From: L.M. Enterprises <htrails@solve.net>
To: Davids_Outcasts@listbot.com <Davids_Outcasts@listbot.com>
Date: Saturday, October 30, 1999 12:58 AM
Subject: (888) Dreamers in Zion
David's Outcasts - http://www.GreaterThings.com/OpenForum/Davids_Outcasts.htm
Dreamers in Zion:
A Family's Call to Zion (Part One)
by Lynn Ridenhour
As long as I can remember, I've always been accused of being a dreamer. Some meant it
for good; others meant it as criticism. Regardless, I accept the accusation. I am a
dreamer. That's the way the Lord made me.
We're dreamers in Zion.
My family and I live in Independence, Missouri. You need to know, we take living in
Zion very seriously. We believe in divine destiny. Perhaps planned in eternity. The
following scriptures have captured our hearts:
"He has made everything beautiful in his time; He also has planted eternity in
men's hearts and mind [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose...]" --Ecclesiastes
3:11 (Amplified)
He's "...planted eternity" in our hearts. "...a divinely implanted sense
of purpose." That's it.
Here's another scripture we hold dear:
"...who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this and
for this very occasion?" --Esther 4:11 (Amplified)
These two powerful verses guide our daily lives here in Zion. First, a word about
Zion……
Not a Mormon Idea:
Zion is not a Mormon idea! Zion is God's idea. The Bible is full of Zion! There are
over forty-seven direct references to Zion in the book of Isaiah.
Not just a People:
I know--Zion is where the pure in heart are. In one sense, Zion is
everywhere--non-geographical. But I think we tend to lose the balance. Zion is a people;
Zion is a place. It's both. I think sometimes we neglect the importance (and beauty) of
Zion as a place.
Thus, this post.
Our Move To Zion:
I was teaching literature at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, while
pastoring a small protestant church out in the country. My wife was teaching in a junior
college just down the road at Carthage (of all places). The year was 1984.
We were settling in with our two year-old daughter, Lori. One evening while grading
papers in my study the Lord spoke. "I want you to move to Kansas City." It was
plain as day.
I kept it to myself for over a year. It didn't make sense. Linda was teaching; I was
teaching. We were trying to make a life for ourselves there in Macomb. Move to Kansas
City? Why? Then one evening Linda approached me. "Hon," she said. "I know
this doesn't make any sense, but I believe the Lord wants us to move to Kansas City."
I about fell out of my chair.
"Hon, the Lord spoke to me over a year ago and said the same thing. I never said
anything because it didn't make sense."
You guessed it. We moved to Kansas City. I was looking for housing one day when the man
said, "...There's a place open at Harvest Hills where I live."
"What's Harvest Hills?"
"It's a Christian community."
That got my attention. I had always been interested in Christian communities. The two
of us drove out. I looked around and liked what I saw so I moved my family in. We hadn't
been there one week 'till I heard a knock on the door. It was my neighbor.
"Hello. My name is Dr. Kenneth Brown. I want to give you this. " He handedme
a Book of Mormon. I was scared and a little shocked. I'm a Baptist minister.
"Isn't this a Christian community?" I asked while taking the book. "Yes
it is," chuckled Dr. Brown, "but we also believe in the Book of Mormon."
0, my gosh. I had moved my family into a cult. Here we were, Baptists, living in an
RLDS community. I bound all those cult demons "in the name of Jesus" and by
faith pleaded the blood over my family. It was too late to move. So I read the book out of
courtesy. Four days later I put it down. I had read it straight through. And oh, the
marvelous witness, the truths I discovered. The joy of the Lord leaped from page to page
and I was spellbound. I couldn't sleep for four days and three nights. That same Jesus in
the Bible is in the Book of Mormon! The year was 1985.
Eager to find out more, I quickly asked Dr. Brown, "...is there any church today
that believes this stuff?" He said, "I'll be right back." He returned with
eight volumes of church history. That was ten years ago. Since then I have made it a rule
to search out as many primary sources as I possibly can. I want to know everything I can
concerning this movement called the restoration. I have read the Times & Seasons,
Elders Journal, Millennial Star, Evening and Morning Star, The Saints' Advocate, Journal
of Discourses, LDS Church History, RLDS Church History, History of Joseph Smith by his
Mother, The Journals of Joseph Smith, and there have been other books. I have spent hours
in the archives of the RLDS Temple, visited Salt Lake City, Utah, and interviewed more
than a few old time saints.
