Join us this October 22-23 for our UISBC Pastors’ Conference, Women’s Conference, and Annual Meeting. Registration information is available on our website. This is a great time to connect with other churches and develop networking relationships from across the two state convention. There will be great messages, food, fellowship, worship, and connection with friends you may only get to see at these events. Hear from your International Missionaries serving around the world, as well as entity leaders from around the SBC.
We started U&I Together in UI Connections to provide a place where churches can promote upcoming events or celebrate what God has been doing in and through our churches. Send your submissions to State Missionary Jason McNair at jmcnair@uisbc.org.
This month, U&I Together brings reports and celebrations of some of this summer’s activities, including Sonfest, across our two states.
September 2026
Localizing Disaster Relief
Treasure Valley Southern Baptist Association Disaster Relief volunteers recently had the opportunity to minister in our local area, rather than traveling out of state,” reported the association’s administrative assistant, Michele Ring.
The June 26th storm – with its flash flooding in Caldwell – resulted in more than 30 people being displaced, with a great need for both physical and spiritual help.
Joe and Delores O’Neill were asked to serve as chaplains to help those in need spiritually. John (and his wife Juanita) Montoya, the new Disaster Relief director for the Treasure Valley Baptist Association, were tasked with clean up for a devastated family.
“Other local volunteers were able to help as well,” Ring wrote in the latest issue of the TVBA newsletter, The Focus. “In addition, volunteers were able to use our local resources such as the Disaster Relief trailer. It was extremely gratifying to bring both physical and spiritual help.”
Utah pastor pens discipleship book
Dustin Carpenter, pastor of Roosevelt (Utah) Baptist Church recently published Apprenticeship to King Jesus: Catechesis for a secular age on Amazon. It’s about learning to follow Jesus in everyday life,” Carpenter told U&I Together. “This way of discipleship has been a game changer in our church.”
According to Amazon’s description of the 318-page book, “In a culture that forms us 24 hours a day, what does it actually look like to be formed by Jesus?
Apprenticeship to King Jesus is an invitation back to an ancient path, one the early church used to form disciples into apprentices of the King.” Carpenter uses Scripture, the Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the 10 commandments to develop a spiritually disciplined life.
“Drawing on echoes from Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Marvel, this book reveals how the Story Behind all stories is breaking into our world, and how you can step into it,” the Amazon description continues. Otherwise, it’s available in paperback for $14.99 or on Kindle for $4.99, or free on Kindle Unlimited.
Cascade church celebrates community
Central Valley Baptist Church in Cascade, Idaho, in June hosted its annual “Community BBQ and Kids Festival.” At least 200 people participated.
In addition to food, fun and building community, assisted in part by a NAMB/UISBC evangelism grant, Pastor Richard Iddings reported 19 gospel conversations and two professions of faith in Jesus.
“It is truly wonderful how effective food is at overcoming social barriers,” Iddings wrote in his report of the event. “This was our second year hosting a community BBQ, open to all, promoted using social media, banners, posters, and invitations.
“This event serves as a springboard for many of our other ministries and as an introduction to many unfamiliar with our church family. The event was a wonderful success, we saw a steady stream of familiar and unfamiliar faces, over 200 people were served burgers and hotdogs over the course of three hours, many Jesus and gospel conversations were had, and two people later accepted Christ.
“The real strength of this event is not on event day,” the pastor wrote. “It is the residual impact. For example, this year we had our largest VBS to date and one of the largest VBS weeks in our local county, plus more kids joining us for our Summer Fun events. Our clothing closet ministry has been consistently larger than the previous year, and we continue to see new families from the event joining us in corporate worship.
“We have already had discussions in how to improve next year, stretch our reach into the unchurched/dechurched community, and expand our gospel impact,” Iddings concluded, including other church leaders in his “We.”
Red Hills baptizes at Quail Creek
A “good number” of baptisms have taken place at Red Hills Southern Baptist Church in Cedar City, Utah, Pastor Joe Kline told U&I Together. He emailed later to say the total for the year, as of Sept. 8, is 23, thirteen in the last month alone.
“The Holy Spiirit is moving. God is at work,” Kline said. “It’s been miraculous what God is doing. Some are coming through the youth group. Some are kids coming to us.”
Kline said he and the church’s Youth Team have been working with the youth this year.
“It’s a lot of building relationships, getting to know families, and just being one-on-one with people, answering questions, getting in the Word,” Kline continued. “Especially in the youth and college age there’s a real hunger and thirst to know the Lord. Not religion but a true relationship.”
