[0:00] And we were there for three years, three, three and a half years. And then in 2018, we launched out and planted Arts City Church. We just celebrated eight years.
[0:12] ! In February, we launched out and we started meeting.
[0:34] And some of you may have heard this before, but I always just love telling it because it's really what we're doing and what we are seeing happen is all of God and just patiently waiting for him to open doors.
[0:50] And so we started meeting in a Holiday Inn Express in their meeting room. And we had a couple of families that had joined with us.
[1:02] And we were there for about six months, five months. And then we moved from there. We seen some growth and we moved to the place where we are now. But we were sub-renting.
[1:14] And so we were there sub-renting until 2020, April of 2020. We took over the lease from the people we were sub-renting from.
[1:27] They moved out. And ironic enough, it was 2020. So April 2020, when we signed that lease, we couldn't meet there because everybody was trying to figure out what in the world was going on with this COVID-19.
[1:40] But eventually, we did start meeting in that space and we're there today. So we have a space full-time. It's an auditorium.
[1:51] And then we have a couple classrooms. We use one for nursery or a mother's room and the other one we use for a kid's room for children's classes. And so that's where we meet.
[2:03] We meet every Sunday. And then on Wednesdays, we do what we call our connect group and our small group meetings. So that's kind of a synopsis of how we got started.
[2:21] We have been able to see growth. Auditorium right now is sitting seats-wise somewhere around 73, maybe something like that.
[2:36] And we have seen in the last couple years us get to that mark at one time, but then it kind of goes down. And so we're sitting somewhere on Sundays.
[2:47] We'll have somewhere between 45 to 55 people in our service. And so we have a lot of first-time visitors because we are, just to remind, so we are in Utah County and we're in Springville, the city.
[3:07] That's where the church is. And Art City Church is named that because Springville has an art museum, and so their nickname is Art City. And so we decided to name the church after that.
[3:21] But we are one of four churches, and I say four churches with two that I know of that has planted. When we first came here, there was only one church in Springville, and it's a city of around 36,000 people.
[3:38] And so that's why we came out. That's why we moved and decided to plant the church. Since then, there have been a couple of other churches that have come in, and they have – they're smaller churches and church plants just like we were.
[4:00] And so we are – we're kind of in an infant stage, I guess, if you wanted to say that. And there's other churches that are kind of in a church planting stage. And that's kind of what we're finding.
[4:13] Utah County, there's a lot of different denominations or a lot of different people that are trying to plant because they see the need. I mean, when you have a place of 36,000 people, but the influence is going to go a lot wider than that because the cities surrounding them are just eight minutes away.
[4:38] Utah is a very unique place because it has – there's not much room you can go east and west. You're surrounded and nestled into these mountains, and so all the cities are kind of just vertically stacked on top of each other and kind of growing into each other.
[4:59] And so we have other towns with just the – like Spanish Fork is right below us, another city that's another 36,000. So our influence is bigger than that just in Springville.
[5:10] So the need is great, and so there are a lot of people that are – I say a lot of people. There are other people that are coming and planting. There's still – there's a desperate need for churches here.
[5:23] But what we're finding is once we've – since we've been here for 11 years, there's a lot of people that come, but there's not a lot of people that will stay.
[5:37] And because their ministry here is hard, harder than any other place I've been at. And it's just because of the high population of the Latter-day Saint church or the Mormon church.
[5:54] And we sit somewhere around the 86 to 87 percent in Springville and surrounding our little Utah County bubble is what we kind of call it.
[6:09] That's the percentage of the Latter-day Saint. So where you would see a church, multiple churches in a city that are Christian churches, you're going to be seeing that here, but they're LDS churches.
[6:27] They're on every block. There's – there's a ton of them, and then they break their congregations up into these wards.
[6:38] And then you go to that particular ward, building, or church, that assembly. And so they do that every Sunday, and then they have additional things, too, that we can talk about if you guys are interested in more about the LDS church.
