Ogden, UT – Redemption Church in Ogden led a Vacation Bible School April 21-23 at the church that drew 33 youngsters, just two shy of the 35 they were anticipating.
“Every kid was engaged with the Gospel each night,” VBS Director (and Connections and Family Pastor at Redemption Ogden) Casey Swails told UI Connections. “This was our first full-on VBS at Redemption Church Ogden. Many years ago we tried a makeshift VBS in the park before we ever had a building and it was not very well attended or executed. So this one was the first VBS we were able to fully make happen, and make it happen well.”
Swails credited a mission team from First Baptist Church at the Fields in Carrollton, Texas, for their enthusiastic assistance in bringing Illumination Station to Redemption Ogden.
Volunteers engaged kids on their level with Bible stories and activities based on the Lifeway VBS theme, Illumination Station.
“They presented us with the idea and gave us the know-how and lots of prep work to make it happen as well as it did,” Swails said. “In the future – probably 2027 – we hope to be able to do VBS during the summer. This was a great first time, and learning experience.
“The kids absolutely loved Illumination Station. From singing songs, to the nightly lessons, to shouting John 8:12, the kids learned that Jesus is the light of the world and that He can be the light of their life.”
At least 30 church volunteers worked with the mission team, including roughly eight junior high and high school students from Redemption Ogden’s student ministry. “That was a really great opportunity for them to partner with us in doing ministry,” the VBS director said.
High points of the VBS for Swails?
FBC at the Fields in Carrolton, Texas brought gifted and committed volunteers to assist in leading the event.
“Every night after the lesson portion, it was always a great encouragement to hear from the mission team’s lesson leaders that all of the kids were very engaged, good at asking questions, and the kids who are a regular part of Redemption Church Ogden had been taught the Bible well to respond to questions in a way that surprised the mission team.
“The excitement of the kids was unmatched. All the kids had an amazing time and it showed in our opening and closing ceremonies. We had some kids that we heard were itching to get away from their scheduled sports activities in order to come to VBS. We also heard kids running out to their parents after checkout excited to tell them about what they had been doing.
“We plan to continue connecting with the kids through the normal rhythms of life at Redemption,” Swails continued. “They were all excited to learn and enjoyed their time at VBS. Everyone from the volunteers to the kids had an amazing time. We learned so much and believe VBS could be an annual ministry moving forward.”
Swails expressed his thanks to UISBC for the evangelism grant awarded to the church that enabled supplies to be purchased for the spring VBS.
“It was a great encouragement that all the volunteers had an amazing time,” Swails said. “Every volunteer left tired, but so full of joy. While it was a lot of work for our volunteers, I believe that it breathed a lot of life into them to see the kids having so much fun and engaging in the Bible.”
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on SendRelief.org. Used by permission.
By DeeDee Adams (Photo Credit: Rob Witzel) Send Relief Staff
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Michael Cooper was not prepared for what he saw.
He had driven to Hunter High School to watch something unusual happen. The volunteers had come from Houston and Virginia, most of them strangers to each other, and they were doing something that seemed almost too simple for the distance they’d traveled: handing out donuts to high school students on their way into class.
But Cooper wasn’t concerned about the donuts. He was curious to see how his daughter would handle things.
She’s 15, a freshman at the same school where her mother has taught math for 11 years. She grew up in Utah, one of the most religiously distinct places in the United States as the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On any given Sunday, more people attend a worship service in Utah than in any other state. And yet, Cooper will tell you plainly, Utah is one of the darkest mission fields in the nation. Many residents who claim faith in Jesus believe their own works play a role in their salvation. Most people here, he says, do not know even one evangelical Christian.
His daughter had grown up knowing that. She had spent most of her school years without Christian peers. But this year, a small group of students at Hunter High started something new: the school’s first-ever Christian club. They called it Leap of Faith.
That morning, she stood at the entrance of the school with a box of donuts in her hands and told every student who walked past the same thing:
Come to Leap of Faith. Jesus loves you.
“What I got to witness,” Cooper told the rally crowd that night, “was 15 million Southern Baptists standing behind my daughter. I saw my grandfather standing behind my daughter. A legacy of people who were not afraid of dark places, saying Jesus loves you.”
