As we were getting to know our neighbors, we were also getting to know the people of the Evangelical Free Church in Orem. The people in our church lived very different lives from those in our neighborhood. In our neighborhood, we lived among people who were insiders in every way. Our church, however, was filled with outsiders.

The church had been started in 1945 by people who moved from other parts of the country to work at Geneva Steel. Like many churches in Utah, its existence and growth depended on people moving in from the outside…

Orem, Utah, in 1989 was not the first place where a local church existed among “giants in the land.” Consider the overwhelming odds faced by the church in Rome around A.D. 60. They were trying to establish a church in the capital of the Roman Empire, perhaps the greatest military and political power the world had yet known. The believers there needed hope and encouragement.

Where could that hope be found? Paul wrote them a letter and said this in Romans 15:4: “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.”

We were about to move to Utah in early 1989 when I went out for a walk one night to think and pray and dream about what was ahead. I was fired up and ready to go.

Then a thought occurred to me out of nowhere: “This is going to be hard.”

The conversation in my head continued: “Yeah, I know it’s going to be hard but what an opportunity!”

Then, clear as a bell: “You have no idea…”

I served at Cypress Evangelical Free Church for two and a half years, overseeing small group ministries, youth ministry, and men’s ministry, counseling members, and officiating weddings and funerals. Many of my tasks involved handling the minute details of ministry and keeping things from falling through the cracks. In doing so, my understanding of the local church became much more complete…

I ended up becoming a pastor.

That was certainly not the plan as I began my faith journey. When I look back on my life today, I realize that I ended up going through two distinct conversion moments. The first conversion was to Jesus—being born again, raised to new life. My other conversion was to the work of the local church. When I started my walk with Christ, I didn’t want to be a pastor…

There is one thing that I love about Utahns—they are genuinely friendly people. It’s completely normal here for strangers to meet and talk to one another without pretenses, something that I believe LDS missionary culture has made more normal here than almost anywhere else in the States. Many Utahns have served on missions for the LDS Church, where they became experts at engaging in genuine conversations with complete strangers. It’s not hard to get to know people around here when so many of them are former missionaries.

In 1996, I had the opportunity to meet the University of Utah men’s basketball coach, Rick Majerus. Coach Majerus was one of the most well-known Utah residents during the 90s; he and the Utes were on an amazing run in those years, making it all the way to the NCAA national championship game in 1998. As a non-Mormon, he was very much an outsider in Utah culture. And he was also quite a character, never shying away from ‘telling it like it is.’

I began writing Keep Showing Up in 2019 and it was published in 2021. It took me much longer than expected to complete because it went through so many revisions. I finally sent a manuscript to an editor, who helped me develop a finished manuscript. The first edition of Keep Showing Up was then printed and became available on Amazon. We also bought copies and made them available here at CenterPoint.