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Dear Friends,

In the summer of 2024, I retired as Lead Pastor of CenterPoint Church. Since then, I have taken on an expanded role with the Evangelical Free Church of America as “Regional Catalyst” for Utah and Southern Idaho. In this role I am working with pastors and churches in an area where the LDS Church is dominant. My goal is to continue to advance the work of the local church in Utah.

The challenges faced by churches like CenterPoint are outlined in a book I wrote in 2019 called “Keep Showing Up; A Utah Pastor’s Journey”. For 35 years we led a church located at the center point of Mormon culture. The challenge I describe in the book is the need for pastors to keep showing up to do something that matters in a place where there are lots of reasons for discouragement.

When Sara and I moved to Utah with our 4 young children in 1989, we knew we were going against the flow. We were seeking to grow a local church in a place where The LDS Church was everywhere. We were seeking to bring the Gospel to people that had a very different Gospel. We were missionaries to a culture that in many ways existed to produce missionaries. We came and stayed because we love this place and the people we live around.

What surprised us was that the hardest part of it all was how often we were going against the flow when it came to our own church. We saw that early on when we would share the vision of being a church that reaches the people of this valley and were so often met with, “It will never happen.” We kept showing up long enough to actually see it happen. In 1989, our baptismal had cobwebs. Since the summer of 2023, CenterPoint has seen over 500 people baptized. CenterPoint now averages over 2,000 people on Sundays, the majority of these people are coming from an LDS background,

CenterPoint has been influential. We helped begin churches like South Mountain (Draper) and Mountain Life (Park City), which are making a powerful regional impact. The great need is for more churches that understand this culture—where people can discover Jesus and bring their families with them.

We are in a time when it can be truly said that, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” In the time I have left my goal is to do what I can to advance the cause of the local church here in Utah. As Regional Catalyst my goal is to strengthen and support pastors and to grow the network of churches that are committed to reaching the people of Utah with the good news of Jesus.

These are exciting times. As we set out on this final leg of our ministry journey, in some ways it feels like we are back to where we started in 1989. We were only able to come to Utah at that time because we had people from all over the country come together to support us financially. The Evangelical Free Church does not have funds set aside for this ministry so, once again we are asking people to help. Would you pray about supporting us financially in this new endeavor? If you feel led to do so, you can either give online or by check. Please see below for how to give.