Jeff Strong, Part 1: Why People Leave the Church

Yeah, you know, Derek, thank you for that great setup.

I agree with you.

I think I just sense in talking to you guys for a few minutes, and obviously we don't know each other, so we're going to get to know each other in this discussion today, that it doesn't matter whether you're in or whether you're out, the pain that people experience is the same pain, right? It's a relational pain.

It's a pain of losing something that that at one point was very important and still is to some people, and trying to figure out how to navigate the complexity of that.

And so I appreciate what you guys are trying to do very much.

You know, I grew up in Springville, Utah.

I'll give you kind of the short version of the story, but...

I grew up in a family that on the surface was trying very hard to be devout Latter-day Saints, but our family was kind of messy and complicated.

My dad is kind of a true blue good guy, but was complicated.

And so life in the church and the gospel to him was follow rules.

And then my mom was this wonderful Christ-like woman.

And so there was some yin and yang going on in our family in a big way.

And that combination, I think, created some challenging dynamics.

I was youngest of seven, so I got to watch my older siblings grow up and go through high school and move on into adulthood.

And I don't think I really began to understand in a concrete or valuable way what the gospel was until I left and went on my mission at 19.

And up to that point in time, you know, Membership in the church and living the gospel was following the rules and doing what I was told.

And somehow that left me a little wanting, you know, and so the nourishment that I think humans are naturally in need of started to happen for me as a missionary.

Um, you know, my wife grew up, my wife's name is Sarah.

Uh, we were, you know, a thing in high school.

We started going out when we were juniors.

I was, in fact, my first date, I, I didn't even have my driver's license.

I had a learner's permit, you know, and she, she was older than me because she had a license.

I could drive.

So that was, that was, Oh, wow.

She was supervising her