one of things we thought well sometimes god calls people to areas where they stick out like a sore thumb and other times he calls in the places where they look just like the people the reaching and that's us. we really do look like a weekly wii fit well with our neighborhood that's for sure. rarely tell us about your wife and she came from illinois you never been to utah. never been to utah. i was deciding to move out here when she first visited the state and she had to buy into ministry in utah as much as me taking me because i was part of the deal.

at that point like this is where i'm to be so and so yeah she was excited but that she works at a dentist office here in utah so she gets to experience a lot more of lds culture and perhaps i do even being at a church shall come home daily with different conversation she's had with coworkers or patients brought this up in talking about this and curious what he believed about the captive audience man that their mouth are open and she's anyway so she's been really learning a lot about not just the doctrine of mormonism, but that the kind of cultural texts and so she's been able to help me explaining some of the way that people respond to different ideas and how sensitive they can be to certain topics and others there more willing to talk about will i just say that for coming out to utah with virtually no understanding of either mormon theology or mormon history. you guys have really caught on quickly and that's what we want to talk about that is the videos that you have produced and i must say you guys are very talented when it comes to putting together video you rich went with us to israel, eric and myself and i remember you were out there just filming everything and you put together these very short video clips of what we were seen in that particular day in their very impressive, and in this is what we want to introduce people to are the videos that you did specifically on the subject of mormonism and as i mentioned earlier, it's god loves mormons.com.

this is where you can find the complete set. there's dozens of them on their and your adding to those dozens regularly and you cover a lot of very good subjects, but in a very concise way. in fact, i was reading some of the comments that people were writing regarding your videos and that was one of the things that i notice people like the very short, very concise, but they have a lot of information that can help a person better understand where the mormon people are coming from on that particular subject.

and why did you feel that this was important doing a video series like this when i moved to utah. i was not like you said, familiar with mormonism at all, but i was very familiar with christian language on and raised in a christian household, surrounded by christian people everywhere when at least those who were were also familiar with christianity. so i was fluent in christian needs in a way that didn't even realize. so moving out here when i first started sharing the gospel with each of our neighbors and turned his head more for dinner and shared the gospel. i was amazed and frustrated how often someone ago. yeah, we leave everything you just said you give the five minute gospel breakdown and it occurred to me that i was in need to learn the language. the gospel doesn't change, but the language and how we talk about that in the particulars of it that might be really important to distinguish was somebody needed to be dealt with. so by god's grace a summing was difficult about moving utah was not coming with anyone.

we were totally alone but that ended up being a benefit for us because i was able to invest almost the entire first solid year reading to the standard works studying through websites like mrm, utah lighthouse ministries karma stuff and got to know other people in ministry out here working with mormons and i does have an insatiable hunger for and so i invested that solid year in just learning every possible thing i can about mormons and talking to hundreds of mormons about the gospel and when i realized that i had started to develop a language that might distinguish the particulars between mormonism and christianity. i thought not one thing it's not quite out there yet is good quality video that does that in bite-size segments and i had a background in video i knew how to do that stuff we had the camera gear already and so was a natural fit for me to use the tools that got it artie equipped us with with some of the new knowledge that we are gaining coming out or bradley. did you experience pretty much the same thing or did you kind of learn from rich's mistakes or experience rich.taught me a good foundation a lot of things, but something was really helpful is like week one being in utah.

he arranged for me to just meet with the missionaries and you just go and have fun. physically you like to tell me anything for it.

just have fun. so i went and encounters like that were incredibly helpful for me to learn like like you said which the language the way they think about things, how to share the gospel that in street evangelism is the other big one going to talk to street-level mormons about adoption.

what lot what not. i learn to develop a lot of my the way i like to talk about versus what versus i go to and how to respond to a lot of the doctrines from practicing on the street evangelism kind of conversations and all that knowledge for both of us has translated into our video suite we pull on a lot of the previous conversations and experiences we've had to inform the language that we use in the videos, not just the doctrinal concepts of the verses, but the way we talk about and i think that is a huge benefit when you listen to these videos because you can tell that you have had conversations with lds people is one thing to read about it from a book. it's a whole another thing about talking to them one-on-one and you find very quickly that though the textbook in understanding the basics certainly helps.

talking to them personally helps even more. and you're exactly right on that because these are not strawman conversations are having their telling you their experience based on what they have personally experienced, not what they read in a book and then sharing that with you. so while there are no latter day saints in your videos you can hear the latter-day st. voice as you deal with some of those questions and so i recommend everybody goes to god loves mormons.com subscribe on their youtube so you get notification every time they come up with a new one and they come out regularly and you want to watch them, four, five, six minute videos that i can give you a lot of information on particular topics within mormonism and i might mention you were pretty picky here at mrm and we do have a lot of your videos embedded in articles that we have because we feel that your videos only enhance some of the things that we are trying to get across in print, but it's god loves mormons.com and tomorrow were going to continue talking about what you guys have produced, and even get into some specifics that i think will be very beneficial to the body of christ. here, thank you for listening.

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