How can I speak more openly about the things that matter most to me?
Faith Matters resources to accompany your Come Follow Me study: June 9-15
I can share my love and testimony of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ wants me to share His gospel.
Jeff Strong: Missionaries Ministering Through Service
Hear about Jeff’s experience as a mission president of the Bentonville, Arkansas Mission where he and his wife led a phenomenally successful pilot program with his missionaries. For us, the story of the Bentonville, Arkansas mission has totally revolutionized the way we imagine missionary work.
True and Living Church: Bearer and Receiver of Gifts
Can Latter-day Saints claim to belong to God’s true church when we learn, in our encounters with other people and religions, that we’re a tiny minority and that God is present and working through other religions too?
The scriptures teach of Jesus Christ.
The point of Scripture is not to tell us something. The point of Scripture is to do something. The point of Scripture is to introduce us to God and invite us to participate with God in the revelation of who and what he is. —Adam Miller
Scripture is this site where we can go, where God’s presence infuses the words, and if we put ourselves there and spend enough time there and open ourselves to it, then we too through the Spirit can experience some of that divine presence. —Rosalynde Welch
Terryl Givens: Peaceable Things: Three Names of Christ
Creator, Emmanuel, Paraclete: taking us on a journey through the scriptures and Early Church theologians, Terryl Givens opens a wealth of insight into the significance of these three names of Christ and what they mean for our faith today.
My decisions should balance “judgment and the direction of the Spirit.”
I believe ‘Mormonism’ affords opportunity…for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths …The Prophet planted the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fullness of times…The disciples of Mormonism, growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas…until they help to give to the truths received a more forceful expression, and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development.
—B.H. Roberts, The Improvement Era, 1906
McArthur Krishna and Michal Thomas: The Cherished Doctrine of Heavenly Mother
“The Relief Society, the Young Women and the Primary all came because a woman had a good idea, and then she went to the Church and said, "Hey, I got a good idea, I think we should do this." And the Church said, "Hey, that's a good idea." I 100% agree that the prophet and the twelve have stewardship in this. But it doesn't mean that all good ideas only come from that place. And again, this is not an either/or. This is not a challenge to authority. This is not a rabble-rousing. This is saying, I'm contributing. And if I have a good idea that I can contribute, then it behooves me to contribute.”
McArthur Krishna & Anne Pimentel: Changemakers
In this conversation, we explore what it means to be a changemaker in a Church that values both institutional authority and ongoing revelation. McArthur and Anne remind us again and again that revelation doesn’t always start at the top—so often, it often rises from the margins, born of questions, connection, and listening with love. We hope this conversation inspires you to trust your gifts, to share your voice, and to believe, deeply, that your contributions matter.
Signs come by faith and the will of God.
I can be chaste in my thoughts and actions. Sacred things should be treated with reverence.
Bonnie Young: Sex Educated
When therapist Bonnie Young was a teen, the subject of sexuality was for her, “drenched in fear.” And many of us can probably relate. For many Latter-day Saints growing up in a sexually conservative culture and with a strict law of chastity — for all of the goods those things can bring — feelings of anxiety, fear, and shame around sexuality may be more the rule rather than the exception.
Bonnie’s on a mission to change that, and we think she’s done really important work to do so with her new book, Sex Educated: Letters from a Latter-day Saint Therapist to Her Younger Self. As the title implies, the book is structured as a series of letters, from Bonnie, to herself at various ages, starting as young as ten. It serves as a really useful retrospective, to get into our own minds at various stages of development, and helped remind us that there are really good, constructive, healthy ways to talk about sexuality to kids of any age.
That “talk” — the one that can produce so much anxiety among both kids and parents — is one of the main subjects of our conversation with Bonnie. She also had amazing insights around the difference between lust and arousal, about healthy sexual relationships between committed partners, and how this all fits beautifully into the theology of the Restoration.
Watch Dr. Jennifer Finalyson-Fife’s presentation from Restore 2024:
Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Modesty from the Inside Out
For a long time, we’ve wanted to have a discussion with Jennifer about the concept of modesty—something that anyone who’s grown up in our tradition is intimately familiar with, and which has certainly driven lots of opinions over many years. And we were really glad to be able to talk through several aspects of this topic with her, including the different experiences for men and women, how our cultural definition for modesty can often be too small, and the principles behind the practices.
But once the conversation got going, as it always does with Jennifer, it led back to something bigger — about how all of this, including our sexuality, points toward the ability to have deeper embodied joy, and how there is a real wholeness waiting behind a developmental process that each of us need to go through, including with our own sexuality.
MORE FROM DR. JENNIFER FINLAYSON-FIFE & FAITH MATTERS:
The Lord will forgive me if I repent.
Justin Dyer: Be ye Therefore a Perfectionist?
In this conversation, Justin shares some compelling research, including the striking finding that high levels of toxic perfectionism can triple the likelihood of leaving one’s religion. He offers some profound insights into why this is the case and he talks about gospel principles that could help us replace unhealthy perfectionistic beliefs. Justin highlights the critical difference between guilt and shame: guilt can guide us toward growth and change, while shame erodes our sense of worth and connection to God.
Listen to “Repentance as Transformation,” a conversation between Thomas McConkie and Adam Miller on the Faith Matters podcast:
This is repentance as something like a positive way of life, rather than an occasionally negative thing that I have to do in response to my own failures. This is repentance as a kind of a proactive, positive cultivation of this open heart, that allows me to continually go beyond the limits of my own mind and my own soul. —Adam Miller
And listen to “Stories and Sin: A Conversation with Adam Miller,” which includes a question about how to help our kids develop a healthy relationship with these concepts:
If my experience of guilt fixes my attention even more firmly on myself, then I’m in trouble. If my experience of guilt turns my attention away from me and towards the people who I feel guilty about having hurt, then it’s working in the right way. It’s turning me in the right direction. —Adam Miller