Faith Matters

When Dallin Zimmerman was four years old, he memorized every Article of Faith. As a teenager, he studied Portuguese and Spanish, and had long been the family's peacemaker — a bright, fun-loving light that people gravitate toward. Today he's serving a full-time mission in South America. And at thirteen, years before any of that, he sat down with his parents and asked a question that would shape everything ahead: "What if I'm gay?"
Today we're talking with Dave and Kirty, Dallin's parents, married 22 years, raising four kids, longtime Utah County residents. For more than three years, they kept Dallin's story private, scared of what they might lose, and of what it would cost Dallin if their community found out. Many of their questions remained unresolved. But eventually, the secret became too heavy to carry alone. 
So together, they helped Dallin share his story with trusted leaders in their ward, in a gathering of Young Men and Young Women leaders who had known him for years, he bore his testimony, and shared that he is gay. One by one, these leaders stood up, embraced him and assured him that he was so loved—and that he belonged. That moment marked the beginning of a new way forward, where isolation gave way to the healing that comes from being known and loved.
In this conversation, Dave and Kirty are remarkably candid about the fear they felt at first, the questions that still remain, and the unexpected ways this journey has transformed them—a journey that, as Kirty says, has become "the biggest blessing of their lives."
Dave and Kirty would be the first to tell you their story isn't a prescription for any other family's journey. But if you're a parent near the beginning of this path, or a leader wondering how to better love and support the youth in your ward, we hope you'll be inspired by their courage, their humility, and creativity.
You can find even more resources around this topic on our website, faithmatters.org.
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Today we’re honored to share a conversation with Peter Wehner. We want to acknowledge that this conversation explores territory that is going to feel personal, political, and, probably at some points, challenging. Our hope that it creates honest and faithful wrestling where where we need it.
Today, we explore what it means to follow Jesus in a time when political identities increasingly compete with religious ones. Pete argues that Christians have always faced the temptation to use the Bible to back up our own opinions rather than allowing the life of Christ to reshape us. He challenges us to consider how certainty may be blinding, explains that a healthy patriotism deepens our love of neighbor, and emphasizes the revolutionary nature of Jesus’s love for those on the margins and calls us to consider what all of this means for Christians today.
Pete has spent decades at the intersection of faith and politics, serving in three Republican administrations, including as a speechwriter and director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives to President George W. Bush. He’s now a contributing writer for The Atlantic and The New York Times. Throughout his career, he’s consistently challenged himself and others to think with moral seriousness, intellectual honesty, and Christian charity.
This conversation invited us to think more deeply about where our deepest allegiances belong. We found it thoughtful, grounding, and so worthwhile, and we hope you will too. And with that, we’ll jump right into our conversation with Peter Wehner.
Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!

Today we’re pulling out one of our favorite episodes from the archives. 
Our guest is Pete Enns, a well-known bible scholar and the Abram S. Clemens professor of Bible Studies at Eastern University in Pennsylvania.
In recent years, Pete has become well known for several highly popular books, including How the Bible Actually Works, The Bible Tells Me So, and the book we discussed with him in this episode: The Sin of Certainty. In addition to his research and writing, Pete co-hosts the podcast The Bible for Normal People.
In The Sin of Certainty, Pete opens up about his own faith journey, including what he calls “uh-oh” moments — those moments that, as Pete says, “wreak havoc with our neatly arranged thoughts of God, the world, and our place in it.”
He makes the argument that a faith preoccupied with correct thinking can quickly become exhausting as we try to force disruptive experiences into our existing frameworks. Pete insists that there’s a different way—the way of listening to those moments and learning from them, even letting them change us—and discovering a faith that shifts from rigid certainty about God to a more open, resilient trust in God.
This conversation has really stayed with us over the years, and we are so excited to share it with you now.
You can also watch the presentation Pete gave at Restore 2023, "What Our Strange Universe is Telling Us About God and Faith," on our YouTube channel.
Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!

Today we’re joined by two thoughtful therapists, teachers, peacebuilders, and friends, Amanda Ford and Melissa Mason.
Together with their spouses, Patrick Mason and Chad Ford, Melissa and Amanda have dedicated years to the work of building peace in families, communities, and faith spaces. But in this conversation, they invite us to consider the foundation of all lasting peace: the quiet, often difficult work of cultivating peace within ourselves.
Drawing from their work as therapists and educators, Amanda and Melissa offer a vision of emotional wholeness that challenges many of the assumptions our culture rewards. Together we explore how striving, productivity, and constant achievement may inadvertently shape our sense of worth, and ask why so many of us find it so difficult to rest—even when we desperately need it. They ask us to become more fluent in the wisdom of our bodies and to rediscover rest—not as something we earn, but as both a spiritual practice and a commandment.
Again and again, they remind us that spiritual formation isn’t a race toward perfection, that every season of our lives can become part of who we’re growing into. We hope this conversation helps you notice the ways you might be being invited into more rest and presence and less striving. 
Learn more about their work at Waymakers at waymakers.us
Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!

Today we’re joined by Ryan Burge, one of the country’s leading data analysts on religion and politics, to talk about his new book, The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us.
For decades, we’ve measured the decline of American religion by empty pews and shrinking membership rolls. Ryan invites us to see another, deeper loss. As moderate congregations disappear, we’re also losing one of the last places where people with real differences—in politics, class, age, education, and conviction—learn how to love each other as neighbors.
At a time when it’s easier than ever to sort ourselves into smaller and more like-minded communities, church has remained one of the few places where belonging asks something of us. It asks us to listen, to worship beside people we didn’t choose. Ryan argues that this kind of community forms the habits of empathy, compromise, and civic trust that democracy itself depends on.
Ryan brings data and his own lived experience to this conversation, having spent years as a pastor watching his own congregation slowly disappear. It’s a challenging discussion about what church is for, what we’re losing, and why he believes showing to worship with people you may disagree with politically might be one of the most countercultural, and necessary, things we can do for our country right now.
You can buy Ryan's book on Bookshop.org and Amazon.com.
Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!