Missouri Mob Descendant Apologizes to Mormons, Performs Miracles
For Immediate Release
Jan. 24, 2005
By Greater Things News Service
(Not officially affiliated with Ezekiel Conference)
Lynn Ridenhour addresses
the Ezekiel Conference at the
Unitarian Church on Highland
Drive in Salt Lake City,
January 22, 2005
click for high-res
Lynn Ridenhour with Sterling
Allan a Mormon descendant,
who put his arm around
Ridenhour while he was
seeking to regain his
composure while tearfully
reading the Statement of
Repentance. Allan introduced
Ridenhour to John Bayley a
couple of years ago, and they
have been partners in ministry
ever since.
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- Southern Baptist Minister, Lynn Ridenhour, issued
a tearful public apology Saturday to the Mormons for the actions of his
ancestors in persecuting and driving the Mormons from Missouri in the
1800's. Speaking at the invitation of the Ezekiel Seminar in Salt Lake
City on Jan. 22, 2005, Ridenhour read a prepared statement which was
warmly received by the audience of 160 predominantly Mormon participants,
who embraced him and offered their forgiveness in turn.
Ridenhour's statement said that though he was raised and trained to speak
against the Mormons as a cult, he came to see that while their beliefs
are different, they are not a cult.
Having discovered in his family history that his Missouri ancestors "were
involved in the Mormon War, running the Mormons out of the state," he
took occasion in his speaking engagement to offer the apology on behalf
of his ancestors and to ask for forgiveness.
Ridenhour presently resides in Independence, Missouri, where he leads a
charismatic revival that includes an honored place for the Book of
Mormon.
The "Statement of Repentance" was read in the course of a lecture titled,
"I'm looking for a church," in which he itemized five aspects which all
turned out to be features of the LDS Church at the time of Joseph Smith:
Manifest presence of God, taking God out of the "box", prophetic,
welcomes signs and wonders, worshippers.
Ridenhour told of going through accounts of Mormon History and
documenting the number of manifestations of the various gifts of the
spirit, from speaking in tongues, to raising the dead, healing the sick
and appearances of angels. He also told of his experience reading the
Book of Mormon for the first time. "It was like being born again --
again!" "The Book of Mormon is more Baptist than the Baptist hymnal," he
said, referencing the core Baptists doctrines propounded there.
He was recently contacted by a key leader figure in the Pentecostal
church who asked him if he really believed in the Book of Mormon, and
then confessed that he too has been a believer for many years, but has
not been able to come out of the closet because of his position in the
Pentecostal church. Ridenhour has scheduled a time not long from now to
have this minister come to Independence and go on record publicly as a
Book of Mormon believer. Being over some 168 congregations, his
confession ought to turn some heads.
At the end of the conference, Ridenhour, along with his ministerial
partner, John Bayley -- also a Book of Mormon believer and Mormon lover
-- ministered to the group assembled, performing several miracles of
healing and giving "a word of knowledge" to numerous people who were
astonished at the accuracy of the words of inspired wisdom being spoken
to them that were so specific and timely for their unique situations. One
LDS woman spoke in tongues as she was filled with the Holy Ghost, which
was then interpreted to her great joy and weeping. Not all who sought
healings were healed on the spot, but were promised they could be healed.
This was around the 18th Ezekiel Conference to be held, and the first
time they had this kind of open manifestation of such miracles in their
midst. The conferences commenced about three years ago because of many
people being touched by an account of a ten-year-old girl who died from a
diabetic coma and returned from death without the veil, who apparently
has continued to have near daily encounters with Jesus on a level of
familiarity surpassing what most people have in a best friend or parent.
The purpose of the ongoing conferences is to teach about the gifts of the
spirit and foster their identification and development in the lives of
people for the blessing of mankind.
click for high-res
John Bayley
John Bayley addressing
the Ezekiel conference.
John Bayley with Sterling
Allan, who met him in 2002
when John was ministering
in Manti Utah.
click for high-res
John Bayley issues the
word of the Lord given
him the morning of the
Conference.
John Bayley with Gina
Bailey, LDS instructor and
inspirational speaker
and singer.
This was the first conference that Ridenhour attended, having been
introduced to conference founder and director, Doug Mendenhall by John
Bayley. Doug met John in December 2003. He was in Independence doing a
conference, in which three speakers had canceled. Not knowing what to
do, he said "the Lord said to go anyway and he would provide." Once
there, he saw John Bayley, didn't know him, and said "the Spirit told me
to go ask him to speak." He did, and Bayley gladly obliged.
Bayley has been a regular speaker since that time, beloved by those who
attend, who find great humor in the fact that he is a black man with
beaded hair. "He's like Samuel the Lamanite of Book of Mormon times,"
said one conference goer, inasmuch as he is non LDS coming among them to
stir them up to repentance and remembrance of their birthright, to be
better LDS than they have been. "Wake the sleeping giant" was the message
of both Bayley and Ridenhour.
Ridenhour and Bayley spurred the conference attendees to awaken their
fellow Mormons to return to the glory days of the prophet Joseph Smith in
which the gifts of the spirit were a vital part of their daily lives,
sometimes continuing all day and into the night in great outpourings in
their midst.
Bayley said he was given a word of the Lord regarding the Mormon church
the second morning of the two-day conference. He said that the Lord was
not pleased that so many had been excommunicated by the shepherds who
were supposed to be tending the flock. He said that the Lord will be
very displeased when he returns if he finds any outside the fold who are
supposed to be in, and that those responsible for their removal will
themselves be removed if this is not remedied.
The word he gave promised that if the church would restore those who had
been removed, they would become three times more powerful and grow three
times as large. Bayley himself has been disciplined by his Christian
brothers, being removed from a position of high leadership because of
being a "Mormon lover."
Ridenhour said that the "two sticks" prophecy in Ezekiel is not just
about the Bible and the Book of Mormon becoming one in the hand, but that
the people of the Bible and the people of the Book of Mormon will become
one as well.
"In Old Testament times, God manifest his glory in the cloud, but not his
person. In New Testament times, God manifest his person but not his
glory. In our day, he is going to manifest both his glory and his
person."
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"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know
how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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