Church for post-Mormons?

Looking for a place where you can explore a new and rational faith after leaving the LDS church?   Live in the Boise, Idaho area?  Be sure to check out a new non-denominational church plant at…

http://www.BoiseChristianFellowship.org

Announcing the HOSANNA! Prayer Project

One of the things that is most striking to people when I share my story of leaving the LDS church is that nobody was witnessing to me at all at the time.  It was kind of like God just reached in and plucked us out.  What was really cool, though, were the Christians who told me after that fact that they had been praying for me and my family for years!  The power of prayer at work!

Another experience I had with prayer came at a prayer seminar I attended a while back.  The presenter asked those of us in attendance if we felt it was easier to pray for people or to evangelize them.  The unanimous answer of the group was that it was easier to pray.  He then asked if we thought it would be more effective to evangelize a people before or after they had been prayed for.  Again, the obvious and unanimous answer was that it was far more effective to evangelize a prayed-for people.  With that thought in mind, I immediately thought about the many outreach ministries that Christians have for Mormons, but how few of these are really dedicated to consistent and focused intercessory prayer on their behalf.

After spending some time in prayer myself to see if this was where God was leading me, we are now launching “The HOSANNA! Prayer Project: A Community of Christians United in Intercessory Prayer for Mormons.”  You can check it out at http://www.HosannaPrayerProject.org.  I hope you’ll consider getting involved in one of a few ways.  If you feel like praying along with us, join our email prayer team or find one of our local prayer groups to pray with.  If you are needing prayer, please let us pray for you, for your family, for your challenges.  We know how terrible the process of coming out of Mormonism can be, and we would love to be lifting you up in prayer.

http://www.HosannaPrayerProject.org

I’m Sorry, But It IS Funny!

What a difference a few letters can make!  It seems the Daily Universe, Brigham Young University’s newspaper, had to call back 18,000 copies of their newspaper after an unfortunate typo made it through unnoticed.  While this is surprising in and of itself, what’s even more surprising is that the LDS community doesn’t seem to be enjoying the obvious humor of the simple mistake.  Instead, apparently some are actually putting forth the idea that somebody sabotaged the newspaper intentionally to damage the church.  Really?  I mean, read it for yourself.  It’s obviously just a typo…. and really funny!

The twelve apostles? Or the twelve... apostates!

New Resources Added

Hey all,

Just wanted to let you know about some new resources I just added to the main website;

AUDIO RESOURCE: In October of 2006 at Calvary Chapel Ontario, just months after leaving the LDS church and accepting the Jesus Christ of the Bible as my Savior, I was asked to give an impromptu testimony about my experience. The mp3 file just added to the Audio Center is a recording of the message I shared that night.
The link for the Audio Center is: http://www.lifeafterjoseph.org/streaming_audio.shtml

BOOK RESOURCES: I’ve just added a full free PDF version of the book “Life After Joseph: My Journey from Mormonism to Biblical Christianity” for download.  The link for the Books page is: http://www.lifeafterjoseph.org/books.shtml

I’ve also just added a fully interactive PDF file of the book, “The Changing World of Mormonism” by Jerald and Sandra Tanner.  If you know of the Tanners from an active LDS perspective, you may have heard that they are “anti-Mormon”.   In truth, nobody has done more research and committed more effort to revealing the accurate truth about Mormonism than this former LDS couple.  They have literally devoted their lives to trying to reach out to the LDS people with truth and information.  This e-book has been updated with active links that will take you to mostly LDS sources to verify and backup the well-researched and well-laid out information.  This is a must-read for anyone who is really ready to take a hard look at the changes and inconsistencies of the LDS religion.  Again, the link for the Books page is: http://www.lifeafterjoseph.org/books.shtml

- Brad

Not of this blog…

Hey all,

I’ve been blogging recently in a new blog space over on WordPress.  I wanted a space where I could address a little wider audience about things that really aren’t specifically related to the LDS church.  If you’re interested, you can find it at…

http://bradreedthompson.wordpress.com

I’ll still post here as topics come up and events unfold related to my life as a Post-Mormon Christian, so stay tuned.

- Brad

The Joseph Smith Bible

I learned something new the other day that I thought was really interesting… something I never knew as a member of the LDS church.  I had always known that Joseph Smith retranslated portions of the Bible, claiming to restore ‘plain and precious’ things that had been removed over the centuries.  What I didn’t know is that he actually retranslated the entire Bible.  This immediately made me wonder why the LDS church doesn’t use the Joseph Smith version of the Bible as their Bible, but instead uses only limited selections from it.  Even more interesting is that the Community of Christ (the new name for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) does use the Joseph Smith version as their Bible.  They call it the Inspired Version of the Bible.

Is Faith in Jesus Essential or Sufficient?

Every once in awhile I check out lds.org just to see what the LDS church is up to. It’s usually pretty telling to see where the focus is at a given time. It is currently running a lot of promotion for a new website they’ve developed dedicated to Jesus. I won’t venture to speak on why they waited until now to launch such a site, but will let that fact speak for itself. What I do want to comment on is one of the featured articles on the site talking about faith in Jesus Christ being essential to our salvation. To the untrained ear, this likely sounds very mainstream Christian. And Latter-day Saints certainly do believe that faith in Jesus Christ is essential to salvation, as do mainstream Christians. But that’s only half the story.

The Last Day of School

Well, it’s officially over. Today was the last day of the School of Ministry and I’m kind of in shock. I’m not sure I’ve ever spent time doing anything more fulfilling, rewarding, and meaningful than I have for these last 9 months of my life. I thought I’d be sad but excited. Tonight I’m just sad. I had the incredibly unique opportunity to spend four hours every day in focused study of God’s word, followed by three to four hours a day of additional reading, study and service. There will likely never be a time in my life again that will allow that kind of experience, and that’s hard to come to terms with.

School of Ministry Comes To An End

Wow. I can’t believe it. School of Ministry is over tomorrow. In some ways it feels like just a few short months have gone by and yet, in other ways, like it’s been years. I can’t even begin to express what this year in school has meant to me. It has been the most fulfilling year of my life, hands down. It’s something I wish everybody could experience at least once in their lives.

If I could sum up the two greatest lessons I’ve learned this year, it would be these:

After all you can do…

2 Nephi 25:23 …for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

This may be one of the most well-known passages of LDS scripture, and one that speaks volumes about LDS doctrine and the LDS plan of salvation.  Unfortunately, it is also one of the doctrines that serves to bring overwhelming feelings of condemnation upon Mormons.

Consider this.  When have you ever felt like you have done all that you can do?  As I look at every aspect of my life, I realize that I never reach that place of feeling like I’ve done all that I can do.