Launch Pad for a Life on Mission

CSU Students Serving in Utah with GenSend

By Audra Bergevin ’25

Kate Saunders watched out the plane window in anticipation as she got closer to Salt Lake City. She had served there the summer of 2023 with GenSend, a North American Mission Board program that sends young adults to gospel-hungry locations in partnership with church plants across the country. She was returning for spring break, and she could not have been more excited to return to the people and place she had grown to love so dearly. “I’ve never felt this sense of homecoming before,” she remembers. This feeling of belonging, community, and evangelistic purpose compelled Saunders to commit to Utah as her new home after her graduation with a degree in business administration in December 2024.

Her two summers serving with Redemption Church North Davis in Kaysville, Utah, challenged her conceptions of what serving the local church, sharing the gospel, and living on mission should look like for a believer. God used these experiences to call her into an exciting new stage of ministry. Her confidence in God’s plan for her life is clear: “Even with fear of the unknown, you never doubt it’s the right decision.”

She first heard about the opportunities with GenSend through a CSU chapel where another student who had been to Utah with the program, Mariah Gonzalez ’23, shared her story. Afterward, Saunders went to a lunch held for those interested. She had never been on a formal mission trip before, but she was curious about using her summer for ministry.

Jake Thompson also spent the past two summers in Utah with GenSend. He and Saunders were on the same team in Kaysville their first year, and he was on a team in Ogden this past summer. He has a similar story of how he got connected with the trip. Through talking with Gonzalez, as well as receiving encouragement from others in his life, he took the plunge and joined the team. “I’m an adventurer,” Thompson said. “I love to see new places and have new experiences.”

Preparation before the summer included both GenSend-wide training and meetings with their specific teams. The first year, Saunders was on a team of 10, with seven students from CSU, allowing most of the group to meet on campus during the spring semester. Her team this past year included eight students, with six from CSU, and Thompson’s included six, with four from CSU. This on-campus preparation began developing the relationships that would be further strengthened through serving together.

Once the students arrived in Utah, they spent two days of intensive training in Salt Lake City, discussing the unique cultural and religious context they found themselves in. Team members learned more about the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, whose members comprise a large portion of those living in Utah.

According to pastor of Redemption Church Ogden, Bobby Wood, “Utah is the most lost state in the nation with 98% of the resident population of the state being nonbelievers. Many of our communities have no evangelical churches or maybe a few, so the need for the gospel is great.”  Wood is a member of CSU’s Board of Trustees.

Saunders and Thompson note the independence GenSend encourages within its training model. Leaders and local pastors give students guidance, but there’s no handholding involved. “You’re basically given a map, a Bible, and you’re parachuted down into a place. That’s really it. [But] you’re not alone: you have a team of college students,” Thompson explains. The experience pushes students in their faith, their teamwork abilities, and their skills in adapting to new situations. “Every day you’re learning something new,” said Saunders.

Each day looked different, Saunders said, but the weeks followed a set rhythm. The team used a thirds model to manage their time: two-thirds of the day for planned ministry, one-third for rest. This structure allowed for dedicated time to spend with the Lord and recharge, as well as providing lots of time to spend in hands-on missions and pursuing relationships with locals. About three evenings of the week, the team hosted community nights — featuring board games, worship, dinner, or heading to a nearby park. These fun evenings met a real need for young adults looking for fellowship.

During the week, Saunders and Thompson also had one-on-one conversations with their new friends to share a soda and dive into deeper, faith-related topics. Sundays were spent serving the church plant, helping services to run smoothly and completing any team planning for the week ahead. Through this structure, GenSend participants could focus on their two aims for the summer, said Thompson: reaching the community with the gospel and serving the local church plant.

The daily life on mission emphasis of GenSend has made a lasting impact. For Saunders, her former perception of missions as primarily an overseas issue and “a courageous calling very few people did” shifted. Now, she confidently says, “If you are a believer, you are a missionary.” No matter where you find yourself geographically, what job you hold, or what abilities and gifts you have, if you are in Christ, you are called to make disciples. Saunders was able to use her business knowledge to help with administrative tasks at her GenSend church.

