Hi, this is Sarah Perkins-Saby, one of the authors of the Bible storybook. We're so excited to have partnered with Faith Matters to bring you beautifully told scripture stories as a podcast that you can listen to with your kids and share with your friends and family. We're making half of the stories available completely free as a podcast called Scripture Stories for Little Saints, and the other half are available to donors and friends of Faith Matters as a thank you for your financial support that makes this collaboration possible.

If you have trouble accessing them, you can email Faith Matters at info at faithmatters.org, and they'll be happy to help.

Thank you so much for your generous and ongoing support.

We're so excited to share these stories with you and can't wait for you to hear them.

Now on to the podcast.

Hey everybody, this is Aubrey Chavez from Faith Matters.

We've probably all heard it called a sifting now and then, this language that sometimes

surfaces when someone is struggling or steps away from the church, wheat and tears, sheep and goats, assorting

in the last days that reveals the truly elect.

But today our good friend and contributor Jeff Strong is back to invite us into a deeper

reflection on this idea, and what he sees as the more essential question, who is the church

for?

Jeff shares how the way we answer that question has real implications,

shaping how we respond to difference,

and how we create or close off spaces for spiritual growth, belonging, and trust.

In this conversation, he also brings some new and fascinating findings from his large-scale survey of Latter-day Saints.

He introduces a framework of spiritual segments that emerged from this data, types he's named

seekers, protectors, cultivators, and more. And while it's really fun to see yourself in one of

these groups, what's maybe even more powerful is to recognize how others might experience the

same church culture in radically different ways. He reflects on the tension that people feel when their deepest values don't seem to match what's emphasized in their church experience.

And he offers a way through that tension.

He says, wherever you fit, we each face the challenge to let go of fear,

...