[6:51] One of the things I love doing and what we like doing is the reason I'm glad to be able to come on board and spend some time with you guys is to really try to have you understand where we're at and what we're doing and the nature of the ministry that we're part of so that you can help us pray more effectively.
[7:16] Pray more specifically for the things that we're trying to accomplish and people we're trying to reach. So not having a lot of churches – and this is kind of what I've got on this point – is we have a lot of visitors.
[7:29] We will have first-time visitors just about every Sunday. People that are curious, people that have possibly left the LDS church.
[7:41] We've got LDS people that are coming to just check out the church because they've maybe never stepped in front of another church other than they're – they maybe have seen it online and been on social media and all that, but not actually met someone who's a Christian pastor or Christian Christ follower.
[8:01] So the idea behind that is just this – we're trying to cultivate in our services just a safe environment where people come and people are able to ask questions and understand where they're at in their faith.
[8:25] And we find a lot of people who – that out of, say, that 45 or 55 people that we're seeing, we have somewhere between 20 to 25 members, believers who are committed to the church.
[8:42] The rest of that are people that come and go, more come than go. But when they do come, they're asking questions. They're trying to figure out, is there anything to this Jesus person?
[8:53] Because a lot of people who leave the LDS faith will go into an atheistic mind frame and – or agnostic. They just – because they feel betrayed.
[9:05] They feel like they can't trust because they just trusted people and found out that what they had been – what they believed was wrong. So that's kind of where we're at now.
[9:20] We've been in this building for – since 2020 or should say 2018, but took it over in 2020. And we – our big things that – what we're trying to do now is continue to build our nucleus so that we have people that are committed to this church and look at it as their church and something that they want to be part of.
[9:49] And that's happening. We're having a lot of success with that. It's just slow. And we've seen – we see a constant moving toward that. It's just the direction or the speed by which that goes.
[10:02] As we are trying to disciple, it's God that's going to give that increase and inform Christ in their hearts and give them that particular desire to want to be part of what's going on.
[10:16] So I've got some more – I mean, I can give prayer requests and things and even some ideas about ministries that we're going to be doing this year.
[10:26] But I thought if it's okay with you, I'll pause and see if anybody has a question regarding what I've said so far. Sure. Any questions? All clear?
[10:37] Wow, brother. I mean, you did great. There's no questions. Okay. Okay. So just to clarify, if I will, one of the things Brother Kirk has shared with me a lot, and he said it, but I wanted you to understand that a lot of the coming and going is not necessarily just the church members.
[10:57] They have a lot of people that are coming and attending the church for a season and leaving, but there's also a lot of coming and going of church planters. So a lot of – am I correct, brother, in that assessment? A lot of the new plants don't make it beyond five, six years because it's so hard and it's difficult.
[11:13] They don't want that type of beard that gets gray from being there so long. But with all seriousness, it is a very, very difficult field. So, brother, you said you guys have been there – this is your 10th year?
[11:27] Am I correct? We just entered our – we just hit 11 years in October. 11 years in October. So the longevity of 11 years of Art City Community Church really is a testimony to God's favor upon them and really a commitment of Kirk and Kathy and their family to remain there.
[11:44] So I wanted you to understand that because we do see a lot – I say we lightly, but as I talked with Brother Kirk, we see a lot that may be there for a season. And he's even seen some members that move out there to help him.
[11:57] They're there for a season. And it's a hard place to stay and to do ministry work. It just really is. So that's one reason. Well, this is another aspect of that.
[12:08] That's a great point. We came out here strategically after doing a lot of research, talking to a lot of people that were out here, and made the decision that we were going to be bivocational to start.
[12:32] So the three and a half years we were with the church in Provo was years that we needed to get acclimated to the culture and kind of just understand exactly what we're trying to do.
[12:50] And then even when we planted, I was working, working in a third-party fulfillment company as a warehouse manager, and did not branch out or leap into what would be full-time ministry and start receiving support.
[13:12] We had some churches that were supporting us some. But we didn't start really trying to get full-time support until I got to a point where I just couldn't do it anymore.
