Why 40% of Active Latter-day Saints Leave the Church - feat. Jeff Strong

Jeff Strong's Book, "Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving The Church And What We Can Learn From Them, is a Bestseller on Amazon under "Latter-day Saints." Everyone is talking about it. But not everyone is talking the same. In this episode, Jeff and Greg discuss data, reasons for leaving, church culture, and much, much more. It's a great conversation! Beyond Church History: The Deeper Causes of Disaffiliation They're leaving Christianity, institutions, and trust itself Agency, Doctrine, and Hope Jeff Strong shares hard-earned lessons from his own family's journey Jeff Strong discusses the pain and what families are getting wrong What happens when someone you love walks away from the Church? Are We Teaching the Church More Than the Gospel? Jeff Strong explains what his research taught him about staying rooted in Christ.

 Raw Transcript:

Welcome to Quick Show. My name is Greg Matson and I am your host. In this episode, I interview Jeff Strong, who is the author of the recently released
book, Torn, why people we love are leaving the church and what we can learn from them. This is an interesting book.
Uh it has a certain approach. Some people like it and some people don't.
And there are two different camps that are developing on this because it's a a very successful selling book right now.
I think it was number one in Latter-day Saints on Amazon. So, people take an opinion on this. Jeff has an approach that is different than what I would
give, for example. Uh, but I've had good conversations with Jeff, really good conversations with Jeff. I just don't agree with certain things. When I really
look at this, it comes down to so many uh it comes down to one thing that is brought up so many times that it seems
to whittle down to this one issue. And and that is love. And what is that? What does that mean? Because I think it means something different to different people.
And I just had this discussion with Kurt Frank just recently. I will say one thing for Jeff's book is this thing has
got amazing packaging. This is incredible. I've already taken this book out a couple of times and repackaged it because of the way this box work box
works. You see his name here at the bottom. Uh forward by Steve Young. You open it up and there at the top you've got Steve with a little quote that he
put in there. I've got a nice little note from Jeff. I've got the book and uh and then the bottom portion of the
packaging has got a little outline of the book. Love this. This is great. And then he also uh sends in here an additional print piece. And this is one
thing I want to cover. Going through this, he puts in four different questions here that are relevant to our
interview here today. one is how many are leaving and he and I are very aligned with this in
our perspective it's much higher than people realize his numbers show about what I would say and I I think it's right it's in the last I think it's 25
years about 40% it's actually probably higher uh have left the church active members of the church have left the
church the next question is why and this is where we're going to disagree a little bit is it's the four primary reasons for disaffiliation.
And you'll see in the interview that we've got a discussion on this. I just think that the issues are much deeper than the church itself. His focus in
this book is on the church and that's fine. It's just when you ask why, I believe that the issues are much deeper.
They are cultural. They are philosophical. There's a certain soil in the US right now, a secular soil that is leading people to certain questions.
and to look at things differently. The next one is, are we centered in Christ?
I think that we overlap in this quite a bit. And lastly, is our culture healthy?
3 minutesAnd I think we agree on this also. There are some issues with our culture that we need to address and he talks about that.
So, I like that portion of the book. I also really like how he talks about those that have left. I also really like
uh his perspective on the pain that people feel those that leave the church and of course the
family and loved ones who have someone who leaves the church and addressing that. I think that needs to be talked about. A lot of people are uncomfortable
talking about their own family and if you're in the church, you know, you're uncomfortable talking about a a child that may have left. So, this gives an
opportunity to read about this and address this. He has a different approach than I would have. I if you've followed this podcast, you know how I
feel about a teddy bear Jesus. And he I I believe is a lot more on that side.
And what I mean by that is not the amount of love, but maybe how we define love, but the discussion is important
because a lot of people are suffering those that have left and those that are still in the church. They suffer when their loved one leaves. And there needs
to be an articulation about this. So, you'll see in the interview I agree on a number of things, but I disagree on
others and push back on a few of the sections in his book. This episode is brought to you by Go and Do Travel and
the Alaskan Frontier trip coming this September 5th through September 12th.
This trip will be with myself and my wife and Steve and Elaine Dalton. We'll have presentations, we'll have time to
talk, and we'll be in a beautiful part of the world. will embark from Seattle and we'll be in Sitka in Juno, Icy
Straight Point, Ketchacan, Victoria, British Columbia, and then of course arriving back in Seattle. If this has been on your list to do an Alaskan trip,
or if you've gone before and it was amazing to you, which it probably was, and you want to do it again, this is a great opportunity, and I would love to
spend time with you to be with people that are like-minded and are enjoying the beauty of the trip. To find out more or to register, go to quickdia.com.
cwycia.com.
Go up to trips and events and scroll down to Alaskan Frontier. Here we go with Jeff.
So Jeff, based on all your research, your team working on this research, Yeah. why are people leaving the church?
Yeah. You know, Greg, you know, the the short answer that I convey in the book is there are four reasons. So, lifestyle
about 6%, church history about 43%, um social issues, and we can get into
what those mean, uh 33%, and then church experience 18%.
And so, that's what people cite as their primary reason for leaving, but I think it's more complicated than that, right?
And so, every person's decision is personal, unique, and complicated. Um there are certainly societal factors
that are sur you know the the playing field on which that happens is heavily influenced by what's going on around us
in society and then I as you know because you've read the book I I argue that there's a cultural component that
kind of crashes over the top of those other four factors and it can either alleviate the tensions or make them worse and so that's how I would answer
that question. Can you go through how the research was done? Yeah. Is is this a checklist? Is this a write down your
reasons? How did you gather all this information?
Yeah. Do you want me to speak to methodology first? Just go to methodology first.
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, we've got a little bit of time, so I'm going to give you the best answer I've ever given anybody. Okay.
Excellent. So, so when you've got a question like this, you start with um
how could I get the best possible answer that that uh would give us the most accurate view of how many are leaving
and why, right? So, a research expert, I've got plenty on my team, they would say, well, you would want to do a probability sample, right? A true
representative sample of the entire Latter-day Saint population in the United States. And that would allow you to very predictably and accurately generalize to the total US population.
The problem is it's just not possible to do that. You know, you if you spent several million dollars, you could probably pull it off, but uh even the
church wouldn't attempt to do a probability sample on this question. So that that sort of leaves you with okay, it's it's impractical and maybe
impossible to do a true probability sample.
Right now we just have opinion and anecdote, right? So somewhere between those two useless extremes. We need to find a
middle ground that is reasonable. And so what we chose to do is a nonprobability sample. And so for the stat nerds that are out there, and I love those guys.
They're my friends. Um we did what was called a stratified convenience sample.
Now what that means is we we targeted representation. So we tried to get AC, you know, demographically
and in terms of belief spectrum, everybody from hardcore out to really devout and everybody in between.
Uh and and then we as we as we did the work, we were checking to see are we getting close in terms of these profile
metrics that might help us understand we've got a reliable sample. None of my team would use representative. That would be incorrect. None of us would say
you can generalize the findings to the total Latter-day Saint community in the United States. That would be incorrect.
But what we would say is we we think the data is reliable. Right? So you do a non-probability sample and um and and so
that's what we did. Um now specifically we used three email databases. Scripture Central, huge database, pretty devout Orthodox traditional Latterday Saints.
Faith Matters, another big database, more nuanced, and then Leading Saints, which is orthodox and traditional, but with more
of a leadership orientation. So, we got massive email databases, set the survey out that way. And then we also targeted
social media, Facebook, Reddit groups across the full spectrum, right? And so, so that's how you would do a stratified
convenience sample is you attempt to get representation. You never get there. You don't claim you do. you just try to get
as close as you can. Um, we wanted 3,000 respondents in order to feel like we've got an a a data set that's not representative, but it's robust, right?
Uh, we can't make generalized claims, but we can learn a lot. And and so, here's what was interesting about the
process. We sent the survey out. It was a combination of multiple choice questions and open-ended questions. And
I'll get into that a little bit. Um, we wanted 3,000 respondents. we got 15,000, right? And it was interesting to watch
it take off. And I think what that taught us really early on is this is a really important subject for people and they wanted to talk about it, right? So
we didn't have to coax. We didn't incent anybody. Sometimes you might say, "Well, I'll give you five bucks if you'll complete my survey." We didn't do any of that. And so people took it in droves.
So just pausing for a sec there. There are two things that any listener should be cautious about. Number one is it's not generalizable to the Latter-day
Saint population. So we see it as incredibly useful, reliable learning, but not precise population estimates.
Number two, it was optin. So people people got to choose whether they took it or not. And the profile of people that opt in on surveys isn't exactly the
same as the profile in the general community. So that's another that's another limitation of the study. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So based on the email lists that you outlined, this is primarily then active members of the church.
We we actually targeted uh former members and inactive members on those email lists. Uh oh, sorry. No, on the email list.
Yes, that's correct. Thank you. That would be correct. Um like Faith Matters, for example, of the of the people on
Faith Matters email list that took the survey, 88% of them identified as being active, 12% not.
Okay. Right. Now, where we got lots of former members or inactive members was through social social media.
Social medias. Yeah. But would you say overall then that it heavily skews to active members of the church?
It it does a little bit, but not too not too bad. So, we we you know, we had good data sets on what the proportion should
look like if we were roughly approximating what's accurate in the United States. And we got close, but
there were two areas where our sample was a little overweighted.
um slightly more women and that's consistent with the social media placement and then slightly more devout but not extremely more devout.
Right.
Okay. So on the on on the questions Yeah. open-end or multiple choice.
Uh what were the questions that specifically tried to zero in on why
does somebody leave the church? Let me let me talk how many first because that's in well actually I'll I'll I'll answer your question and then let's hop
to how many. Um, so we asked we asked the question two different ways, right?
And it's because different questions will elicit different kinds of answers.
