John Dehlin

Welcome and Purpose of This Year-End Episode

[00:00:01] Hey, everyone. Welcome to a special edition of Mormon Stories podcast. It is December 3, 2024, and as I try to do every year, I am doing sort of a review of the year and a little bit of a discussion about next year.

[00:00:20] Talk about our successes. Thank everyone who's been involved. Let all of you who are supporters know, you know, through your support, how we've been able to help people and do good for, you know, the audience that we're seeking to help. And then just talk about what we may do together next year.

[00:00:43] That's what today's gonna be about. Thanks for joining us tonight. We have. We have several people joining us on the live stream. I know that Maven's joining us and helping out with the moderation. Hey, Maven, thanks for being here.

[00:00:57] I'll have Maven star any people's questions or comments, and I'll try and get to them at the end. I hope that this is a bit of a dialogue, if possible, but I just. I really wanted to connect with y' all just a bit more personally, sort of old school Mormon Stories and just talk about how things are going.

[00:01:20] So thanks for joining us. So I do have some slides that I've prepared for today, so we'll just kind of go through them a little bit and talk about them. And again, if you have questions or comments, we'd love to entertain them.

[00:01:40] What kind of spurred on. My thoughts on doing today's episode is that it is Giving Tuesday today. It's the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Normally we do a really big donations push, and this year we decided not to do a big donations push. And I can talk about why that is, but it is Giving Tuesday.

[00:02:07] But mostly my plan for today is not to ask for anything from you, but to give thanks to you and to all the people that make what we do possible. Because that's just how I'm feeling today. So that's kind of my starting point is I just want to thank my staff, all my co hosts, my board, all the people that have been on Mormon Stories podcast, all the guests, all our donors, all our viewers, all our listeners. We've had an amazing, amazing year. I think the best year we've ever had, which is saying a lot. We're in our 19th year.

[00:02:47] Mormon Stories was started in 2005, and we're closing out 2024. So I think that's 19 years. My brain gets foggy sometimes, but that's something I'm really proud of and it's something that's really, really exciting. So thanks to you all for making such a wonderful year possible.

[00:03:14] I guess I wanted to say just from the top, that we are in our best financial state that we've ever been. In other words, if you take our assets, our subscribers, our viewers hours viewed, pretty much by any measure we're doing this is our best year ever. So why not start with the good news right now? To me, that's fantastic in and of itself.

[00:03:50] It's actually more remarkable in my view because we've experienced some adversity in the past two or three years that has been incredibly, incredibly difficult. And I just have it as a rule that I don't really give. Give sunshine or spotlight to that sort of more negative stuff. So I won't really be going into details on that. But other than to say not only is it our best year ever, but it's our best year ever on top of maybe our hardest year ever.

[00:04:24] But. But we're super thrilled with where we are as far as donations go. I would say donations are either flat or in decline. I need to do an analysis to go a little bit deeper. I don't scrutinize those numbers and this year hasn't ended yet, so I can't say for sure.

[00:04:48] But if donations are more in decline than flat, I don't think they're higher than last year. I'll know at the end of the year, but that's being sort of made up for by ad revenue from YouTube. So we had our best year in YouTube ad revenue ever.

[00:05:09] And we've also just started doing ads on Spotify. I'll talk a little bit more about that, but suffice it to say that revenue is strong. We've worked hard to keep our manageable costs as low as possible. So between flat to slightly declining revenue and increasing, significantly increasing ad revenue, we're doing great financially. I will just remind people, some people get annoyed by YouTube ads. And I just want to remind you, if you just pay 10 bucks a month to YouTube, get YouTube Premium, you don't have to watch ads.

[00:05:50] So that's one way you can avoid ads. As I understand it, we're experimenting with Spotify ads and Apple podcast ads. My understanding is if you subscribe to Spotify Premium, and this is something that I think they just turned on recently, you also won't have to listen to the ads if you subscribe to Spotify Premium. But just so you know, we do ads because so few of our viewers and listeners actually donate. I'll be showing those numbers in just a second. But you know, there are things you can do. And if you're really annoyed by ads, just get YouTube Premium or Spotify Premium and that should solve your problem.

[00:06:38] That's just a thought. Many of you don't know about that, but. But I just wanted to let you know. So I guess I just wanted to start again with a very, very strong and sincere and meaningful thank you.

2023 and 2024 Growth Stats and Milestones

[00:06:52] And now I just want to spend a little bit of time showing you some of the numbers and letting you know what you helped us do, because this is, like, really fun for me. So this is a screenshot of our YouTube views, watch time, and subscribers in 2023.

[00:07:14] So we had about 40, 47 million views in 2023. 13 million hours of people watching Mormon Stories podcast. And let me just thank Christina Cruz for her Super Chat. You know, one of the ways that we do stay sustainable is by people donating to Super Chats. And so, you know, of course, if any of y' all feel.

[00:07:40] Feel like you want to support us in that way, we're always grateful. Of course, you can always also donate@mormonstories.org there's a donate button there. YouTube takes, I think, 30% of the super Chats. Not that we don't very much appreciate them, but direct donations are great as well. But thank you, Christina, for that Super Chat. I'll. Anyone who makes a Super Chat donation during this episode, I will for sure just immediately read your comment or question. And I'm also going to try and get to as many comments or questions as I can throughout this episode. So, anyway, 2023 was a phenomenal growth year for our YouTube channel.

[00:08:21] We had 47 million views on YouTube in 2023, 13.2 million watch hours, which is my favorite number. And we added 116,000 subs in 2023, which was more than doubling our subscriber base. And all those numbers didn't go up. But for me, the most important number went up in 2024. So this is 2024 to date. So it's leaving off basically a month.

[00:08:53] And while we had less views in 2024, we went from 47.4 million views to 33.4 million views. My theory on is that in 2023, we covered the Jody Hildebrandt, Ruby Franke, Jesse Hildebrandt, Tim Ballard stories that all had very, very significant national exposure. And so I think a lot of those new subscribers from 2023 and a lot of those views from 2023 were people who have never been Mormon, national audiences, international audiences who were tuning in to sort of check out our coverage of those national stories. And we were happy to do those. We were proud to do those. We were very happy. They were very successful.

[00:09:50] And that's kind of core what we do. I think that's why views declined between 2023 and 2024. And also subscribers decline. I mean, that growth rate of like 116,000 subscribers in a single year, that's just crazy growth. And of course, you know, because we cover Mormon topics, there's gonna be a fixed audience for people interested in Mormon stuff.

[00:10:16] At least that's my understanding or my experience. We are. Alyssa Grenfeld may have passed us this year. If she did, I'm thrilled. Or she might be just kind of right there even with us. But as one of the largest Mormon channels, I just think there so far, there's a cap to how many people are going to subscribe to these sorts of channels and want Mormon themed content. But regardless, you know, we were thrilled with that growth in 2023, 2024, we still brought in, you know, 56,000 subscribers, which is still a number I'm very proud of, you know, for a single year. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of multi year Mormon themed YouTube channels that are still 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, even 50,000 subscribers after existing for multiple years.

