140 Years of Jesus in Idaho Falls

1886 – An Eagle Rock auction company, C. Bunting, gave raffle tickets for various prizes to be awarded on Christmas Eve to whoever made purchases of $1 or more.  The grand prize was a New York Standard nine-stop parlor organ. Additional prizes included a sewing machine, a 12-tune music box with stand, hanging lamps, clocks, and others.   The man who won the organ, W. E. Muir, offered it “for sale – cheap, having no use for it,” in a classified ad two months later. [1] 1904 – At 5 am on Christmas morning there was a service at the Lutheran church, in Swedish, followed at 6 am by a second service, also in Swedish. The following day the children of the Lutheran church Sunday school performed a cantata of 27 numbers, for which there was an admission charge of 10 cents. [2] 1909 – “The Salvation Army of this city will do its share in distributing the Christmas cheer in this city…We seek out the most needful in the city, families in which Christmas cheer would mean so much yet ...

The reality of the unity of the body of Christ is stated in numerous passages in Scripture, such as Ephesians 4:4, “ There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling.”   While the unity of the body of Christ is a spiritual reality, Scripture recognizes (and church history amply records) forces that divide the body of Christ in a given location, marring its witness to the nature of God and the gospel.   Scripture exhorts believers to be of the same mind, [1] and Jesus commands His followers to love one another.   Jesus also prayed that His disciples would be “perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me…” (John 17:23).   While the unity Jesus refers to in John 17 is foremost a unity with Him, as He is the head of His body, fellowship with Him implies connections to and working with the members of His body.   And to be His witness to a city, in this case Idaho Falls, the more the body of Christ in Idaho...