And I I probably should pause and say really good research is always preceded by lots of qualitative research, right?
So you don't just sit down and design a survey. If you do that, your questions aren't going to be very good, right?
Because you're not in touch enough with the subject population that you're trying to learn from. And so I did massive qual qualitative research over
many many years. I I did it I did it through friends and family when I was a bishop. Then I actually worked for the church for several years and I did work
with them that allowed me to get deeply into the qualitative space. Um then I was a mission president for 3 years. Now technically I wasn't a researcher but
Greg I was paying attention right?
So I had 700 Sarah and I had 700 missionaries over three years. A little over 700. Um, this is typical for
mission presidents, but I did 4,300 interviews. I read 50,000 pages of missionary weekly letters, right? And I
did over 300 missionary meetings. Man, I paid attention. I was listening. I was watching, particularly the interviews where you're actually having really
personal conversations with people about how they think about faith and belief in the church. So when I when I got home from my mission and decided to do this
research, I was really really deeply immersed in the qualitative learning. So it was super easy for me to put together work with my team to put together a
high-quality questionnaire. In fact, funny, I don't think Sam would have a problem with me mentioning this, but Sam Hardy is a professor at BYU, professor
of clinical psychology, and one of his students saw the survey on social media, and flipped it to Sam. And Sam took the
survey and immediately called me and he said, "I just need to talk to you. You obviously know what you're doing, right?" And so I ended up recruiting
Sam, didn't take much, to be on my advisory board.
And so Sam's Sam's probably the most published academic in the country on religious disaffiliation.
And so he was super interested in what we were doing, right? And he continues to be. So um so we asked the questions two ways multiplechoice and open-ended.
Now, the multiple choice questions, um, having done so much qualitative, I I had a pretty good idea there were going to
be four primary buckets, right? So, church experience, excuse me, lifestyle, church history, social issues, church
experience. So, I gave people those four options and I forced them to choose the primary one. But I gave them a fifth
option, none of the above. Okay? In the first several hundred responses that came in, I was monitoring that because if you if what if what you see is a big
spike in none of the above, then you know your four choices are too limiting.
We just didn't see any spike. People were content with those choices. So they they'd select one of those reasons their p as their primary reason and then I
allowed them to type additional information if they wanted to share it.
Right? So we got the multiple choice answers plus some verbatims that were pretty rich. So that was the first way we did it. And you know, we we should
probably get into it a little bit. Even even in those four choices, there's going to be some response bias that we should be transparent about. So I can
come back and talk about that. The the more interesting thing to me is we just ask people why did you leave? And we just let them type whatever they wanted,
right? And so some people wrote a blurb, like some people just said Joseph Smith church history. That's it. Some people wrote sentences, some paragraphs, some
people wrote pages. So when the dust settled, we had over 10,000 pages of verbatim comments and it was so many
that like I I've done research in my career for years. I'm I was an executive, not a researcher, but people did research for me and then I read it,
right? Um you can't read 10,000 pages and make sense out of it. So we actually had to develop a new a new AI app to
actually query that data set to get the patterns, to get the insights. And we did that. And so, by the way, we're just scratching the surface. There's so much
more work we could do with that 10,000page data set. And so, we got two different perspectives, right? We got a nice, clean, easy to talk about data set
of four primary reasons and then we got all these verbatims that give us really deep insight into what people experience personally.
Did you find any correlation between those that were Orthodox active members of the church and what they're saying?
Because are you asking did you leave the church or why did you leave the church? Do you Orthodox member of the church?
Yeah. active member of the church as compared to others that may have left the church or were thinking of leaving the church and and what are the you know
again I I go back to what is the what what type of input would an orthodox active member of the church
give are they giving secondhand information from family members or the the questions I just discussed were
why did you please tell us why you left the church right and so there you know this there are orthodox members that
leave, right? And they might leave. My experience in doing interviews is they might leave because they think the church has gotten too progressive or
they might leave because they didn't like the way that the church handled CO or vaccines or things like that. And so,
so we didn't separate people based on that profile when we asked them the question. We just asked them the
question. Uh we did however ask people why do you think people leave? Right?
18 minutesAnd that way it allowed everybody to offer their perspective on what they think the reasons are for other people. That was that was really interesting.
How did that correlate with those that had left who answered why they left?
This is this is fascinating. And I I I offer this with some humility, right? So this is one of those areas where you'd say, okay, the data we got is useful for
learning. We probably shouldn't project it with precision to the total Latter-day Saint population because it might not be accurate. The fascinating
thing is the more devout a person was, the less likely they were to be able to identify the reasons most commonly cited by those who leave.
Isn't that interesting?
And I gave them a list. So what I I also gave so well there's a gap of understanding.
It is. And and so it would be fascinating to talk about why that gap exists. And I' I've got a perspective.
Um but we asked them what you know what what percent of young adults under age 39 do you think step away from the church? And then what are the reasons?
Right? And in both cases, more devout members were less able to select the correct numerical answer and they often picked the wrong reasons.
Now, I don't know, you're you're a smart guy and you're very deep in the space.
Why do you think a more devout faithful member might have a harder time nailing the right answers there?
I I think it's probably because they haven't gone through the same struggles.
I think they haven't. They haven't gone through the same doubts. Yes.
uh they may be it may be more black and white to them.
I agree. And and so it's not only a gap of understanding, there's probably uh unfortunately the result of that is is probably a gap in empathy.
I agree on that. And and and it's and then you get into a position where you say, "Okay, well, if you can't
understand it, then the problem must be XYZ." Yeah. and I need to fix it. Yes. How do I fix this?
Yes. Right.
So, I was actually in in a priesthood quorum meeting in my home ward and um but let me let me start by saying this.
Um I I I feel a lot of compassion and grace for people that get those answers wrong. Right? Because I think it it like
for me it's easy because I've been pulled so hard into this space. Right. I mean, I have friends, family members, a member of my bishop Rick in Midway uh
stepped away from the church when we were serving our mission. So, I'm I'm I've been yanked into the space, right?
But not everybody has. And if you haven't experienced it in your friends or your family, um it's really easy to
just not really be connected to the issue. That's becoming less and less frequent.
Yeah. So, so I I I offer this with a lot of respect and humility to people that just haven't been sort of initiated into
the space yet. But I had a man in my ward that I love tremendously. He's a good man. He's been a mission president like me. And he took the whiteboard
marker the, you know, the white the marker and the whiteboard one day and explained why people left. And I'm watching him do that. I'm just going,
"Yeah, no, that's not why." You know, I didn't say anything. I could have corrected him, but I I that wouldn't have been the right thing to do. So I
just listened and it was illustrative of the issue. I had this great quote in the book that I that I love. Winston Churchill was speaking of a political
contemporary and he said, you know, sometimes he stumbles across the truth and he dusts himself up and moves along
like nothing happened, right? And I I people get locked into a perspective and they get very comfortable with that and it's working for them and that creates a
blind spot. So we we have a bit of a blind spot in our church on this issue.
less so than in the past, but it's still there.
If I were to take your survey, Yeah. and give it to the Baptists.
Yeah. This I know where you're going. Keep going. This is good. And give it to the Methodists. Yeah.
22 minutesAnd give it to the Catholics and the Orthodox. What's the result going to be? It's going to be really similar. Yeah. Really similar.
So, here's the the what I what this brings me to. I think about this. I think that you know the book is fantastic. Everybody should read this
book. Um I especially if you have if you are either experiencing a faith crisis
or you have someone in your family experiencing or has experienced a faith crisis has left the church. Very important stuff in here. Um but my
question is what were the four reasons you gave the four part? Number one is lifestyle. Okay.
And that's the one we most commonly talk about, right? You know, the bumper sticker version of that is they just didn't have the faith and character to cut it. So, they kind of washed out.
Then church history is big, 42%.
Uh, social issues, which we should talk about, 33%. And then church experience, which is, man, it doesn't feel nourishing. It doesn't feel Christc
centered to me. It feels too institutional, too performative. Uh, 18%.
23 minutesOkay. So, if I go through with the other denominations in Christianity, we do a little bit of a better job. Yeah.
Right. than most and in some cases the best. Yeah.
Uh in terms of retention uh in in terms of growth. Yes. Right.
Um but we're in the exact same trajectory.
We are as the rest of Christianity. We are. And so you're 42% on church history. Yeah.
Is the number one reason of the four? Yeah.
What is the number one reason for a Baptist faith?
Yeah. You know, I mean, you got almost half Yeah.
under that category might be a little different cuz I think it I think it is. I think the categories might be similar, but the waiting might be different.
Yeah. I I you know, a Baptist what are they going to what are they going to say about church history? Yeah. I mean, they might be go back and saying, I mean, you know, I think the Catholics had a right.
You know, there's not much more than that that that's going to be an issue in there. There could be some race issues, I suppose, and things like that. But uh
my point is that I think that within the church I think these numbers are important and should be understood really well. However,
yeah, in the US there is something else happening that has nothing to do with the church.
Yeah, there is for sure.
It has to do with Christianity. It has to do with religion. Yes.
And when you're seeing the even worse numbers elsewhere Yeah.
And it's not, you know, Joseph Smith married a 14-year-old or something, you know, it it's like, well, wait a minute.
This is this is a much broader issue that may not fit perfectly into these four categories. Some of them maybe
lifestyle, right? I tell you, social issues, social issues, bad fit.
Yeah. Lifestyle, church experience, church history, less so. Yeah.
And I can talk that, but yeah, I think what you're saying is right on the money.
Yeah. So, my point on this is is I to me I look at it and I think well wait a minute there are cultural issues
that are changing people inside and outside of the church. Yeah.
And I believe in a way that is creating a new world view. Mhm. Very secular view. Yeah.
That people are going through the same pain and families are going through the same pain that are not Latter-day Saints.