[00:11:11] So the fact that we brought in, you know, 56,000 new subscribers in 2024 after bringing in over 100,000 the previous year. But for me, the most significant number, the number that I watch most closely is watch time hours. And if you compare those numbers, even though we grew 147% between 2022 and 2023, with 13.2 million watch time hours. Our watch time hours for 2024, we haven't even finished December yet is 17.3 million hours. So I just want y' all to think about that. This doesn't include Spotify. This doesn't include Apple podcasts. This doesn't include FaceTime. Just in YouTube. Just in the calendar year of 2024, people all over the world watch 17.3 million hours of Mormon stories videos.

[00:12:07] And that's a 36% increase from our previous year, which broke all records. Ellie. Ellie Peterson, you're asking where can I directly donate? If you go to. I can, I can bring it up right now if, if that would be helpful. If you go to our new website. Actually, let's see. And I'll just pull it up. If you go to our new website, MormonStories.org, we renovated it there's a donate button at the top.

[00:12:39] It's the top right on our website. It's the top middle, I think on our browser. But you just click on that donate button and you know, the little form comes up. You can do a monthly donation, a one time donation, you can even do company matching. But that's how you donate to Mormon stories directly. And YouTube won't take a big massive cut.

[00:13:03] So thanks for asking, Ellie. Thanks to everyone who's donating now. Also, Mark Crittle just sent us a super chat. Thank you, Mark. And our dear friend Colby Redish wrote, speaking of growth, bring back the beard. So I called it my depression beard last year. I was depressed last year. I talked about this in a recent thrive talk I gave. I was depressed last year and it was aptly named my depression beard last year. I'm not depressed this year. I'm feeling great. But Margi likes the beard. I miss the beard. So I'm growing the beard. It's gonna be called my winter beard now instead of my depression beard.

[00:13:43] So it's just in its early stages. It takes me months to grow a decent beard and it's still not decent. Thanks to Christina Cruz for that donation. Thanks to Francesca as well for becoming a member. Okay, so back to our stats. I'm just over the moon, joyful that we grew total watch time hours from 13.2 million to 17.3 million. And that's not even including all of December.

[00:14:10] And that also includes 33 million views on YouTube. And again, this doesn't include Spotify, Apple podcasts, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. So our numbers are bananas crazy. Here's another chart that just thrills me to no end. This shows that to date, the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel has 116 million views, 42 million watch time hours. And that's low. That's just an estimate.

[00:14:43] 267,000 subscribers. And if you can see that growth, we went many, many years not doing videos at all. And then if you see that growth, that's growth in watch time hours. And you know, we're at the highest rate we've ever been of people watching the show. So anyway, I'm super excited for all of that.

[00:15:05] I hope you guys are too. If you've donated, if you've liked or subscribed, if you've been a guest on the show, if you've been a co host, if you've been a panelist, whatever, you can just know you have contributed to really impacting the world in significant ways.

Highlights from the LDS Discussions Series

[00:15:26] There were several other really cool things that happened in 2024. Let's talk about some of those. So we've seen the LDS discussion series was started, I believe, the year or two previous. Yeah, I think we started it in 2022, but that series has continued to do phenomenally well. I talk to people every day whose lives were changed and altered by this series. We've added a few episodes in the past few months. In the past year, Julius and Nemo and Gerardo have helped us with the LDS discussion series. So it continues to grow. We may produce some new episodes. Mike has retired.

[00:16:16] I'm super bummed to say that Mike from LDS Discussions as of now is not in a place where he's wanting to do more episodes. He's always welcome to come back. I stay in touch with him. I hope he'll come back. But if we continue, I want to carry on the LDS discussion series, if for no other reason than that every time we add a new episode, we can talk about the LDS discussion series, we can market it as, and we can get new people to go back and watch the library. So I've had Julia prepare some episodes. We hope to record those in the coming weeks and months now that the second Class Saints series is concluded.

[00:16:56] And you know, we'd love your feedback as to whether or not even if it's without Mike, if you'd like to see that continue with Julia, with Nemo, maybe with Gerardo, maybe with Colby Reddish, maybe with others. If you have thoughts on continuing, if you think you or someone you know would be a great addition in terms of a subject matter expert or commentarist on LDS discussions.

[00:17:20] Colby and I have talked about whether he wants to be involved in that. We'd love to hear from you and find out what your thoughts are on that. Let me read some super chats as they come in because I promised that I would read those as they come in. So Gorf, thanks for the super chat.

[00:17:37] He writes, I think that watch time was me watching and rewatching the LDS Discussions and John Larsen episodes in addition to the usual content. Much, much love. Yeah, LDS Discussions is a legendary series. We love and miss John Larsen. He retired.

[00:17:52] I think it was this year. It may have been last year, all these years running bleed together. But yeah, thanks Gore, for that comment. Thanks for that support. Also, we have a super chat from Mike Blassi. He says I have 100 plus hours in the last month since beginning my faith transition. So Mike, sounds like you're new to the struggle. Welcome to the channel. Welcome to The Faith the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. I hope you're doing okay and I hope our content's helping you, he writes. Mike continues invaluable content, especially Brittany Jensen, ex Bishop panel. Natasha Helfer Parker. How to communicate is great too.

[00:18:31] Love to see more ex leaders. So Mike, thanks for that feedback and any of you who have other comments, send them in. We'll star them and I'll for sure read any super chats. But thanks, Mike for that comment.

[00:18:45] All right, so yeah, with the LDS discussion series, I just want to share with you the stats on that. It's up to over 2.2 million watch time hours and over 3.5 million views. So again, a legendary series. Tell your friends about it. There's a playlist on YouTube that you can send people.

[00:19:05] Maybe Maven can include a link to that playlist in the comments. But also you can watch it as a standalone podcast on Spotify or listen to it on Spotify or listen to it on Apple Podcasts. But. But for sure, one of the biggest things we did this year was the second Class Saints series with Dr. Matt Harris. We just finished up that series with over 20 episodes. I think if you count maybe it was 20 exactly. If you count the panels that we did, 19 or 20. But obviously this was a series based on the book Second Class Black Mormons and the Struggle for racial equality with Dr.

[00:19:51] Matt Harris. We were able to compensate Matt Harris, what we feel super generously thanks to your donations for his participation. And I think it's safe to say through additional donations, we're well on our way to also paying staff costs for production costs for that episode.

[00:20:15] So those of you who have donated or choose to donate to the Second Class Saints series, we really appreciate it. But most importantly, that series, the feedback we've received is that it's just helped so many people. It's been a groundbreaking series.