I've made discoveries, formed conclusions, and had some revelations. It's the
revelations I want to share with you. I leave my conclusions to myself and let you form
yours.
First, the joy of discovering...
Zion as a Place:
I don't ever recall hearing a sermon on Zion while growing up in our small Baptist
church back home. The concept of Zion is not particularly a protestant idea. Most
evangelical Christians are a bit uncomfortable with the thought of God ruling this earth.
It doesn't quite fit our helicopter escape theology. But scripture is plain. "The
Lord hath founded Zion..." (Isa.14:32). "...They shall call thee the city of the
Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel" (Isa.60:14). I simply didn't know where to
file it--the City of Zion. When I became a convert to the precious Book of Mormon, I
realized--Zion is Jesus' idea!
I like what Jim Christenson says:
"...Zion became symbolic of the place where man meets God...in a sense a return to
the Garden of Eden. It was to be a holy city--the righteous community, the capital of the
Kingdom of God, the gathering place for the beneficiaries of God's mercy and blessing.
While at first the term 'Zion' referred just to the fortress atop the mountain and later
the city of Jerusalem proper, it often was extended to include all of the house of Jacob
and its movement to establish God's righteousness. While the term 'Zion' and the 'Kingdom'
were used interchangeably, more often the former referred to the central city of Jerusalem
and its environs, while the kingdom included God's work among his people everywhere."
--Zion In Our Time, p.19
Well said.
Jesus saw a much broader concept of the "holy city" than his predecessors.
The new world was Christ's Zion! Yes, the City of Zion would begin in old Jerusalem, start
as a place of safety, but would spread "...to the uttermost parts of the
earth..." Zion would become a Center Place in the new world, a place of healing for
the nations.
Again, I refer to Jim Christenson:
"...The holy community was to begin as a separate, distinct colony of believers,
then receive and assimilate investigators as rapidly as possible. The doors of its
ministry were to be open always. Those who were firm in the faith were to 'go into all the
world and preach the gospel' for a witness of God's eternal, universal love. Those who had
been served were to spend their lives in service to others, to demonstrate the principle
of 'love one another as I have loved you.'" --Zion in our Time, p.29
As Zion was to spread throughout the earth into the new world, the lame would walk, the
blind see, the poor would hear the gospel, the brokenhearted would feel happiness again,
the hopeless would rise, the sinful would be cleansed, the unlearned made wise, and the
outcast accepted.
I like what Walter Rauschenbusch, historian during the earlier part of this century,
said:
"...If he [Jesus] put his trust in spiritual forces for the founding of a
righteous society, it only proved his sagacity as a society-builder...But Jesus never fell
into the heresy of later theology; he never viewed the human individual apart from human
society; he never forgot the gregarious nature of man...The tone of sadness in his later
ministry was not due simply to the approach of his physical death but to the consciousness
that his purpose for his nation had failed. He began then to draw his disciples more
closely about him to create the nucleus of a new nation within the old. He also rose to
the conviction that he would return and accomplish in the future what he had hoped to
accomplish during his earthly life." - -Christian and the Social Crisis, p. 65
My spirit bears witness. Jesus came to initiate a holy community!
We Protestants are such products of "heresy of later theology." But Jesus
came to set up the kingdom in his day! That was his mission, his message, and his motive
for ministry.
Think about it.
If Rauschenbusch is right (and I believe he is), then two thoughts are worthy of our
attention: 1) Jesus came to gather his people GEOGRAPHICALLY as well as spiritually, and
2) Jesus wept during the last days of his ministry, not merely because of his physical
agony ahead of him, but because of his partial success of establishing the kingdom.
"O Jerusalem! 0 Jerusalem," he lamented, "Ye who will kill the prophets,
and will stone them who are sent unto you; how often would I have gathered your children
together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under his wings, and ye would not. "
--Matthew 23:37
Our Lord's prayer was that his disciples would continue on after his departure and
build up the kingdom (Jn.17). Spread it throughout the earth. During the first century the
saints, with zeal, remembered his words. And the Church grew. Eventually, however, the
Church replaced the kingdom.
"...With the exaltation of the Church as an organization, the concept of
establishment of a tangible program known as the 'Kingdom of God on the earth' went into
oblivion." ---Zion in our Time, p.32
Brick and mortar, gold and silver, overlay the simple message of the Carpenter from
Galilee: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Strange new doctrines
surfaced--catechisms and liturgical ritual and ministerial celibacy; miracles and divine
healing and the gifts of the Spirit ceased.
