Today we’re honored to share a special session from Restore 2025 featuring Steven Kapp Perry, Alisha Anderson, and Ben Schilaty—three gay Latter-day Saints who have each taken different paths, and who share a deep commitment to following God with honesty, courage, and faith.

In this on-stage conversation, Steve, Alisha, and Ben share personal and vulnerable reflections on what it means to seek God when the road ahead feels uncertain, and the courage it takes to keep moving forward in faith. They explore belonging, revelation, and the complexity of spiritual life as they describe discerning and following paths that looked very different from one another’s and the ones they once expected—often amid the pain of being misunderstood.

This session was a powerful reminder that God is at work in every life, and that each person's journey is sacred. 

As Ben shares near the end of the conversation, "The stories that truly matter are the stories of the LGBTQ people that you know in your lives." That's our invitation this month. We hope this conversation opens the door to deeper connection with people in your own life whose paths may look different than your own.

We’re grateful to Steve, Alisha, and Ben for their vulnerability and wisdom.

You'll hear Steve mention a short film at the beginning of this session that tells more of Alisha’s story. It’s beautiful and moving, and you can watch it here. You can also watch a video recording of this session, including a musical performance from Steve and his wife, on our YouTube channel or Substack. You can order Ben's book A Walk in My Shoes here.

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This week, wards across the United States will be having a really unique 5th Sunday discussion centered on the Constitution, moral agency, and peace-building. So today, we wanted to reshare a conversation that originally aired in 2021.

In this episode, Faith Matters co-founder Bill Turnbull joins Judge Thomas Griffith, an expert in constitutional law, to explore the Constitution and the rapid erosion of goodwill and trust in American politics, including among Latter-day Saints. Judge Griffith sees the possibility of a serious crisis and believes that Latter-day Saints can and must play a critical role in healing today’s divides.

We’ve also compiled lots of additional resources that we hope will help as you prepare for this special Sunday lesson—you can find those on our website (faithmatters.org), and you can always find links to dig deeper into each episode in our free weekly newsletter. Thanks so much as always for listening, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

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They call him the Mr. Rogers of farming, and I think you’ll understand why. 

Karl Ebeling spent 33 years as a chemical engineer before feeling an undeniable pull back to the land and to a childhood love of farming that had never really left him. He combined his love of the earth with desire to help and heal and founded Eden Streets in 2020, a community farming initiative that helps individuals relaunch their lives and cultivate community through farming. Karl has watched first hand as the earth does her healing work in the souls of men and women experiencing homelessness, addiction, or disconnection. 

Today, he joins us to talk about the gifts of creation, and what it might look like to, in Elder Causse’s words, “grow, enhance, and improve upon” them, and what that kind of stewardship does for our own souls.

I was deeply moved by Karl’s grounded wisdom, his reverence for the Earth and by the lessons he’s learning from the natural world about rhythms, relationship, belonging, and peace. 

With planting season upon us, we hope this conversation inspires you to step outside, put your hands in the dirt, and experience the way the natural world is reaching out to heal you.

You can find more from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on caring for the Earth here.

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Today, we’re honored to share a conversation with Tish Harrison Warren on her beautiful brand new book, What Grows in Weary Lands.

From the very first pages of this book, Tish gives us language for something so familiar. She writes about aridity—those seasons of spiritual drought, exhaustion, or distance from God, when prayer feels flat, faith feels heavy, and the life we once found nourishing suddenly feels barren. 

Then she also introduces us to the ancient idea of acedia—what the Desert Fathers and Mothers sometimes called “the noonday demon.” It’s that restless belief that life with God would be easier somewhere else, sometime else, with different work, different people, a different church, or a new set of circumstances. It’s a restlessness that wants to escape the ordinary demands of love in search of some imagined future where spiritual highs are constant and faith feels effortless. 

But Tish says these experiences of aridity and acedia aren’t signs that something has gone wrong, in fact, they are experiences that Christians throughout time have understood to be a normal—even necessary—part of spiritual maturity.

In this conversation, she helps us see that the invitation in these weary seasons is not to force our way back into those spiritual highs, but to stay with prayer, to stay with the ordinary practices that have formed disciples for centuries, often staying with imperfect communities and relationships even after the shine has worn off and the brokenness becomes visible.

She makes the case that that maturity often looks less like finding the perfect place, and more like learning how God meets us in imperfect places through patience, repair, and the slow work of love.