[00:20:30] And, you know, it just started. It started with Gerardo and I reading his book, feeling like we really needed and wanted to share that book with the world and share Matt's brilliance with the world. Of course, he had been on Mormon stories before, talking about Ezra TAF Benson and the gospel topics essays. But we just gambled and we said we're gonna do 17 episodes with Matt and we're gonna pay him between 500 and 1,000 bucks an episode. At least we ended up paying more than that.

[00:20:59] And we hope y' all value it and step up and support it. And you did. And it's made a world of difference and it's shaping up to be as significant as the LDS discussion series. And I thought that was going to be impossible to match.

[00:21:14] So what a great series. Huge thanks to Matt Harris. We also helped his book. I don't know how much this was us, but while we were releasing these episodes of promoting his book, it shot to number one on the Amazon bestseller list for history. There it is literally next to Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared diamond, which is a classic. I think there are other James McPherson's up there.

[00:21:50] Some top notch books are there and we were just thrilled to help him sell that book and y' all helped make that happen. So far to date, that series just on YouTube alone has 631,000 views, 433,000 watch time hours.

[00:22:09] And we know that number is going to grow over time. Hopefully Maven could also include it. Looks like she already has the second Class Saints playlist as well. Please share that with everyone that you can. We tried as hard as we could to make those respectful, fair and balanced.

[00:22:27] And we're really proud of that series. So thank you to Matt and Mike and Nemo and Julia and Gerardo and everyone who made those series possible. But mostly you are donors. We couldn't have done it without you. Our Shorts business continues to grow. This is just a snapshot of our TikTok channel. We've continued to grow there. We're up to 286,000 followers, 5.8 million likes on the Mormon Stories podcast TikTok channel. Our Instagram channel has continued to grow. Our Facebook channel continues to grow.

[00:23:06] So all these stats just don't even include all the, all the great stats that we have. But you know, we're really happy that we invested in Shorts a few years ago and we're seeing that continue thanks to this super chat from MP Nay Nay.

[00:23:26] They say thanks for all you do. Thank you so much for that. We're super proud for. You know, there's no way we could list all the episodes that we've released. Thanks to Edge H2O Mark for the super sticker. Thank you for that.

Most Popular Episodes and Audience Demographics

[00:23:45] So we can't. There's no way we could ever possibly mention all the videos that we showed this year. But let me just take you through some of the most popular or some of the ones that I felt like I wanted to highlight. You know, the episode we did with Nick and Amanda Jones, the bishop that resigned from the pulpit, was a really big highlight this year.

[00:24:08] This episode we did on responding to Kevin Franke was very big. Shalice Sola. We're Very, very thrilled to have played a small role in helping launch cults to consciousness. I think it was last year, but we're proud of those partnerships and it was great to have Shalice on the show. We started doing panels this year, so that was an innovation that we also added. This year we started doing in person panels. The first panel that we did was the bishops panel. Our experiences as Mormon bishops. We had four bishops on, and so many faithful, active Mormons watched that. So many of you all watched it and valued it.

[00:24:52] Hundreds of thousands of views. We're really proud of it. We're proud of all the bishops and ex bishops that we interviewed on Mormon Stories podcast. We love highlighting other collaborators. You know, we did another episode with Alyssa Grenfell.

[00:25:07] She's skyrocketed this year. As I mentioned before, she's making way more money and having more, way more subscribers and views than we are. And we're just. We couldn't be more thrilled, you know, having Nathan Hinckley, you know, another Mormon bishop this year was a real highlight.

[00:25:27] We did an episode responding to a Richard Bushman video that did super well. We had Sandra Tanner on Gerardo and others. But that, you know, we always love doing truth claim stuff. We tried to cover current events. This year. We had several panels on the secret lives of Mormon wives. So many great panelists.

[00:25:51] Really proud of our coverage of Charlie Bird and Ryan Clifford remaining active faithful temple recommend holding calling, holding faithful Mormons as married gay Mormons. We're proud of that story and Salt Lake Tribune followed us in covering that story.

[00:26:13] We loved partnering with Rebecca and Landon and RFM and Bill Real and others and Nemo to cover so many current events. I think we launched the Mormon newscast this year, and even though I backed off from that for a variety of reasons, I'm thrilled to see Bill Rheal and RFM and Rebecca carrying that torch.

[00:26:35] Love the coverage of the Fairview, Texas temple. It looks like this team won in terms of the Mormon Church backing down on at least their architectural designs for that temple. But just most importantly, I'm proud of our coverage.

[00:26:52] We've always tried to interview faithful people. Maybe a highlight or a lowlight, depending on your perspective, was when we interviewed Hayden and Jackson Paul. That was definitely one of the most popular episodes and the most controversial episodes of the year. We hope to do more of those types of episodes in the weeks and months and years ahead.

[00:27:13] But we've also tried to continue to do just bread and butter, faithful Mormons of all types. Recently we did Jared and Camille Johnson about A Mormon power couple. He was bishop. She had all the callings. So many episodes, we couldn't list them all. We try to continue our international coverage. There's Marcelo and Sandro Ribeiro and their Brazilian Mormon story. We're proud of that.

[00:27:39] So many episodes. I couldn't mention all the people we interview, but that's just a sampling. I hope y' all have appreciated those types of episodes. I'm happy that our YouTube community has grown. There's a community page on our YouTube channel where it's kind of like a forum where people can chat and discuss and talk.

[00:28:03] I just love the stat. I re polled our audience to see what percent of our audience has never been Mormon. And again, half of our audience. We had over 8,000 people respond, and it's within the margin of error. 49% of our audience, at least on YouTube, has never been baptized into the Mormon Church. So we have as much or more never Mormons now watching Mormon Stories podcast than Mormons and ex Mormons. And again, I have bishops and stake current faithful bishops and stake presidents and BYU professors and church employees and missionaries watching Mormon stories, reaching out to me privately, that hasn't stopped. And we're just honored that we've got such a broad and large audience both in and outside the church.

[00:28:59] Another little poll that I did of my viewers recently, I asked how long people have been watching the podcast who are currently watching, and it looks like 72% of our audience is relatively new. In other words, have been. 21% have been watching for less than a year. Welcome to all of you who are newbies. We hope you're valuing our content.

[00:29:27] 51% have been watching between one and three years, 17% between three and five years, and only about 10 to 11% have been, you know, viewers or listeners for more than five years. You know, and so basically all that means is that people, and this is something we love, that for many of you know, many of you have been longtime viewers and listeners, but the majority of you, or of our past listeners and viewers got what they want and needed for Mormon stories, stayed for two or three or five years, and then moved on. We have no desire to have people addicted or dependent on Mormon stories.

[00:30:08] We're not trying to be. I'm not trying to be anyone's prophet. I'm not trying to be anyone's guru. We just want our content to be useful to y' all for as long as it's useful. And then, you know, we want you to find healing and growth after as well. One funny you know, this was a really intense political year, obviously, regardless of what side you are on the political spectrum. And I was gonna do. In past election years, presidential election years, I've covered politics, and I was ready to do one on the Biden, Trump, Harris elections. And I polled the audience, and the audience, 61% said, please don't do a series on politics.

