Basic Church Information
Church: The Rising
Address: 10702 Jerry Seiner Road, South Jordan, Utah 84095
Church Website: http://therisingutah.com/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/therisingutah/
Questionnaire
Did the church answer the questionnaire?
No
1. What is your church's official position on tithing?
Just as we observed in the Website Review, there aren’t many direct references to the law of tithing on this church’s website that we can find, with the exception of the words “Tithe and Offering” on their Give Page.
This to me means that they do believe in teaching the law of tithing, but we’ll have to do more digging in the church’s messages and sermons themselves to find out more.
2. Does your church have an official membership with a membership agreement or contract?
If you go to the Rising Church’s website, then click the “I’m New” page, there’s a sub-page entitled “What’s Next?” On this page, we can see that they do have a seminar called “Next” wherein which you learn “...what it means to belong to The Rising…” as a prerequisite for “Ownership” at the church, which is their term for membership at the church.
Scroll down further and it says this about “Ownership”:
“Ownership is about partnering with The Rising. We recommend you attend NEXT to get connected and then Ownership to become a member.”
Based on all of this, I think it’s safe to say that this church does have an official membership agreement and/or contract.
3. Is your church transparent with its financial information? How much does your church bring in through donations and tithing, plus additional income, and how is that money distributed?
I see nothing on the church’s website to suggest that this church is financially transparent. And since our emails were ignored, both by the main email address we were given and the lead pastor’s direct email address, which is listed on the website, I have a feeling we’ll never find out any of this information for sure.
4. Which denomination does your church align with the most, if any?
The Rising Church is actually a part of the CMA, or The Christian & Missionary Alliance. Another church we’ve checked also affiliated with this group was Discovery Christian Community. To learn more about this denomination, go to www.cmaalliance.org.
For a quick recap, however, after some digging the last time we looked into this group we found that they do in fact put some emphasis on teaching financial giving. The Old Testament law of tithing, however, not so much.
5. Is your church's pastor available for other questions or comments regarding the church, its doctrines, etc.?
Well, since our email was entirely ignored by pastor Josh and wouldn’t answer these questions in the first place, I can’t say whether or not he’d answer anyone else’s. Perhaps if you were to walk up to him in person or go about asking your questions in a different way, but I can’t say yes to this based on my own experience.
6. How is your church's doctrinal flexibility and tolerance regarding minor, non-essential doctrines? If a member has a disagreement with the pastor or leadership on a certain doctrine, how is it handled?
Here is another one we don’t have an answer to since the church ignored our questions. This question might be answered if you attend one of their Next or Ownership classes as a part of becoming a new member and learning what it means to “belong to The Rising Church,” but until we can do that, or get someone to speak with us, we don’t know.
7. Does your church require that its members be baptized? What is your church's official position on baptism?
Based on what the church’s website says about Baptism on their “What’s Next?” page, it doesn’t appear that this church actually requires baptism, but they may still make it a prerequisite for membership. We can’t say for sure, but it’s clear that they don’t believe baptism is required for salvation.
8. Please describe what a typical service and/or meeting looks like in your church.
We don’t see any description of what this church’s services are like on their website. We would assume it’s just like most other modern-day Christain church services beginning with worship, announcements, and then a sermon, but that is just a guess.
Sermons are topical, not verse by verse studies through the Bible.
9. How many people do you have on staff at your church, both paid and volunteer?
You can see a list of the church’s leadership and staff here, but as for whether any of these people are paid or volunteer, we don’t know. There may also be a lot of other volunteers not listed on the church’s website at all.
10. What is the pastor's educational history?
There is no educational history or information on lead pastor Joshua Blair either on the church’s website or on Facebook.
11. How does the church discipline its members with their sin?
Another question possibly for the church’s membership classes, but they won’t answer this question for us directly.
12. How is the pastor compensated (income, benefits, bonuses, etc.)?
While we could make some educated guesses as to how much the pastor of this church makes based on congregation size alone, the important thing to remember here is that the church is not transparent with this information.
13. What is the size of your church and any other space the church owns for meetings and church services?
We can’t know the exact numbers here since the church stonewalled our questions, but based on their Facebook stats, this church probably has a congregation of about 300 people, and while they currently don’t have a building of their own, they are working on collecting as much money from their congregates as possible to build a brand new 7,000 square foot building in South Jordan, Utah. Read all about that here.
Have you attended The Rising in Draper, UT? What was your experience like? Let us know!