Mormenism.. What is it?

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. We're here with Logan Wolf. Logan Wolf is a church planting pastor here in Provo. We're just having a great discussion about his work here and how he came to bring a church plant. He's going to share a little bit about himself to begin with, and then we'll go through a couple of things. Just tell us a little bit about your background.

Hit the highlights for us. Yes, sir. I am from Wilmington, North Carolina, and my wife, Grayson, and I moved here to Provo 12 years ago. May this year will be 12 years. Since being here, we've welcomed two boys into our family. We have a six-year-old son named Jacob and a two-year-old son named Benjamin.

We call him Benny. My wife this last season has been the principal of a local charter school, and so that's been kind of our rhythms as a family this last little bit. So what was the one or two things that motivated you to be here in one of the most unchurched areas in our country with the Church of the Latter-day Saints and Mormonism? There was a calling, I think, on your life.

Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things. One was just my initial exposure to Mormonism. I came to learn about Mormonism during high school, shortly after I came to faith in Christ, and so there was this idea of grace plus works that I just had never considered before, and so that was a big piece of it. And then, yeah, to that point there, it is the least-reached metro in America. Provo is 98 percent professing Mormon, and then it's less than half a percent evangelical Christian. And it's in the eighth least-reached county in America.

Utah County is less than half a percent evangelical Christian. So the need, coupled with this false ideology, some biblical ideology of grace plus works was really compelling, and I think God used that to kind of draw us out this way. That's fantastic, Logan. And so you've gone through a couple of different phases. I think you've been out here some like 12 years, and so I think there was some struggle there, the first little bit you were here.

Yeah. So we started in a conference center, like the mobile church methodology, which a lot of church plants start that way. So we would go to a conference center, and we would set up every Sunday, and we'd have our service, and we'd break it down and come back the next week.

We did that for five years, very little to no traction, even though we were doing a lot of pouring into the community and trying to promote those services. And then there was a definite shift in our approach to ministry. We actually absorbed a church that was closing in Salt Lake County, right outside Salt Lake City in Taylorsville. And with that merger, absorption, whatever you want to call it, we basically got out of the conference center and moved to a multi-site model of ministry, which again is a common American methodology. So we had a big building in Taylorsville, got a building across from Brigham Young University here in Provo, and I began preaching and ministering in both communities. After that, so more recently, I think three years after that, we sold the buildings and became a network of house churches. And so this last season, these last four years or so, we have been operating across the entire state and people's homes.

So you actually had a shift in strategy. You went from a traditional maybe church planting strategy that would be successful in other areas of the country, but because of the uniqueness of Provo and Salt Lake City and the state of Utah with Mormonism, you had to shift strategies. And so is there particularly one or two things with the strategy you're using with house churches that you feel like working really well and successful? Yeah, I'll speak to the positive and to a negative. So the negative thing is when we were in the buildings, after we got out of the buildings, we had some Mormon friends come to us and they said, we really had a hard time coming to your services in the building because they felt so much like our services and our wards. And of course, these friends have since come to know Jesus. And so they're not Mormon anymore, but it's that idea of just the one person up front leading everything, you're sitting there being told what to believe and all this kind of stuff.

And they just said it was a hard transition, just felt the exact same on the flip side of that and the positive side. In the homes, it's very much conversational. People can ask questions and express doubt and concerns, and we can round table conversations from the word. And so it's much more, you don't have to sit with your doubts and your questions in the pew. You can press into those and lean into those.

And of course, the house structure lends itself, but you have all that kind of time. There's no, you know, we don't have bulletins. And so there's no order of service. And so if there's a need to press in with someone, we have space to do that, right?

Right. So, Logan, with that strategy, we touched upon spiritual discovery groups. So if you're really working on spiritual discovery, you might have Mormons and maybe other non-believers. Is that how that works?

Yes. So we start, obviously the house church gatherings themselves are primarily for believers, but we start a lot of these discovery Bible studies, these groups where you can come in as a Christian, as a new Christian, especially, or just an unbeliever. We have a lot of these going on currently across the state with Mormons, where we're just pressing into the word and letting the word speak for itself. And it's powerful just to see the way that the word can kind of confront our assumptions about what the Bible says, even as believers. And then of course our false ideas and philosophies and ideologies as unbelievers. And so I don't have to stand up front and tell people, the Bible says this, we can open it up and they can see that for themselves. And what I have found is that people are more apt to believe what they learned for themselves than what you tell them to believe. Nice, nice.