Studio Changes and Evolving Content Direction

[00:30:57] So I didn't. And there's several of you who voted for Trump who reached out and said you would love to come on and talk about why, as a Mormon or ex Mormon, you voted for Trump. There were lots of people who were gonna vote for Biden or who ended up fighting for Kamala, who also wanted to do that. Maybe we'll do that. But I just.

[00:31:18] I figured I didn't wanna be accused of election tampering. It looks like Mormons really were a swing vote, at least in Arizona. But it was a. You know, it was a universal sort of mandate. So regardless, I just decided to not wade into those waters, but maybe I will in the future.

[00:31:42] But, you know, one of the main reasons I didn't do a political episode is because y' all asked me not to. I also took a poll on current events, and I asked whether y' all like our current events, because sometimes we get episode, we get people saying, john, I wish you just did bread and butter, faith crisis, common Mormon interviews. I wish you did less celebrities, less influencers, less current events, less truth claims kind of stuff.

[00:32:12] And so I polled the audience and said, how many of you want us to keep doing current events? And 87% of you out of over 7,000 people that voted said, please doing current events. So we're gonna find a way to keep doing current events. We are going to keep doing truth claims. We're gonna try and figure out how to follow up LDS discussions or to continue LDS discussions and follow up Second Class Saints. We have ideas. We would love your ideas as well. We wanna continue the panels.

[00:32:43] We have a super chat here. Nathaniel says, please debate. And then I'm not even gonna name the person that he's listing there. That would bring in some serious viewership and have Jim Bennett on again. So, Nathaniel, I'm not gonna name the person that you are asking me to debate, and I'll just say why.

[00:33:03] There are people who engage in good faith with a certain standard of ethics or decorum based on my arbitrary personal, intuitional sort of standards. And the person that you're asking me to bring on hasn't shown me that good faith yet. I'm not afraid to Bring anyone on. I'm not afraid to debate anyone.

[00:33:35] I don't think I'm the smartest or most knowledgeable person by a long shot. I barely remember who I interviewed last week. But I'm also just not afraid to have open discussions. My biggest concern is platforming bigots, platforming people who engage in hate speech, platforming people who act in ways that I deem unethical.

[00:34:01] And so that's what's kept me from bringing on or even talking about certain people. It's just not wanting to raise visibility to people who I think are harmful to the community. Now, of course they think I'm harmful to the community. And there's a place for bridge building. And I hopefully I've shown that by bringing on Jim Bennett in the past or Patrick Mason or the Paul brothers.

[00:34:26] We've always brought on apologists when they've been willing to come on, and believers, and we'll keep doing that. We had several believers come on the show this year as well. But I just. I'm not gonna bring on bigots or bad actors.

[00:34:42] And, you know, if people clean up their act and, you know, act in ethical, compassionate ways, you know, I'll change my mind. So that's that hope that makes sense. And I'm always open to people's feedback. So if they disagree with me, if they want to share with me their private perspective, I'm willing to hear it. I'm willing to change my mind. And again, I don't think I'm perfect.

[00:35:10] I sometimes lose my temper. I get mad. Some of you say you like caffeinated John. Others of you say, john, I wish you would not lose your temper or spit when you talk or get too angry. I try to maintain the best balance that I can, and I'll keep doing that. A couple other things we've done this year that you may or may not know. We remodeled the studio this year. We got rid of the brick. And some of you were upset that we got rid of the brick. Some of you have liked it. Most of you really haven't commented much.

[00:35:46] I think what I just wanted to let you all know that one of the reasons we did it is just to make the office look more professional and to try and make the podcast look more professional and to try and just change things up. And we feel like the new look feels more homey, feels more comfortable to the studio guests. But yes, it changed the visuals of sort of the Joe Rogan brick background to something more homey. If you hate it, tell us if you like it tell us if you missed the brick. I totally get it. This was just what we did to try.

[00:36:21] We also improved our lighting, we've improved our sound, we've improved our cinematography. So we've been working on those types of improvements. We thought we'd let you know. Some of you are saying you missed the brick. I totally get it. I miss it in ways too. We also redesigned our website. We brought on a friend, Dave Gerardo, and we got some contractor help. We redesigned the website.

[00:36:55] Hopefully it's easier to find stuff. Hopefully it's more visually appealing. Hopefully it's faster, better performance. Hopefully it's going to do better in terms of SEO. You may or may not like it better. We'd love to get your feedback on that, if you've even spent any time on it.

[00:37:16] But that was a significant effort and that's where some of your contributions and donations. So those are just some of the things that we have done this year to try and just continually innovate, to bring you new content, to do new things, or to maintain old things.

[00:37:37] And we hope you've enjoyed that. A couple other things we're either doing or thinking about doing. We migrated our audio from a platform called Libsync to Spotify because Spotify just seems to be a better platform. It's also free to host your MP3 or MP4 files with Spotify instead of Libsyn, which charges quite a bit of money to store our MP3s there. But also Spotify was trying to. They told us they'd promote us more on their platform if we migrated there.

[00:38:11] And our Spotify audience is growing as a result. But we also release on video on Spotify, which is relatively new. And so that's been something that we've done behind the scenes. And one of the really fun things that we did this year behind the scenes, or actually not behind the scenes, but in front of everyone, is we were.

[00:38:34] Well, I should say I was interviewed for several documentaries this year. The Ruby, Frankie, Jody Hildebrandt stuff caused a lot of people to reach out to me. So there are some documentaries in the works that I may or may not appear in, or there have been some that have already been released that I've appeared in. I think one in France, one in Germany.

[00:38:58] I was on, I think, some ABC stuff, Nightline stuff this year, and there's some stuff coming out on on HBO Max, and there's been some stuff on Hulu. So it's been fun to be able to be. And I've been on, boy, I'VE been on Court tv, I wanna say, almost more than a dozen times now.

[00:39:22] Court TV reaches out to me a lot now to kind of be an expert. So it's been fun to be able to. Honestly, I don't seek media appearances. I don't long for them. They stress me out. I don't think I'm the best spokesperson by far for Mormonism, but if somebody's gonna reach out to me and ask me to speak up and to speak out, I'm gonna do it just because I feel like it's kind of my duty or my obligation.

[00:39:50] And so it was really fun when A24 Studios reached out to me to attend that premiere of Heretic. But what an even bigger thrill it was to have the writers producers of Heretic. Last week in Salt Lake City, we did three sold out premieres, two of them with the creators of Heretic. And we did a donor dinner as well.