Yeah. that are going through this because there is uh number one it's the internet for sure just purely I mean if you go back into
the area the the the late 90s and and the 2000s this is the generation of John Delin right where where early on this is my
generation where where you start reading these things you're an early adopter onto information online and you start struggling with well wait a minute here
I didn't know this I didn't know that and that's not right uh and and those seeds of doubt start coming in for sure a lot of those people come back
at this point I I still think more will but that's one big reason I think you can look at and and secondly you can
look at social media silos that we all start putting ourselves into yeah we get very tribal very tribal and and and honestly
shame and pure pressure and and and etc that's that's going to that's going to persuade
individuals that will say, "Well, this is just easier not to go with this." Yeah. Yeah. I I told my wife like 10 years ago, I said, "I think we're we're
getting we're coming to a tipping point." Okay. And she said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, I just feel it. I mean, I'm I'm in these circles. I'm
talking to people and the tipping point will kind of be triggered when it becomes so more socially acceptable to leave,
right?" And I think we hit that and and so there that that created, you know, I talk a little bit in the book about an acceleration of disiniliation. And I
want to be really clear. I'm probably going to amend that because I think the degree of acceleration I cited is probably too high. But there is an
acceleration. And I think that part of that is that it became more socially acceptable to step away than it than it used to be. I mean, growing up, Greg, I
don't know about you, but like I can't remember anybody leaving the church in my home. Right. And if and if they did, it was like a massive scarlet letter.
Yeah.
And and now it's it's it's more socially acceptable to do that. Well, based on the numbers, I mean, going back to my generation and early on when I was a
teenager, when I was in my early 20s, you know, you you saw about a 25% a 75% retention rate. Yeah.
Uh in the US.
Yes. Um and now you know Christianity broadly I mean you're lucky to be at 40%.
That's right. It's about half that. So it it's the change has been massive.
Yeah. And in you know because let's say we started at a point in somewhere in the mid70s mid to late 70s but if you
28 minutesstarted in 1980 you look at 40 45 years 50 years maybe total it's it's it's a massive influence of
secularization for sure that has changed the framework of someone's trajectory and vision of their
identity their purpose uh the way they're going to love honestly in terms of of sacrifice and investment.
Yeah. There's one one stat that I cite in the book. It's not from my research.
It's from I think it's from Pew, but uh so you talked about this disruptive nature of the internet. No question. Um
a a massive loss in institutional trust is happening as well. And so it's it's not just it's it's religious
institutions but it's also academia, it's also business and it's certainly politics, right? And so I I cite a
statistic in the book where uh among younger people uh the the percent of them that do not trust institutions has
doubled in like the last 10 years. And it's a big number. It's like 44%. Right?
So think about that. I have a I have my son Kale who you read about in the book.
He's 32 and I see I grew up in a in an era like you did where institutions were revered right
political leaders were really really much more generally I mean there were exceptions for sure but they were generally thought to be of high
character um academia was like bulletproof right and even even there was some ethical sort of framing around
business that seems different than what it is today and so I I grew up with a mindset of
institutions are vital to be trusted, essential to society. And I still feel that way, right? But if you ask my
32-year-old son, he's a huge skeptic. Huge skeptic. And so he's probably typical of people his
age, right? Can I ask you a question on this, please? Do you think that because that that brings up
I I think two levels on this because the the lack of institutional trust. Yeah.
In some ways you've got to say Yeah. Yeah. It's deserved for sure.
It's deserved, right? You've got you've got a uh uh an internet again with with everybody knows everything and transparency changes and and so every
little problem all of a sudden, bam, it's right there. the voices are higher than they would be if everything's going normal as as is human nature.
Yeah. And by the way, AI is going to multiply that 100.
Absolutely. You know, and so and so so what I'm getting to is is what I think is a little bit more of a fundamental idea. Yeah. Faith.
Oh, yeah. I'm right. Where it's whether whether it's the church or it's directly a relationship with God, also an authoritative figure.
Yeah.
You know, it just seems like the overall level of tr faith to me is trust, right?
So, so if I if I'm lowering trust in all things, I'm lowering my faith in all of these things, including the church, including the
gospel, including Yeah. my relationship with God.
Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you. Um, yes, I agree with that. And, and then here's where to me it gets really problematic.
So, if you Let me speak specifically to church things. If we're in any way guilty of giving people a caricature of
the gospel, we're in dangerous territory, right?
Like the gospel, the real gospel, eternal doctrine, eternal truth, truth and light. Um, I believe is, you know,
the term I would use is it's all weather, right? it can handle if your if your roots are deeply into the doctrines and the truth of the gospel and and
you've been able to translate that into your lived experience, you don't care that much what what people are saying on the internet, right? And you don't care as much about,
you know, fanny algger um because there's something else that you're rooted in, which is the the transformative power of the gospel in
your life, which you've experienced, right? But man, the minute we turn the gospel into a caricature and we start uh pushing that
particularly towards young people, then they get rooted in something else that's not the gospel. It's tradition. It's culture. Um and then they're very very
vulnerable to all these factors that are swirling around us. I'm glad you brought that up. I had uh a very good friend of mine that you know, Kurt Freom.
Yeah, Kurt. He was he was sitting right in your chair here about ago and uh and that was the discussion that I had with him. I wanted to talk about doctrine.
Yeah.
And the why behind it, right? And and the anchoring of this because to me I I see a an erosion
of these, you know, and we talked, you know, what is doctrine, what's not doctrine, different things. Okay, fine.
But but there the erosion of these eternal truths, it's problematic. and not just the erosion of them, but an
understanding of them. And and I think that uh you know, I'd like to know your thoughts on this based on all this
research that you've done. But to me, I see that there is number one, a a lack of of of actual doctrine.
Yeah. That is being taught. Yeah.
And and I mean that very core. What is the atonement? What is the plan of salvation? Yeah. Just the doctrine of Christ.
The doctrine of Christ. And and then why? Yeah. Yes.
And because we see this often in the relationships and and that gap we're talking about when someone leaves the church in your
family, for example, the tendency is to say, well, okay, we've got this area of judgment here
that we're looking toward. And if if my son, my daughter, my spouse, whoever it is, doesn't change, you know, what's going to happen over here? Because I want this up here.
Yeah. And if they don't want that, what what's going to happen? And so we focus in on this judgment side and we better fix this. Yes.
Right away. Right. And so this is a and and we've been this way as a church.
Yeah. In the past culture, right? It's part of the culture and and we've focused in on that a lot. The other side, which I think we're moving actually more to the side of the
pendulum is is we just don't talk about that. Yeah.
And and and we you and I have talked about this before, but you know, we end up with a teddy bear Jesus and we need to talk teddy bear a little bit.
Yeah. And and then we end up kind of this all grace and all mercy and God loves you no matter what and he'll come to you where you are and and that's the gospel.
Yeah.
And and but to me, you have to marry these things.
You do. I I couldn't agree more. So, can I just share an insight that was that was instructive for Sarah and I on our mission and then since we got home? So,
um, one of the one of the blessings and benefits of what our family went through when Kale left the church is it caused me to really really step back, Rick. I
mean, I like I stepped back so hard and I said, "Why didn't my map work?" Like, it was going so great and then all of a
sudden there was no place on my, you know, it's like I came to a raging river and there was no bridge.
So, I'm going what what in the heck do I do? How do I think about this? How do I think about my family? And so it was a
several year process. But part of what I learned through scripture study, prayer, reflection, talking to my son and other
family members is too much of what I had based my beliefs and faith in was not the gospel. It wasn't the doctrines. Now
I I'm not I'm a I'm a pretty doctrinally oriented guy, but I even me I I had strayed from that and I'd gotten a little too wrapped up in culture and
tradition. And so there was a hard reset for me, you know, 10 years ago where I
said, I I really need to base my faith and my personal religious culture and the culture of people I can touch and influence in the core doctrines of the
restored gospel. Right? So I had that mindset shift and you know what, it was great. And so the way I thought about the church and my faith changed, but my
faith in God and in the savior deepened considerably. And then we go on a mission, right? And I'm seeing the same patterns in my incredible, awesome young
missionaries that were in my life. And I could see how, yeah, they've got a map, but it's primarily a map of the Latter-day Saint checklist, right? What
do we need to do to be and be seen as good Latter-day Saints, right? So, it was things like, well, you know, follow the prophet, read your scriptures, go to
your meetings. These are all important things. Um, make sure that you have, you know, these were young people, so partial, you know, use Temple
recommends, attend seminary, get your young woman in excellence award, right?
These are all valuable things, but they're not the gospel, right? And then they would come on their missions and complexity and suffering would hit them
as as is the case on missions, and they would lean on those things, and those things didn't didn't save them, right?
So, so Sarah and I spent most of our three years, you know, you're running the mission, you're trying to find and teach and baptize converts, but the the
pastoral priority we had was to teach our missionaries the gospel. It sounds so silly, but but if you go back and
look at all of our zone conferences, we were trying to teach them disciplehip.
What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and his church in 2019, 2020, and 2021, right? And it was such a
great experience, right, to go through that journey with them. And so I I think in as much as our our culture and our
beliefs and faith are rooted in those things, were much less subject to be derailed by everything going on around us.
Do you think that uh again based on what you know your personal experience and going through this research and writing
this book the the tendency again is to the let's start with the pain.
Yeah. Right. On both sides. Yeah.
And we I think a lot of people need to understand it's the same pain. It's the same pain.
It's the same pain. I uh I went on I hope John's okay with me saying this. I think he is, but I went on John Dyn's
show earlier this year or late last year. And uh I he gave me the chance at the end to interview him. Yeah.
And I had gone to lunch with him, spent a couple hours with him and uh but I I learned something I didn't really know before in in speaking with him.
