This year we decided to put on a conference with the purpose of providing hope and wisdom for people leaving Mormonism as they explore a new faith home in historic, biblical Christianity. The conference provided speakers, workshops, and individual interactions with others on a similar journey – all to help transitioning Mormons.

Our vision for this event came to life on September 7-8 at South Mountain Community Church in Draper, Utah. With 122 attenders, the Faith After Mormonism conference was a success. Many great connections were made and the weekend was encouraging and insightful.

We featured an excellent line-up of speakers, all former Mormons, including:

• Michael and Lynn Wilder, leaders of Ex-mormon Christians United for Jesus and authors of 7 Reasons We Left Mormonism and Unveiling Grace
• Earl Erskine, host of The Ex-Mormon Files
• James Wakefield, former professor of Biblical and Spiritual Theology at Salt Lake Theological Seminary and Lead Pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
• Ross Anderson, Executive Director of Utah Advance M

  inistries, author of Jesus Without Joseph: Following Christ after Leaving Mormonism, and head of the Faith After MormonismYouTube channel.

These incredible speakers were also backed by an amazing team of volunteers: Martha Bybee, Linda Enders, Danny Martin, Michelle Mooney, and many others made the weekend go smoothly.

The conference was such a success that many people would like to see it happen again next year. We are planning on making the Faith After Mormonism Conference an annual event to help those on the difficult journey out of Mormonism,  as well as those helping others on that journey.

For more information on the Faith After Mormonism Conference, check out our related website: faithaftermormonism.org/conference.

Mormonism encourages journaling, and many Mormons are pretty faithful at keeping a journal. Keeping a journal can also be a great way to process the journey once a person decides to leave the LDS Church.

My friend Tracy Tennant has produced a wonderful tool to help. It’s called Confessions of an Ex-Mormon Recovery Journal. It’s filled with open-ended questions about your experiences as a Mormon, your journey in leaving, and how it affected your relationships and your life. There is plenty of space to to document events, record emotions, and plan for your future.

This tool will help you or a friend sort through all the difficulties associated with separating from the LDS faith community. To can find it at amazon.com, click HERE.

This summer I started a YouTube channel to provide resources for people making the transition from Mormonism into traditional, biblical Christianity. It’s called Faith After Mormonism. The videos are not just designed to help former Mormons, but to help the people who are in a place to help (mentor) former Mormons.

I’m encouraged to report that the library of videos is increasing. I’ve been able to post one new video every week. Mainly I’ve been interviewing former Latter-day Saints about the kind of issues that transitioning Mormons often face on their journey to a new faith.

I encourage you to subscribe to the channel and share it with others!

Here is a list of some of the topics you can find at the Faith After Mormonism YouTube channel at this point.

• Gaining a New Identity After Mormonism
• What Mormons Will Say as You Leave
• How to Deal with Your Sin After Mormonism
• God: Body or Spirit?
• God: Eternal Deity or Exalted Man?
• How to Respond When Someone Sins
• Mentoring Former Mormons
• Eve’s Sin: What Really Happened?
• Frustrations in Talking about Your New Faith After Mormonism
• Jesus: Older Brother or Eternal God?
• Learning to Pray After Mormonism
• Finding Community in Your New Church After Mormonism
• Serving in Your New Church After Mormonism
• What About Baptism After Mormonism
• Living in Grace After Mormonism

Help Build This Library!

If you are a former Latter-day Saint living anywhere in Utah or Idaho, I invite you to join me to have a conversation on camera about the issues you faced and overcame in your journey. Contact me at utahadvance@gmail.com.

This week I started a new YouTube channel dedicated to providing resources for helping former Latter-day Saints navigate the journey into historic, biblical Christianity. The channel is called Mentoring Former Mormons.

I encourage you to subscribe and share it with others! There isn’t much there right now, but I’m planning to release one new video every Monday.

There will be two kinds of resources featured.

• Training resources for mentors. The training series will help prepare people to mentor or disciple transitioning Mormons. These videos will explore the unique issues former Mormons face on the journey, including emotional, relational, doctrinal, and cultural hurdles to overcome.
• Topics for transitioners. We will fill the library with all kinds of resources that mentors can use with former LDS to talk through key issues with them. A mentor can say, “Here’s a video about to how find relationships in a new church. Let’s watch it and talk about it.”

We’re partnering with the discipleship website pursueGOD.org, where the videos can be found with summaries and discussion questions to facilitate the mentoring process. Here’s a recent one called “God: Body or Spirit?” PursueGOD.org also has great materials on how to succeed at biblical mentoring.

If you are a former Latter-day Saint, I invite you to join me to have a conversation on camera about the issues you faced and overcame in your journey. Contact me at utahadvance@gmail.com.