April/May 2018 Newsletter
Our Mission Field
The landscape of Utah is beautiful! The majestic mountains line the horizon. My favorite view is looking out over the valley and seeing the lights of over two dozen cities twinkling in the dark. The view is overwhelming and what those lights have represented to me is burdensome. I live in a state that “has consistently higher rates of self-reported lifetime depression than the U.S. rate (21.5% vs. 17.3% in 2016)”. 1 Suicide is the leading cause of death for youth in Utah. In fact, the suicide rate has tripled since 2007.2 While the bondage of this valley continues to burden me I remind myself that this is all opportunity for The Gospel.
We have 7 neighboring cities without a single, evangelical Christian church. There are over 25,000 people living in these cities who know little to nothing of Biblical Christianity. Mapleton, with a population of 9,512 people (3 projected to be over 20K by 2020), has 27 wards (LDS congregations over 300), and no evangelical church. Salem has 18 wards for the 7,831 people that live there, but not a single evangelical church. Springville, Spanish Fork, and Payson add over 90,000 people to our neighboring area to over 120,000 people. This amazes me considering my hometown (shout out to my Hillsboro, MO peeps) with a population of 3,131 has over a dozen churches. What do you see? I see an opportunity for the gospel–an abundant harvest!
- https://ibis.health.utah.gov/indicator/complete_profile/Dep.html
- http://kutv.com/news/local/utah-youth-suicide-now-leading-cause-of-death-for-utah-kids-ages-11-17
- http://mapleton.org/about/facts/
Our Current and Future Plants
Check out our current church plants
Utah Valley Church – Spanish Fork, UT
Gospel Life – St. George, UT
The Crossing – West Jordan, UT
Please join us in praying for these cities and the planter for each
Salem, UT
Mapleton, UT
How You Can Partner With Plant Utah
Pray! You can join our prayer team here.
Come and see us. We have mission trip opportunities for VBS, polygamy ministry and one-day community outreach opportunities.
Financial partnership. Plant Utah uses a bi-vocational, micro-church model of church planting which allows us to plant churches in a cost-effective manner. Our general goal is to have $30,000/year for 5-7 years that will help fund start-up cost and part of the missionary/planter’s salary.
If you would like more information on how to partner with Plant Utah contact Matthew or Chandra Anderson. We are happy to come speak to your missions team, church, small group, etc. Have questions about Mormonism? We are happy to answer those also!
A big thanks to all of you who have already partnered with us!
For the sake of the gospel,
The Andersons
