Chapter 6: Giants in the Land

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.”

Paul directed them to the Scriptures. At that time, he was referring to the Old Testament, since the New Testament was still being written. As a pastor preaching through these texts, I found hope and encouragement there as well. In particular, I found both while studying and preaching through the story of Israel confronting the giants in the land before entering the Promised Land.

As we studied Numbers 13 and 14, I realized that we must correctly identify the giants. In Numbers 13:29, we find a list of the enemies the Israelites believed were waiting to devour them if they entered the land: “The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

But those people were not the real giants. The real giants were the termites. A termite is something that lives inside your own house and slowly destroys it from within. The real giant was the termite of fear. Fear consumes us from the inside out. The giants were not merely out there—they were within.

In Utah Valley, the giant appeared to be the LDS Church, which dominated nearly every aspect of life. But the real giant was the fear within our own church. The problem with fear is that it makes us want to run. We see this in Numbers 14:3: “Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” The Israelites forgot that in Egypt they had been slaves, forced to make bricks without straw.

Things never improved for that generation because they remained outside the Promised Land and simply drifted through life. Nearly forty years later, when faced with another shortage of water, the people again complained to Moses in Numbers 20:5: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place?” Once again, they wanted to return to Egypt. That generation never learned that the real problem was not the place they lived or the people on the other side of the Jordan River. The problem was within them. So they wandered in the wilderness for forty years, where nothing ever truly changed.

Many people in our church believed the best thing that could happen would be to leave this “terrible place” and move somewhere else. Some longed to return to wherever they had lived before what they viewed as the misfortune of moving to Utah. We tend to glorify and idealize the past. We also assume that our problems can be solved by changing locations. But as the saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Our problems begin to find resolution when we understand who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. As a local church seeking to understand these passages in Numbers, we also needed to understand something important about the Old Testament. The Old Testament was not written about us; it was written about the nation of Israel. God promised to make Israel a great nation, and ultimately He used Israel to bring the Savior into the world.

Along the way, God promised Israel a specific piece of land. But we are not Israel. God has not promised the church a territory or nation. The mission of the church is not political domination over a culture or society. Instead, Jesus made this promise in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Jesus promised that nothing could stop Him from building His church—even in the most difficult places. God delights in working where people say something cannot be done. When people said, “You can’t grow a church in Orem, Utah,” we chose to respond, “We’ll see.” We committed ourselves to keep showing up, and we watched God do something remarkable.

When we arrived in Utah in 1989, however, the giants seemed larger than ever. The 1980s were a decade of tremendous optimism within the LDS Church regarding its future growth and influence. It boosted Mormon self-confidence when BYU won the national football championship in 1984. By 1989, activity rates within the church were reportedly at an all-time high, and there was a widespread sense that its future growth was unstoppable.

Within our first few months in the neighborhood, we attended an event where someone from the Provo/Orem Chamber of Commerce speculated about what the LDS Church would look like twenty years later. At the time, the church had around seven million members. He spoke confidently about growth to thirty or forty million members by 2010. That projection never materialized, but it reflected the optimism of the era. The LDS Church was widely viewed as a successful institution led by successful people.

The first Sunday morning after moving into our neighborhood, I experienced a reality check. I got into my car and drove toward our church in Orem. Along the way, I fell in behind a long line of cars headed to the local ward building for Sunday meetings. As all the cars from our neighborhood turned left into the church parking lot, I continued driving up the hill alone toward Orem.

As I drove, I asked myself a question: What would it take for even one of those families to get out of line and drive to our church instead? I thought about the enormous social pressure they must have felt to remain in line. In that moment, the giants seemed enormous.

Our neighborhood was located about three miles north of BYU. We decided to do something very simple: settle in and get to know our neighbors. It did not take long to realize that the people in our neighborhood were not giants. They were ordinary people—real flesh-and-blood human beings. They were also part of a unique religious culture, and they were not all alike.