And it's not that I agree with it, I don't. Right. But but I understood his process. Yeah. More
and the pain that he felt when when I watched that when when he
compared his uh disruptive church history learning to uh keep me honest
here, but it was like he had learned that one of his parents were having an affair.
Yes. And you could just feel that years later, it's been what, 20 years, he still is wounded by that. He's still wounded by it.
Yeah. And I I get it. I get it.
Yeah. And that is not something I understood before. I did not understand that pain. Yeah.
That that he had felt, you know, I I would say, John, hey, I think maybe there's some other options on this, but uh
Yeah. But I I I didn't understand that completely before and I understand that a lot closer now and that he's wounded
is by this. Right. And others are wounded in a way that they feel betrayed. Yes.
Uh or just massive loss of what they thought they had and and what they were hoping to have in their life. Yes.
Because of a a loss of belief, a loss of faith, um etc. And so
well said. And then there's his family members, right? He's got active family members that are like, "Okay, what's pain that you're going to feel up because he's now leaving the church,
right? Or he's he's leaving his his beliefs behind him." Yeah.
And the pain that a a parent or a sibling or or a spouse or whoever it might be would would feel because of that.
Yeah. And I I'll tell you just to make it really personal, like I've interviewed so many people and um I I
understand why we're where we are and how we got here and yet my heart hopes for something better. But I've
interviewed husbands and wives that divorced over this. I've interviewed parents who disowned children over this.
I've interviewed children who cut off parents over this. I've interviewed people whose friendships ended over this. And I I get that, right? Because
it's such a massive part of our mindset and what's in our hearts and minds that when that when that's no longer there
and and it creates a a whole host of side effects, it can end a relationship.
But in my head, I'm going, gosh, I think God would want something better than that, right? There's got to be there's got to be something more relational,
more healing where people don't have to adopt one another's views, right? I'm not suggesting that, but where they can
they can offer some I mean, you and John did a really nice job in that discussion. You you you you disagree on most things, but you had an incredibly
mature, thoughtful, respectful discussion. That's the spirit of what I think is possible for more of us. Why
you had the numbers of those four areas within the church of why why individuals left are leaving. Well, there's a larger
portion of people leaving than people actually realize when you really dig down into the numbers. Yeah. Probably a lot more than people realize.
And by the way, some some I've talked to other researchers. We we rounded down to 40. Mhm.
Um our data actually suggests something in the mid-40s. Pew would suggest about 46. The Harvard CES study, and I I probably need to talk this a little bit.
42 minutesThrough 2024, it was about 43. Um, and I've talked to really capable researchers who have looked at this and
they think the 40% number's conservative and that's fine. We wanted it to be, right? We're not trying to be provocative,
but a a good question is, okay, Jeeoff, your study says low to mid-40s. You rounded to 40. Um, for your audience,
for that number specifically, we did much more than just our study, right? Because it was such an important number.
So we then went out and found the best world-class research that's available and calibrated right. So the Pew studies
uh peg it in the mid-40s and that is a nationally representative probability sample. So any researcher will tell you tell you the Pew study is the gold
standard. It essentially gives us the same number. Harvard's is also thought to be incredibly reliable. There there are a couple of issues with Harvard that
you got to be a little bit careful with, but it pegs it in the same vicinity.
There's a there's a fourth one besides ours and the two I cited the GSS or general social survey from the University of Chicago.
Similar magnitude right now it's smaller base size so you got to be really careful with it. Yeah, there's the the PRI. That's it.
Oh, that's it. Yeah, that's it. I thought that was in the 30s actually.
But yeah, and I think don't don't quote me on this, but it's I think 38's the number that's sticking in my head. So,
so when four different studies all land in approximately the same place and one of them is a gold standard probability
study, it it gives you a higher degree of confidence that you've got it right.
Right. So, we think that number is pretty sound. Now, the rest of my study, we didn't have the ability to calibrate everything. And so, it it it falls back
into that be careful about generalizing to the total population. the way you think about our insights and finding is
really really valuable for learning but not precise estimates.
Yeah. So this is where I I get criticized a little bit because I'm not uh I like to say I'm I'm not in the all
is well and Zion camp. I'm not here and and and and a lot of people just want to be and it's all needs to be positive and it's just like I'm into awareness. I I
want awareness. You decide what you want to do with it. But yeah, but I I I want awareness and and and so for example, we had in the last, you know, we the last
2025 was an incredible year for the church in terms of conversions. All time record alltime record. I think it doubled almost from where it was
previously the year before before that 389,025 309,024 but 24 was the highest since 1997.
Yeah.
Right. So these last two years have been outliers from an overall negative trend. Okay. So, that's all fantastic. Yeah.
But the number the church didn't grow. No.
Well, I think it did. I think it was like 86 people.
It was honestly about the Matt Martinich study. Yeah. It it was like it was like 80 something people in growth total in the church.
45 minutesAnd two other problems. If you've got that 40% plus that are leaving the church. Yeah.
And you've got a fertility rate that is dropping to the basement.
Yes. right now. You you also go over and you look at the children of record.
Yeah. It's it's it's dropping fast.
And by the way, when I talk to people who are experts uh that work for the church, they don't, by the way, they don't tell me anything they're not supposed to.
Um and I and I don't ask, but that that that is the number that they probably lose the most sleep over.
Yeah. So So you've got this great stuff happening up here. The missionary program seems to be doing fantastic.
Yeah. something something very new and different is going on. But again, I'm going to give the same
example that I did before in terms of people leaving the church. Yeah.
And that is that well the Catholics did great too and the Protestants did great and the Orthodox did great and there was
a tick up in the last 18 months actually in Christianity especially for males. Yeah.
Right. And and so that all came up again I don't see that as a church specific thing.
No. And I wanted to be. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not.
Well, you know, as a mission president that, you know, spent 3 years scratching and clawing for every single comfort I could get, uh, the 389,000 number just
blows my mind. It just literally blows my mind. Now, I I also know, and I I I'm not speaking specifically to 2025, but
in general, most converts don't stay. A majority of converts don't stay. So if you that's that's why if you look at the
member of record increase from 2000 to 2024 it was about 60% in the United States but the number of congregation increase specific to wards was about 11%.
Yeah.
Okay. So there has to be an explanation for the difference and largely it's disaffiliation but birth rates and death rates also factor in. Sure.
And so yeah you know you you said something a minute ago. I want to I want to go back to relative disaffiliation cuz that's what you're poking at a little bit here. So, I got to tell you a
funny story. So, I I I lived in Cincinnati for 6 years, which is a predominantly Catholic community. I
lived in the South for 9 years, which is predominantly evangelical. So, I have tons of friends that are evangelical or Catholic. And one of them in particular
I spend a lot of time with, and he's super interested in this research, right, for the reasons you're kind of raising. And and I was he's a he's a
buddy. So I I I talk and I whine sometimes. I Bob Bob, you know, what about this? And so I was saying, you know, we have these problematic issues
in our history. 42% of people that left cite that as their primary reason. And I'm waxing on about that. And he just
starts to laugh and he's Catholic. And I and I just I what are you laughing at, man? And he says, "Jeff, have you ever
heard of the, you know, the the Spanish Inquisition? you know, he started rattling off all of the massive
historical problems in the Catholic Church, right?
And and I I think what I actually said to him, Greg, that triggered the comment is I said, "I see a maturity in
Catholicism that I don't quite see in my church yet." You know, my church is, you know, 200 years old. Catholicism is centuries old. So, some of the issues
that we're still trying to figure out, it seems like you guys have figured them out and put them to bed. And then I talked history and that's when he laughed at me,
you know. And so I I want to be clear, you know, when people tell you why they leave, I think you got to respect it.
You got to say, okay, if it was church history for you and that was as it was for John Delin, that was fatal. I I don't want to start putting qualifiers
on that, right? Because I I think that can be seen as being disrespectful. Sure.
But um I don't think there's any church history issue I'm not aware of. I could, you know, people that do forensic level research might surprise me with
something, but in general, I know all the re I I know all the issues, but it's never really affected me because my my conversion that was not the keystone of
my conversion, right? I I sort of my conversion happened as a 19 and 20 yearear-old and it was really my experience with the gospel in action in
my life, right? the atonement, um, becoming a new creature in Christ, reading the scriptures and then seeing the principles of the scriptures come
alive in my life and going, "Wow, this what you know Mosiah chapter 5, a mighty change in our hearts so that we have no
more disposition to do evil, but only to do good." Greg, that was my that was me.
I mean, I went from an 18-year-old that was, you know, a little a little rebellious to a 19-year-old on a mission that all I wanted to do was do good. And
then I read after that happened Mosiah 5 and I went, "Oh my gosh, that is exactly the spirit wrought that mighty change in me." So when I heard about, you know,
different problematic issues in church history, I would go, "Okay, well that seems problematic, but it doesn't change what happened to me." Right.
Did you have any I'm sorry. Yeah. No, that's it. Did you Did you have a uh did you ever have a a a point in your
life where you had gone through some doubts? I mean, we all doubt a little bit to some degree, right, with things, but did you have a period where you like, you know, for me, I think it was apathy, not doubt.
So, I I was raised in a faithful Latter-day Saint home. I have seven siblings and uh in our church, you went to church, right? So, my dad was very
he's a good man, perfect father for me, but pretty authoritarian. And my mom, it was like ironfisted dad, velvet glove mom, right? She was the disciple of Christ, gentle, kind. So, I got both.