Red Hills Southern Baptist Church baptized 27 people in 2025, and 32 in 2024, according to its annual All Church Profile (ACP) reports.
Hispanic churches in Utah gather for Missions Education training
Leaders from Hispanic Churches from along the Wasatch Front in Utah
Hispanic church leaders and families from half a dozen churches and ministries along the Wasatch Front gathered at Canyons in Español in Salt Lake City where they learned how the Utah Idaho SBC York Dillman State Mission Offering is used to strengthen churches within our two states by supporting ministries like Disaster Relief, Collegiate Ministry, Women’s ministries, and Salt Lake School of Theology.
They also were informed by UISBC Executive Director Rob Lee on how Cooperative Program dollars are distributed through the National SBC and used locally to support the operations of the convention.
WMU President and UISBC part-time ministry assistant, Sonia Gutierrez, along with her husband, spoke about Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.
SLBA Pastors gather to focus on Gospel centered preaching
On Wednesday, September 2, pastors and ministry leaders from across the Salt Lake Baptist Association gathered at Canyons Church for September Pastoral Fellowship. The event began with worship, heard from God’s Word as pastor Luke Bylsma of Gospel Light in Salt Lake City presented a message from Philippians 2.
SLBA Executive Director, Andrew Jones shared “One of my hopes for the SLBA is that our gatherings would be about more than conducting associational business. We want to cultivate mutual care among pastors that leads to genuine gospel partnership among churches. That starts with relationships—knowing one another, praying for one another, learning from one another, and wanting to see one another’s churches flourish.”
Most of the discussion centered on The Heart of Preachinga book given away at the event to every pastor in attendance as a gift from Crossway Publishing. The text of the book addresses the challenge of bringing the gospel to bear on the real lives of our people. Andrew continued, “We talked about the relationship between the gospel, gospel truths, and gospel conduct and considered how our preaching can move beyond simply telling people what to do by helping them see how Christian obedience flows from the good news of what Christ has done.”
The next gathering of the SLBA will be their Annual Meeting in November, also at Canyons Church.
By Chip Hutcheson, content editor for Kentucky Today.
The following article is used by permission by Kentucky Today, the official state paper of Kentucky Baptists. The original article appeared in the September 8 edition of Kentucky Today
Dr Matthew Emadi is lead pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Midvale, UT, which formerly went by the name Crossroads Church in Sandy, but felt the new name better reflected the current vision Christ Covenant has to reach their new community.
MIDVALE, Utah — A Kentucky Baptist Convention vision tour several years ago resulted in a connection for Grace Baptist Church in Somerset, Kentucky with a church planter in Utah — and that partnership has flourished. Grace Baptist takes annual mission trips to support the church’s work, and last month the Utah congregation bought a building that was formerly a Latter-day Saints meeting house.
The church plant formerly operated under the name Crossroads Church, located in Sandy, Utah, but the August move to Midvale, Utah, brought with it a name change. The Southern Baptist church now goes by the name Christ Covenant Church.
Todd Meadows, pastor of Grace Baptist and chairman of KBC’s Administrative Committee, shared a video of Christ Covenant “making it official that a former Mormon ward, where darkness prevailed, has been officially claimed and transformed into a church that will worship the one true living God and be an outpost for gospel advancement.”
Mike West, pastor of missions and discipleship at Grace, said he met Matt Emadi on that original vision trip.
Emadi earned his Ph.D. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and returned to his home state in 2014 as a church planter. He now serves as senior pastor of Christ Covenant.
As a result of connecting with Emadi, West now travels with a mission team once a year, usually in July, to assist the Utah congregation. “We have been going for six years, doing Vacation Bible School and different work projects, as well as street evangelism,” said West, who has been a member of Grace since 2009 and on staff for eight years.
The recent location change and new name are seen as major positives for the Utah church.
“The move to a new building is not far from where they were meeting, but it is a different community,” West observed. “The building that housed a Mormon ward had closed down. Several in the (Salt Lake) Valley are closing because not as many people are attending, so they are combining wards.”
In past years, the Grace mission team would travel to the former church location that was situated on a one-acre horse farm. “They met in an old house, which we helped remodel, both the interior and exterior. In the long run the work we did was beneficial because it helped them sell the property pretty quickly.”
The new location will provide “much more space” for the congregation now numbering about 200. “It is a massive upgrade in facilities,” said West. There is a gym, which will serve as a multi-purpose fellowship hall, and more rooms for small groups.