“When we live out the gospel, they can see it in our life,” Thompson said. For him, this looked like talking to the regulars he encountered throughout the week — the bus driver, the restaurant employee, and the parents at the park he saw frequently and began getting to know.

During his first summer, the team developed a relationship with their bus driver, and they were able to have great conversations with him, invite him to church, and pray with him. “Everything you do is a gospel opportunity,” Thompson said, and the need for people to see loving, faithful Christ followers is real. “They want to know where you get this love, how you find purpose.”

The context of the LDS culture gives asking questions a very different meaning than in the Southern Bible Belt context. Saunders walked one new friend through her questioning of the LDS church she had grown up in, and the young woman ultimately decided to put her faith in Christ. Saunders said that those in the LDS Church are taught not to ask questions or challenge authority, yet as a Christian herself, she knows she can ask challenging questions and find answers in Scripture. “I don’t have to live in fear of ‘don’t ask that question.’” Saunders’s faith grew through her conversations with this friend, particularly as she had to lean on her knowledge of Scripture to find answers to difficult questions.

The LDS context also gives choosing to follow Christ a very different sense of weightiness. Thompson explains that in Utah following Jesus and getting baptized makes a statement that radically changes everything, even meaning that you jeopardize going back to friends and family. For those they met and talked with, counting the cost of accepting the gospel was a significant step.

The unity of the team demonstrated Christ’s love for the community — and blessed its members richly. Serving one another, spending a lot of time together, and even being the only other believers around brought the team closer. “The unity in that taught me about the heart of Christ,” Saunders said. Her reliance on the team was cemented when she found herself in the hospital at one point, and they were there for her the entire time, stepping in as family when her own were thousands of miles away. The bonds forged over the summer have continued.

This unity also allows for growth in humility. Saunders says that spending so much time together shows you your own selfishness. The team took to heart the saying “I am 10th” — a reminder to put fellow team members first in every moment of the day. The personal growth through these challenges and the work of the Holy Spirit through the team’s unity was a testimony to those they encountered. “They kept noting how it was strange, the love we had for each other,” Thompson said of the community nights. “They saw our sacrifice for each other.”

In living and ministering in a heavily LDS-shaped culture, these living examples serve as crucial pointers to the gospel. For those still in the LDS church, “it’s hard to make the distinction between LDS and Christianity,” Thompson said. “We can be saying ‘Jesus’ and it means two different things.” Despite surface-level similarities, the core differences in theology are significant, and quickly arise after a conversation longer than a few minutes. Thompson said that many in the LDS church have been taught that any opposition to their views is spiritually derived, a test to their faith from the enemy.

Yet within this unique, even challenging context, God is working mightily in the hearts and lives of individuals. Thompson told the story of a 4th of July barbecue he was invited to by a new friend. This friend was rejected by the LDS church for his lifestyle, as were many of the others there. There’s something so special about sharing a meal and the hospitality of bringing someone into your home.” Thompson got to share the gospel, and there was an attentive interest in the Jesus he described. He was not a Savior who said to them, “Who you are could never be saved” or “Your only hope is to submit to these rules.”

“Jesus frees us rather than binds us to a new set of laws,” said Thompson. This gospel freedom hits a different note after hearing the message of the LDS church. While Thompson acknowledges it was hard to digest for some that night, others were genuinely intrigued.

Saunders and Thompson are enthusiastic about continuing to live on mission, whether in Utah as Saunders plans or in an international setting as Thompson does.

Saunders’ advice to those interested in GenSend is straightforward: “Do it.” She acknowledges the heftiness of the undertaking (in terms of both time and finances) but she affirms relying on God’s faithfulness and provision. What’s at stake is too valuable to overlook: “People need to know Him, and no one’s out there to do it,” she said. She points to Matthew 9:37-38, a key verse in considering the mission field in Utah.

CSU Students on Summer 2024 GenSend Utah Team

• Grady Bingham
• Anna Blaser
• Ashlyn Bowers
• Griffin Gillespie
• Anthony Jozwick
• Bryson McLemore
• Katelyn Saunders
• Jacob Thompson
• Allison Wade
• Corey Wade