Tish is an Anglican priest and author known for her award winning books Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night. Her new book, What Grows in Weary Lands, was released this week and is available on Bookshop.org, Amazon, or wherever books are sold. We are so grateful to Tish for coming on the podcast and we hope that you enjoy this conversation.

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Today, as we celebrate our mothers and motherhood, we’re exploring the symbols of our Divine Mother hidden throughout ancient Christianity, and what it might mean for each of us—men and women—to cultivate and integrate divine femininity into our own souls.

Our guests are Kathryn and Bob Sonntag, who joined us at Restore last year for a powerful session on ritual, wisdom, and our Divine Mother. Today, we’re bringing that conversation to everyone.

Together, we explore where the symbol of the Mother appears in ancient Christian traditions and grapple honestly with what divine femininity and divine masculinity look like when we strip away the stereotypes that can become rigid and prescriptive. As Kathryn says, the feminine is, by its nature, subtle and hidden—something that has to be cultivated with intention. And when souls or systems overdevelop the masculine and lose touch with feminine wisdom (or vice versa), something essential goes missing. Neither the masculine nor the feminine can truly flourish without the other.

We spend time on practical integration. Bob says that ritual is the way we translate meaning into action—the way spiritual truths become lived realities. And he says that ritual isn’t reserved for temples or holy days, but is available in the texture of ordinary life—in hospitality, shared meals, and the quiet rhythms of each day. When we bring intention to those moments, the mundane becomes sacred, and the deeper work of integration and transformation can take root.

This one is for Mother’s Day, and for anyone ready to engage in this deep inner work. We hope you enjoy this conversation with Kathryn and Bob Sonntag.

You can read more from Kathryn in her book, The Mother Tree, which is available on Amazon and at wayfaremagazine.org. You can read more from Bob at WayfareMagazine.org.

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Today, we’re really excited to share a special episode with Jeff Strong on his new book, Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn From Them.

Research suggests that roughly 40% of formerly active, faithful members have stepped away from the Church in the last twenty-five years—and the pace is accelerating. Jeff Strong is asking why. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, he’s found that, again and again, disaffiliation is rooted in unmet spiritual needs, strained trust, and experiences of exclusion or spiritual starvation. Jeff’s book is unflinchingly honest—and genuinely hopeful, because if culture is part of the problem, there’s also something all of us can do to help.

In this conversation, Jeff really challenges the assumption that people leave casually. His data shows that, on average, most people wrestle for nearly a decade before stepping away. These are sincere, often private, and deeply painful journeys that deserve to be understood with care.

Jeff says that what we need are not more gatekeepers, but more gardeners. He suggests our role isn’t to monitor who’s in or out—or how “in” or “out” anyone is—but to tend the kind of soil where faith can grow: in our homes, our wards, and our relationships.

He helps us recognize when that soil has become compacted or depleted of spiritual nutrients, and offers practical, grounded ways for everyday members and leaders to cultivate something more nourishing—a more Christ-centered culture where more people can grow and flourish.

We are so excited for you to read this book and hear the conversation. You can buy the book on Bookshop.org, Amazon, or wherever you buy books. You can read the introduction and first two chapters, check out the appendix, and learn more about the research on Jeff’s website, tornbyjeffstrong.com.

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Hey everyone, this is Aubrey from Faith Matters. Today’s episode is a personal one for me—and probably for many of you—especially if you’ve ever found yourself deferring to someone else’s inspiration, or noticing a tendency to believe that someone else’s knowing is more trustworthy than your own.

Our guest, Deidre Nicole Green, is a professor at Graduate Theological Union and a theologian and scholar whose work explores gender, faith, and the Christian life. The starting place for this discussion was Deidre’s just-released Wayfare Magazine article called "Envying Hannah".

At the center of the conversation is a concept called epistemic confidence—a trust in our capacity to receive and recognize truth for ourselves. And while this shows up differently for each of us, research suggests it doesn’t fall evenly. Women, in particular, are often more likely to feel that their knowing needs to be confirmed or mediated by someone with more authority before it really counts.

Deidre helps us see how quickly this gets complicated, especially at church—where the line between agency and people-pleasing can blur without us even realizing it. She invites us to ask harder questions: when does deference begin to erode our connection to the divine? When are we silencing something sacred within ourselves?