When Emadi went to Utah, he took the church and moved it from being independent Baptist to a Southern Baptist church. On its website, the church asks people to “pray for our church and for the Lord to provide evangelistic opportunities in our new neighborhood.”
Pastor Matthew Emadi assists church volunteer in replacing the spear from atop the former Mormon ward meetinghouse with a cross as Christ Covenant began services in their new building on September 6.
A YouTube video shows the steeple on the newly purchased building being removed and replaced by a cross. One comment on that video stated, “To see this moved my heart so powerfully. I couldn’t hold back the tears of joy. When you come out of Mormonism and find the real Jesus and then watch this taking down the steeple of such a harmful and false religion, to be replaced by the cross has such significance.”
Emadi grew up in Layton, Utah, but moved to Louisville to earn degrees from Southern. He authored “How Can I Serve My Church” from 9 Marks. He and his wife, Brittany, have six children.
Other elders at the church are Andrew Jones and Paul Warburg.
Andrew Jones grew up in Louisville but moved to Utah about 11 years ago to help plant a church. He is an educator in the local school district and pursuing an M.Div. degree from Southern. He also currently serves as bivocational Executive Director of the Salt Lake Baptist Association. He and his wife Ashley have five children.
Paul Warburg is a California native who has earned degrees from Liberty University. He moved to Utah in 2021 after learning that the state had one of the smallest populations of evangelical Christians in the U.S. He works as a geopolitical analyst, covering current events around the globe. He and his wife, Vienna, have one child.
What is God doing through your church?
Every baptism, every person reached, every ministry started, every dollar given, and every life changed tells a part of the story of how God is working across Utah and Idaho.
The Annual Church Profile (ACP) is now available for all Utah Idaho Southern Baptist churches to complete. When you take the time to fill out your ACP, you’re not just submitting numbers, you’re helping us tell the bigger story of what God is doing through His churches across our two states. Your church’s information helps us better understand where God is moving, identify opportunities to serve churches, and give a clearer picture of the ministry happening in Idaho and Utah.
Help us tell the story. Complete your ACP today! Visit www.uisbc.org/annual-church-profile
This year, we are asking Idaho and Utah churches to “Be All In” on praying for each other and for the mission of reaching our two states. Our major emphasis for this year’s York-Dillman State Missions Offering is PRAYER and how it mobilizes us to action. We encourage every UISBC Network church to promote and participate in the Week of Prayer for State Missions, Sept. 6-13. We also invite you to visit uisbc.org/smo to order additional promotional materials and learn how the State Missions Offering stays 100% in our two states supporting Disaster Relief, Women’s Ministry, Collegiate Ministry, Salt Lake School of Theology, and many other ministries that are not funded by any other source.
We started U&I Together in UI Connections to provide a place where churches can promote upcoming events or celebrate what God has been doing in and through our churches. Send your submissions to State Missionary Jason McNair at jmcnair@uisbc.org.
This month, U&I Together brings reports and celebrations of some of this summer’s activities, including Sonfest, across our two states.
August 2026
Family Conference attracts community
Iglesia Gracia e Verdad in Treasure Valley Baptist Association hosted a three-day Family Conference in late June with the assistance of a NAMB/UISBC evangelism grant that 60 people attended. Ten people were engaged in a gospel conversation and one person made a profession of faith.
“We planned this event as an opportunity for growth and discipleship for our members and an outreach opportunity for unbelievers,” Pastor Tim Martin reported. “We were encouraged to have 14 new families attend over the weekend, and hope to follow up with them.
“We were also so encouraged that after an extended session of questions and answers with the speaker after the last session Saturday, one of our single young men received the Lord as his Savior. God is at work, and we are so grateful for His grace and mercy.”
Movie and pizza night intrigues community
Risen Life Church in Midvale, Utah, with the assistance of a NAMB/UISBC evangelism grant, hosted 55 people at the downtown Pearl Theater July 3, for a free showing of The Sandlot movie about pre-teen boys and baseball, set in the 1960s.
“We were able to meet a lot of individuals in Midvale who said they had wanted to connect to our church but were afraid to connect until an opportunity like this,” Church Planting Pastor Jonathan Perkins reported. “We were able to share about our church and the free gift of the gospel before the movie and invite people after the movie to church service. We were able to have a gospel conversation with three individuals, separately, throughout the evening!”
Abide Church plant joins God and Country Festival
About 5,000 people gathered in Nampa, Idaho, June 30 for the 60th annual God and Country Festival. About 30 churches from eight southwestern Idaho towns participated, including Abide Church, which Cameron Stevens is starting. A NAMB/UISBC evangelism grant assisted.