He had been praying for that school for 11 years.
Michael Cooper, Send Salt Lake City Missionary shares at Serve Tour Celebration service.
A Thousand Donuts and One Question
The donuts were gone in minutes. But what they opened lasted longer.
Lauren Napier led the volunteer team that served alongside ValleyLight Church at Hunter High that morning. After the last box was empty, the student who leads Leap of Faith pulled the group aside.
“This wasn’t about the donuts at all,” he told them. “Y’all handing out donuts allowed me to get to pray for my brothers and sisters at this school and share the gospel with people in a way I never had before.”
There are just 20 Christian students in the entire school. That morning, they stood in front of their classmates and talked about Jesus.
Later, Napier’s team went from Hunter High to the Utah State Correctional Facility, where they handed out more than 300 flavored sodas to staff and correctional officers. Nobody in that building had ever seen anything like it. One woman on the team works at the facility and had been quietly building gospel conversations with coworkers for months. When her church showed up to love on the people she works beside every day, walls came down. The conversations she had begun now had room to continue.
One Weekend Across the Wasatch Front
Serve Tour Salt Lake City, held April 17–18, brought 37 churches from 15 states together for 24 projects across the region. The 275 volunteers served more than 2,150 people, packed 2,900 meals, logged 1,880 construction hours, and had at least 270 gospel conversations. They worked in five schools, four churches, 12 community settings, and served three bivocational pastors doing ministry on the margins of their own time and resources.
The partnership behind it included the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention, Send Network, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, and Send Relief, who together made the weekend possible. Utah-Idaho Disaster Relief prepared lunches for volunteers during the day and served a full BBQ dinner with peach cobbler at the Saturday night rally.
DR Volunteer, Clara Hohmann brings a smile with every BBQ sandwich served.
Because volunteers were spread across the city, the Saturday night rally was where it all came into focus—what God had done and how to keep it going.
Why Are You Here?
At a nearby elementary school, John Perkins and his team built shelving and set up a resource center for food and clothing. About half the students there need both on a regular basis.
Teachers kept pulling Perkins aside, one after another, asking the same questions in hushed voices.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you here?”
He told every one of them.
“This is the gospel,” he said. “We’ve received a great gift, and this is why we serve.”
He watched it start to register on the face of the school administrator as he explained it. “We pray,” Perkins told the crowd that night, “that those families would not just be clothed with clothes, but long-term, clothed in Christ’s righteousness.”
Second Baptist Church of Ogden was able to bless their community with food distribution.
The administrator wrote to the team afterward: “Thank you for all the amazing service given to us today. Thank you for the beautiful spirit you brought to our school.”
At the University of Utah, volunteers partnered with Resonate Church for a campus outreach, giving students food truck vouchers and asking two simple questions about faith. In response, 25 said they wanted to learn more about Jesus and the Bible, 14 asked for a follow-up conversation, and 15 said they wanted to visit a church.
During the outreach, a volunteer started talking with a young couple. The girlfriend was not a believer. The volunteer shared her testimony and gave her a Bible, encouraging her to start with the Gospel of John. The couple left together for the library. A few minutes later, the boyfriend came back alone.
He wanted a Bible too. He wanted to read John with her.
Going Door-to-Door in a Place Where That Is Radical
Ashley Smith’s team did what most people in Utah do not do. They knocked on doors.
The project was called Prayer on the Porch. Three groups covered three different streets, offering to pray for neighbors, help with yard work, and simply introduce themselves. In a state where door-to-door religious conversations carry a particular weight and history, showing up as a neighbor rather than an institution was its own kind of statement.
Student Send Relief missionaries prayed with Salt Lake City neighbors.
One group had a long gospel conversation with a man who had been LDS his whole life. Another team met a woman who had a one-week-old baby and spent time with her, helped around her house, and prayed over her new family.
One volunteer on Smith’s team arrived that morning too nervous to knock. By the end of the day, she was the one who couldn’t stop.
