Ashly Stone & Jeff Strong: Why People Leave the LDS Church… and Come Back
“I just believe that God is found in the messiness. We just need to have faith that even when it makes no sense and nothing seems to be working, that it’s in that very messiness that He will find us. That’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be clean and linear. It’s meandering and messy and crazy, and then He reaches through the fog of that, and He finds us.” – Find Jeff’s book “Torn” here – https://www.tornbyjeffstrong.com/ – 00:00 Conformity and Agency 14:59 Family Faith Crisis Begins 30:35 Why People Step Away 48:00 Let Them Choose 51:37 Agency Changes Everything 01:03:20 Repairing Ruptures 01:10:06 Gatherers Not Sifters – Jewelry code COMEBACK for 10% off https://memorjewelry.com/ Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% off https://serveclothing.com/ If you have a story to share please submit here: https://comebackpodcast.org/submissions/ – For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com – Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
Joseph studied the CES Letter and Anti-Mormon claims…why he chose to Come Back to the LDS church
“I personally believe that one of the ways in which the Spirit speaks to someone such as myself is through logical sense. Which I think is interesting because usually those two things are pitted against each other. I never received the voice in my head saying, this is true when I’m reading the Book of Mormon as some people would. As something clicked in my head I would be at peace about it. And then obviously the heart and mind have to be unified in order to be spiritually in tune. So I am always like, well, if you’re experiencing an absence of the Spirit because you have all these logical problems, that’s probably why. It’s because your heart and mind need to be in tune. And that’s obviously why I never received a purely spiritual witness, because my mind was just not in it, and my mind needs to be in it. And so I always like to view those two things as working together, not really working against each other.” – Recommended Books: The Crucible of Doubt, by Terryl Givens A Case for the Book of Mormon, by Tad Callister Light and Truth Letter, by Austin Fife The Christ Who Heals, by Terryl Givens A God Who Weeps, by Terryl Givens All Things New, by Terryl Givens — 00:00 Facing a Crisis of Faith 08:06 Seeking Answers and Facing Doubts 11:54 Turning to Family and Church Leaders 20:23 Finding Hope in Apologetic Literature 23:54 Discovering Influential Books 29:36 Advice for Navigating Anti-Religious Content 32:39 Reconciling Faith and Logic 39:20 What Makes The Church Different Memor Jewelry code COMEBACK for 10% off https://memorjewelry.com/ Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% off https://serveclothing.com/ If you have a story to share please contact ashly.comebackpodcast@gmail.com For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
Hank Smith on How to Keep Your Testimony Strong, Unshaken, and Rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ
Hank Smith’s remarks at our recent Come Back to Christ Event. Hank shares a message of the incredible redemptive power of our Savior, the secret to staying unshaken by the world, and the goodness of the fruit of the tree of life. “A person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an opinion” ~ Hank Smith Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% offhttps://serveclothing.com/Memor Jewelry code COMEBACK for 10% offhttps://memorjewelry.com/If you have a story to share please contact ashly.comebackpodcast@gmail.comFor inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.comCome Back Team:Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly StoneEditor: Cara ReedOutreach Manager: Jenna CarlsonAssistant Editor: Michelle BergerAssistant Editor: Britt SmallzeArt Director: Jeremy GarciaProduction Director: Trent Wardwell
Terryl Givens on navigating faith and doubt, the true nature of God, and the secret of Christianity
“Doubts don’t begin as a rejection of God or his gospel, they generally emerge as a rejection of ways in which God is being characterized… So what are the expectations we bring to the table? My personal take on this is, does my faith make God present to me? Does my faith give me access to the God of truth and love? Everything else is ancillary to that question or should be, and in my case, what I find is that yes, this church does.” —- Letter to a Doubter, by Terryl Givens: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1856&context=interpreter Book Recommendation: The Crucible of Doubt, by Terryl Givens — 00:00 Choosing Faith is Courageous 05:38 Letter to a Doubter 07:31 The Role of Doubt in Faith 10:30 The True and Living Church 16:25 The Importance of Community in Faith 23:30 Addressing Culture 24:44 The Genuine Question 35:01 Rebuilding Faith from the Ground Up 42:05 The Restoration of God’s Love Memor Jewelry code COMEBACK for 10% offhttps://memorjewelry.com/Serve Clothing code COMEBACK for 15% offhttps://serveclothing.com/Mike’s Auto Shackhttps://mikesautoshack.com/ If you have a story to share please contact ashly.comebackpodcast@gmail.com For inquiries contact info.comebackpodcast@gmail.com Come Back Team: Director, Founder, & Host: Ashly Stone Editor: Cara Reed Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Assistant Editor: Britt Smallze Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Production Director: Trent Wardwell
After being stripped of his pride, Rico works through his faith crisis and grows closer to Jesus Christ.
“Just as the Psalmist said, ‘pride goeth before the fall.’ And boy, did I learn that lesson. If I were to boil it down to what is the one thing that is different about me from before my crisis and after my crisis, it is that I was stripped, completely stripped, of my pride. The Lord needed to compel me to be humble. I was one of those foolish ones that needed to be compelled to be humble. I think of all the things I learned through that experience, I’d like to think that now I am a more humble person, I no longer aspire for those callings, which was a big part of who I was through most of my adult life. I now see other people in a different way. I see people with greater love and greater compassion. I just feel the love of the Savior as I look at each person. I just see people through a different lens because that pride is being stripped away.” Rico’s Book: Enduring a Crisis of Faith https://amzn.to/4342sg3 https://mikesautoshack.com/ Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Cara Reed Assistant Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia Episode Sponsor: Brick House Recovery https://brickhouserecovery.com/
Austin’s faith crisis went on for 10 years. After his search for more light and truth he wrote his own response to the CES Letter.