“We were able to engage with hundreds of people,” Stevens reported. “We handed out over 500 ‘little Jesus’s’, multiple gospel tracts, ‘Jesus loves you’ bracelets, Jesus films, and more. The gospel was shared in various ways through conversation, gospel tracts, the ‘Evang-a-cube,’ and our visiting mission team from Florida.
“One gentleman committed to coming to our in-home Bible study. Multiple others signed up to receive information on our church plant. Our Bible study reconvenes on Aug. 19. Lord willing, we’ll see some fruit from this event.”
Longtime women’s leader dies
Carol Timberman, 84, died June 27 after a fall in Clearfield, Utah. According to her obituary, “During her [early years] in Utah, she served her Lord and Savior faithfully through both her volunteer positions at Mountain View Baptist Church (formerly First Southern Baptist Church of Clearfield) and as their church secretary. During the early 1990’s, she felt God leading her to worship and serve at First Baptist Church in Roy.
“In 1995, she joined with Layton Hills Baptist Church and held many positions of leadership in the Sunday School, mission programs, and jail ministry.” Timberman served in several leadership positions in UISBC’s WMU, including president for a five-year term, and in 1986 was also on the organizational board of Fish ‘n Loaves Food Pantry. A financial gift from her estate is to be used for women’s events and ministry training.
Price pastor receives community award
Chris Polito, general contractor business owner and bivocational pastor of Gospel Community Church in Price, received from the Carbon County Commission July 1 a Super Service Award “for his constant and quiet dedication to helping those in need throughout the community,” according to a local news report.
One example that was cited: Recently he “personally funded and arranged a hotel room for a stranded patient who had just been discharged from the hospital with nowhere else to go.”
Polito deflected the recognition. “It truly takes a village” to support those in need, Polito said.
Sonfest 2026 Youth Event equips 80 students for gospel engagement
Our annual Sonfest Youth Evangelism Conference featured worship led by Florida worship leader Paul Samson and challenging messages from God’s Word were presented by Mississippi Student pastor, John David Fortenberry. The students represented seven Utah and Idaho churches and totaled 97 in attendance at Mountain View Baptist Church in Layton who hosted the gathering.
Students were introduced to RAGE ministries’ Emoji Wristband Evangelism during one of the breakouts where 80 students were trained and equipped with wristbands that have NFC tap technology within every band. While at Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, students had a final gathering for worship and encouragement, and four students reported using either their Sonfest shirts or wristband to share the gospel with at least one person. Others raised their hand that they shared in ride lines, as well. More information about Wristband Evangelism can be found at JesusSave.Me.
One church reported that three students from their church prayed to receive Christ after the Friday night opening session. Over 75% of the students present raised their hand that this was their first time attending Sonfest. Students were also challenged to heed a call to ministry by grabbing a copy of Jeff Iorg’s book, Is God Calling Me?.
Sonfest has been the primary Student Evangelism equipping tool used by UISBC network of churches since 1994. A gathering of student leaders on Saturday morning of day 2 at this year’s Sonfest pledged to expand the reach of the event beginning in Summer 2027.
Reminders of Upcoming events in our network of churches
The Fall semester of Salt Lake School of Theology begins Aug. 24 with two classes: New Testament 1 taught 6-9 p.m. Mondays until Dec. 12 at Gospel Grace Church, 62 E 1300 S in Salt Lake City, by Matt Emadi PhD, and Old Testament 1 taught remotely by Jared Jenkins PhD.
Christology Conference with Dr. David Rathel from 6-9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 28, at Risen Life Church, 2780 E 3900 S in Salt Lake City, sponsored by the Salt Lake School of Theology and funded in part through the UISBC State Missions Offering. Registration is live now for only $10 (increases to $15 at the door) and includes dinner at 5 p.m.
Ministry Wives Gathering from 8a-5p Friday and Saturday, Aug. 28-29, at Redemption Church Ogden, 585 39th in South Ogden. Sponsored by UISBC Women’s Network.
Week of Prayer for Utah Idaho State Missions Offering, Sept. 6-13. Visit uisbc.org/smo to order promotional materials.
Prophecy Watchers Conference Sept. 18-19 at Pine Ridge Baptist Church, 108 Pine Road in Kamiah, Idaho.
Words Matter Weekend at Mountain View Baptist Church. The 2026 Women’s Conference is scheduled to take place on September 18-19 with author Cheryl Marshall. Cost is $35 and includes meals and a copy of Cheryl’s book, When Words Matter Most. More information is on our Facebook page, and on the registration page for the event.
