Laura and I founded Heaven’s Dawn Ministries in 1999. Our ministry name is a word picture to express our vision to see all people transformed by revelation given by God. We deeply believe that life is meant to be lived from our heart, led by growing, experiential intimacy with each member of the Triune Godhead (or the Eternals as I call them) – The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Their relationship of union and oneness includes each of us, and primary to our personal hearts is our desire to help others grow in their ability to connect and communicate with the Eternals for themselves, as well as understand His heart and ways for them. We believe that doing so brings increasing clarity over God’s extraordinary desire for intimate relationship every day, and one’s personal role in loving others on earth.

Mark, as the primary minister and spiritual director, carries a deepening value for relational union, both with the Eternals and one another. His life emphasis underscores: 1) receiving experiential life from God not only for us but for one another, 2) understanding the role of our hearts and being as the Eternal’s image-bearers, 3) mutual encouragement and blessing, and 4) linking the “now” with “eternity”.  Mark especially values reflective and contemplative time both in solitary and group settings where our individual stories are increasingly perceived as a part of the larger stories around us. He is a seasoned speaker and thought creator, especially enjoying the opportunities to equip others in one-on-one and small groups, to explore a deepened relationship of union and persevering presence with the Eternals.

About Us

Laura and Mark were married in 1990 and have four children (2 daughters and 2 sons). They currently reside in Sandy, Utah (USA), and call home the Sego Lily Church (www.segolilychurch.org) community, also located in Sandy.

Our Values & Beliefs

As a ministry, we see our walk with the Eternals and its continuing maturation process like building a house. Just as a house has “foundation stones” upon which the rest of the house is built, so does our history and current walk with God. However, as the house is built through our journey, there are other significant “truths or values” that also become prominent in giving definition and context for the ensuing structure itself.

With this in mind, our lives and ministry, like others, continues to be in a state of maturation or growth/change. As such, although our foundational beliefs about God and our relationship with Him and others are strong, we also experience on-going enlargements and redefinition at times, in what we view as prominent values in our relationship with the Eternals and one another. These values and beliefs do not alter the foundation, but merely build upon it, creating a capacity within us to experience an expanding vision of relationship, connection and eternalness with the Eternals, one another, and the Cosmos itself. This is our heart at its core, to discover and live out freely the created truths of our lives, our connection with others, and to help others achieve the same in their own walks.

The “What We Value” section below represents our current, prominent values. We hope it provides some insights into our own hearts.

What We Value

Our walk with the Eternals over time has radically affected our hearts in terms of the values or guiding truths we hold as significant and important not only for our lives, but for all that we pursue.  Each of them intensely resonates within us and manifests not as static, lifeless principles to be proved, but rather life-filled attributes that emanate from our experiences with the discoveries we make in relationship with the Eternals. The effect of these values upon our perceptions, vision and actions is significant and substantial.  As such, we feel it is important to provide this insight about our hearts and motivations as we walk out this ministry journey.

The ensuing value statements represents an effort to identify and briefly explain some of the key core values we hold.  From time to time, we expect that others will be added, depending upon the season of walk we are experiencing.  Our goal is to simply open our hearts for others to see, fulfilling one aspect of the Apostle Paul’s admonition…“Open your hearts to one another, as Jesus opened His heart for you.” (Romans 15:7, J.B.Phillips Trans.)

WE VALUE…

…God’s desire to talk and reveal His heart of love to every person each day and in many ways.  Beyond the provision of God’s general Heart as expressed through the Bible, we also hold as very important the growing maturation of each person’s ability to personally dialog with God on a daily basis given the Eternal’s persevering presence and abiding love in making their home within us.  A relationship with God opens the opportunity for two-way speaking and sharing between God and us.  This has always been God’s intention from the beginning.  As such, this is preeminent for our personal lives, as well as guides our desires to help others grow in this ability.

…Every person’s heart and life as a treasure regardless of the “label” they may wear concerning who they think they are.  Labels that identify individuals with social groups, cultural ideas or like experience (i.e. I am a — Atheist…Socialist…athlete…runaway…orphan…gangster…cowboy… geek…etc) are rampant throughout our world today.  Unfortunately, any ministry can easily get sidetracked trying to minister to the label people wear making them a “project”, rather than to the heart they possess as a valuable person of great worth whom God has created and enveloped with never-ending love and presence.  We have come to recognize that there are only two kinds of hearts dwelling in people upon the earth…those that know and experience God in this way, and those that don’t.  The presence and love of the Eternals for them remains unchanged and ever-present; however, for some, they believe something different about their lives. Both are treasures, with one not discovered as yet.  We desire to ignore the labels, and live in presence and love with them as the Eternal do with all of us.  