Um, I was very okay with church until I was a teenager. And then I played three sports and I had a cute girlfriend, you
know, and so I I went to church as an obligation, but I was not I was not living my faith with real intent. And
the the the change point for me, if he's out there, I hope he calls me. So, Brother Dany, my home teaching companion, so he asked me, he's just a
normal guy, and he just said, "Hey, you got to go on a mission." and he wasn't pressuring me, but I said, I was 18 and I said, I don't know if I am, right? I I
was never the person that was led by I've never been a herd guy, right? I've always been a guy that I'm going to I'm going to do what I think is right. So, I
wasn't going to serve just because that's what you did in Springville, Utah in 1981, right? And I said to him, I just I just don't want to do something
like this if I don't really believe in it. And his response is was really interesting. And he said, "Well, of course you don't believe in it." I said,
"What do you mean?" And he said, "You don't live it." He said, "It's you're a good kid, Jeff, but you're just going through the motions, man." And he said,
"You should try it." And it really hit me. And so, here's what I did. I I So, I I started to read my scriptures instead
of cutting seminary class, 7th period, so I could get to football practice early.
Um, I started to pray with real intent instead of just going through the motions. I started to pay my tithing.
52 minutesUm, and then the most important thing I did is I tried to have a different mindset at school. So I was a little bit
shy in high school and I decided I'm going to really try to be kind to people. I go out of my way to be kind,
right? To be nice to people, to to to be like Christ was. And you know what happened? I did all these things. I started to change. And I I liked myself
better. I had uh the spirit was much richer in my life. I had better sense of purpose, more clarity and that mighty
change was underway in me and that was that was it right and then I then I went through a process you know to put my papers in and go on a mission and that
just accelerated as a missionary and so my conversion really is rooted in uh moving out of apathy into real intent
and then experiencing the fruits of that in my life and that's always been the basis of my conversion.
Okay, does that make sense? Yeah. No, I was asking that just to try and get a a a
thermometer reading on when you had your experience with your son. Yeah.
You know, is there anything you had gone through before that at that point or or Well, that was another that was sort of another re another reawakening cuz what
what happened after my mission? I had a brother my older brother Scott is he's 13 years older than me and he left the
church 25 years ago. And this goes back to your point on handling this stuff better. But he was a lot older than me,
but I was his little tiny little brother, right? So he just took care of me, right? He was on a mission in the central states and he sent me a Green Bay Packer football jersey that I think
I wore for 3 years until it fell off my body and tatters. He taught me how to fish. He'd come to my football games, my baseball games, and I just loved him.
and uh he stepped away around 2005ish and all of a sudden there was this huge
gap, you know, distance in our relationship and I didn't understand it.
Now, now while he's stepping back, I'm I'm going through BYU. I'm I'm in my business career. I was called at to be a
bishop. Uh I've been in five bishop bricks. The first time was at 27. So that's so I'm sort of running the LDS
playbook and it's it's working well and I'm being validated in the community and loved and embraced and then it only
accelerates, right? I end up teaching at BYU. I go on a mission as a mission president and so he's sitting there having had a very different experience
in the church and he's just feeling like my I don't even know who my brother is.
Like how could he stay in the church if he knew what I know about church history, right? So we used to go fishing
and I would during this distance period I would say hey let's let's go and he would say no
right and uh it was sad for me but I understood it. I just didn't know why.
And then about 2 years ago I was deep into this research. I I tried again.
Let's go fishing. He said yes. So we flew to Utah. We got in a car drove out to the Green River. It's like a 5-hour drive. And I he just said what what are
you up to? told him about the research in the book and in 20 we couldn't stop talking. So it was six hours out. We stayed up most the night in the hotel
then talked all day fishing the next day and all the way back and by the by the time we got back to Midway the the the ice was gone.
And what was interesting he said to me he said I just had a lot of misconceptions about who you were and what you thought what you believed how much you knew.
And I I you know by the end of that conversation we realized we have the same data set he and I but we've had a very different experience in the church
and with the gospel. So we interpreted it differently right and it was nothing but respect. I looked at him and said I understand why you did what you did. And
he looked at me and said I understand why you've done what you you've done.
And then he then he the punchline was it's very clear to me that you understand the issues but the church and
the gospel has been a great blessing in your life. So you stay. Mhm.
Yeah, that's right. And so so that is background leading into Kale. Um
I I I came home from my mission and I was converted to the gospel, but Greg, I kind of fell right back into the pattern
of just running the playbook, right? I don't I don't know how deeply intentional my my beliefs were. And it
it worked, right? I you know, we my in my family, we read our scriptures. We had family prayer, family home evening.
We had callings. We were serving. Uh we were going to church. We tried to live Christlike lives. But in hindsight, what
I what I did is I taught my kids the church more than I taught them the gospel. I don't I don't think I ever, for example, sat down with my family and
said, "I want to talk about the doctrine of Christ, and I want to talk about what it really is. I want to talk about what faith really is. I want to talk about
what repentance really is. I want to talk about the spirit and how it really works. Um, you know, I just kind of
trotted out gospel principle nine, you know, family home evening manual lessons, right? And so when Kale decided
to step away, that was the tectonic plate shift, right? Cuz I just realized like he's he's not a kid anymore. He's
32. He's a full grown man. He is such a good person. And I I realized how how could somebody like him that is so good
and has such an appetite for what's true and good reject this. And you know what I learned? He rejected the caricature that I gave him.
I don't want to overstate that. It's not like I gave him garbage, right? I I gave him good stuff, but it was weighted
towards culture and tradition, not towards truth and doctrine. And what I didn't do is I didn't sit down with him and have those deep conversations about
well let let me let's talk about this doctrine or this piece of truth and really try to deeply understand it. So fast forward when we go on a mission and
my missionaries are coming in and they're giving me the playbook instead of the gospel. You better believe I was prepared to have very different conversations with them.
Right.
Do you believe that? I'm going back to something we were talking about here just previously, but yeah. Do you
believe that that that then in this example that you just gave, but that caricature of the church, the traditions, culture,
uh if if there was a better discussion about the doctrine and an understanding of why the doctrine
is there, Yeah.
that that would be a a preemptive
move by us, by the church, by the brethren, by whoever else to to say, "Okay, this is how you get rooted."
Yeah. With without a doubt. Now, that's my opinion based on research and life experience, but I believe that deeply deeply deeply.
So, uh I brought this up with Kurt, too, but I'm going to repeat it anyway. I what what I've been thinking about lot a lot lately is
the words of Jesus which are the Sabbath was created for man. Yeah.
Not man for the Sabbath. Yeah.
And to me it's the same thing with the church. It's the church. Yeah.
Right. The church was created for man to help support man to create individuals and and and families that can develop and grow and become more like God.
But we flip it often times. Yes, we do.
And and we create a an idol of sorts. Yeah.
That is the church.
1 hourYeah. And that's a very difficult sensitive subject because you know we've got a a church you love. You've got the
brethren that you uphold and rever uh songs like follow the prophet.
Uh you know and all these different uh um areas that are faithful and promoting of the gospel and of the church.
But you can make the Sabbath for man if you're not careful.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny because um as part of my journey, uh I've more
deeply studied the gospel in the New Testament, in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine of Covenants and and and the teachings of Christ in the New Testament
take on new meaning as your frame changes, right? You you reinterpret, you have a deeper understanding. So to your point, the simple parable of Christ
healing a blind man on the Sabbath, I I just am fascinated by that parable. So the context is that there's a there's a
religious society there that's very rule-based, right? So the the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, it's very um the
lawmakers, the religious lawmakers are in control of the culture. And so part of that was Sabbath observance, right?
Part of that was purity culture, meaning, you know, how you wash, how you eat, what you eat, the dishes that you use. And in the midst of that culture,
Christ healed a blind man on the Sabbath with spit and dirt.
Right? And he was sending a message that that it wasn't that those laws were unimportant, but there was a priority they were missing, right? The priority
of a human life and restoring life as opposed to following rules. Now, I'm naturally a rule rule follower, but but
I think that might be what you're talking about, right? Is is it's rules ordered to what? To themselves or to
lifting and elevating human beings closer to God.
2 minutesYeah. You know, I had a bishop once at uh Sunday morning.
Yeah. Uh he's my next door neighborhip broke in their backyard. Yeah.
And there's just water everywhere. and and we get the water turned off, but there is water everywhere in our backyard. It's it's, you know, it's it's
a foot deep in some places, 3 4 inches deep in other places. And and it's coming up toward the house almost, you know, and and getting up over the the
burm of the house. And and so the bishop sees that our water is running out front. Yeah. You know, down the sidey yard and and running down in
front. And he had come out to get to church with his family, right? He's probably probably not he's
not early on. walks to the backyard, sees what's happening, and says, "I'll be right back." Yeah.
And he sends his wife off with his kids to church to sacrament meetings, calls where he's conducting
and and says, "I'll get there when I get there." Yeah. And he helped us clean out the water. Love it. So that we didn't have any damage.
I love it. I love it. That's a bishop that has a really good sense of priority. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
So, yeah. No, super good insights. You know, one one thing you'd be interested in. I was having a conversation with the
church official, not a it wasn't a general church leader, it was an executive for the church. And I don't I don't remember the exact It's been a year since this conversation happened.
But he said, we were talking about church education in BYU. And like I'm a BYU grad, so is my wife. Four of my five kids are. I taught there, loved it. Like I thought it was sacred ground for me.
And um he said something that triggered me a little bit that surprised me cuz normally if I'm going to have a hard conversation, I prepare emotionally to be triggered so that I won't overreact.
But I overreacted a little bit and he was sort of taken back by it. and and uh
the the what I said to him was um I don't want my children and
grandchildren to be protected at BYU. I want them to be prepared, right? You
can't you can't protect them and the world is out there and it will find them. And so rather than have a mindset
where we're trying to shield, protect, and bubble wrap our children, prepare them, you might confront the issues, the secular issues you're talking about.
Understand them, confront them, and in a faith-based way, help our young people understand the merits of the gospel, the
merits of the doctrine in the most challenging of circumstances they still hold. Right? I said, "That's what I want
for my grandchildren." Right? And so it's it's it's sort of a little bit of teddy bear Jesus, right? Teddy bear Jesus is protect. Um non- teddy bear Jesus is no, don't protect, prepare.