[13:27] We were working. I was working full-time. You guys who know my family know I have five children. And so trying to be dad and husband, working 40-plus hours a week, and then planting the church on the side.
[13:47] We did that until 2021. So two significant things happened in 2020. We took over the lease, like I said, to the building, and the other one was I quit my job and just leaped out by faith because we had grown in such a way that we just couldn't move forward anymore if I just couldn't pour any more time in, and I needed to.
[14:17] And so we chose to do that, and not everybody's going to choose that. And I'm not saying that that's the only way that missionaries and church planters need to do it.
[14:27] I'm just saying that that is what worked best here because a lot of, to your point, Billy Joe, a lot of what we were finding was people that were coming out here being supported by, like, NAMM.
[14:40] They were committed to that, you know, five, six-year mark. And in that five- to six-year mark, you are expected, you know, to have a congregation by which you can be supported full-time.
[14:57] And that's just not realistic out here. It's just not. And, I mean, I'm even to a point now where I appreciate the churches that are pouring into us, and I'm looking at it, and maybe God has that for me to be supported by our city.
[15:14] I hope that's the case. We try and talk about those things, and we're trying to disciple, and we're trying to have people buy in, like we just talked about that, you know, discipling to a point where people understand they're following Christ and then committing to a church, and eventually that means not just giving of your money, but it's included.
[15:40] You know, you're supporting the church, and then through that budget we support pastors. But that's just not, that's not, it's a slogan. I mean, most of the church planners and pastors that are out here are by vocational, or they're being supported by faithful churches that are supporting the ministry.
[16:00] So that's one aspect of it. And I'll just mention one more aspect of that that's tied to what you're saying here. We have noticed, like, we will pour into, so we'll have families or we'll have individuals that will come, and we'll sow into them, and that may even see them come to know Christ or get to a point where they definitely have left LDS Church, and they're trying to find community and what is life after the LDS Church.
[16:35] Because of the social stigmatism that's here, because of that LDS Church and the ties that a lot of people have toward their family that's multigenerational, or friends that they grew up with that they were part of the LDS Church, and now they're not, that we have a lot of people that will decide, this is just too hard of a place to be a Christian or to be a non-LDS person.
[17:00] And they'll move out of the state. They'll move out to another particular part of the country where it's not this concentrated. It's not this potent of the LDS percentage.
[17:12] And so part of our ministry is, and we realize this, and we've got to be okay with it, like, we're not per se here as much as we want to grow Art City Church, and we want it to be an autonomous church.
[17:26] Yes. But we're also here to build the kingdom of God first. There are going to be people that come and come to know Christ and hear the gospel. We disciple, we teach that.
[17:38] They may not ever join Art City Church. They may never be part of this building, this church, and they may move on. And so we find that happening. And so that's one of the major prayer requests that we do have is that, and this kind of goes back to the church planting of people coming out and planting churches, is we're finding in these 11 years that the church plants that come out need to be sustained.
[18:05] And that needs to be two ways. Of course, we're discipling, and we want converts and people to be discipled to join that. But what would help and what we're praying for is to have mature Christians that would possibly say, you know, I just want to come out and be part of this work and be part of the life of this church to help substantiate the body that's there as we continue to grow and get our roots deeper.
[18:36] Okay. I believe that was an unapologetic plea for some of our church members, right? No. No. No. That's okay. You've done it before. That's okay, brother.
[18:46] I understand. Honestly, you know what? I believe I'm to a point in my Christian life and also out here, I've seen the faithfulness of God, and I just know He's going to give us what we need when we need it.
[19:07] And I just need to be faithful for the things that I can control. And I've got to just yield to Him the things I can't control and trust that He's going to do what He needs to do.
[19:19] But if that happens by your blessing, that would be awesome. By the leading of God and you. That's what I mean by that.
[19:30] Well, and we can have this conversation because I was the pastor that sent Kirk to Utah with my blessing. So, yeah, when I was pastoring at Normandy, I was Kirk's pastor and we prayed through that.