“There’s very logical reasons to be members of the church, and very logical reasons to believe in a higher power –something beyond that’s bigger than us, that has a spiritual aspect. This isn’t irrational, this is rational. And so once you can get back into realizing that belief is reasonable, then you can ask the questions that will truly give you a testimony through prayer and study and pondering those primary answers we hear all the time. I talk about the heart and the head. I believe that we can, and should, have knowledge in our heart, feeling emotion, yearning for God, along with rationality and reason. For me, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s true and living church on the earth. I know that in my heart and I know it in my head. I have both of those. I think critics have had their way for a long time trying to convince people that there’s no reason to have a rational testimony. But the ‘Light and Truth Letter,’ it’s showing that it is reasonable — and rational to believe, there’s a lot of space for belief. My hope is that if you’re struggling and you’re a believing member, but having doubts — If that’s the case for you and you’re telling yourself, there’s no way the church could be true. That’s not you talking. That’s the critic parroting. You’re parroting a critic, because there’s lots of reasons to believe. I try to lay it all out in the ‘Light and Truth Letter.’ To show all of the positive evidences that there are for the church and that it’s actually really rational and reasonable to believe. There is a preponderance of evidence that is more for us than against us. And for me — that’s enough to believe. And once I made that decision, then God could do something with me.” https://www.lightandtruthletter.org/ Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia
Jason’s testimony of how the Power of Christ’s Atonement changed him from a homeless addict to running successful rehabs.
“I had an experience laying in my bed where I asked God to help me to know His will for me. I then had a powerful experience where I felt water rush off my body as I was coming up out of these waters. Then I see one of my very best friends’ faces pulling me up and he’s in white. It was that experience where I understood that God would like me to consider being rebaptized. I had a long road until that point. I hadn’t even been excommunicated yet. So when I was asked in the disciplinary council, ‘what do you think, Jason?’ I said, I wanted a fresh start where I could finally forgive myself for all the things that I have experienced and done. Through the ordinance of baptism — I feel like if I can go through that experience I would be able to forgive myself. Where maybe just a disciplinary counsel and a probation, being less extreme, I would have missed going through that and burying that old guy and to symbolically start fresh. And I had some beautiful, beautiful, powerful experiences.” – Jason’s Business: https://brickhouserecovery.com/ Jason’s book “Unhooked” https://a.co/d/cSqfNCI – Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia
As a young woman Jane was a closet rebel. Her story takes us through the many experiences that lead her to her Savior, Jesus Christ.
“I still had no idea of coming back to the church. I didn’t plan on it. We went to my sister’s ward and we were saying the sacrament prayers, I just had this feeling in my heart. I looked at Lynn and I said, ‘What do I need to do to take the sacrament? I remember Jesus.’ And she beamed and she said, ‘You were baptized.’ So I took the water and that was when the first trickle of living water started trickling back into my heart. Shortly after that, we got an email from the church saying anybody who’s gluten intolerant, you can bring your own gluten-free bread. So I started doing that. And it was when I started taking the full sacrament that cracks really started opening in my heart. And not long after that, I started reading the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Doctrine and Covenants. I read them all in very short order and started reminding myself of what I had left behind.” Memoirs of a Prodigal Daughter: Returning to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints https://amzn.to/3Vp9Tcg House of Glory: Poems for Latter-day Saints Faith & Doubt: Poems for Troubled Times https://books2read.com/u/mg5Qv6 https://www.plantwhys.com/comeback Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia
Paula was the only black member of her family, after her first boyfriend she realized she was gay. How she has battled and overcome her trials
“When I was in Young Women’s, one of the themes was… ‘I’m a daughter of Heavenly Father who loves us and we love Him.’ You always say those things but I never really thought about what it really meant. And then I really thought about it one time, like, I’m a daughter of Heavenly Father. Which means if I have inherited things from my earthly parents, I must have inherited things from my heavenly parents. That means I have a divine potential. We all have divine potential! Which means that we can do things that we cannot even imagine. There are people doing things around us that we never thought possible until somebody does it. Just the knowledge that I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father and Mother and that they really love me. They know me. They know everything about me. They know more about me than I know. Knowing that gives me so much strength. So now every day I use this as an affirmation. I say to myself, I’m a daughter of heavenly parents. I have divine potential. I have the power to overcome everything. I have Christlike love inside of me. I receive this love from others and I give this love to other people. Doing this makes me strong, it helps me keep the commandments.” Link to Paula’s eBook: https://www.lulu.com/shop/paula-andriessen-and-debbie-drennan-bennett-and-heidi-gassman-yates-and-griffins/the-power-to-overcome-everything-ebook/ebook/product-w4vzkzv.html?page=1&pageSize=4 https://www.plantwhys.com/comeback Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia
Unexpected pain and loss led Susan to leave the church, after 15 years away she returned.
“There were a lot of small steps along the way, and then one day I had a revelation. A voice came to my head. It was my first spiritual experience in 15 years, and it said: ‘Your family needs you. It’s time for you to go back to the church.’ And I just said who are you? But I knew what I heard, and I knew what had happened, and it was a faith filled journey from there. I had to rethink things again. One thing I thought about was the story of Rip Van Winkle. It was like all the sudden I woke up and thought how did I get here? What am I doing on the side lines? Why am I not in the church anymore? I just felt upside down.” – Recommended: General Conference talk: “Waiting for the Prodigal” by Brent H. Nielson: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/04/waiting-for-the-prodigal?lang=eng Books: Heart of the Matter by Russell M. Nelson The Faith of a Scientist by Henry Eyring – Come Back Team: Director, Founder & Host: Ashly Stone Producer and Senior Editor: Lauren Rose Outreach Manager: Jenna Carlson Editor: Michelle Berger Art Director: Jeremy Garcia