Right. And so that's that's the spirit, I think, of what we're talking about here.
Now, you found in the research that it wasn't members necessarily just on the fringe. Yeah. That were falling away from the church.
you actually had strong families, fathers, mothers, you know, that had built strong families inside the church
and that these individuals are are leaving also. Yes.
What is the reasoning behind that? Is any different from anybody else or are these matters just as do they reach everybody?
That's a really insightful question. I would say if if if you're talking about the difference between somebody that sort of fits the the traditional profile
of traditional family, deeply committed, really active. Have we get back up there? Oh, yeah. Sure.
Um, you know, for very likely had temple recommends, all of that. And somebody that was more casual in their
participation. I think the difference in faith transition would be how much longer they try to make it work before
they disengage. Right? So the depth of their journey, uh the the number of hours, the amount of energy, the
searching they do. Um in terms of the reasons they cite, I'm not aware that they would be different. But let me give
you a couple of examples of people I've interviewed that might fit your profile.
So, I know I know a woman who was a stake relief society president in another state, not not here in Utah, and she was about as devout as you could be,
but she stepped away. And when you might agree or disagree with her reasons, but um she has a bunch of daughters and when
she was called to be the stake society president, the state president handed her the list of counselors that she was going to have.
And it was it's not just that one event.
It was a pattern of feeling like, okay, I I don't know if the voice of women is being valued enough. I don't want
priesthood office, but but I think the voice of women needs to be louder in the church and be heard. And I'm not sure I want to raise my daughters in an environment where that's not the case.
Okay. Now, you can disagree with that.
you you know and many do but this was a deeply devoted woman who stepped away because she was concerned about the
well-being of her daughters right now she's not leaving faith she's not leaving belief um but she she lost some
faith in the church as an institution as the custodian of faith and so that was the basis does that make sense yes
yeah I know others let me think I'll think of another example um I I I I know
former staken mission presidents who have stepped away and it was their proximity to church leadership that was their undoing. So he didn't lose their
faith but by work you know working a lot with a prophet in their own land.
That's it. That's it. Now what what my experience is is I've been unbelievably inspired and occasionally disillusioned
right by my exposure to very senior church leaders. Um the ones I know personally I I respect them of them more
than anybody on the planet. I know Elder Baron, Elder Bedar really well. Elder Kieran was my neighbor in Midway. Um, they're as good as they could be, right?
Um, you know, my experience with general authorities has mostly been really positive, but you know, they're human and sometimes they they make mistakes
and do things that are, you know, problematic. And so, so some people say, "I believe in the restoration and I love
the gospel, but it's hard for me to say to sustain church leaders as prophet, seers, and revelators
when maybe they're not all that, right?" And so those are the complexities that start to play in that sometimes will even cause devout people
to step away. The biggest issue that I see is and by the way I think this is this varies a ton by ward right and by
location in the country but um a really really good a really really good Christc centered bishop can solve
most of these issues right and just because they they they lead and direct the ward to be very Christc centered in
its approach so I'm sorry they they can they can they can avoid these they they can largely mitigate them. The issues being if let me be more precise.
So somebody's feeling tension in their church experience because they're saying boy the church just feels too institutional to me and so it feels a
bit performative. It's a little too checklisty.
We spend more time talking about prophets and temples and checklists than we do the doctrines of Christ. I'm not feeling spiritually fed here. A really
great bishop can fix that generally. Um, and then a bishop that that has a different orientation might amplify it, right? Might make it worse.
And so there's a lot of variability. Yeah.
Across the church community and and by geography.
Yeah. What you talk a lot about this tension you just brought up a tension between tradition and change. Yeah.
Um, what do you mean by that?
you know, um I I I I think that
church history is a good example. I think social issues are a good example.
The world's different than it was 20 years ago, right? I mean, it it was really the advent of the internet around 2000 where the church history issues
started to get lots of visibility. By the way, that also corresponds with when the church started being a lot more transparent about the history. things
like the Joseph Smith papers and then like 2013 the gospel topic essays and then finally saints, right? And so
that's that's that's new stuff that's come forward.
Um uh things like equality for women has been around for a really long time. I
mean, I remember the whole new era stuff that was happening in the 80s when I was in high school, but sexual identity stuff is relatively new. I'm not saying
it hasn't been around a long time, but it hasn't been so intense and in the public consciousness until the last 10 or 15 years, right?
And so, um, so that's the that's the tension that change produces and tradition can fight against those
things. Right? Now, I'm not I you know, I've said publicly there's nothing that I see in my research or my experience that suggests the doctrines of the
church have to change. Um, now there there are people that that uh are LGBTQ advocates that would disagree with me.
They would say, "Look, you can't solve that just by being good Christian people. There has to be a policy change or a doctrinal change." That one's more
complicated for me. But most of the rest of the stuff I see, um, if we were doing a better job handling the tension of
tradition versus change, we could alleviate some of these tensions so that they're less likely to drive people away. So, how would how would we do that?
Get really centered on Christ, right?
And and it's not teddy bear Jesus. It's not be nice. It's the doctrines of Christ. So, let me give you an example.
Um the teaching culture that we have in the church is informational, right? If you think about
how we teach, we stand up in the front of a classroom and we talk. And lately, we've got better about having discussion. But what we still do is we
we convey information and then we want to impart that into people's minds and then we want them to accept it. Right?
So that's culture. Now um a more battle tested version of that would be to talk less and invite more. So if I was
raising my family again and by the way when I teach young people I don't say things like well here's the restoration.
I know it's true. I say here are the doctrines of the restoration. Let's talk some of them specifically and then my
invitation is for you to put them into action in your life. Right? And so with our missionaries, we would talk faith for it's so so funny because
missionaries I said, "Do you know what faith is?" And they say, "I I know what faith is. It's in believing things you can't see." And I say, "No, it's not." Okay? It's going forward when you don't
know, right? In the face of opposition, in the face of uncertainty, because you trust God's providence, you go forward anyway. And they would go, "Oh, I never
thought of that." I said, "Why don't you try that?" So, when you run into problems this week in your area, when you get discouraged, when you face
opposition, step back, take a take a breath, but remember that you can trust God and go forward anyway. And then they would
write me in their next letter, "President Strong, I tried that. Wow, it worked." Right? So, less abstraction,
more application, more rooted in the doctrines of the gospel.
What this is where I I think I see a void. Okay.
In and in in going right along with what you're saying as far as just regurgitating information. Yeah.
Um to me agency is supreme. Me too.
And you you've got to offer an opportunity for agency. Yes. And that is the best
teacher for sure. So if I say, you know, if I'm talking to one of my kids or
anybody else and and and I'm trying to talk about, let's say, exaltation, yeah, I say, look, this is what exaltation is.
This is how it's obtained, and this is how it fits into the plan of salvation.
And I can go through a judgment, uh, uh, the commandments, mercy, the atonement,
how this is overcome, and how I can use this. Yeah. in order for this now. So what?
Why does that matter? What is the point?
Right. But if I can say here's my experience in trying these things out as you said and here's the fruits of these things
that I can show you and that you've seen. Yeah. If you know me, right? And this is what has worked. And here's the fruits of things that sometimes don't
work. And and I can show you some of those also both both from personal experience and from friends and and and others that that don't work very well.
And here's how I think this should be done.
Yeah, maybe you should try this or or or maybe you don't want to. And that's okay. You can make your own choice on what you
want to do here. But but here's why I think this is really important and worth it.
Yeah. But you've got to figure this out for yourself. There's an old saying that wisdom can't be taught, it can only be caught.
So on agency, I'll I'll tell you a short story that I think you'll enjoy that's not in the book. Right? So um
missionaries come, you know, every six weeks you get 15 or 20 and they come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of prepare preparedness.
But one sister missionary, day two, she's there 2 days and she's sitting in my office sobbing and she wants to go home, right? And that that wasn't
terribly rare. So, and this was later in my mission, so I was pretty well equipped to handle it. And I just started to talk to her. Hey, tell me
what you're feeling, what's on your mind, what do you want to do, what feels right to you. And um the the bottom line
in that first conversation was she just essentially said, "I don't think I really chose this, right? I don't think
I chose this." And I said, "What do you mean by that?" She said, "I was just under so much pressure from my parents and my bishop to serve that I went along
with it." And then all of a sudden, I got here and I realized this wasn't my choice. Right? And so I I was
experienced at that point and I said, "Okay, I'm not going to use her name, but I'll just call her Sister B." I said, "Sister B,
how would you feel about staying 6 weeks just to make sure that you don't make a rash decision?" And she said, "I I think I can do that." And I said, "Now, let me
give you some options. One is at the end of 6 weeks, you just go home. You end your mission and go home." And that's okay. You can do that. Uh, I can. Yes, you can. You can choose that. Okay?
You're an adult, by the way. you're 21 years old and this is your choice. Uh I said number two, you could transfer to a
service mission, right? Where you'd live at home. Uh you'd still serve a mission.
You'd wear a tag. You'd do some really amazing awesome work. And she totally sparked to that. It was like, "Wow, I could do that. That would be amazing."
And then I said, "Number three, at the end of six weeks, you might stay. You might decide you want to stay." So she said, "I feel really good about that." I
said, "Okay, great." I said, "Go back to work." And I said, "Just do one thing.
Do your best. Work hard. Throw yourself in so you really know." And then I call her parents to kind of fill them in.
Okay, she's in a crisis. She's probably coming home, but I've I've gotten her comfortable with staying 6 weeks. And then I laid out for them the options.
Come home, stay, service mission. Her parents were super uncomfortable with the service mission option.