[00:40:18] And I love doing movie night with Mormon stories people. So that's one of the things I definitely want to continue into 2025 is to have more movie nights. They're fantastic. And if any of y' all want to be invited to those movie nights, we'll announce them. But you can also sign up if you go to mormonstories.org, there's a. You can sign up for kind of our email and you know, if we have donor events, special events, movie nights, other types of things, we're always gonna try and offer em first to our donors and offer slots to our donors. So become a monthly donor and that you automatically sign up to be notified for VIP events, movie nights, donor screenings, private meetups, et cetera.

[00:41:10] But also if you sign up for our newsletter, you'll also be included in some of those emails. Yeah, somebody's saying we need more Thrive events. We had a great Thrive event this month. Last month it sold out. Over 650 people were there.

[00:41:30] We had to turn people away. And there's a Thrive coming up in St. George. I think it's early March. I think it's already starting to be sold out. So if you want to. Thrive isn't a production of Mormon Stories or the Oba Stories Foundation. It's its own nonprofit. But if you want to go to thrivebeyondreligion.com you can sign up for Thrive St. George Maven if you'll include that in the comments.

[00:41:54] We would love to see you at Thrive St. George. I'm pretty sure they're gonna have me speak. They've had me speak at every Thrive St. George. So far, they may not have me speak, and if that. If they don't, that's fine, but if they do, I will be there.

[00:42:08] But they've got a lot of great speakers there at Thrive St. George. And we'll be doing other Thrive events. We want to do a Thrive Boise in 2025. We really would love to go back to Arizona, do a Thrive Phoenix or Mesa or Chandler or Gilbert or Tempe. And we'd love to do Thrive events again in cities that have a critical mass of Mormons. So if you Want to email thrivebeyondreligionmail.com My friend Clint, I think, answers those emails and say, hey, I want to host a Thrive event in my area. We should do them in northern Utah and Southern Utah and central Utah. We should do them wherever there's a need.

Gratitude for Co-Hosts, Donors, and Community

[00:42:48] Because the purpose of Thrive events is just to help people find friends and community. So, anyway, yeah, we should do a Thrive Fairview. That'd be awesome. Yeah, Colorado would be great. Somebody's saying they're a fan of Hidden True Crime. We love Lauren Matthias and Dr. John. We've loved our collaborations with with Hidden True Crime over the past years as well.

[00:43:12] All of our collaborators we're grateful for. So anyway, just to summarize in terms of all the thanks I have to give, there's so many people that have made this year such a huge success. My staff, which includes Gerardo, Julia Maven, Brooklyn Margi. There's probably others, but I hope that's capturing the main staff.

[00:43:34] So many co hosts. Margi, Nemo, Julia, Gerardo, Alyssa, Whit, Beck, Rebecca and Landon, RFM and Bill Real and Samantha from Zelf on the Shelf, Summer Rain, Nate Bird. So many great co hosts and collaborators. I'm not including everyone, but you know I love you. You know I'm grateful for you.

[00:43:56] In addition, we've had so many great experts on the podcast. Mike from LDS discussions, Matt Harris, Andrew Tanner, so many others. We love our experts. And then our board, Clint. Clint Martin, Kerry Whitbeck. We had Zach Houghton be a temporary board member just to fill a gap while we were finding a replacement for Kerry. Kerry Whitbeck stepped down as a board member this year.

[00:44:21] We're still on very good terms with Kerry. We're super grateful, Kerry, for all of her service for, I don't know, I want to say, like, six years on the board. We've had a very, very stable and collegial and supportive board.

[00:44:40] Carrie just was ready to move on. We're still on great terms. She's in my book club, but Carrie moved on. We love Carrie. Thank you, Carrie. And we're excited to announce that Jen Tomczyk has been added to our board.

[00:44:54] And again, we thank Zach for his temporary status as a board member. And then of course, all our podcast guests, if you've been on the podcast this year and past years, we can't thank you enough. And our donors and our viewers and listeners. So that's just a summary of our past.

[00:45:13] Again, please. Colby. Yeah, I see you there in the chats, in the comments. Colby, you've been great to have on the podcast this year as well. And anyone that I'm forgetting, if you're in the chats, let me know and I'll give you a shout out. It's not personal if I've forgotten about you. Okay, so I want to just talk a little bit about. Oh, by the way, I just want to say having Margi, my wife, as my co host.

[00:45:45] I've had several super talented or kind or well meaning co hosts in the past and I've had great moments with all of them and I'm grateful for many of them. I won't say all of them, but I'll say for many of them and most of them. But having Margi, my wife, as my co host has been incredible the past couple years.

[00:46:13] I would say lately in the past year when an episode comes out that Margi's on the compliments of people complimenting Margi. Relative to me, they're like 20 to 1. Margi, y' all love Margi. As far as you know, those of you that are communicating and I can tell you, you would wonder whether co hosting a podcast would be good for a marriage. For so many years, Margi just was not able to be involved in Mormon stories, especially when our kids were young and when things just were in a different phase. But Margi has been such an amazing co host, so wise, so emotionally intelligent, so connected and we've gotten along great.

[00:47:04] And it's just, it's been an amazing comfort for me to have her as my co host. She's brilliant and I love her as my wife, but I love her as my co host. And I just had to give her a shout out because 2024 was a phenomenal year in terms of us co hosting together. And I'm grateful for all the people in the comments who are giving shout outs. Margi, I'm sure she will. She appreciates that.

[00:47:38] I sure appreciate that. And so thanks for those comments. Okay, so a couple things I'm Excited to announce we're maintaining our billboard campaign. So we've got a couple billboards. We've had two to three billboards in Idaho for several years now. Some generous donors stepped up. I think there's one in Blackfoot. I think there's one in Rigby. I think there's one in Idaho Falls.

[00:48:06] Maybe there's two. Two of those three are still up. And there's a generous donor who's offered to support a billboard in northern Utah, let's just say north of Salt Lake, sometime soon. We haven't finalized that deal, but if that donor comes through, will be thrilled.

[00:48:27] And of course, we're always willing to. If anyone's wanting to donate to support a billboard campaign in your area, we would love to do that so we can reach out. We can get in contact with the billboard people. We've got a design that we're comfortable with and we can, you know, or you can put us in touch with billboard people in your area. We would love to have more billboards, but I just asked Gerardo recently to revamp our billboards. And so I'm showing you all for the first time, new billboard designs. So here's one. We're sticking with the Doubt yout Doubts and Doubt your is crossed out and then it just says Doubts question mark.

[00:49:08] You are not alone. This one is the Joseph Smith version of the Mormon Stories Podcast billboard. So that's the Joseph Smith version. Shout out to Gerardo for that. We've got a Salt Lake City Temple version of the billboard that we're going to be releasing. And then there's a Book of Abraham Papyra version of the billboard. We're not sure if we're going to use that, but those are our three billboards. And we're excited if you drive by or know about our Idaho billboards. You could expect those to be changing soon.