[19:43] So, yeah, I was the one who sent him and his family out there. So, yes, I understand the leading of the Lord in that and absolutely agree with you, brother, that God has people that He calls to be in places to serve and to help and full blessing in that.
[19:59] Any questions before we get to matters of prayer concern? And you won't have any questions. Don't be shy. Anything. They're shy. They're not asking.
[20:09] Yes, go ahead, Ms. Brenda. Do you get pushback from the LDS church? Do you get pushback from the LDS church is the question. Yes, we do.
[20:23] To give you a hard time is really what's being asked. Yeah. So, if you've ever heard the phrase, but not in a good way, killing with kindness, it's kind of what we get here.
[20:37] There's a lot of pride and arrogance in the LDS church. So, the way the pushback comes is going to be really twofold.
[20:50] One, there's such a concentrated population that it's almost, you feel like an outsider. You feel like you don't belong.
[21:02] And even in community, even in the town, the city, everything is nuanced toward the LDS. And so, what that does is it comes out with talking with people.
[21:20] And so, when they find out that I'm a Christian pastor and we've planted our city church, even after we've been here, you know, the church has been here for eight years, it'll be things like, oh, that's cute.
[21:32] Or, you know, that's nice. Good for you, you know, coming out here. That's the good side of it. You know, when we do a lot of canvassing and we're getting ready to get into our mission-mindedness, our mission, I have some mission teams coming out and we do more evangelistic events and things like that when it gets a little warmer and we get out of winter, which, by the way, I mean, we just had our first significant snowstorm today.
[22:04] We just got about close to four inches in the valley and in the mountains. We got feet, which is more important for us because it's like it's our water source.
[22:15] You guys, up until this point, had had more of a winter than we had. It's been really mild. But, you know, when we do get out of winter, we do more evangelism work.
[22:27] And so when we go knock on doors and prayer walk and talk to people about the gospel and about our church, you get that on one side of it. You know, this is cute or nice.
[22:40] On the other side of it, you get, why are you here? Like, why are you here? And then you have to explain this idea that that why are you here comes out from a heart of arrogance.
[22:52] Don't you see there's, you know, sometimes I'll do it to be funny. I'll knock on the door and I'll say, hey, my name is Pastor Kirk of Art City Church.
[23:03] And just want to know, do you have a church home you go to? Knowing that the chances of them saying, I go to the LDS churches, it's probably about 90%.
[23:14] But it's just funny. I want to hear them say it. And then I say, well, okay, that's great. You know, and we start talking about some of the differences. Because the LDS church is trying.
[23:26] There's no doubt there's not trying anymore. They believe that they are a denomination, a different denomination of Christianity.
[23:37] Just like we would say Baptist or Methodist and Presbyterians. Things like that that we would say we disagree with some of the Presbyterians. The things that they agree are Methodists.
[23:49] And Church of Christ, whatever. We would say we disagree with some of those things. But some of those we would say the core beliefs, they have some type of agreement on.
[24:01] But the LDS church serves a different God, a different Jesus. It's a different gospel. It's not even – it's a different – it's not Christianity. It's a cult.
[24:12] It's different. It's not. But they think they are. And so you have to deal with the idea of first the arrogance of they not only think they are, but they think they are so pristine and they are a prestige religion.
[24:28] So that's kind of how it comes out. Persecution of verbal abuse or things like that, they usually try to just use a smugness to try to – is how it comes out, if that makes sense.
[24:44] Yes. Do you homeschool your children or if they go to the public school, are they persecuted in any way or any of the congregations, your church?
[24:55] How do their kids fit in? Do you homeschool them? Okay, Kirk. So the question is – and I know the answer is I'm going to let you speak to it because I think this will be really important. It's asking about your kids. Like, did you homeschool or do you homeschool?
[25:08] So tell them the age of your kids. And if they did go to public school, which I know you guys had part in that too, how do your kids fare with that? What's the difference? And maybe even some of your church members who have kids, are they in public school system or is it just solely homeschool?
