Jesus Loves Utah Teens!

Wednesday Night Youth Group Bible Study 

Hey y'all...

I'd like to share with you a little about our student ministry here at Lifestone, Utah so that you can pray for these kiddos in very specific ways. We've been meeting with the student group for 3 weeks now, and we have grown in number so quickly! We met with only 2 girls on our first evening, and last night there were 11 in attendance! 

We meet with them at a local cafe and it has been a ton of fun. We hang out, usually play a little game, then dig in for a brief Bible study. We also plan a couple of fun activities each month that kids can feel very comfortable inviting their friends to. Tomorrow night, we're going to meet them at a nearby park for a game of Ultimate Frisbee! Our prayer is that we not only have a good turnout but that we meet other kids while we're there as well. 

Late June, we're partnering with 5 other Bible-teaching churches for a Youth Camp up in the mountains near Park City! Be jealous-we'll need jeans and jackets up there! Pray that students continue to sign up to come with us and that God changes their lives while they're there!

Right away, it was extremely evident to us that these kids are super Bible-illiterate. They are truly a product of the culture here where families either consider themselves non-religious or they prioritize other "scriptural" books above the Holy Bible. Pray for patience for us as we teach the Bible beginning with the most basic concepts. What a difference this is from teaching in Texas, where even kids who don't attend church at all know the story of Jesus and what He did for us.

Already, in our small group, we have students from families of no faith, FLDS (Polygamy) and Buddhism. As we work to instill them with the Truth of the Bible, we are also having to work to un-do a lot of false teaching that they have come to believe. 

We think about how cool it might be to have these students grow into mature, servant-hearted followers of Jesus. They will certainly be the minority here, but, wow, the impact they will have!

Please, please, please be in prayer for our youth leaders, the students and also their families. Pray that they learn to love Jesus with all their hearts and with all their lives. Thank you for your continued prayer for Lifestone Church and the work God is doing here. Together with your prayers, we really can make an eternal difference!

NAMB Video!

Hello Texas! 

  Check out this video the North American Mission Board created for their "Send North America" campaign. The video specifically promotes the support of church plants here in Utah. Lifestone Church is highlighted quite a bit including clips of our pastor, Ben Helton, our praise team in action, and also our recent baptism ceremony! Please pass this video along to any church group or individual who you think might support us or pray for us!

God is doing amazing things here in Utah, and we know that YOUR prayers have so much to do with that! He continues to send people to Lifestone Church who are questioning who Jesus really is and we have had the amazing privilege of leading many to Christ! We ask that you continue to pray for Lifestone Utah, that the impact we have on His Kingdom is beyond any of our imaginations! (Ephesians 3:20)


Lots of Love from Utah!
Keely Williams and the Lifestone Team

Your prayers were SO answered!

Hello Texas! We can't thank you enough for your amazing faithfulness in praying for our Easter service here at Lifestone Utah. We totaled 125 people on Sunday- over double our previous attendance record and about triple our current average! The weather was perfect-72 degrees and sunny, and our festivities went off without a hitch. We enjoyed a 600-egg hunt, balloon animals, and pics with the Easter Bunny!

How exciting to witness such a huge work that God is so obviously in the midst of! Please continue to pray that God uses our new church to reach the lost here with the Good News of who Jesus really is and what He really has done! Enjoy the pics!

Easter Promo Video!

As promised, here is the Easter promo video for our church! I think you'll be very pleased! We will use this video as a Facebook advertisement, email it out to our attenders, and show it in our services. Please pray that God uses this creative project to help bring the people of Herriman, Utah to hear the best news ever this Easter!

Calling All Prayer Warriors

WELCOME
Thank you for joining us back here at Texas Loves Utah! For those of you who are new to the blog, we are a team of 4 families who moved from Weatherford, Texas here to Herriman, Utah with the purpose of planting a new church and ministering to the lost here. Our new church, Lifestone is the first ever Bible-based church to be planted in this city, one that is considered by the North American Mission Board to be less than 2% reached for Jesus! With your support and prayers, and through the power and love of our Almighty God, we are here to change that statistic! Please check out the previous posts to learn all that God has been up to in the past 7 months since our move, and we invite you to follow along and pray along as God's plan for Herriman, Utah unfolds!

EASTER
We ask that you begin praying today for our Easter service on April 20th. As you all know, Easter Sunday is a huge opportunity to welcome families into your Sunday service who might not attend on any other Sunday. We have big plans for promoting Lifestone's first Easter service and for making it a day parents and kids will never forget! One of our new friends here has already agreed to dress up as the Easter Bunny for a funny promotional video that we plan to post on Facebook and other online outlets! I'll do my best to get that video posted here on the blog, too, so all of you back home can laugh along! Pray, pray, pray that God brings the masses to hear the TRUE message of Easter! So many here have never been introduced to the Jesus you and I know and love.

HUGE PRAISE REPORT!
Phil and Ashley Smith, our friends from Weatherford, are moving here this weekend to join in on the work God is doing through our church plant! We are so thankful that God has provided Phil a nursing job here, and we are trusting God to provide the Smiths a permanent home quickly!

THANK YOU
Thank you, Texas, and to our prayer warriors around the world. You are such a big part of the work God is doing here. PRAYER CAN DO ANYTHING GOD CAN DO!

Oh Happy Day!

This past Sunday was definitely a day Lifestone Church Herriman will never forget! We baptized our first new believer right in Salt Lake County's Recreation Center, and there were 56 witnesses for the special event! Testimony in baptism AND our highest attendance Sunday by 10... what else could we ask for!? God is certainly up to something big here in Herriman, Utah, where 7 months ago, there had never in history been a Bible-teaching church.

Enjoy the pics!

                                               

What will God do next?

Welcome back, Texas and all of our supporters and prayer warriors around the globe! We have reason to celebrate! This Sunday, Lifestone Church Herriman, Utah will baptize our first new believer!! (I promise to have some pics for you in my next post!) We are so thankful for this amazing opportunity to celebrate God's work here and also to testify to everyone present the amazing change that Jesus can bring to a life surrendered to Him!


Join us in praying that Lifestone- through God's power and for God's glory- will end 2014 with:

• an average of 100 people present at Sunday's services
• 10 new believers baptized
• 5 healthy Lifegroups (small groups)

To those of you who live in the Bible Belt, these numbers may look low. Remember that in the context we are living in, these are incredibly God-sized expectations and that this kind of growth is unheard of here. Our God is capable of much, so please pray!!!

Check out this powerful verse on Biblical expectancy...

"Yet I am confident I will see the Lord's goodness while I am here in the land of the living! "

Psalm 27:13 (NLT)

This is the Aquatics Center that we will use for baptisms at the Rec Center
 where we meet on Sundays. We joked about having people go down
the big blue slide as a method of immersion! ;)