People

This article highlights one of our friends from another faith and supports efforts on behalf of the Utah Area Communication Council of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Pastor Ira Popper greets me with the warmth of an old friend. He speaks with the cadence of someone who has seen the world fall apart and be rebuilt—through faith, pain, and redemption.

As I listen, I note Pastor Ira’s story is one of unlikely beginnings, sacred scripture, painful rupture, and a peace that surpasses all understanding.

For those who believe and have a faith tradition, his journey may feel both foreign and familiar—perhaps rooted in another tradition, yet echoing deeply with common doctrines of agency, faith, and grace.

Today, Pastor Ira serves as Associate Pastor at The Adventure Church in Draper (352 W. 12300 S., Suite 100), where he has ministered for more than two decades.

But his unique and noteworthy path to Christian discipleship began in a very different place—on the Jewish-lined streets of Long Island, New York.

Rooted in the House of Israel

Born into a conservative Jewish home—one step between Reform and Orthodox Judaism—Popper was surrounded by tradition. He attended Hebrew school three times a week, studied Jewish holidays and culture, and prepared for his bar mitzvah. But something was missing.

“I learned about the history and the holidays of Judaism,” he reflects, “but not really the God of Judaism.”

That distinction would stay with him for years.

An Awakening of Faith

Popper recalls a pivotal moment in his youth when his Hebrew school teacher—an Orthodox Jew teaching in a Conservative environment—invited students to his home for the Sabbath. It was Ira’s first real exposure to a more intimate, spiritual observance of Judaism. The experience shook him.

“I came home and told my mom I wanted to keep kosher,” he laughs. “She said, ‘No way, that’s too hard.’”

When Prophecy Becomes Personal

In the 1970s, Popper’s family made an uncharacteristic move west. “East Coast families don’t change,” he jokes. “We follow tradition.” But his father landed a job in Southern California, and the family followed—a move Ira now sees as providential.

After a summer away in New York with his aunt and uncle, Popper returned to school expecting to brag of his summer exploits to his theater friends. Instead, they stunned him with their own news: they had accepted Jesus Christ.

“I didn’t even know what that meant,” Ira admits. “In my world, Jesus’ birthday was Christmas. That’s it.”

But his curiosity was piqued. 

Later that year, Ira traveled with his school’s acting team to a statewide competition. Ira felt the pressure and knew his anxiety to perform well was rising. However, he noticed a fellow student radiating a peace he couldn’t explain, and he wanted to understand how she was so calm and collected. “She told me, ‘Jesus is my Lord,’ and I knew I needed to understand what that meant.”

Later, this student began introducing Ira to the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. For months, Ira read, questioned, and wrestled. When he encountered Isaiah 53—what Christians often call the “suffering servant” chapter—everything changed.

“It was undeniable. That passage described Jesus in a way I couldn’t argue with.”

Faith in the Fire

On March 18, 1976, standing outside a music room at age 16, Ira accepted Jesus Christ into his heart. “I prayed, not really knowing what I was doing,” he recalls. “But I knew it was the truth.” Hours later, still confused about the faith he’d just entered, a friend told him: “Have faith that God will give you faith.”

That phrase changed his life.

“The love of God just poured into me. It was like going from black and white to color,” he says. “That moment—when I was born again—was real. I couldn’t deny it if I tried.”

But with this newfound faith also came a crushing trial.

Ira didn’t tell his family.

Eventually, his mother discovered a high school yearbook filled with written entries from classmates celebrating his conversion. The confrontation was immediate—and painful.

“My dad flew down from Northern California. There was yelling. Crying. Therapists. Rabbis. They thought I was in rebellion.”

Persistence and Patience, Not Perfection

Despite the pain—and perhaps because of it—Ira pressed forward in faith. But his journey, like many, was not without detours. In his late teens, Ira fell into a period of rebellion and addiction. “I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling,” he says. “A therapist told me to go out and ‘experience life.’ That was the worst advice I’ve ever taken.”

He spiraled into substance abuse and habitual sin. “When you give yourself over to something, it becomes your master,” he says. “I had surrendered lordship in my life—not to Christ, but to addiction.”

Years later, in a small church community in Northern California, Ira returned to the God he had once trusted. With the help of close friends and a compassionate pastor, he prayed for deliverance. The next morning, Ira asked God what had changed.

“God said, ‘Now you can choose.’”

Those four words marked the turning point. “It didn’t mean I was instantly perfect,” he says. “But it meant I could start choosing life instead of death.”

Called to Serve

Ira soon found himself serving in youth ministry, then pastoring, then helping to plant a church in Campbell, California. Eventually, he and his family felt prompted to move to Utah, where his longtime friends had started The Adventure Church in Draper.

That was over two decades ago. Since then, Ira has served as Associate Pastor, watched his children grow into adulthood, and witnessed what he calls “miracles upon miracles” in Utah’s spiritual landscape.

Most recently, Ira was asked to lead a Passover Seder at the Grand America Hotel for 200 people—many of whom had never heard the gospel. From his unique background, he wove together the Jewish rituals of the Exodus with the Christian message of deliverance through Christ.

“It’s amazing to see how the story of Passover points directly to Jesus,” he says. “God used history—used my history—to show His love.”

Faith as a Journey, Not a Destination

For Ira, his Jewish upbringing gives him a three-dimensional lens on Christianity. “When you’ve lived it—even in part—the scriptures take on new meaning,” he says. “Jesus didn’t come to erase the Old Testament. He came to fulfill it.”

“When I think about faith,” he says, “I see it like the journey through the wilderness. It’s not always direct. There are setbacks. But the Lord leads you, if you’ll follow.”

That message, perhaps more than any other, is one that Ira’s friends of all faiths recognize deeply: that faith is not the absence of doubt or hardship, but the willingness to keep walking with God.

Ira Popper’s story is a tapestry woven with Jewish tradition, teenage conviction, painful loss, addiction, and divine redemption. He’s not just a pastor; he’s a living witness that God doesn’t abandon people in their brokenness. Rather, He finds them there.

Every faith journey in Christ is a miracle,” he says. “No matter your background, God can meet you right where you are.”