And I tried to help them. I tried to say, "These are legitimate missions. I I'm a big fan myself of these cuz we did a lot of service in our mission. And and
I said, you know, please be open-minded about that. It could really be a great way for her to serve. And I I sort of
thought I I sort of thought I had him in a good place. And this was on a Sunday. Well, she called home on Pday on Monday.
And Monday night, she's in my office again and she's sobbing. And she says, "My parents said I can't serve a service mission." M
and my dad said, "Serving a service mission would be the JV team." Mhm.
Okay. So, I called per state president and I say, "Let me tell you what I think's going on." I think they put so
much pressure on her to serve that she never made the choice choice to serve.
And so, Doctrine of Covenants section 4 says, "If you have desires to serve God, you're called." Well, she never had a
chance to have desires because somebody imposed a plan on her. So I the sake president and I agreed. He prevailed
with the parents and and what we asked them is just please back off. Give her space. Let her choose. And that doesn't
mean begrudgingly. You can't you can't say, "Okay, sweetie. It it's okay if you come home, but we'll be so disappointed
if you do." You know, and so they they did. They backed off and they told her, "You know what? It's your choice and whatever you decide, we'll love you." So
6 weeks goes by. She comes into my office and I'm like really excited to see what she's going to do and she says, "I love it. I'm going to stay."
Okay. And I think what happened is when she was given space to choose for herself.
Um she examined who am I? What do I really want? Um what kind of person and church member do I want to be? What kind of disciple of Christ do I want to be?
And that opened her up for the spirit to soften her heart, teach her, lead her on a journey over six weeks. And she
decided this is exactly what I want to do. And she stayed and she finished her mission and she was fantastic. Right.
But you agency requires that you be allowed to choose.
You know, if there's only chocolate and not chocolate and vanilla, there is no agency, right?
Well, it's with all of it, right? And that's that's what getting back to the preemptive uh teaching
uh and relating more than just information. It's it's a matter of do you give enough awareness and and information to give someone a choice?
Yeah. Yes.
Or or are you just regurgitating and towing the line?
Yeah. And and so one of the things we do, which I think you're poking at, is sometimes we care more about compliance than understanding.
Sure. So we give them enough to comply, but not enough to understand.
And then Greg, the other thing that I saw is that we sometimes give them a caricature of the gospel, not the gospel. So can I give you an example of
that played out? It's it's a really good one. It's not it's not super common, but it's so instructive. So there's a
cultural pattern that we have in the church to to make promises that don't come from God. So an example of that is
this is the caricature. Um we had parents and bishops tell our
missionaries, if you're worthy and you serve with all your might, mind, and strength, the Lord will protect your family while you're away.
It's not true. It's not a promise that comes from God.
That's a check that nobody should be writing because they can't cash it, right? And so we had five or six instances where a missionary was made
told that promise. It was a factor in their decision to serve and then they they suffered terrible tragedy at home
when they were serving. And so the first one that happened was a amazing, phenomenal sister from PAC, Utah. and
she reached out to my wife um cuz she was looking for something more soft, right?
And she she started the conversation by saying, "What in the world did I do well?" And Sarah says, "What are you what are you talking about?" And she
said, "I just got a call from my parents. My brother is dead. He was killed in a car accident and they promised me that if I serve faithfully,
the Lord would protect my family." So that's a caricature that isn't true. It's not the gospel.
The gospel is veil of tears, you know, uh uh being chosen in the refiner's fire, right? Pick up your cross and
follow me. And she was given the caricature which failed her. And and so we had to unwind that. And and I'm telling you, my wife, it happened five
or six times. Another was a a missionary whose niece drowned in a pool in Arizona while he was serving. And my wife
developed just this phenomenal way to unwind that idea in their head and then wind them back into the gospel and help
them, you know, without without disparaging the people that made the promise, right? But just help them understand the gospel is even better than that, right? The gospel is what's
going to get you through those terrible times when nothing else will. Yeah. But there's no guaranteed protection.
Yeah. Cultural versus doctrinal and and information. Yeah. What? So, follow through with me though on the tension versus change.
Yeah.
Where where is where is what is change? What does that really mean? I mean, you're saying the world's changed.
Yeah. The world's and we can say the church members lives have changed.
So, so what how is that relative to the gospel? How is that relative to how we manage yelling or policy?
Let me try and see if this flies or not with you. But um if I think back to since church history
is the most common reason people in our survey cited for leaving, there's a whole lot of new complexity in church
history that wasn't part of the the LDS community 25 years ago, right? Um, and
so, um, that's creating tension because people are saying, "Well, look, this narrative is not what I was taught."
That's tension. Um, and so I I need a new way to think about what I've been traditionally taught in the context of
this new information. So, traditionally, we had this narrative, but now there's this narrative. I feel tension. How do I
resolve that tension? Right? And um and so the idea that you know I've read Rough Stone Rolling three times.
Somebody said don't read it. It'll destroy your faith. Right. It didn't. It increased my faith. Yeah. Me too.
And I had a chance to have lunch with a group at BYU with Richard Bushman. We got to ask him some great questions. But what I learned from uh Rough Stone
25 minutesRolling is that the restoration was this um meandering. I believe it was inspired and led by God, but it was meandering,
right? And Joseph was a complex guy who I think God used to do his work, but he wasn't perfect. Right? So that when I
closed the cover the third time, I just said that gives me hope because I think of my own life and how meandering it's been and I think of my own perfections,
imperfections, and how significant they are. And if if God could do something divine through Joseph Smith, maybe he could use me, too. Right? So that was a
that was a way of resolving tension, right? that was the result of me getting new information. Does that make sense?
So, in in regard to church history, I I don't think it's it doesn't work and it's not going to work. But if we
continue to have part of our culture that insists on the historical narrative when people are encountering all this new information, that's mismanaging the tension between tradition and change.
Right? An interesting parable for me is the parable of the wine bottles. So the Pharisees were criticizing Christ and his disciples because they weren't fasting when they were supposed to be.
And he he essentially says to them, "The law is important, but I'm doing something that's bigger." And then he said, "You can't put new wine in old
bottles or the bottles will burst and the wine is lost. You have to put new wine in new bottles." Right? He was talking about the same thing,
right? And and then he says the zinger was he said, "And everybody always prefers the old wine." Right? So I I think as we look forward,
whether it's um church history or social issues, people are receiving large doses of new wine in our contemporary society.
Some of that is just fact-based like church history. Some of it is cultural like secularization and those things. We
have to give people help, encouragement to form new faithful bottles to handle this new wine. And I don't think that's
27 minutesdoctrinal. I think it's mostly cultural, right? And so, um, what do you mean it's not doctrinal?
Meaning, I don't think the doctrines need to change.
The change is not The change is not doctrinal, but but you know, Greg, you know, that let let's just take doctrine. I I don't I would
acknowledge that sexual identity, doctrine, and culture, that's so complicated. I'm I I think that's probably an outlier in its degree of
difficulty. I would put that out there as like super complicated. The the tension is greatest there and the gap is widest right between doctrine and
culture uh contemporary culture. Uh so I with that qualifier I'd say many of the other things that are leading people out
of the church I think can be solved with new faithful bottles that are primarily cultural. Right? So so let's not give
people a character of the gospel. Let's give them the real stuff. And and culture, you know, as as a businessman, you might
28 minuteshave heard Peter Ducker's statement, um, culture eats strategy for lunch. I think culture eats doctrine for lunch. It eats
policy for lunch. But it's not because it's more important, but culture determines how doctrine and policy are
thought of, taught, implemented, and ultimately experienced. Right? So you could have the same doctrine that
doesn't change and you can run it through a different cultural frame and the outcomes are going to be profoundly different.
Yes. And I I would I would say that at the at the far end of that the doctrine ends up changing anyway. But but I I think that that's
Tell me what you mean by that so I can understand. Well, I'm just saying apostasy, right?
You look at the the apostasy and and you have the philosophies of men. You've got a lot of neoplaginism and other things that are really starting to enter the church and
Yeah. And and and so and you're saying at some point at some point change the doctrine. That does change the doctrine, right?
Those doctrines do change and the philosophies become more held up and Yeah.
Um you know, hopefully that doesn't happen with us. Yeah.
Uh but but I do think that that is happening to some degree.
Yeah. No, I think it is. You know, it's interesting to me. Um, blacks and the priesthood and temple privilege is an
interesting one to me because I think we would say that was doctrine in 1858, right? I mean, would you say that's doctrine? I mean, some people think it
was just a practice or a policy and not a doctrine. I'm I'm not sure I want to wrestle with the semantics, but what would the doctrine be?
It It's hard. I don't know because Joseph Smith ordained blacks to the priesthood and let them go to the temple, right? That's why I'm saying I'm not sure it's doctrinal is what I'm trying
to say. I guess I don't know that it was doctrinal. I I'm with you on that.
And so maybe it's not a maybe it's not a good example, but whatever it was, um, it changed. And part of the reason it
changed is societal pressures got greater. Right now, I I I I read Matthew Harris's book on this, and it's fascinating. By the way, Matt's a very
30 minutesbright guy, and he did great work. um he he writes mostly through a faithful lens you know and so he talks about the
important role that revelation played in that process but he also talks about the role that the the prevailing society played now that's a case where the
society was going in probably a good direction and and the church moved at the same time or slight slightly slower but at
the same time roughly you're I think you're more concerned about places where societyy's going in the wrong direction yes yeah what's what's an example that that concerns you. Family. Yeah.
The the idea of family, I I see that being pulled in so many different directions. Uh there are so many
movements that are what I would call anti-family. Yeah.
I do think there's an ideal in that situation. We don't all have it. I didn't have it growing up. Yeah.
I I my parents divorced when I was 6 years old. I had it, but it was very messy.
Yeah. It's it's like no one really has the ideal. I mean, even if you're in that that, you know, mother, father, and and you've
got the kids and you're in the gospel living and it's no one ends up totally with the ideal. Yeah.