[00:49:49] If you live in or near northern Utah, you may see another one coming soon. And again, if any of you want to sponsor a billboard where you live, if you are able to, what we found is in sort of smaller markets, billboards cost around $600 a month or, you know, 7200, 7500 bucks a year for a smallish town in Salt Lake City, they're anywhere between five to ten grand a month, last time I checked. So they can be very, very expensive, like along the i15 corridor. But if any of you want to sponsor a billboard, email us@mormonstoriesmail.com and we would, you know, we would love to have more billboards.

[00:50:35] Flood the earth with billboards. Okay, so what else? You know, we've been. Some of you may notice that recently we've added ads to Spotify. And I want to say we have not for sure solidified. And I think that means that ads might show up on Apple podcasts as well, and mainly just audio only.

Sustainability, Ads, Donations, and Future Funding

[00:51:03] And I've been terrified to add ads, but what podcast in the world doesn't have ads? And as donations have been flat or in decline, we've got to make up that revenue loss. And frankly, expenses have. Inflation affects us, too. We try to be generous in our raises with staff, and, you know, we try to control our expenses, but, you know, we're as prone or subject to inflation as anyone. And again, donation, we don't. I don't love fundraising. I just don't. I used to hold donor fundraisers. I don't really do that anymore. I used to have staff that would be in charge of, like, scheduling donor lunches or dinners.

[00:51:58] While I love to meet donors, connect with donors, spend time with donors, I don't, like, wake up every day or week or month and say, like, okay, let me go through my list of donors and spend time with them.

[00:52:14] And I hope my donors will understand this. I'd rather be spending my time creating great content and supporting people in need than spending a lot of time meeting with people again. And I want to have more meetings with super fans, donors, viewers, and listeners in 2025. So don't get me wrong, I do enjoy that, but it just. It sucks a lot of my time. So I've not been focusing on fundraising. That may be partly why donations are flat or down, if they are. Again, I need to kind of dig into those numbers a little bit better.

[00:52:57] But I hate fundraising, and I did account of how many people actually donated in 2024. And just keep in mind, we have hundreds of thousands of regular viewers and listeners across the world. Do you want to guess how many people donated to us in 2024?

[00:53:18] The number is, I'm gonna say, less than 3200 total donors. Some of those people donated a buck or five bucks or ten bucks the whole year, and some donated five figures. But most of those donors give ten bucks a month. But what we haven't really been doing is spending time thinking about how to convert more of our viewers and listeners into donors. Like, I am incredibly proud or grateful for the fact that we have the revenue, annual revenue that we do, where pretty much everybody just donates if they want to.

[00:54:02] We don't really sell anything. We don't do sponsorships yet. I hope we never have to. And we do ads, but again, they're ads like on YouTube where if you just buy a premium membership of YouTube, you don't have to watch the ads.

[00:54:18] And up until recently, we haven't done ads on the audio only versions at all, although we are experimenting with it just to see how much revenue we're leaving on the table by not doing audio only ads. And it looks. And so we're in the midst of deciding that.

[00:54:36] So anyway, just to kind of summarize where we are with kind of sustainability, while we have hundreds of thousands of regular listeners and viewers, millions of annual listeners and viewers, we've got 3200ish donors. I hate fundraising. Donation revenue is flat or in decline, as far as I understand.

[00:55:00] But the good news in terms of sustainability as well is that Margi and I feel healthier and happier than we've ever felt. Now, you know, the past couple years, the past couple decades have been brutal in many, many ways. But as far as sustainability goes, we're doing as healthy and as well as we've ever done. Part of that is because we've decreased the volume of content. If y' all remember, during COVID and even a year or two after Covid, I was doing three to five episodes a week.

[00:55:33] And we've cut that back to about two episodes a week. And I apologize for those of you who are frustrated. That's partly why I had to bail for Mormon Newscast. It was just too much of a commitment. And RFM and Rebecca and Bill do such a great job. I don't think I've been missed much on the Mormon newscast, so I'm proud to have helped get that started. But.

[00:55:57] So part of the reason why Margi and I are healthier and happier than we've ever been is that we're trying to not do as many episodes. So we try to not do more than two a week. Sometimes we do three a week, but we've averaged two a week over the past year or so, and that's been really good for us. So I just wanted to let you know that's what's going on.

[00:56:19] Let's see. Kimberly Andresen is saying, sell me some more weight loss gummies. Dr. Dehlin, I'm not sure what she means there. Anyway, yeah, so Stephanie's saying I'll donate to not have to hear ads. All right, so I'll just say this right now. Like if right now, let's just say 1,000 or 2,000 of you.

[00:56:47] You know, I know that this episode's gonna be viewed and watched 10, 20, 30, 40, 40,000 times. Right? Let's just say 1,000 or 2,000 of you all sign up and become monthly donors and we see a big spike in monthly donations.

[00:57:02] I will seriously consider removing the Spotify Apple podcast ads. I can't promise that, but I would rather never run an ad on YouTube or on Spotify. But we have to pay our staff, we have to pay our expenses, and we have to stay sustainable as an organization. And we've had some expenses. Again, without going into details, we've had some six figure expenses over the past several years that presented a potential existential threat to our organization. And so I had to be very conservative, aggressive with fundraising and also with, you know, with our finances. So, long story short is if you want us to never do any more ads, if you want us to stay free ad, free sponsorship, free for the world, if enough donors step up, I'll get rid of all ads across all the platforms.

[00:58:06] So. And if you've got ideas on sponsorships or sustainability, if you're an expert in social media and YouTube, if you're a donor that is a donor of means and wants to make some sort of sizable donation so that we don't feel the need to do ads or a paywall or membership, you know, I'm all ears. Reach out mormonstoriesmail.com let's talk.

[00:58:39] Okay. Hopefully y' all are grateful, those of you who don't donate. Oh, yeah, merch. We haven't done merch either. We probably should do merch. I've talked to Gerardo a lot about doing merch. We just haven't figured out how to do merch yet or haven't pulled the trigger on merch. If any of y' all are merch experts or want to help us get us over the edge on merch, if y' all have ideas on merch, we could look into that as well.

[00:59:15] Because I think that's an opportunity for both marketing and, you know, honestly, part of the reason why I haven't done merch is I don't want y' all to think I'm trying to create a personality cult or any sort of culture.

[00:59:30] And sometimes I worry that once you start getting into merch, you're straying into that territory. Y' all can tell me if I'm wrong or if you have ideas on how to make sure merch isn't cult like. But anyway, I hear you guys that we really should be thinking about merch. Final thing, I wanted to do is just talk about 2025, really quick, you know, questions and potential opportunities.

Future Plans, Listener Suggestions, and Feedback

[00:59:56] We want your feedback here. If you're an expert or if you have strong opinions, or if you're a donor and you want to sponsor any of this stuff, or if you're just a superfan and you have ideas, we want to hear it.

