Salt Lake City
Article by Missio Dei Community member, Levi Rogers
Salt Lake City, Utah. Depending on one’s particular background or
personal history, the place could have a variety of meanings. One might
think of mountains, skiing, the Olympics, or conservative politics. But
if you are like the majority of people, you think of Mormons, the
LDS church, and perhaps not much else.
As any church planter knows, or should, context is key. The
contextualization of the Gospel mixed with an understanding of a
particular city’s socio-economic-political-religious environment is
invaluable to the planting of any church. Nowhere could this be truer
than in Salt Lake.
We are a church plant called
Missio Dei Community stemming out of
Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon and the
Orchard Group in New York City. Our lead pastor is
Kyle Costello who grew up in the Mormon Church splitting time living in both Utah and
a small town in eastern Nevada. Kyle made his way to Las Vegas (where
he became a Christian, funny enough) and then eventually Portland before
feeling the call back to
LDS culture and Salt Lake City.
We started Missio Dei with the intention of being a community of
Christ followers in the urban core of Salt Lake. We have a heart for the
marginalized, the counter culture, and yes, Mormons. It’s not our
posture to “do battle” with the Mormon culture or “take back” the city
from them, rather its about seeking and serving all cultures that
comprise our city. We believe God has been here working long before we
showed up so our hope is that we can join Him in His work.
So our intention from the very beginning was to be a
gospel-centered church seeking humbly and simply to do life together as
we lived out the gospel amongst the religious and the irreligious.
Salt Lake City is interesting because as much as it’s popular for
being the headquarters of Mormonism it is definitely a divided city. It
is divided between the religious and the irreligious. The irreligious
will by any means necessary let you know how “unreligious” they are. It
is a harsh and unyielding subculture in opposition to the hegemonic.
And the religious will never relent from confronting you with their
message of piety and their reliance upon being in the majority. It is a
stark divide that plays itself out in every societal stream of
influence.
While still predominantly
LDS, Salt Lake
City contains a nearly equal split between Mormons and non-Mormons. Utah
is often said to be 75% Mormon. However, recent analyses by the Salt
Lake Tribune and The Pew Research group estimate that number is between
58-65% and slipping. As maybe is obvious, the state of Utah is
predominantly Conservative and Republican, however Salt Lake City itself
is far more liberal. In fact a majority of the
LDS population
(generally conservative) has moved from downtown Salt Lake and into the
suburbs of Sandy and South Jordan. Salt Lake itself tips currently in
the favor of non-Mormons at around 55%.
At Missio Dei we believe the Gospel speaks to any culture. Whether
religious or irreligious, God’s Good News provides what any culture
looks to idols to provide. For the religious in our city (both Mormons
and Christians) worship the idols of morality, family, and the American
Dream while the irreligious worship the idols of self-expression,
freedom, and career. It can be easy to demonize the Mormon religion and
write them off as weirdos, but this is not what we are called to do. We
are in the peculiar place of having to appeal to both the religious and
the non. The non-religious are shocked and giddy when we sit down and
have a beer with them and the religious like us because at least we’re
“Christians” like them.
The dominant way we live out our heart for our city is simply by
doing our best to live out the Gospel in whatever particular context we
inhabit. We go to
BBQ’s and birthday parties,
bars and restaurants. We invite friends, neighbors, and coworkers along
the way, some of whom are particularly confused at a “religious” group
containing members who will have a drink with them and at the same time
discuss God’s grace and forgiveness in their life. We meet the city
where it is at, rather than inviting it into our doors. We have house
churches that are on an equal plane with our Sunday service to emphasize
community and the idea that church is not a building. We teach through
scripture exegetically, keep Christ at the center, worship together, and
have monthly prayer nights. We err on the side of the un-programmatic
but are still figuring this out. Missional for us is less about
missional programs and activities, and is more about missional living
through whatever vocation we are in currently.
I would like to close with our purpose statement, which in many ways sums up in a more theological sense what we are about:
As Missio Dei Community we exist to see the Triune God transform us into a worshipping community that practices resurrection.
What does this mean? For us, this means that it all starts with God.
When we enter into this community with one another, we leave behind the
idols and agendas of our past. We recognize that we are all created and
gifted uniquely but it is by relinquishing stewardship of those gifts
and talents to God that we begin to tell His story, rather than our own.
We believe it is only through the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit that we will become the worshippers we see the Bible calling us
to. It is only through God’s grace and the Spirit’s transformation that
we will become a community that serves one another and loves our city.
It is only through the powerful work of Christ that we can join Him in
counter-cultural acts of resurrection that proclaim a new reality.
http://gospelmovements.org/archives/salt-lake-city/