[25:22] So how are you dealing with the school-age children and your kids' interaction? Because it's very interesting. I'd love for you to share that with them. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, so we – our family decided to homeschool before we moved here.
[25:37] My wife has a master's in education, and she always – even when we got married, she said, I want to teach my kids. So we homeschooled before we moved out here.
[25:47] So we do homeschool. But when we came out here, we did find that there was a charter school that was here, and it was actually started by homeschools.
[25:59] But it wasn't like a co-op. It's a charter school. You could go there full-time, which most – I'd say most of the students do. But they also allowed you to go and take part-time classes, so you didn't have to go full-time.
[26:13] So Len and Andrew, we have – again, I said we have five children. Len and Andrew are two oldest. They went to the charter school when they were in high school age, junior high, high school age, and both was able to walk and graduate.
[26:29] But at the same time did core classes and things at homeschool. So it was like a hybrid that we did with them. And what we found was – I mean they were – and this is the uniqueness of Utah.
[26:44] They were the – as far as we understand and know, and we were pretty involved in the school, they were the only believers. Maybe there was one other girl that was there. And the rest of the congregation, again, were part of – or the school was LDS.
[26:58] But on the other hand, they had a transgender man who had transgendered to a woman.
[27:09] And so you have this huge – it's like this huge contrast here. It's like you've got this cult, the LDS church that politically still has values and morals and ways that we would agree with.
[27:26] And then on the other hand, Utah is a pretty liberal state in some ways. They embrace – and so you deal with both of that. And we dealt with both of that at Merritt.
[27:38] And so our kids would come home and they'd say, this is tough. And we'd say, okay, well, let's – we've got to make sure our core unit of our family is healthy.
[27:51] So we would sit down and talk with our kids. And we would talk about what – how – in the same conversation, how are you going to need to address this teacher?
[28:04] And also, how do you give the gospel, not just to him, but then to the LDS friends that you have? Like how do you live out your faith in this? So all of that was challenging, but in the midst of God's grace and trying to get healthy rhythms in our family, our kids grew.
[28:25] And it was beautiful to see them come home. I still remember one significant time my oldest daughter came home, and she was so excited. She was ecstatic. And we're like, how did your day go?
[28:36] She goes, I was able to share the gospel today in our classroom with – and we got into a conversation with the LDS friends that she had. And they started talking about the differences.
[28:48] And they had never heard these things before ever. And they were like, we're Christian too. And Lana was – she was excited. She was like able to say, no, no, you're not.
[28:59] And here's why. Here's the differences between why I could say that. But she had earned that right because they – she was friends with them. And so we had to navigate those type of relationships.
[29:16] And right now our – we did have a couple of our daughters who chose – they didn't want to go to that charter school. They're just being homeschooled. And then our youngest just started going to Merritt too.
[29:26] So we're pretty involved with the charter school here, and that's given us a lot of connections and a lot of contacts. And then going to our church, we have a mixture.
[29:37] We have some of our children that go to public school, go to the Springville High School. And then we have some kids that are homeschooled. So we have a good mixture. I mean, we don't have a ton of kids.
[29:49] But the ones that we do have, we do kind of have a good mixture of both. That's a good question. Great questions. Great questions. Yes. Anyone else?
[30:00] Anyone else? Okay, brethren, how can we pray for you? The next few minutes, we just got a few minutes. How can we pray for you for this year moving ahead?
[30:13] How can we pray for the church and your family? Yeah. So prayer request number one would be as we are warming, getting into springtime and starting to do our ministries, that God would just open the hearts of those that we talk to.
[30:33] I mean, one of the biggest things we love doing is, that's why we're here, is we creatively try to strategically do events and things that are going to be evangelistic or going to reach people.
[30:51] So, and I don't expect you guys to remember these things, and I can send these to Billy Joe so you can pray for them. So we have a mission team coming out in March next month, and we've decided.
[31:02] So downtown Springville, they had a movie theater, and it's been out of business for a while. And, but somebody started, bought it or rented it, and they've been showing like old movies on Fridays nights at discounted prices.
