Hi, Latter Day struggles, friends and fans.

We know that navigating a faith crisis can feel overwhelming, especially when it impacts our closest relationships, our parents, our partners, and our kids.

That's why Valerie has created two online self-paced classes to help.

The first is a couple's guide to faith crisis and expansion.

This class is here for a partner

or couple who want to navigate faith shifts with mutual respect and deeper connection. Next is

a family's guide to mixed faith parenting. This class offers tools to help parents develop

greater harmony and understanding when belief differences arise within our families. Both classes are

packed with helpful tools and perspectives that can

give you hope and a way forward. So if you're looking for a little guidance on this,

visit laddarday struggles.com to learn more. And now let's start the show.

Hey, everyone. Hey everybody, welcome to Latter Day Struggles.

This is your host, Valerie.

We are here for part number three of this growth report.

The report itself specifically is called the end of growth, fading prospects for Latter-day Saint expansion. It is from the Journal of Mormon Social Science Association, and it was published just a few months ago in the end of

2022. So Nathan, will you kick us off by just giving us a little bit of an overview about what we've

covered so far, and then take us into our new content for today.

Yeah, so on our last two podcasts, we've looked at a couple things.

Between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, the church had growth that astounded social scientists both in and outside of the church. And there were predictions that the LDS Church would soon

become the first major new world

religion since Islam. However, starting in about 1996, those predictions began to fall off a cliff.

And we're analyzing the work of Dr. Stewart from UNLV as to why that might be the case. What were some of the obstacles that the church faced

...