At a skate park adjacent to Redemption Church, Stu Ross and his team hosted a block party with food, tricks, and conversation. Ross got saved through a skateboarding ministry as a teenager, and the park sits directly in front of his church. Over the course of the afternoon, the team had a dozen gospel conversations. One man told Ross he was planning to come to church Sunday. He wanted to follow Jesus, he said, but he wanted to take it one step at a time.
In Utah, that kind of decision rarely stays private. For many, choosing to follow Christ means stepping away from a faith tradition that is also family, community, and identity. He could feel the weight of it. A volunteer from a Montana church prayed with him before the day ended.
The gospel was shared in an Ogden skate park across from Redemption Church building.
In partnership with Gospel Grace Church, volunteers served 150 meals and distributed 30 Bibles inside a refugee community, sitting with families and staying long enough to hear their stories.
Volunteers also completed significant construction work for three bivocational church planters stretching themselves thin between jobs and ministry: a new shed, a renovated garage, and major landscaping they would not have been able to finish alone. At Gospel Light Church, a team stripped five layers of shingles off a house being converted into transitional housing, filling three large dumpsters. At Kings Cross Church, volunteers built two pergolas from scratch, creating a welcoming outdoor space for a congregation still finding its footing.
Missionary house at Gospel Light church in the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City got an extreme makeover as volunteers spent two days of roofing and renovation work.
The mayor showed up at a first responder appreciation block party, hosted by Canyons Church with the Cottonwood Heights Town Council. He was not the only one who noticed something different was happening.
Beautiful Feet
On Saturday night, the volunteers gathered at Risen Life Church for the rally. Rob Lee, executive director of Utah-Idaho Baptists, told them plainly what they were dealing with.
“The majority of people in Utah do not know four biblical Christians,” he said. “Most don’t even know one. We need people to come here and help us.”
Will Galkin, a Send Network city missionary in Salt Lake, asked the crowd not to just go home. “On the way home,” he said, “write in a journal: Lord, what did you do in me? And Lord, what do you want me to do about Utah?”
Then Michael Cooper stood up.
He started by saying thank you. Then he told the room the truth about what it costs to build the church in Utah.
There are days, he said, that feel lonely. You are planting in a city where the gospel is crowded out not by apathy but by a deeply held alternative—one that looks familiar from the outside and asks the same eternal questions but answers them differently. You are serving people who are already religious, already devout, and already certain. That is a particular kind of hard.
But every morning, his wife, Devon, gets up before school starts and pulls out eight index cards.
She teaches math at Hunter High. Has for 11 years. And every morning she writes a prayer on each card, one for each of eight students, and sets them on the desks before the kids arrive. Every one of her 150 students gets prayed for twice during the school year. When students graduate and move on, some of them come back to ask her if she’ll recreate the card. They lost it, they say, and they want it back. For a while, students were taking pictures of Mrs. Cooper’s cards and sharing them on social media.
For most of those students, Devon Cooper is the only Christian teacher they will ever have from kindergarten through graduation.
His own daughters have never had one.
Then Cooper told the room what he saw at Hunter High that morning. His 15-year-old daughter, standing at the entrance of the school her mother has prayed over for 11 years, holding a box of donuts, telling students she does not know that Jesus loves them.
“The conversations happening before you came and the conversations that will happen after you go far beyond what you did this weekend,” he said. “For months, people are going to ask us: why did those people come to Utah to do that? And we are going to get to say, over and over again, because they love Jesus. They want you to know Jesus.”
He closed by thanking them one more time.
“Thank you for your beautiful feet that walked to Utah. Thank you for your beautiful feet that sat in vans and airplanes. A flicker of light in a very dark room can make a huge difference. You may think all you did was that. But let’s not let it end here. Let’s ask the Lord: what do you have next?”
Eleven years of prayer cards. A freshman with a box of donuts. A young man who walked back alone to ask for a Bible.
For years, the missionaries serving in Salt Lake City have been faithful in the dark. This weekend, 275 people rolled up their sleeves to serve alongside them, reminding them they are not alone.
Send Relief, a collaborative ministry between the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board, is Southern Baptists’ global compassion ministry. For more information on opportunities to serve alongside us, visitSendRelief.org/trips.
