Today, we’re excited to share our conversation with Dr. Rebecca Glazier, a Professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and author of the new book, Faith and Community: How Engagement Strengthens Members, Places of Worship, and Society. For over a decade, Rebecca has been researching how religious communities engage in their broader communities, and the findings are incredibly compelling.

Rebecca’s work offers a powerful perspective on how congregations can heal divisions—not just within their walls but across society. Her research shows that when faith communities serve together and engage in meaningful outreach, they create what she calls “congregational warmth,” fostering deeper connections, stronger faith, and even healthier, more united communities generally.

In this conversation, we discuss why service with our congregations, outside of the four walls of our church can be transformative, why young people today are more eager than ever to engage in meaningful service, and how worship spaces can be vital places for bridging political divides. Rebecca also shared insights on how interfaith partnerships and sustained community engagement can do the deep work of depolarization and create lasting impact.

Her insights feel particularly relevant and important right now, and they’re also deeply hopeful. They show that small, consistent acts of service—especially when done together—can strengthen both our faith and our communities in profound ways.

We absolutely loved this conversation and hope you come away from it as energized and inspired as we did. And with that, here’s our conversation with Rebecca Glazier.

https://tupress.temple.edu/study-guides/faith-and-community. 

This week, we’re thrilled to share a conversation with Hannah Packard Crowther about her new book, Gracing, the latest release from Faith Matters Publishing. We love Hannah's profound wisdom, lyrical writing, and her invitation to reflect on grace in entirely new ways, the book also features stunning, original, artwork by J. Kirk Richards. 

Hannah asks—what if grace is not a gift we passively receive, but a dynamic process we actively engage in and co-create with God? Drawing from life’s ordinary moments and its most difficult experiences, she demonstrates how grace can infuse our actions, relationships, and even our struggles with meaning and beauty. The title, Gracing, reflects this vibrant view of grace as a verb—alive, present, and always moving through our lives.

In this conversation, Hannah shares profound insights into creativity, community, and resilience, especially through the lens of her experience living with chronic illness and a body that sometimes resists her plans. She opens up about how those experiences have deepened her understanding of grace and shaped a more compassionate way of being. We also explore her heartfelt call to rethink how we care for those on the margins of our faith communities, including gender and sexual minorities, and to discover creative, courageous ways to embody grace in all our relationships.

This conversation is warm, vulnerable, and full of wisdom and we hope you enjoy it!

This week, we’re thrilled to share a conversation with Lisa Olsen Tait and Scott Hales, two of the historians and general editors behind Saints, the Church’s official history series. With the release of Volume 4 which covers the years of 1955 to 2020, this monumental task of recounting the Church’s story from its founding to the present day is now complete.

And in this candid discussion, Lisa and Scott reflect on the Church’s evolving approach to its own history through the years. They both share a deep commitment to transparency and accuracy and discuss how this volume takes deliberate steps to address challenging topics—including the priesthood and temple ban, the Church’s rapid global growth and subsequent correlation efforts of the 1960s, and how those changes shaped women’s roles and autonomy within the community.

They share powerful stories of ordinary members navigating these pivotal moments. From Black Latter-day Saints who held onto hope during the painful years before 1978 to those who quietly and actively worked for change, these stories offer a vision of discipleship that embraced courage, resilience, creativity, and deep faith—a model that feels especially relevant today.

This conversation was a beautiful reminder that each of us is part of a rich, unfolding history—a history that connects us to generations of Saints who faced their own challenges and whose courage and faithfulness have blessed us today. We hope it inspires you to see your own place in this story. And with that, here’s our conversation with Lisa and Scott.

Today, we're bringing you a special episode recorded live from the Restore gathering, where we were joined by Jared Halverson. Jared, who’s become a familiar voice to many of us here, spoke on what he calls “contraries” or paradoxes that are inherent in a life of faith. His message felt like a breath of fresh air and especially timely.

He offers the powerful image of the cross as a symbol of wholeness in our discipleship. One axis, reaching vertically, represents our connection to God, while the horizontal beam represents the love and care we extend outward to embrace those around us. True discipleship, Jared explained, is this centerpoint. It requires both beams—it's a deep grounding in God that inspires us to reach out in love to others. 

 And so, in this election week, Jared’s session feels like an invitation to love our neighbor. He boldly reminds us that the means matter, that "being right with God, does not justify being wrong with other people." So rather than allowing our differences to create distance, he challenges us to see the ways that truth is found in the tension of the paradox. This “both-and” approach allows us to see each other more fully and generously, creating connection that transcends our differences and reflects god's love.

We’re so grateful for Jared’s wisdom in this session, and we hope his message helps you feel connected and inspired this week. 

Tyler Johnson is intimately familiar with suffering. He’s an oncologist who has sat with countless people in some of the most difficult moments of their lives, and in the final moments before their deaths. He’s been there as people have received life-changing news, and as they’ve grappled with their deepest questions: “What has my life meant? What should I prioritize if my time is limited? Have I given enough attention to what truly matters?”

It’s that perspective that Tyler brings to the project we brought him on to talk about: a new book, published by Deseret Book, called When Church is Hard. In addition to his work as an oncologist, Tyler has been a bishop who has worked with many who have found their experience at church, for any of a number of reasons, deeply hard. And in a way that we feel like he is uniquely qualified to do, Tyler has approached both of these situations with the type of response they both call for: listening, validation, empathy, and humbly-offered insight.