…Honest and real relationships not afraid to explore, dig, question and be transformed over time.  We increasingly are seeing the absolute reality of the Trinity’s relationship with each other in the Godhead.  And even more amazing, is the reality that this same depth of relationship is where we find ourselves as humanity with Them. Even more incredible is the intent of God that we share this same depth with one another as fellow brothers and sisters of the Eternal’s family. We passionately want to experience this personally.  However, we also want to share and encourage others with the same.

…Freedom as a fully attainable lifestyle, desired and made possible by Jesus, for every area of our personal and corporate lives and relationships.  Jesus said, “Whom the Son has set free, is free indeed.”  This freedom that Jesus offers is meant to radically transform our hearts such that our responses to the situations and people around us contrast those considered “normal” in the eyes of the world.  Godly freedom involves both a being free FROM any bondage that hinders and/or destroys the life God offers, as well as a being made free TO love, serve, bless, encourage, etc. Without Jesus having met us all at the depths of our darkness and from inside there transform us, we all would continue to lie trapped in bondage to the various prisons and “hells” we create by our delusion of who we really are. The Eternals seek to unfold the “real reality” of our being – we are Christ’s, who is in us as we are in Him. What we personally may think or believe doesn’t alter this truth. He also invites us to become like Him and be His “prison breakers” for the world, helping to create a new atmosphere of living where people are free to love God and others because they “want” to, rather than because they “need or are supposed ” to.  We want to live in this freedom and stir it up in others.

…The absolute worth and significance of both men and women in building God’s Kingdom.  Regardless of function or expression of ministry, men AND women have been fashioned by God to bring diversity, giftedness, richness, creativity and wisdom to each and every part of the world and spiritual communities, including leadership and equipping.  Both were created by God with immense worth, both are part of and an expression of the fullness of the Eternals, fully redeemed into relationship by His death and resurrection, and both are given access to God’s heart by the grace of Christ woven into all of creation and its creatures. 

…The equipping and empowerment of others through the offering of our lives.  Resonating deep within our hearts is the consuming desire to share what we have apprehended from God for the realization of others in their own walks.  And while we certainly enjoy the actual ministry aspect, we hold more significant the impartation to others so that they are equipped to walk out their destiny and affect their world.

…The maturation of one another as success in ministry for God’s Kingdom.  We take to heart that Jesus sees maturation differently, namely, a life expression of first receiving His opinion of me personally and my core being, then sharing the same with others, all the while viewing that everything I experience belongs and can be held and transformed into deepening abiding love and persevering presence. This view flows from an increasing union of one’s personal character or nature into that of God’s nature, which is very different that “giftedness”. While both are good and valued in our walks, giftedness is just that – a gift given to us from God.  However, character or the fruit of God’s Spirit within us must be grown up. In other words, we must choose and act on these “fruits” as we encounter life in all its diverse experiences.  The Eternals already exist within us in their fullness, and they invite us to join and live from their presence, character and nature. We desire to give our lives to seeing this mature fruitfulness arise in all around us.

…Hearts that are alive and dynamic (i.e. being) over the fulfillment of tasks that are “religious” in nature (i.e. doing).  We certainly were created to involve ourselves in the world around us. However, this truth only has life when flowing from a heart that holds personal worship and relationship with God as preeminent.  Hearts flowing with the river of life from communion with God will, as a natural expression, reach out to welcome and share with others the abiding love and presence of the Eternals, serve others as a life expression, and embrace circumstances as a context for redemption. True relationship leads to a laying of one’s life down for the other.  Being that leads to doing transforms the world.

…A vision of living our experiences with the growing expectation that abundant, supernatural life is always available regardless of circumstance.  Amid all the negativity, evil and distress of our present world, it becomes easy to hold life as less than glorious.  Yet, the promise of Jesus was for life abundant – a super-normal, super-natural experience where all circumstances bow to the power of Jesus’ life flowing in and through us.  Cultivating vision for this kind of life within our heart leads us to both create and see life everywhere — even in the darkest of places or people. Whatever vision we carry in our hearts leads us to act in the same manner.  We choose to be a blessing of life to our world and to cultivate its reality in those around us.

…The pursuit and journey with God throughout our lives.  A relationship with God has much to do with the journey and discovery along the road together as it does about arriving at some “state” with Him.  Every time we think we have reached some understanding with Him, we find Him ahead of us beckoning us to come further, to journey and explore more.  We are growing in our realization that He is as concerned (if not more) about how we journey with Him, as He is about what we attain.  Simply put…He just enjoys our company and discovering life together, both the here and now as well as that which is to come.