Redemption Church Ogden provided a Block Party as a means to take the gospel to their neighbors
Ogden, UT – Redemption Church in Ogden led in festivities related to the recent Back to School Night at Odyssey Elementary School, where God made Himself known.
Nearly 800 people came through the doors, giving us an incredible opportunity to meet families, build relationships, and share Christ’s love in a tangible way.
Brooke Hatfield, who is part of Next Gen collegiate ministries, was able to connect with many families throughout the evening, answering questions, offering encouragement, and helping us strengthen our presence within the OES community.
It was clear that God is opening doors for deeper connections and ongoing ministry in the school.
At the same time, we hosted a Block Party right outside, welcoming around 75 people.
While the turnout wasn’t as large as we had originally hoped, the Lord still used it for His glory. Every person who came provided an opportunity for a meaningful conversation, and we trust that seeds were planted that He will continue to grow.
NextGen leaders and students provided support by providing games and carnival snacks.
We also believe this smaller gathering was a stepping stone, paving the way for future opportunities within Odyssey Elementary.
One of the most beautiful parts of the evening came after the events wrapped up. With the leftover food from the Block Party, we were able to bless our wider community by taking it to the local homeless shelter.
That food went on to feed hundreds of people, reminding us once again that nothing is wasted in God’s Kingdom. He multiplies even the smallest offerings to make a big impact.
Overall, the evening was a powerful reminder that our role is simply to show up faithfully, and God does the rest.
We are excited to see how He continues to work through these new connections, deepen our relationships with Odyssey families, and use our ministry to point people toward the hope we have in Christ.
This event was hosted by Redemption Church in Ogden, and was assisted through financial support through the UISBC and North American Mission Board Evangelism Grant. If you want more information about how your church can reach your community with events partnered with NAMB Grants, please reach out to our UISBC staff.
Pastor Charles and Sister Donna Petty hear from friends and loved ones in honor of their 40 years of ministry in Ogden
By Karen L. Willoughby
OGDEN, Utah – Charles Petty received two standing ovations when Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski honored him July 20.
The first came when the mayor proclaimed July 20, 2025, “Pastor Charles Petty Day” in the city of Ogden, 37 miles north of Salt Lake City. The unexpected honor came during Petty’s last day after 40 years as pastor of Ogden’s Second Baptist Church.
“Pastor Petty represents the very best of Ogden,” Nadolski told the congregation. “His influence can be felt in every corner of this city, from the pulpit to the street corner. This proclamation is a small gesture of thanks for a lifetime of meaningful service.”
Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski proclaims July 20, 2025 Pastor Charles Petty Day in the City of Ogden.
The official civic document started with seven “Whereas” statements, including those noting that Petty and his wife Donna “spearheaded numerous initiatives that uplifted and empowered the Ogden community, including the construction of a new church building, outreach programs for incarcerated individuals, youth retreats, food and clothing drives, college support ministries, and Spanish-language services,” and “Pastor Petty has been a cornerstone of moral leadership and community unity, demonstrating commitment to justice, compassion and inclusion,” among others. See attached document.
“His leadership extended far beyond the church walls, touching lives across neighborhoods, city programs, and local schools,” according to an online news report.
Among Petty’s accomplishments, an 11,000 square-foot building for Second Baptist completed in 1999, the first church built specifically for Blacks in Ogden since 1944, though today the congregational is multicultural. In 2018, the church added 4,000 square feet for its young people, plus additional bathrooms.
Second Baptist bought property in 2004 now known as Touch of Paradise Family and Youth Center, located nine miles south of Logan. Ever since, church members have been adding to and maintaining the 20-acre property that has grown to include six bunkhouses, two cabins, an ingathering building, oversized kitchen, heat and air conditioning throughout the buildings, and much more.
A spring runs through the property in use from May to October as a ministry for people “from the cradle to the grave,” Petty told UI Connections. Youth, children, and family groups from several churches make the most use of the camp.
Golden Spike Baptist Network Moderator, Dr Mickey Porter, addresses the gathered congregation honoring Pastor Charles Petty
The Second Baptist pastor worked with other pastors in 2012 for a city-wide revival that drew 250 people. He’d hoped for 1,000, but the three-day event also showcased the city’s 20 helping agencies and how working together brought unity to the community that grew from about 70,000 in the 1970s to about 90,000 today.