And maybe most importantly, what becomes possible when we show up differently—when we act with courage, claim our spiritual authority and sacred agency, and allow ourselves to be fully seen and known… even if it means risking being wrong?

You can read Deidre's piece, "Envying Hannah: Risking Respectability for Spiritual Fidelity" in Issue 7 of Wayfare or online at WayfareMagazine.org now, and you can get a sneak peek inside the issue (including two more essays!) here. You can also read "Finding Truth Together: Epistemic Humility in the Book of Jacob," an excerpt from Deidre's book "Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction" on WayfareMagazine.org. You can find all these links and more in our weekly newsletter at faithmatters.org. 

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Today, we’re honored to share a conversation with Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of Outreach, a ministry for LGBTQ Catholics.

His new memoir is called Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest. And yes, he held every one of those jobs before he found his calling. But beneath the laughs, this book is really about the slow, unglamorous, often uncomfortable work of transformation.

In our conversation today, Father Jim talks about growing up desperate to be liked—and what it took to become someone willing to speak up and make waves when it matters. We talk about the difference between kindness and people-pleasing, about staying connected to religious institutions that can both nourish and wound us, and why he believes doubt is a natural part of a living, growing faith.

In a moment when so many public voices feel reactive and divisive, Father Jim stands in conviction without losing compassion—offering a steady, grounded wisdom that feels deeply needed right now.

Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.

Today we’re exploring a tender question so many parents are carrying: how do we help our kids grow in faith when we’re still figuring it out for ourselves? And underneath that—what if we get it wrong? What if we hand them something they’ll spend years trying to untangle?

Today, we’re joined by pastor, author, and researcher Meredith Miller, who has spent her career thoughtfully engaging these questions. Her book, Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From, offers a grounded and practical guide for what this can look like.

Meredith invites us to move away from rigid faith metaphors like walls and foundations, and instead to see faith more like a web—flexible, resilient, and uniquely woven for each person. That shift opens up a much more spacious way of thinking about what it means to guide our kids spiritually.

Anchoring this conversation is her distinction between obedience-based and trust-based faith. Meredith makes a compelling case that trust must come first—that obedience, when it matters, grows naturally out of a relationship with a God we’ve come to know and trust, rather than fear.

We also talk about how to approach scripture with kids, what her research revealed about the strengths of a Latter-Day Saint ward-based model, the value of family warmth, and why “I don’t know” can be a great answer.

This conversation was a steadying reminder for us that while we can’t control how our kid’s faith unfolds, we can trust that God is already at work in their lives. We hope this episode gives you both some practical tools and a little more peace for the long, slow work nourishing a faith your kid doesn’t need to heal from.

You can also find Meredith’s new book Wonder: 52 Conversations to Help Kids Fall in Love with Scripture on Bookshop.org and Amazon. 

Did you know Faith Matters also produces a Bible Storybook podcast? Listen to Scripture Stories for Little Saints on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more help with family spiritual development, check out Uplift Kids.

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Today we’re asking: what do you do when someone you love tells you they’re leaving the Church? What do you say? How do you stay grounded and connected when the stakes feel high or you’re caught off guard?

We sat down with two longtime friends of the podcast—authors and researchers Joseph Grenny and Jeff Strong—to explore these high-stakes moments when someone is ready to talk about their shifting faith.

Drawing on research from over 500 real-life conversations about faith transitions, Joseph and Jeff uncover something both surprising and sobering: statistically, it’s devout parents and church leaders who are most likely to miss the mark in these conversations.

They suggest this isn’t about a lack of love or sincerity—but consequences of a very natural response to fear. Jeff and Joseph call it a TUI—talking under the influence. When the amygdala takes over, stress floods the system, and the thinking brain goes offline. What looks like a communication problem is actually a chemical one, and even the most well-intentioned among us can say things that damage relationships for years.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Today, Joseph and Jeff show us how to recognize when we’re under the influence, how to pause before we cause harm, and how to come back grounded and clear—so that we can choose connection over control, curiosity over fear.

With General Conference this weekend and Easter just days away—seasons that bring families together and open the door naturally, to these conversations—we hope this episode reminds you that you’re not alone, and that these hard moments, can become the fertile ground for relationships that are deeper, more honest, and more connected than they were before.

You can also read and share an essay called "Messy Conversations: When Loved Ones Leave the Faith" by Joseph Grenny at faithmatters.org. 

Join us on July 11 for the Wayfare festival! RSVP here.