The Church walked away from her mission and message.
Perhaps we too today have forgotten the joy of building up Zion--a place and a people.
Lehi said, "...I know that I am a visionary man; for if I had not seen the things
of God in a vision, I should not have known the goodness of God……" –I
Nephi 5:4 How true.
I believe in visions. I believe in visionaries. My family and I...we're dreamers in
Zion. The Lord, by divine direction, led us here in 1985. We've been in Zion ever since.
And plan to stay here the rest of our lives. This post is one man's dream of life in Zion.
And it all begins with...
The Grove Experience:
To me, Joseph's experience in the grove is the "lynch pin" of the restoration
movement. Everything pivots, builds, and launches from there. The grove experience sets
the "revelation stage" for the entire movement. Two cornerstone truths come out
of the grove: 1) Joseph was born again; that is, he repented and came unto Christ, and 2)
he was told not to join any present-day sect; implication: don't start one either.
Thus, the cornerstone message of the latter-day restoration movement was to hinge upon
these two revelations: 1) refocus on a personal relationship with Christ in these latter
days, and, 2) don't focus on the institutional church. Don't start one and don't join one.
The age of institutional churches is over, God has something better.
Joseph was called in the latter days to do something more exciting. More heavenly. He
was to usher in the dispensation of the fullness of times which was to be highlighted by
dropping all distinctions among the saints except two: we're now entering the kingdom age
and we are now the people of God. Joseph was to preach...
The fruit of the reformation (sectarianism) is dead. As of the grove experience, there
are no more Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, Lutherans, Charismatics,
Pentecostals, Episcopals, Assemblies of God, African Methodists, Seventh Day Adventists,
Full Gospel, Evangelical Free, Mennonites, LDS, RLDS, Independent Fundamentals,
Interdenominational Christians, Bible Churches, Presbyterian, Reformed or Quakers. God
didn't tell Joseph to form a new sectarian church. He told him to translate the Book of
Mormon, restore the gospel in its plainness, and to preach the kingdom. For the body of
Christ in these latter days is in an exciting...
Transition Period:
I know what you're thinking. But didn't the church of the middle ages and the church of
the reformation apostatize? And didn't spiritual authority leave this earth? And didn't
God through John the Baptist and Peter and John restore the keys to priesthood authority
in this earth through Joseph and Oliver Cowdery? Wasn't the church restored to this earth
that afternoon on May 15, 1829 on the banks of the Susquehanna river between Harmony and
Colesville, New York?
Yes. Yes. Yes. To all of the above.
But what is the Church?! That's the all-encompassing question. It's not another sect
like all the others! In the grove Joseph was called to a much higher calling. We're moving
from the church age into the kingdom age, illustrated by the Little Stone cut out of the
mountain (Dan.2:44,45), picking up speed as it travels down hill. This stone is
"...made without hands." Made without the laying on of mortal hands. But the
laying on of the hand of God.
This stone, of course, is the manifestation of the kingdom age. As it picks up speed,
the kingdom will become more apparent.
This present age (the kingdom age) began in 1830 with not much speed, not much
momentum. Revelation has rolled down hill for some 160 years. You say, "...things
look pretty much the same as usual. I don't see the kingdom around me. I still see
reformation churches on every street corner." You must remember, Jesus said he would
come as a thief in the night. Very few know when a thief arrives and leaves. It's the same
with the kingdom age. Very few church members will know when the kingdom arrives,
especially as it begins to roll down hill. Then...
Where Do We Go From Here?
Where is the restoration headed on the dawn of a new age? Here's what one dreamer in
Zion sees……
As I said, Saul must come before David. And he has. Ishmael was birthed before Isaac.
We've had Saul and Ishmael here in Zion for 160 years. Look for David and Isaac to come
forth next. Look for a visitation from on high to visit this city.
Outreach in Zion:
God will supernaturally pour out His spirit of evangelism here in Zion. We will witness
conversions in the streets, home groups will share the restoration gospel; the message of
the Book of Mormon will go out over local air waves, especially tv and radio; and
restoration bikers and youth camps will march to the parks on their bikes--preaching the
restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
As an outsider coming in, I have yet to recover from--the lack of evangelism in Zion!
My family and I have been here ten years and no one's evangelizing the restoration gospel
here! Not really. The message and power of the Book of Mormon lies dormant in Zion.