They were genuinely kind people as well. On the day we moved in, a next-door neighbor brought over a loaf of zucchini bread. She welcomed us warmly and, as she turned to leave, said, “Well, I suppose you are Mormon.” Given that nearly everyone in the neighborhood was Mormon—and that with our four blond-haired children we looked like a typical Utah family—it was a reasonable assumption.

When I replied, “No, we’re not,” her reaction surprised me. She seemed not only shocked but delighted.

I explained that I was the pastor of a church in Orem. She told us she was happy to have us as neighbors. Clearly, she was weary of everyone looking and being the same, and she appreciated the idea of neighbors who were different. I began to realize there were people in Utah Valley who were tired of the sameness of everything around them.

Word spread quickly that a non-member family had moved into the neighborhood and that I was a pastor. We also met another neighbor who, like us, had recently moved to Utah from Southern California. I asked how she liked living in Utah. She replied, “I miss the diversity of California, and I’m concerned that my kids will be sheltered.”

Trying to joke, I said, “Well, I guess that’s why we moved into the neighborhood—to bring a little diversity.”

She immediately replied, “I’m very happy in my own religion.”

I learned that while few people want to appear closed-minded, there is often an underlying defensiveness just beneath the surface when it comes to Mormon culture.

A few weeks later, while I was out jogging, another neighbor pulled up beside me, rolled down his window, and started a conversation. He asked, “How are we doing?” Notice, he did not ask, “How are you doing?” He wanted to know how they were doing as neighbors. He wanted to know what we thought of their efforts to welcome us. I told him how much we appreciated their kindness and hospitality, but I was struck by how concerned he was about how we viewed them.

We also met a young mother named Julie who was struggling with her faith and with many aspects of the LDS culture in which she had been raised. Over time, our families developed a close friendship, and our children became friends as well.

At one point, Julie told us what one of the men in the ward had said about us: “Oh, the McKinneys? We’ll get them.”

I asked what he meant. She explained that many people in the ward were confident we would eventually convert to the LDS Church and believed that the reason we had moved into the neighborhood was to become Mormon.

That was when I realized we had moved into a missionary culture—a culture designed in many ways to produce and send missionaries throughout the world. Most of the men around us were returned missionaries. They had spent two years sharing the restored gospel and were comfortable discussing religion with Christians.

I found it relatively easy to engage in conversations about the differences between LDS beliefs and biblical Christianity. At one point, I was telling Julie about one of these conversations, and she said, “You know, in a way you’re like the Mormons. They talk about you, and you talk about them.”

Looking back, I think she meant that she was simply tired of religion and of religious people always needing to be right.

I was motivated, as Jude 3 says, to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I know the Lord used some of those conversations, but very little changed because of them. I eventually realized was how difficult it is to argue someone out of something they deeply want to believe.

At the same time, there was something else about our relationship with our neighbors that likely had a far greater impact. It does not sound especially remarkable. We were simply present. We lived out our faith in front of them.

Much of it happened naturally. We were raising four children, and as they made friends, we welcomed those friends into our home. We became involved in the local public school. When our children participated in youth sports, I volunteered to coach.

I was amazed at how receptive people became when we loved what they loved—their children.

If there was one moment when all of this came into focus, it was the day a young boy in our neighborhood was killed in an accident. It happened just as children were arriving home from school, and many of the neighborhood kids witnessed it. Several of us stood together in the street outside our homes, trying to process what had happened. Sara and I joined our neighbors in their grief. This was every parent’s nightmare.

At one point, I asked if it would be alright if we prayed together. So, we prayed with our neighbors. Afterwards, I worried that perhaps I had crossed a line. Later, however, I received a note from one of our neighbors that said: “When the McKinney’s moved into the neighborhood, we weren’t sure what to think about you. But now we know that you love us.”

For a brief moment, the walls came down, and we were simply people grieving together.

As we look back now, we are deeply grateful for the twenty-two years we spent in that neighborhood where we raised our children and built relationships that have lasted. Most of all, we learned that the people around us were not giants to be feared, but people to be loved.