But, you know, whether I'm looking at abortion, whether I'm looking at uh uh
movements that uh are misogynistic on one end and toxic on one end and and others that are girl boss
type of so you've got you've got extremes. You've got so many extremes out here that are pulling away from that idea. There was a study that was done at
BYU recently that was uh it was a few years back, but it was talking about it just the way it was interpreted was well, we didn't really
used to have traditional families. You know, leave it to Beaver is this idea of the 20th century and and uh but before that you had different generations
living in the same home and and and and it's like yes, but the ideal is not the living situation. No.
No. Right. And that's the way it got construed and pushed is like, you know, there's really not an ideal. And it's like, no, there is an ideal as a mom and
a dad married and moving toward Christ. Yeah.
And doing everything they need to do to raise a family and and and to raise their kids. I don't care what this living situation is. I think it's actually great if you've got other generations that are that are around.
I'm a big fan of that, by the way. The multigenerational.
It's way most of history is gone, you know. So, but but just I I would say that that's a one place that I'm very concerned about.
That's a good one. I I you know, here's what I'd say. I So, maybe using the construct of is it is a doctrine, is a culture, and how would the culture affect that?
I I I don't I I'm just a fellow traveler here sharing an opinion. So, I I don't know that I have any brilliant insight,
but but um I deeply believe in the power and value of traditional families, right? So I I you know that as a
doctrine of the church I hope that doesn't change right. So if it does I would be concerned about that. Um so so
I wouldn't say hey that the tension between tradition and change should alleviate be alleviated there with the doctrinal change but I would say given
that there are many members of the church that don't fit that profile culturally can we do more to embrace and support them? Yes. Right. That's it.
Sure.
Yeah. That's it. And so I know in our in our study for example, we we asked people to this wasn't rating themselves.
This was the question was how um how valued do you think certain people would feel in the church? And then we gave
them a list of different types of people and so for example divorce someone who's divorced they said yeah they'll feel significantly less valued in the church.
Right? So on a fivepoint scale, like your your son or daughter just went through the temple and got married,
4.5, right? Uh your son or daughter just came from home home from a mission, a successful mission, 4.5.
34 minutesYou're single.
Lower. You're divorced, much lower. You have an LGBTQ family member, lower still. You didn't serve a full-time mission at all.
Low. Right. Those are cultural to me.
They're not doctrinal. Yeah. So I'm not when I when I stopped doing the work I was doing for the church and went on a mission
you know for the most part in general as I was thinking about the question in order to retain more members do we need
to change doctrine the answer I came to after 2 and 1/2 years of talking to people was no you know the the but but
sometimes we don't actually live our doctrines and the culture makes those doctrines problematic because we're not living Right? And so it was much more about
nope, the doctrines are generally fine and what we need to do is we actually need to live them and we need to make sure the culture is not making them
something they're not. Caricatures, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So the family one to me is a really good example.
So, a family, let's say, recently just had
one of their members, a child, a a grown adult maybe. Yeah. Leave the church. Yep.
The parents are wondering, "What is going on? How did this happen?" Probably thinking, "What did I do wrong?" That's certainly where we went.
Where do I do wrong? What could I have done?
Yeah. Um if the motivation for the child leaving the church or or you know the child
let's say but the adult son or daughter is is has left the church if the motivation is for
um faith claims let's say is faith claims and they they have just a different perspective something just
broken in what they used to have as their framework for for belief. Yeah.
um from a parents perspective and then from
the person leaving the church's perspective help walk through the scenario on how that should be how to handle that. Yeah,
it's such a good question. You know, I might want to contrast how not to and how to because it's helpful. Um,
Joseph Granny and I did a little thing on this as part of our research, but uh, I I'd probably start with an umbrella of
part of the goal should be not to mischaracterize one another, right? So, so here's here's what happens today. Uh,
often people who uh, when when someone leaves, our natural tendency is to mischaracterize why they left, right?
It's just kind of human nature and we tend to do that. And so the tropes that you hear is, you know, they sinned and lost the spirit. They were led away by
the philosophies of men. And those things are true sometimes, but sometimes it's something much simpler and more pure than that, right? It might be they just their testimony was based on the
restoration narrative and they encountered information that was disruptive to that. And they feel sort of a sense of integrity that I can't
keep believing this when I now have new information that suggests what I believed was not accurate. Right? and they may not have this other lever that
I had which is well my my testimony wasn't really based in that in the first place. Um and so we got to be careful not to mischaracterize people who leave.
Um and and also people who lead need to be really careful not to mischaracterize people who stay. So I I had a chat with
a woman last week that called me after seeing a podcast and wanted to chat and she's she has five children. Three have left. her youngest child just left and
the child sent her a letter saying I'm leaving the church and gave her an ultimatum saying if you don't leave the church I won't have any contact with you.
So, so you think about the presumption that's involved in that and this woman is a really normal faithful good salt of
the earth Latter-day Saint. She's not naive about any of the reasons her child cited for leaving but her faith is rooted in something else. And so I think
somebody that's leaving needs to allow some accommodation for pe people who stay aren't idiots,
right? And so you know my brother did that eventually for me once we had a conversation and he said, "Okay, I now understand why you have stayed."
Well, there's a tendency you've got to you've got both sides have got to steel man their position.
That's exactly right. And by the way, you're always well, not always, but human nature is to steel man it in a way that validates you. Right. So, when
Joseph and I did the research, he he's I don't know if you know much about Joseph, but he's the guy that founded the Other Side Academy in Salt Lake,
which which gets early release prison felons and then helps them reassimilate. So, it's God's work for sure.
But he also wrote two bestselling books on how to have high stakes conversations. So, he called me and said, "Hey, let's do some research." Conversation.
Yeah, that's it. And so, he said, "Let's do some research on fake transition conversations. see what we can learn.
So, we did. And so, he he would if he were here, he'd say, "Okay, number one is um take a take a breath, take a
breather, right?" And so, what that means is when these conversations happen, you've got to be in the right frame of mind to make sure that they're
healthy and productive. And if you're not in the right frame of mind, don't do it right. So, step back, take a breath, and get yourself in the right place.
Now, what Joseph would say, he he's he's really good communicator. He said, "We don't operate vehicles or heavy equipment under the influence. You
should never have one of these conversations under the influence either. The influence of your fear, your anxiety,
you know, the the stories you're telling yourself that aren't true. So, take a breather. Don't talk under the
influence." Second, he would say, "Okay, you got to get yourself right first." Now, it doesn't matter which side you're on, right? the lever or the stayer.
Really, really examine your motives.
What is it that you really want? What is it that you really think? What story are you telling yourself that may or may not
be true, but might really make this conversation problematic, right? And you got to get that stuff out of your head because it will prevent a a healthy,
productive conversation. And then number three, have the right end in mind, which is not correction and containment. In other words, it's not getting the other
person to agree with you. It's connecting and preserving the relationship. So, the conversation is really hard. It It is hard.
I mean, and you're in a church environment, you know, or a church family, and it's like, well, this is the path. This is the covenant path. Yeah. I've got to bring you back onto it.
Yeah. That is a very difficult. It is.
Um, what is it? It's a It's really bad. Yeah.
Well, you want it really bad. You believe you're right. Yes. This is the truth. Yeah.
Um, so there is kind of a It's very understandable that we would react that way.
Yeah. It's very understandable. It's almost though a a a change of values to get to where you need to go.
Tell me what you mean by values.
Because I would have maybe used the word mindset, but maybe it's tell me tell me what what am I valuing most in this case where I have to fix this person. Yeah.
Right. Yes. It's it's this person has to be on the covenant path now or else and that's what I value the most and I'm my family's ripped apart.
Yes.
What happens to my eternal family? What happens to the well-being of my you know the person leaving? Absolutely. That's what you're valuing the most.
Yeah. And so let me go back to the parable of the wine bottle. So the new wine is you've got a child that stepped away.
Okay. The old bottle is all of those things that you just talked about. It isn't going to work. And so one reason you should consider a different approach is it's dead on arrival. No.
Okay. It's just not going to happen. Now I'll I'll contrast um two examples. My
experience, my wife and I with our son and then a really good friend of mine with his son. Both both young men left their missions.
So, first of all, we we did not have the self-awareness to not talk under the influence. Okay? So, the minute I got
the email from my son, I fired one back, right? And if I still have it, it's full of love and kindness, but I was I was
clearly the patronizing wise father straightening my son out, telling him what he needed to know. So, that that was what I did. And what my friend and
his wife did is they called the Strongs first of all, you know, they said, "Okay, he was a counselor for me when I was a bishop." And so he watched my
family go through this and he said, "I know that you learned so much. So can we come over and just hear what you aren't?" And so that was the moment
where they took a breath and weren't talking under the influence, right? And and so we we gave them some
of these principles and they had a week before they picked their son up at the airport. So they got themselves in the right place right now. Here's what was
really powerful, Greg. I was I was running those tapes that you talked about a minute that was in my head that in fact I I flew to California where he
was in school. I'll bet over the first couple years 20 times and almost every one of those was a mission to fix him,
right? where I was going to explain to him why what he was doing was the wrong choice and and and so that I still hadn't gotten free of that. My friend on
the other hand really examined why he was really angry like we were, right? So he he said to himself, "Why am I so
angry like this really?" He said, "I just want to choke him." You know, and um
he's talked publicly about this so I can share it. He would be happy to have me share it. But he said, "Jeff, I just got very deeply humble and prayerful and I
started to pray for guidance." And here's here's his first prayer that he uttered. How can I turn my son to repentance? And the spirit said, "What
are you talking about? This isn't about that. This is about you." You know, your problem is you, right? His problem is
between he and I, not between you and he and I, right? And so the next place he went was reflecting on, and this was