In our conversation with him, we explored how doubt and uncertainty, rather than being a flaw or something to "fix," can be a natural part of faith that leads to deeper growth and integrity. We also explored the parallels between the existential questions his patients face and those that arise during faith crises —and how both might invite us to re-evaluate priorities in a way we couldn’t otherwise. And finally, we looked at what belonging looks like, on both sides, when someone is sitting in pain and perplexity.

For anyone who is feeling like this part of their faith journey is just hard, or has a loved one feeling this way, we really think this conversation is for you. Tyler’s a deeply thoughtful and empathetic person, and we loved talking with him. 

We’re excited to share something special with you. Today we're featuring an episode from the Proclaim Peace Podcast because we were so touched by this powerful conversation that feels especially meaningful right now—with an election right around the corner.

In this episode, Patrick Mason, Jennifer Thomas, and their guest Thomas McConkie, explore how meaningful action doesn't come from this energy of frantic box-checking or a striving for perfection, but from a heart transformed by grace. Instead of trying to engineer a life of perfection to earn grace, grace comes first- it changes us from the inside—and the goodness that follows, flows naturally. As Thomas puts it, “It’s a sequencing problem.”

Reflecting on the story of Alma, they explore how prioritizing this spiritual inner work can help us align with love and find deep peace that can become both the fuel and the foundation of the meaningful work we do in the world.

This conversation is full of insight and encouragement, and we're so excited for you to hear it. And with that, here’s Proclaimed Peace with Jennifer Thomas, Patrick Mason, and Thomas McConkie.

Join Thomas McConkie for a 3-Day retreat—Becoming One—on December 5-7th, 2024 in Salt Lake City. Learn more and register here.

This week, we’re honored to welcome Arthur Brooks to the podcast. Arthur is a renowned social scientist, Harvard professor, and bestselling author, and we’re excited to talk with him about his latest book, Build the Life You Want, which he co-authored with Oprah Winfrey.

In our conversation, Arthur offers some profound insights on happiness, emphasizing that though genetics and circumstances influence our baseline, we have significant agency over our happiness. It's a skill we can practice and improve. He says that happiness isn’t about avoiding suffering and he shares how negative emotions can actually serve as signals that help us grow.

This episode is full of advice for creating a life of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. and lots of practical tips for exactly what to do when you are feeling overwhelmed by negative feelings. We’re so grateful to Arthur for joining us. We think you’ll find his insights on happiness and purpose inspiring and practical. So with that, let’s jump into our conversation with Arthur Brooks.

In today’s episode, we’re talking with Dr. Jennifer Thomas, co-authored with Gary Chapman of The 5 Apology Languages: The Secret to Healthy Relationships. Dr. Thomas's work builds on the framework of the 5 Love Languages and offers a profound new lens for how we give and receive apologies. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve said “I’m sorry” but it didn’t quite land, or if you’ve been on the receiving end of an apology that didn’t feel satisfying, this conversation is going to hit home.

In this discussion Dr. Thomas talks about how often an apology can go unheard or feel insincere—not because you don’t mean it, but because you’re not speaking the other person’s “apology language.”Just like love, apologies aren’t one-size-fits-all. Her work work explores the psychology behind why some apologies fail to resonate, even when they seem heartfelt. Through extensive research, she and her co-author, Dr. Gary Chapman, identified five distinct “apology languages,” Each reflecting different emotional and cognitive needs that may need to be addressed for an apology to be effective. 

This episode is full of practical advice on how to express a heartfelt apology that truly communicates "I'm sorry" in a way that others can receive and feel. It will help you recognize what you need. These tools and insights will provide a powerful path restoring connection and healing relationships.

We’re so excited to share this conversation with you, and we hope it sparks some of the same deep insights it did for us. And with that, let’s jump into our conversation with Dr. Jennifer Thomas.

This week, we’re sharing a beautiful and timely conversation between Faith Matters’ executive director Zach Davis and Andrew Hanauer, the founder and CEO of the One America Movement, an organization that helps faith leaders fight toxic polarization. 

In this conversation, Andrew and Zach discuss the causes behind the rise in polarization, the way political tribalism can become a false idol, and the imperative of truly following Jesus’ call to “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Andrew encourages us to see that our calling as disciples of Jesus is to follow his example and transform conflict through love.

We hope you enjoy this episode and with that, we’ll hand it over to Zach. 

For today’s episode, we’re bringing you another powerful moment from our Restore gathering. Eboo Patel joined us to explore a compelling and deeply hopeful vision for what it means to build a loving, spiritually rich community where different faiths come together to form the foundation of a stronger, more united whole. Eboo challenges us to live our faiths in ways that not only elevate ourselves but lift others, creating bonds that bridge divides and bring healing to our world.
Eboo, an Ismaili Muslim, is the founder and president of Interfaith America, an organization dedicated to fostering cooperation across religious traditions.

Drawing on decades of experience and inspired by President Russell M. Nelson’s call for peacemaking, Eboo invites us to see how our diverse spiritual practices can serve as bridges, connecting us in powerful and meaningful ways. He shares that peacemaking is both a choice and a skill, requiring us to engage deeply and intentionally with one another.

Using the beautiful metaphor of a potluck dinner, he reminds us: "Do not hide your light. Do not stop bringing your distinctive dish to the table. A potluck is a place where everyone’s contributions matter." This episode is about how we can actively build relationships, cooperate across differences, and create something richer together than any of us could alone. Faith Matters intends to be more and more at the center of these kinds of interfaith collaborations. We hope this conversation inspires you to reflect on your own role in creating a compassionate, connected community. And with that, we’ll pass it over to Eboo Patel at Restore.