[31:20] And we found out that you can actually rent that theater out. And so, and it's not super expensive to do that. So we rented the theater out, and we're going to show the movie I Can Only Imagine, which is a movie that talks about Mercy Me's lead singer.
[31:37] And it's about his group, but it's got a deeper connection there of how he had to deal with his hatred and his bitterness toward his father. The gospel is really portrayed in that particular thing.
[31:49] And so we're going to be canvassing, talking to people, and knocking on a lot of doors. And we're going to be inviting people to this movie. And at the same time, being able to give tracts and talk about the church and give cards and just make connections.
[32:07] And so, and then, you know, hopefully the idea is not necessarily that they're going to come to this particular showing, and their life's going to change, and they're going to start following Christ. But the whole idea is, with evangelism here, is that you want to get your foot in a door, and you want to start putting a question in somebody's head to have them start thinking on that when it comes to LDS faith, of why that's not Christianity and why true repentance is turning from Joseph Smith or turning from the LDS faith and turning to the biblical Christ, right?
[32:38] Biblical Jesus, the biblical gospel. And that's just this connections and it's discipleship and sowing into it. So I'll go in detail on that one, but just pray for our ministries as we start doing these things.
[32:50] That's probably one, number one. Number two, we would love to have a bigger space. And this is something that we're praying for.
[33:01] We're going to ask you to pray for that. It may not be this year, but in the next couple of years, we would love to have a space that we can grow into where we do, you know, having 70 chairs, having 50 people.
[33:12] We're already at that two-thirds full mark and some ways that we would be able to grow and be able to reach more people. So that's a prayer request.
[33:23] And then also just pray that as we are continuing to disciple that people here would just grab hold of not only the gospel, but grab hold of our city church and just as we continue to try to formulate the church here in Springville.
[33:39] It's probably the three major ones. What about your family, brother? What can we pray for for your family? We've got adult kids. They're trying to find their way. They're doing a good job, but, you know, just thinking about trying to just be faithful as we walk through them, life with them, and try to raise the other three.
[33:58] We're graduating another one this year. And so just pray that we can be faithful to continue to just disciple our kids and to be faithful to love them through this as they are trying to figure out exactly where their next stage of life is going to look like.
[34:13] Okay. All right. Any final questions? Are we in this? Brother, thank you for your time. I know I was getting close.
[34:25] Hey, you there? I'm done. I'll tell him later. I knew I was close. I told him I was close, right? Oh, well. He talked too long, so I talked too long.
[34:37] I'll tell him. I'll send him a message later. That's why I was asking, because I knew I was getting close. Okay. Anybody have any questions for me as it pertains to any of that?
[34:49] Brother Kirk and Kathy's mom is still living with them, so their family dynamic is really growing. The Lord is really blessing there.
[35:00] But continue to be in prayer for Kirk and Kathy. One of Kathy's twin sister, Karen, their oldest one, has actually moved out there as well and is now partnering with them.
[35:16] So Kirk and Kathy have five kids. Karen, four or five? I think it's four. And they're all the same ages.
[35:27] And so Karen and her husband's son moved out to help them. So they had been in ministry too. They had done kids ministry.
[35:38] And his dad does a lot of traveling ministry. So ministry's in that family. So be in prayer for them as they just really try to navigate this whole family dynamic that's going on there.
[35:49] And the Lord is using and growing on there. Okay. Any other questions as it pertains to that? All right. Yeah.
[36:00] Yeah. It is really a testimony. And I give him a hard time. He moved to Utah with no beard. And, you know, he had no gray. He had no beard. He didn't have hair.
[36:11] He's never had hair. But it has aged him. Yeah, it's a covered wagon ride. It takes forever to get there. He shaves it off once a year.
[36:24] One of his daughters for her birthday asked him to shave it off. And that's why I give him a hard time. Because every time it grows back, it grows back a little whiter than it used to be. And so he has to shave it off once a year.
