Western Institute for Intercultural Studies, Inc

Salt Lake City, UT   |  http://www.wiics.org
This organization has not appeared on the IRS Business Master File in a number of months. It may have merged with another organization or ceased operations.
This organization's exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS for failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years. Further investigation and due diligence are warranted.

Mission

WIIS addresses the post-Christendom and religiously plural environment of the U.S. and Western world. It does this through education and training, multimedia resource production, scholarly research, and networking with scholars and professional practitioners working in new religions and world religons.

Ruling year info

2008

Principal Officer

John W. Morehead

Main address

358 South 700 East, Suite B356

Salt Lake City, UT 84102

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EIN

26-1394233

NTEE code info

Christian (X20)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Programs and results

What we aim to solve

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Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Bridges

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also called the LDS or Mormon church, is one of the fastest growing religions in America. Some people call it a cult; others call it the restored Church. There is no lack of documentation on the differences between Mormonism and historic Christianity, but such material fails to address the human element and the needs and struggles of individual people. The Bridges training program takes an entirely different approach.

Bridges has helped over 10,000 Christians, all over the country and around the world, gain a new appreciation for effective, relational evangelism to Mormons.

Bridges combines video interviews with extensive workbook material and classroom instruction. Through colorful commentary, current data, and insightful interviews with people who live day by day with members of the LDS community, this program provides an honest and sensitive look at LDS culture, social structure, religious terminology, and values. Bridges equips biblical Christians to better understand the culture of the Latter-day Saints, to build real connections with them, and to share with gentleness and respect our own heartfelt testimony concerning the Good News of Jesus Christ.

This training program can change your life, but more importantly, it may change the lives of your Mormon friends and neighbors.

Topics Covered

Over two and a half hours of video focus on the following topics in 5 separate learning modules:

Population(s) Served

Grounded: Relating to Your Mormon Friends in Truth and Love is a new youth training resource is an exciting, fast-paced program explores ways Christian youth can have honest friendships with Latter-day Saints while maintaining the integrity of their own beliefs and effectively sharing their faith in Jesus Christ. The five-week curriculum invites young viewers to dig deeper into their faith and get grounded in Jesus Christ. The program includes a movie documentary on DVD filled with interviews with Christian and Latter-day Saint teens, a student workbook with daily faith-promoting activities, and an extensive leader’s guide full of additional resources on the history and theology of the Mormon Church and helpful tips on sharing the gospel.
Program Intent

Grounded is suitable for Christian congregations of all types. The goal of the program is to help Christian teenagers who have Mormon friends strengthen their faith and become better prepared to discuss their beliefs without fear of damaging these friendships.

Many people who do not belong to the Mormon Church look at Mormons (or Latter-day Saints as they prefer to be known) and call them a “cult.” But others who belong to traditional Christian churches – both Protestant and Catholic – know that Latter-day Saints belong to a unique and complex culture, distinguished by its own history, beliefs, morals, and social values. To label them as a cult is to limit our understanding of our Mormon friends and their faith, closing the door to fruitful conversations about the Good News of Jesus Christ and God’s saving grace.

This program does not feature people attacking the LDS Church, discrediting its founder Joseph Smith, or disproving the claims of The Book of Mormon. It does not seek to answer questions such as “Are Mormons Christian?” and “How can Mormons be saved?” What it does contain is young people speaking freely on camera about the way they see the world and the value their faith has in their lives. Some are Latter-day Saints. Others belong to traditional Christian church backgrounds. They speak about their friendships and what they value in each other in spite of the differences in their churches’ teachings and their personal beliefs. In this program, LDS teens bear their testimony and young people from a number of different denominations – Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist and more – say over and over again “I wish I could testify to my beliefs as strongly as my LDS friends do to theirs.”

Our prayer is that teens from traditional Christian backgrounds who have LDS friends will see this program as a wake up call to dig deeper into their own faith and get grounded in Jesus Christ. We believe that if they join in the class discussions and engage in the suggested weekly activities, they will grow in their own faith and be strengthened in their witness to their LDS friends. Then they will be able to speak the truth in love to them, without fear of damaging their friendships.

Grounded covers the following topics:

Population(s) Served

Transitions is currently in production.

 

The Need

Statistics indicate that perhaps thousands of Latter-day Saints leave the Mormon Church each year in order to embrace traditional Christianity. When they do they undergo experiences and challenges much like an immigrant moving from one country to another. Their transition produces emotional stresses and doctrinal/worldview reorientation issues. Pastors from throughout the Western United States where the Mormon Church is numerically strong have expressed their desire for a resource that they can use in their churches to assist with these transitional issues.

Resource Overview

In response to this need we have begun production on Transitions, a multimedia resource. This project includes six video sessions to introduce and discuss key issues, along with a group facilitator’s guide and participant workbook. In order to address the key issues this study will be divided into two main sections and six segments:

Section I: Migration – Identity, Grief & Church Culture
1. Identity – Finding new individual and collective identity

This segment will note how the former Latter-day Saint experiences a sense of being an individual out of place and “culture-less” through loss of friends, community ties, cherished stories, absolute answers, a sense of being special/elite, and how this contributes to a loss of essential roots and sense of identity.

2. Relationships – Friends, loved ones, marriage, and children issues

This segment will help deal with issues surrounding relationships in a variety of forms that are often complicated, sometimes fractured and even lost through a transition out of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3. Church Culture – Sorting out new church culture

This segment will help the transitioner develop a new sense of identity and relationships in Christian community through the church. It will also address issues of church culture that differ from the Mormon context, including church structure, baptism, communion, tithing and stewardship, the place of clergy, and the sense of calling to service.

Section II. Doctrine and Worldview Issues
Drawing upon the Mormon framework in the Plan of Salvation this section will present traditional Christian doctrine and worldview framed in understandable ways for the transitioner.

4. “Where did I come from?”

This section will address issues such as the pre-existence, creation, God’s purpose for the individual and humanity, the created nature of the human family apart from a pre-existence and without the potential for exaltation, the kind of being God is, that intense personal relationships with God possible without the necessity of God having a body, and how we can know God (experience and Scripture).

5. “Why am I here?”

This section will address life in the mundane and the divine, the fall, Christ’s work (atonement and resurrection) and nature, grace, repentance, good works, personal purpose in knowing God and worshiping him, making him known, service to the Kingdom and community, and the process of sanctification.

6. “Where am I going?”

This segment will address what happens after death, the Second Coming, resurrection and glorification, the new heavens and new earth, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Population(s) Served

Where we work

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Financials

Western Institute for Intercultural Studies, Inc

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Operations

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Western Institute for Intercultural Studies, Inc

Board of directors
as of 05/02/2012
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board co-chair

Kenneth Mulholland

No Affiliation


Board co-chair

Darwin Glassford

No Affiliation

Kenneth Mulholland

No Affiliation

Jesse H. McLeod

No Affiliation

Darwin Glassford

No Affiliation