That's fantastic, Logan. And so since we're here surrounded, we're here at Brigham Young University, like I said, surrounded by students. I think you told me the majority of the population here is Mormon. And what, what is it about that faith or that church that stands out?

Maybe some, maybe top couple differences between true Christianity and Mormonism? I mean, again, I could frame it positively and negatively cause I think there's things to learn that they do well. There's things that obviously are, are, I would have a take issue with, uh, on that side, the negative side.

I mean any kind of, and this is not just Mormonism, this is any kind of grace plus work system. There is no confidence or assurance of where you stand with God. Uh, because if you're relying at all on your works, there's always going to be that question in the back of your mind, have I done enough?

And the answer is no. I mean, you can always, you can always do more. You can always pray longer, give more, serve longer.

I mean, there's always going to be more to do. And so that idea of I have no confidence, um, is, uh, I just think that's, that's just heartbreaking to me. And I know a lot of, I mean, we have a lot of friends and acquaintances who struggle with that, like not never knowing where they stand with their heavenly father, uh, on the positive. I mean, things were seen that I think the Christian church could emulate more is that man, a push towards community, a push towards the family and some, some things of that nature, these relationships where there's a tendency, at least in American Christian churches, where we go to church on Sunday and then we say, see you next Sunday and we pull away and that we kind of do our own thing. And so here in Utah, um, the Mormonism is not a Sunday thing.

It permeates the entire culture. And I think there is something to learn from that as, as evangelical Christians. Yeah. So, um, I was going to mention that outreach. You gotta be impressed by, um, uh, I've met with a couple of young men, 19 years old, and they're on their mission project right now here.

Um, actually a couple of them that are from other locations, one from Alaska and one from Florida that I met with the other night, we saw them downtown yesterday around temple square. And, uh, it's really impressive how they are intentional about reaching out. So our church in America, uh, you've already touched on this Logan a little bit about, um, how can our church in America, uh, embrace evangelism and sharing the gospel, sharing the good news with their neighbors, going down the street, uh, getting involved in church outreach, getting out of the pews.

How can we do that in America? Uh, I think two things here. Um, first, I think a change in our, our mind. Um, I think of act 17 where Paul speaking and he talks about, he's describing God and he talks about how God has set the boundaries and times of all nations and peoples throughout history for the purpose of them coming to know him. And if that is true of God on the macro level, isn't it possible? That's true in the micro level, like God has put each and every one of us in our specific neighborhoods at this time because he wants to use us to bring other people to him.

And so I think just embracing that and shooing on that, like I'm here for a purpose. And then secondly, and this maybe speaks more to past pastors and pastoral staff members. We can't just preach on missions or evangelism or disciple making and not give people simple, easily reproducible tools to do that. I can't cast, I mean, I can't even count how many times I sat in church services growing up, heard a message on evangelism with a great commission, got fired up. Yes, let's go share Jesus and then walk out the door and realize I have no idea how to do that.

Like I don't know what to do. And so I think we need to couple the teaching with the training. Great.

That's fantastic. Logan, you are impressive. I appreciate your words of wisdom and you've been doing this a good while now out in Provo and the Salt Lake area. How can people, if they want to support your ministry, how can they reach you or support you? And obviously prayer. We need prayer for Logan Wolf out here in his church house network of churches.

But how can they reach you? Do you have a nonprofit you can give to or anything like that? Yeah. So obviously we want you to pray for us and pray for pray for Utah. In fact, one of the things I encourage people to do is set an alarm on their phone for 801. 801 is the area code here in Utah.

And so at 801 either a.m. or p.m. or both, then stop and please just pray for pray for Utah. A second thing. Yeah, you can you can reach us at Crosspointutah.com. That's C-R-O-S-S-P-O-I-N-T-U-T-A-H.com. That's the nonprofit. And then I do have a link tree page that's L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E backslash Logan Wolf.

Wolf with no E. L-O-G-A-N-W-O-L-F. And there's a bunch of stuff there. You can connect with me directly through that page. Logan, that's fantastic. And thank you so much for your time today. We are here, Truth Talk Live on location at Brigham Young University. This is Stephen Jumper for the Truth Talk Network. This is the Truth Network.