4 decade old example of interfaith efforts

Got this story from the Mormonapologetics board, about something that happened 30 or 40 years ago in Utah.

I had the opportunity to talk with a Lutheran minister in our area a few weeks ago, and it turned out that he had spent some time working in Salt Lake quite a number of years ago. He had an interesting story about President McKay that I'll paraphrase.

He and another pastor were in the process of trying to determine if there was enough interest among Lutherans in Salt Lake to set up a congregation and a school. They canvassed an area and located about 60 Lutheran families who expressed interest in doing so.

The next step was to try to locate a plot of land for the church and the school. They found several possibilities, but apparently once the owners found out what the land was going to be used for, the properties suddenly were pulled off the market.

Finally in exasperation, the other pastor said that they were going to figure out a way around this, and were going to go to the top to get it resolved. So the both of them headed down to the LDS Church office building and went up to President McKay's office, where they found a secretary who told them that the prophet was not currently in.

They explained to her that they needed to get an appointment with President McKay, but when she looked at his schedule, she indicated that it would be several months before there would be an opening.

As they were getting ready to leave, it just happened that President McKay walked into the reception area, and upon seeing two ministers standing there, became curious and asked what they were doing there. They explained shortly what the problem was, and President McKay ended up inviting them into his office.

The pastor telling story to me said that President McKay had a big map of the Salt Lake area on the wall, and asked the two ministers what area they were looking at to build the church and school. They pointed it out to him, and after President McKay looked at the map for a few minutes, he told them that he thought that they could work something out, and asked them to come back and see him the next day.

The next day, the two Lutheran ministers were presented with a parcel of land in the area they were looking at, donated for free by someone in the Church. In addition, construction for the Lutheran church and school were also donated by another contact in the Church that President McKay had. When construction was completed on the buildings, the dedication was attended by representatives from the LDS Church, and it didn't end up costing the Lutherans a cent.

And here I was, decades later, talking to that Lutheran minister in Pennsylvania, and hearing about something wonderful that a prophet of God had done. I ended up talking with an adult discussion group of 40-50 people at that minister's church about the Mormons, and it was a great experience.

President McKay had a particular kind of Perspective that only comes from one who truly loves the Lord. It is a humbling thing to be touched indirectly over the years by the actions of a man who was truly a prophet of God.