I know–these are shocking statements to "old timers." That's another
thing I've never gotten over--second, third, and fourth generation restorationists living
here in Zion who think they're evangelizing. They're not. They're simply passing members
back and forth. I've never seen such an hybrid "inbred group" of saints in all
my life, unless it were perhaps the Amish. Neither group knows how to reach out within
their surrounding areas and present the claims of Christ. They know how to build more
churches (although the Amish don't build church buildings. They meet in homes). Especially
restorationist RLDS branches proselyte members from one part of town to another.
You say, but what about the restoration branches? They're the fastest growing churches
in town. Surely they're evangelizing here in Zion. No they're not. Disgruntled members
have merely moved their addresses. Again, it's restoration Christians moving from one
church building to the next.
There's been no outreach. I've not seen one Book of Mormon commercial on television
sponsored by restoration branches. I've not heard one radio commercial (they should own
their own station!). There's been no witnessing in the parks or pool halls. No organized
efforts to reach subdivisions for Christ. No youth movements reaching out to public
schools. (The most positive thing I've witnessed about restoration branches is their
interest in Christian education for their youth.)
To be brutally honest, however, all we need to do is a simple comparison. Compare our
evangelism results today with the early restoration church. Within its first decade the
church grew from six members to thirty thousand members. In fourteen short years
(1830-1844) the early church was responsible for adding approximately 60,000 members.
Comparison: In the 1990s, active RLDS memberships (one hundred fifty-one years later) is
approximately 60,000! There's been essentially no growth here in Zion for over 150 years.
Need we say more...
God, forgive us. The LDS are relatively quiet here.
With all the conveniences of today's world, I know of no RLDS Seventy who bears a
similar testimony to Wilford Woodruff, early missionary:
"...During the last year," writes Woodruff, "I traveled 3,248 miles,
held 170 meetings, baptized 43 persons; procured 22 subscribers for the Messenger and
Advocate; also 73 on the petition to the Governor of Missouri; wrote 18 letters, and
ordained two Teachers and one Deacon. Held three debates, &c" (Messenger and
Advocate, January 1836, p.255).
That's 3,248 miles, 170 meetings, and 43 baptisms on foot! No car.
I'll say it again, God will raise up a group of restorationists in these end times with
the spirit of evangelism burning in their bosom. They've been sent here by God and will go
to no ends to get the message out. The Lord will reveal His proper tools and methods
necessary to present this wonderful message of Zion, not only to the world, but to those
who live here in Zion. I know one necessary tool--the anointing of the Holy Ghost.
(By the way, you must remember the spiritual climate here in Independence, Missouri.
It's not like SLC. Here in Zion are many "spin off" restoration groups. This is
the world headquarters for the RLDS.)
I must give credit, before moving on, to our LDS brethren. They present a very
effective tv commercial, are giving away free copies of the Book of Mormon, and are at
least sending their elders "door to door" these days. Which brings up our next
point...
A Book No One Owns:
We need a Book of Mormon no one owns. That is, one that no restoration group owns. The
ministry of Saul has brought forth Book of Mormon versions these past 160 years. It's
difficult (if not downright impossible) as a non-restoration believer to read the LDS or
RLDS version (or any other group version) of the Book of Mormon and hear the Spirit
whisper. Many Protestant charismatics, for instance, would embrace the Book of Mormon if
there were no agenda attached! Unfortunately, it's always...believe this book--and join
our church. As I said, we need a Book of Mormon no one owns where there's no agenda. Look
for the Lord to bring one forth here in Zion very soon.
Neutral Settings:
Look for neutral settings to spring up everywhere in Zion. Look for open dialogue to
occur between non-restoration believers and restorationists like never before. The new
Book of Mormon will stir this city. The spirit of revelation will rest upon this book.
Pentecostals will read it; Charismatics will discuss it; Catholics will embrace it;
Methodists will preach from it; and Baptist seminaries will include it in their curriculum
for their ministers. Crowds of large seminars with restorationists and protestant
believers attending will take place in hotel convention settings. Hundreds will attend.
Restorationists and Protestants worshiping together will be a common thing. I mean--real
worship will take place where the presence of the Lord is sensed. Miracles will happen.
Healings will occur. Personages will visit us. Demons will be cast out. Marriages will be
put back together. And sectarian strongholds destroyed.
Anyway, this is what one dreamer in Zion sees.
(...to be continued)
