Lesson from Life Life by the Book Class 1-29-2012
Though we’ve done some preliminary teaching about the Mormon church, with the new year we are starting the series, What is the Mormon Church……really? There is a tremendous amount of media about the church, most of it incomplete and misleading.
Our goal is to present, in a respectful way, the history of the church and what its true beliefs are. There is NO political agenda with this teaching, but a recognition that the topic gives us many opportunities to engage with our OIKOS (the people we interact with and influence, a very important concept at our church) in conversations. Particularly for those who do not go to church or know Jesus, this can give us an opportunity to present the real Jesus.
To understand anything you need to know its history.
To begin our study, we need to look at how the Mormon Church started and the assumptions upon which it is based. One of the most important of these is the concept of the Great Apostasy. In brief, this is the foundational idea in the Mormon Church that true Christianity ceased to be practiced on earth from the days of the last apostle until it was restored by Joseph Smith. The Christian Church (in all its denominations and branches, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) categorically disagrees with that statement. This lesson shows you why, both historically and from a Biblical basis. Below the video are PDFs (just click on the image and it will download to your computer) of both the notes and a full-size version of the PowerPoint slides used in the class (this makes the quotes easier to see).
Following is a pre-recorded video presentation of the PowerPoint lesson(not during the class, too many side comments, etc.).