[01:00:08] But again, we're considering adding a VIP membership section to our website only for our monthly donors. So if you're a monthly donor or a donor over a certain amount, let's just say over 100 bucks a year or something like that, we're considering a members only feature where you'll get our basic podcast in YouTube or audio format. But if you want, let's say a monthly Q and A with me or premium content, or let's just say in the future ad free content that maybe there'll be a membership or a VIP paywall kind of thing where you can log in to the Mormon Stories website and get some special stuff or your YouTube membership.

[01:00:57] If you're a YouTube member, you'll get premium content there. And Spotify has the ability to do premium memberships as well. So we're just in the phase of evaluating and implementing some sort of premium offerings to see if we can help convert more of you, our viewers, listeners, to become monthly donors. So that's something that's in the works. Again, I've already mentioned that we are testing our Spotify ads to see if we if they're worth continuing.

[01:01:30] It looks like a sizable amount of revenue might be coming to us if we do Spotify ads. So again, give us your feedback about that. Again, we're looking to continue our LDS discussion series if you guys like that idea. Again with maybe Julia, maybe Nemo, maybe Gerardo, maybe Colby, if you've got ideas on who, maybe Sandra, if you've got ideas. Sandra Tanner, if you've got ideas on if and how we should or could resurrect and extend the LDS discussion series, we want to do that in 2025.

[01:02:11] I've thought about doing a CES letter feature where we really dig into the CES letter in depth. Not just because it's great, also to promote it and also. Just as another angle. So we've thought about doing a deep dive into the CES letter.

[01:02:36] Margi and Natasha Helfer and I did a series called the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. If you go to mormonfaithcrisis.com right now there's like over 70 hours of free coaching retreats, workshops like Phenomenal how to come out to believing family and friends. How to come out to your children when you've lost your faith. How to, you know, not blow up your life after a faith crisis. Grieving, healthy marriage, traditions, spirituality, secular spirituality. So many amazing episodes that nobody knows about, and it's really frustrating. So Margi and I have talked about doing a gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis series, redoing a gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis series, but doing it for and on Mormon stories with higher video, higher production quality, better content.

[01:03:26] So if you think about the LDS discussion series or the Second Class Saints series or the John Larsen series, we've thought about doing a gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis series on Mormon stories, if you like that idea. Maybe that's premium content. I don't know. We would love to hear from you on that again. If you want to be a donor and sponsor that or a panelist on it or if you have other ideas about it, we want to hear it. We want to continue doing panels if you like that idea.

[01:04:00] We just did a young single adult women panel. We've got so many other panels that we might do. So we're thinking about continuing our panels. You've already told us you want us to continue current events, so we've got to figure out a way to keep doing that.

[01:04:18] I would like to, in 2025, do more meetups. I could imagine like a two or three, let's just say an overnighter where significant donors or superfans come into town, stay at a hotel that's close by, and I just spend a day or two with maybe a day a month where people fly into town and we hang out and I show them the studio.

[01:04:48] Maybe we do Q and A's. We do brunches or lunches. Maybe we do hikes. Maybe we do, I don't know, some sort of coaching or connection. But mostly I get feedback. We exchange ideas. We brainstorm. I would love to do some donor superfan events that are smaller and more private in 2025. It's just an idea.

[01:05:13] I may not do it, but if any of you are interested in that sort of thing, I'm super interested in that. And I want to do more movie nights. So we've had three very successful movie nights and be looking for movie nights in the weeks, months and years ahead. Rebecca, our dear friend, Rebecca Peterson, she is one of the leaders of Thrive. She says, I would love to help with this, John. I'm not sure which thing, Rebecca, you're referring to, but let me know.

[01:05:48] I don't know if you started and you're talking about the Thrive local Thrive events or if you're talking about other things. But Rebecca, you and Nate are amazing. The whole Thrive leadership team is amazing. And if y' all want to help, I'm all for it.

[01:06:07] Yeah. And then of course we just want your ideas. So if you have ideas. So again, we have to replace now we have to figure out how to follow up with the LDS discussion series, the John Larsen series, the Simon Southerton series, the second Class Saints series. So if you have an idea on a new series, we could or should do. One of the things I thought about doing is just doing kind of like short 10 or 20 minute videos on Mormon topics. They aren't 2, 3, 4 hour dives, but like 20 minutes on treasure digging, Joseph Smith's treasure digging, 20 minutes on the Masonic Lodge temple ceremony, 20 minutes on racism in the church, 20 minutes on the LGBT stuff in the church or the church's wealth and finances, or the succession crisis.

[01:07:01] Basically sort of like John Dehlin, thoughtful, researched, short videos that allow people to get up to speed. Sort of like a top 50 everything anyone should know about Mormonism, but in smaller produced high quality chunks voiced by me.

[01:07:24] So that's another project that I potentially could do. If you like that idea, let us know. And again, if you're a donor and you want to put some money behind one of these things to help make it happen, I would also welcome that.

[01:07:40] So anyway, that's kind of some of the ideas that I have for 2025, but mostly I want to hear your ideas. So please, please, please share your ideas with us. You can email me@mormonstoriesmail.com you can type them into the chat right now.

[01:08:03] You can leave it as comments on Spotify or YouTube or whatever. And we would love to find out what content we should do. Now I've been asking Maven to star various comments and so that's the bulk of my episode for today. I hope.

[01:08:25] Whether you're staff or guests on Mormon Stories or donors or viewers or subscribers, listeners, fans, spouses, co hosts, collaborators, creators, whoever you are, I hope you hear my heartfelt thanks for an amazing 2024. Our heartfelt thanks for an amazing 2024. And of course, while we're not, the point of this episode isn't to solicit donations. It's if you value Mormon stories content, it's Giving Tuesday. If you value our content, if you want to see it continue, if you intend to give charitable donations in 2024 end of year kind of stuff, go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor and I hope you feel like if you've donated in the past or if you're a donor now, I hope you feel like we have honored your donations aligned with the mission of the Open Stories foundation, which is to support people in faith crisis, Mormons and never Mormons, to provide healing and resources for healing and growth in and outside of Mormonism.

[01:09:47] Informed consent within and outside of Mormonism. If you feel I hope you feel like we've honored your donations with our work both in 2024 and previously. But I hope you also hear my thanks as well. So with all that, I'm going to ask Maven to keep starring the cool comments and I'm going to just go through some of these comments and questions now and hopefully I can get to them all. If you're done. If you want to check out now, you can.

[01:10:20] But now we're going to kind of go to a Q and A and I will answer as many of your questions or comments as I can. So I'll start with the ones Maven's already starred. And then Maven, I'll ask you to keep starring these comments or questions and I hope to get to them all.

[01:10:44] So Ben is asking me to do an episode with Canadian ex Mormons. So I really love this idea. I have a soft place in my heart for Alberta Mormons just because I had a college roommate from Lethbridge, Alberta.

