Faith Matters

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!

As we approach America's 250th birthday, we're reminded that every generation inherits the responsibility of shaping the nation's future. At a moment marked by fear, division, and distrust, the invitation to become peacemakers has never felt more urgent.
Today, we're sharing a powerful message from Patrick Mason, that he shared at our Restore Gathering at Utah Valley University last year, just two weeks after the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk on the same campus. Speaking only a few hundred yards from the memorial, Patrick reminds us that violence is never the end of the story. The gospel invites us to answer fear with courage, suspicion with curiosity, and enmity with love.
We love Patrick's conviction that peacemaking is the work of discipleship. It is the work of Zion. And as we prepare to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he invites us to declare our own independence—from the politics of fear, from contempt, from tribalism, and from the habits that keep us divided. Instead, he calls on all of us to join "a revolution of friendship and civility."
When he finished speaking at Restore, the room erupted. There was a palpable sense of hope and energy— that ordinary people really can help heal a divided world. As you celebrate this Independence Day, we hope you'll be filled with that same conviction.
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 delighted to share a conversation with Robin Ritch about her new book, Using Friction to Grow: Stories of Strength and Resilience.
Many of us spend our lives trying to avoid friction. We want our faith to feel clear, our communities to feel supportive, and our spiritual lives to move forward without too much tension or uncertainty. But today Robin's asking, "What if our deepest growth comes not in spite of friction, but because of it?"
And that's at the heart of her book. Through interviews with a remarkable generation of Latter-day Saint women—many of them grandmothers now—Robin uncovers stories of faith, resilience, and spiritual maturity that feel so relevant today. These women faced difficult questions, competing loyalties, and real tension between their deepest convictions and the world around them. Yet rather than allowing that friction to diminish their faith, they used it to deepen their relationship with God and expand their capacity to serve.
Robin herself has spent a career building and leading transformative organizations, including at Microsoft, Intel, and most recently as President and Publisher of Deseret News. But this book grew out of a lifelong fascination with women's spiritual lives and the wisdom that can be found in their stories.
Whether you're currently navigating friction in your own faith journey or simply looking for examples of courage and grace, we think you'll find this conversation both reassuring and inspiring.
You can buy your copy of Using Friction to Grow on Bookshop.org!
Tickets for Restore 2026 are now available, and we have a new format we think you're going to love. Get details here!