Who is Standing
Together Standing With?
On March 12, 2006 the ministry of Standing Together will celebrate its fifth anniversary. This is truly an amazing mile marker in our young history as a ministry, as I for one am not sure I had the faith to believe at first that we would last five months, let alone five years plus! To be sure, we have seen God do miraculous things and provide in phenomenal ways over the last five years (I mean Ravi Zacharias speaking at the Mormon Tabernacle, come on now). The foundation of this work and our desire to ultimately see a spiritual transformation take place in Utah is biblical unity being worked out and expressed in the local evangelical Christian community. In an ever desirous way, we at Standing Together want to do whatever we can to advance biblical unity and spiritual transformation in Utah, and we see both of these initiative as uniquely complimentary. Psalm 133 tells us that it is “good and pleasant” for brothers to dwell together in unity, and that where unity is, God blesses. I am absolutely convinced that if we are to see the high priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 fulfilled in our generation, we must be tenacious about fostering biblical unity that transcends denominations, geography, styles of worship, and non-essential doctrinal distinctions.
Occasionally, I am asked by individuals if Standing Together is an organization that “Stands Together” with Mormonism as a theological system that is compatible with historic, biblical orthodox Christianity. When asked this question, I realize that our efforts to seek spiritual transformation in Utah and my personal ministry efforts to engage Mormonism in a dialogue about the theological issues that divide us is at the heart of the matter. As we launch this new e-news letter in an attempt to communicate more often with friends and partners of this ministry, I thought it would be wise to begin with a reaffirmation that Standing Together is an evangelical ministry that is seeking to “Stand Together” with other evangelical ministries here in Utah and beyond for spiritual transformation here in our area. So, is Standing Together standing with Mormonism? No, we are “Standing Together” with other evangelicals while seeking to reach out in love and Christian civility to our LDS friends and neighbors. Remember, as we express oneness, Jesus tells us that the “world will believe that the Father has sent the Son.” Keep praying for us, March plans to be an historic month of breakthrough and God ordained ministry opportunities, I’ll share more in essays to come!
-United,
Greg Johnson