[36:36] And then it comes back solid white. And that's why, you know, it wasn't that way when he first grew it out. But the Lord is really using them in a powerful way. But it is challenging. It is challenging for them.
[36:47] Some of you know that. You've been there. Some of you have walked with those who have been there. The pressure you feel from the LDS church isn't so much frontal pressure.
[37:01] It's just the culture is the nicest, darkest place you'll ever live. It's really the best way to describe it. It's a beautiful area. It's a nice area. But there's some spiritual darkness there.
[37:11] It runs pretty deep. They're conversationalists. Yes, they love to talk about religion. They will. They're highly indoctrinated in the LDS faith.
[37:24] But part of their culture is to be nice. Yes. Yes. Yes. like after listening to that their ministry is really like dual purpose where it's not just the church that they're planted and started and growing but then you have the evangelism side for where they're living so it kind of sounds like supporting their ministry is not just this church plant but it's like the evangelism in the community is just as important Yes, I mean, starting in the summer, and I know some of you here have done the work with them, they will start, and we didn't have time to get into it, Art City Days is kind of like the Bell Buckel Craft Fair.
[38:11] It's a week-long thing, though, and they set up there. And one of the connections they make with the community is they set up a booth there and sell baked goods, but they give all the money to the local food bank, so they don't keep it as a church.
[38:23] They give the money to the food bank, which has given them connection to the LDS-run food bank, and so they've been building intentional bridges for years.
[38:34] And so even the charter school that Lana and Andrew went to, both of them were fairly gifted musicians. Lana has went back and worked at that charter school after graduation, so she's been able to work there.
[38:49] So their kids are very much a part of their evangelism and disciples. They're very much a part of their relationship aspect, and so part of that was being intentionally involved in the community.
[38:59] But there were struggles that came along with that. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. I recently went to the LDS church because my friends never.
[39:15] I was there listening. You know, there was some strong comments made. It's like we're having here tonight.
[39:25] There was some really strong comments made. And I feel like, you know, it's hard to really understand without being there.
[39:36] And then services and conversations to really understand what's going on in that space. So, yeah, maybe that's something you can try.
[39:49] Sure. I felt uncomfortable when I heard cold.
[40:04] And I agree with you to a point on that.
[40:22] I would say that Kirk, and he didn't have time to get into it. Kirk has read the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price, which are their holy writings, more than the majority of the LDS people he comes into contact with.
[40:37] So he knows their sacred writings a little bit better than they do. Because the majority of them, much like even here, in any church you find, this is not just for them.
[40:51] It's a cultural thing. People are just that because of family or that because of tradition or that and haven't really investigated and looked into it. And so, like you said, Kirk made it his ambition not to speak from ignorance and not to speak from not trying or not listening.
[41:08] And so he spent a lot of time reading and he has conversations with the people there. And, yes, there's some great, great resources and great works out there. So he's given me a book, if anybody ever wants to read it, it's called Unveiling Grace.
[41:23] It was written by a lady whose husband was actually one of the temple priests in Salt Lake City. So not a local ward priest, but one of the temple priests.
[41:35] And she was a professor at BYU, an English professor at BYU University. And so their son was on mission. And so it's a great book. It's a great read if you ever want to read it because it's from their perspective, not from a Baptist saying it this way or that way.
[41:50] And so it's a wonderful, wonderful read because there's a lot that is, even if you were to attend a local ward, which is any, the LDS Church in Shelbyville is a ward just like any other one you would find.
[42:04] And it is markedly different than if you go to Temple Square in Salt Lake. So, yeah, there's some differences there.
[42:16] Yeah. I have, I've shared this before. Me and a couple others in the room have some of the unique privileges of being asked to leave Temple Square in Salt Lake City on a visit.
[42:30] So, not because we were doing anything, we just were no longer welcome. For lack of a better way, we were asked to leave. So, that's, I understand.
[42:42] Yeah. We were just there observing and it's time to go. Okay. Let's take our time to pray. I know it's after 7 o'clock. I want to pray.