Petty in January 2015 led in what has become quarterly meetings of the leaders of those helping agencies, so that each entity knows what each of the others are doing to keep the community safe and unified. Each meeting starts with a two-minute presentation of each entity’s recent activity.
“It’s so everyone can do their part better,” Petty said. “We started with minority clergy. Now it’s expanded to Jews and other churches” in the meeting with leaders from the city’s service agencies.
Petty suggested this gathering – which takes place in the Ogden police chief’s conference room – to forestall a situation akin to Ferguson, Missouri’s civic unrest in August through November 2014.
A great cloud of witnesses was present to honor Pastor Charles Petty and his wife, Sister Donna, at his 40 years of Ministry celebration
The church’s food ministry started when the Covid pandemic hit in 2020 and continues to this day. This ministry reaches at least 240 families twice a month. During Covid it reached 444 families.
Petty has started numerous initiatives to reach young people before they get into trouble, to make families stronger, and to support those incarcerated who’ve made unwise choices. One of the ways he’s done this at Second Baptist is by inviting police officers many times to interact with older children and teens.
To start at the beginning, Petty, an Arkansas native, moved to Ogden in the 1970s to work as a civilian at Hill Air Force Base. He and his family joined Second Baptist, and he became the church’s bivocational pastor in 1985, when 27 people were attending services. Today it’s closer to 150, in a congregation of about 450.
“God had His hand in [my employment] the full time,” Petty said. “I was blessed with grit and determination. I’d get up at 4:00am to go to the hospital and at lunch. I had 12 years of Civil Service time in already, and I figured if I could make it to the minimum age to retire, that’s what I would do.”
It helped that he had a “great employer,” Petty said, and a four-day work week that enabled him to have quality time with his family.
“We put God first in everything,” the seasoned pastor said. “God was number one, and then family.”
A Civil Service employee for 36 years, Petty was the Resource Management Flight Chief and CFO for 25 years when he retired in 2010 and became the fulltime pastor at Second Baptist.
Since then, in addition to focusing on the community as well as the church, he’s been on the UISBC Executive Board for three terms, with a break between his first and second term. His third ends in 2026.
“I appreciate the love of other pastors for the mission of the convention as well as how we get things done by working together,” Petty said.
At least 18 men have been called into the gospel ministry during Petty’s 40 years in ministry. He’s mentored, licensed and ordained each of them, and the first thing he tells them is, “If you can prevent going into it, don’t do it.”
The pastorate is not a job. “It’s a calling from God,” Petty said he tells them. “It’s not what you see on Sundays. It’s something you need to put your life on the line for.”
Among the hardships, “Being able to see people [fail who] you have poured yourself into. You ask yourself, ‘What else could I have done?’”
Among things he’s learned that Petty passes on to the men he mentors: “Family has got to be first, after God, who is [to be] first in our lives. God knew you had a family when He called you.”
About sin: “Rebellion comes from being neglected. God is able to take care of whatever habits you might have; take them to God. If He calls you, He is able to take care of you. If Christ is your Lord and Savior, serve Him.”
Pastor Charles Petty addresses the gathered congregation and guests at his transition service following 40 years of ministry in Ogden
About pulpiteering: “I have made it an intentional practice to not say anything about Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses in my sermons. I don’t want anyone to turn away from Christ’s life, burial and resurrection because of something I’ve said.
“God’s word is God’s word. We preach from the Bible. We preach what the Bible says.”
About knowing the will of God: “Am I sure it’s what God wants? If it’s God’s will, it will be done with me or without me.”
About the hard times: Petty looks at the poster called “Footprints in the Sand” nailed to his office wall, and is reminded that he’s as close as ever to God, because God is carrying him.
He asks those who come to him questioning their faith, “Do you see anybody worse off than you are? Sometimes God is correcting us. Sometimes He’s simply perfecting us.”
Second Baptist Church in Ogden now is being pastored by David McKinley of California, though the church’s mission stays the same: Reaching people for Christ, maturing people in Christ, and mobilizing people through Christ.
Petty, while remaining a member at Second Baptist, plans to spend the next year with his wife Donna visiting pastors and churches across Utah and Idaho. His second standing ovation came as the July 20 service came to its conclusion.
UISBC Executive Director-Treasurer, Rob Lee addresses the gathered congregation honoring Pastor Charles Petty
“Rev. Charles Petty is a blessing to the Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention,” Executive Director Rob Lee told UI Connections. “He has served on our Executive Board several times, preached at annual meetings, pastors’ conferences, and evangelism conferences over the past 40 years. He has led Second Baptist Church to host meetings, conferences, and training sessions in their church as well as attend meetings in our other churches.
“When Rev. Petty has spoken at the annual meetings and at the Executive Board, he has given wise biblical advice that has led to decisions benefiting our joint ministries,” Lee continued. “I look forward to his continued service on the Executive Board, currently, and to his encouragement of our bivocational ministers over the next year.”
Redemption College Ministry students share Bible study on the grounds of Weber State University in Ogden
Ogden, UT – In the foothills of Mt. Ogden lies a beautiful college campus east of downtown Ogden that is home to purple-wearing Wildcats fans and commuter students from all over the Wasatch front mountain range. This campus has been host to Saturday game-day celebrations for their winning football program that has produced NFL greats. In the winter and spring, basketball season starts a whole new wave of excitement and anticipation to another winning season hoping for another NBA star to come out of their ranks. Amid all that is Weber State University’s college ministry, Semper Veritas, that has reached Weber State students for many years with a clear gospel message and a truth-filled perspective of Christianity to the predominant faith that many of the students are held captive. This year, Semper Veritas is experiencing change, but it is a good change.
Redemption Church in Ogden has spent the past several years overseeing the ministry at Weber State under the name Semper Veritas. Now, the decision has been made to transition to the name Redemption College Ministry. Their leader, Casey Swails, explains, “We are off to an awesome start to the school year. We started off the school year with a rebrand of our ministry from Semper Veritas to Redemption College Ministry. The goal of this name change is to help with the goal of connecting students to the local church and for a clearer representation of who we are.”
Former GenSend Missionaries have partnered with Redemption College Ministry for tabling opportunities
Swails continues, “Our leaders are doing an awesome job connecting with students. We have been averaging 10-12 people at our weekly Bible studies. A few of these students are not believers. One non-believing student actually joined us at Redemption Church this past Sunday with her boyfriend. Our leaders are leading discussions through the book of Philippians. This has prompted much discussion, questions, and deeper relationships among students. It has been incredibly encouraging to see this kind of attendance and fruit so quickly in the semester.“
Students have also been engaged consistently in tabling on campus. Tabling is when ministry leading students stand by a table in a public setting, more often in high traffic area on campus, and post large banners or a white board with a probing spiritual conversation on the board/banner. Then, the question sparks continuing conversations that lead to gospel appointment and opportunities to share the truth of God’s word. “We are using the tabling opportunities to invite students to the Perspectives Conversations event. Our student leaders have said that lots of students are excited about the conversation coming up on October 12th. We are praying that this conversation will promote healthy relationships with non-believers so that we can get to know them and show them that Jesus has met them where they are.”, Swails added. The tabling alone has prompted several gospel conversations that has contributed to the increase in Bible study attendance.
Redemption College Ministry is asking Utah and Idaho Baptists to pray for their ministry on Weber State’s campus. Here are some prayer prompts you can use in your personal and community prayer gatherings:
We would greatly appreciate prayers for the coming Bible studies and Perspectives Conversations on October 12.
Pray for non-believers to be interested in having these discussions with us.
Pray for open hearts to the gospel.
Pray for relationships to be formed between the believers and non-believers on campus.
Redemption College Ministry leaders are doing great work engaging the campus of Weber State for the glory of God and the advancement of the Gospel. They value your continued prayerful support.
This story was adapted from one of the many stories we hear from campus ministries across Idaho and Utah. Please support the Utah-Idaho State Missions Offering because 100% of our college ministry budget comes from a portion of your SMO dollars given.