[01:11:03] But I would love to do a thrive in Canada, a thrive in Ontario or Alberta or other Vancouver. I don't know. I would love to do some visits to Canada in the coming year if any of you want to support that. Maybe do a thrive Mormon Stories meetup in Canada, but also having some Canadians on Mormon Stories. I love that idea. If you want to be a guest on Mormon Stories, what you need to do and Maven can include this. There's a new that's another thing we did is we improved our application process for becoming an interviewee on Mormon Stories podcast. So if you want to be interviewed on Mormon Stories podcast, go to our website and on the homepage@mormonstories.org there's a button that you can click to become to apply to be on the show.

[01:12:02] And so please do that. And if you look at I'll share, I'll share the screen. This is the homepage. There's an Apply now. If you kind of scroll down from the main page you can click on Apply now and you can apply to Be on the podcast. There's the donate button at the top.

[01:12:24] You know, this is our, you know, this is our renovated website. We've, you know, got episodes by theme. These are some of the shows or the programs that we've had. LDS discussions, Second Class Saints John Larsen, Margi Thrive Stories Simon Southerton Mormon Doctrine versus Science. This is the email list you can sign up for. Gerardo calls it the One Million Movement. We're trying to get a million people. We're trying to eventually get on YouTube up to a million subscribers.

[01:12:56] At one point. I thought that was inevitable because we, we grew so fast last year. Now we're not growing at quite that pace, but you never know. That's why Gerardo calls it the One Million Movement. But sign up for our email list and we'd love to keep you informed of stuff.

[01:13:20] Anyway, so that's how you apply. So if you want to apply to Beyond Mormon Stories, you have to send us a little video. We now do a video screening as well because we want to have the best guests as possible.

[01:13:36] So anyway, that's how you would do it. And so if you're from Canada or anywhere and you want to be on the show, that's how you do it. Ellie asks, is it the Donor Box link that we use to directly donate? The answer is yes, it's Donor Box that we use for people to donate. Unexcited asks. What I don't like about your direct donation option is the amount of personal data you want from us. Please add an anonymous donation option. I am pretty sure there is an anonymous donation option, But if it's not, what I want to show you is I'll go back to our website.

[01:14:23] This is our donation website. Let me take that off the screen. And if you want to donate to us anonymously, one way you can do it is to send a letter or a check to our P.O. box. Some people send cash, some people send checks. But you can donate at P.O. box 171085, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84117.

[01:14:48] You can also Venmo us, you can PayPal us. And if for some reason DonorBox doesn't, I don't think we require that you disclose personal information. But if you do, if we do, I can change that. So thanks for that feedback. Let us know if you're not able to donate anonymously and I'll see if I can fix Donor Box for that.

[01:15:13] Okay, let's see. Corey writes, I will say this, I will watch the ads because at the moment, I can't afford much. And if it helps the channel, I will sit with it. That's. I'm very grateful for that perspective, Corey. Like, if you don't donate at all to Mormon Stories podcast, we don't want you to feel bad. We don't want you to feel guilty. We want our main content to always be available whether you donate or not.

[01:15:39] But if you don't donate, could you just go ahead and watch the ads? Or at least not complain about the ads? Because, you know, we gotta pay for what we do. So anyway, thanks for that perspective. Jeff is asking if John Larsen will be on in 2025. Not that I know of. I think John is retired from Mormon commentary. But we love John Larsen. We're grateful for the time we had with him, and we're grateful that we're able to continue providing Mormon Expression Podcast, a platform.

[01:16:19] So, you know, long live John Larsen. Much gratitude to him. Diet Coke Addict is asking if Lauren Mathias and Dr. John will be on this year. We've done great interviews together. I would love to have Lauren and Dr. John back on. Lauren and Dr. John have been so busy, we have not been able to find a time to collaborate. But they know I love them and they know I'll have them on anytime. If you want to bug them to come on Mormon Stories, I would love to do more collabs with them, but they're going gangbusters.

[01:16:51] But we'll have them on anytime. Let's see, Shabadhuld is asking, did you see a bump after the Jubilee episode? Absolutely. We're super grateful for that Jubilee episode. Ex Mormons one, hands down. I've been told that one of the faithful Mormons from the Jubilee episode has now left the church. I'll let you guess who that is. I won't out them, but they've outed themselves.

[01:17:18] But anyway, yes, the Jubilee episode was epic For Mormon Stories podcast, that's also where we experienced a big bump. So we're grateful for that. But my dear friend Barbara Hogan. Hey, Barbara. We were texting just recently. She's been a donor for a long time. Barbara writes, I credit your and Mike's LDS discussion series for the large number of hours I spent listening. By the way, I donated today. Thank you, Mike. Your thoughtful and scholarly treatment was phenomenal. Thank you, Barbara Hogan. We love you, my Texas friend.

[01:17:51] All right, let's see. Colby Reddish. Colby writes, my dad doesn't care for any ex Mormon content and he's watched the entire LDS discussion series. He loves Mike Colby. That's so brilliant to know. And I think I've been in touch with your mom as well, but just to get Colby's validation that faithful Mormons or non traditional people are loving LDS discussions Episodes that couldn't make me happier.

[01:18:23] We need dating for exmos content. That's ZJ Co. I think there should be an ex Mormon dating app. I can't do that, but I would support it if some entrepreneurs were wanting to do something like that. Jeff M. Writes John Dehlin and this channel have educated me so much about Mormonism over the years. Mormon Stories is awesome and my top site to learn from. Thank you Jeff M.

[01:18:45] It's great to hear. Greg writes. Greg Nielsen writes, I have really been enjoying the shorts. They help me quickly watch the full video and a lot of you don't know we do shorts because I often get people complaining Mormon Stories episodes are too long. You should have shorts. And I'm like have you tried to go on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook? We do shorts on all those platforms. So if you don't want to deal with our longer form content, check out our shorts. Julia has done a great job with our shorts.

[01:19:16] Super grateful I have Colby saying, please do not ever interview he who shall not be named. He's the worst, Colby. I hope he debates you. I think he's cowardly for not debating you. But I won't have several people who shall not be named on the podcast for the reasons I mentioned previously. Eric Chamberlain writes, love the panel suggestion. Have a panel of missionaries who returned home early and discuss the lifestyle and struggles of being labeled a member who came home early from his or her mission. If you are a early restored missionary and you want to be on Mormon Stories podcast, apply to Beyond. I would love to consider you for a panel.

[01:20:00] That's a great idea. Jeff M. Says he likes when I have Stephen Hasson on. Stephen's great in so many ways. I had lunch, I had dinner with him just a month ago. He came to Salt Lake, looked me up. Stephen Hasson and I had dinner and I'd love to have him on again. He's great. Sally15 writes, I have enormous gratitude to the women who have told their stories and wisdom. I am not Mormon. You are also pretty fantastic. Thank you Sally 15. And I am grateful for the women.

[01:20:33] Our audience skews female. I don't totally know why that is. Maybe it's because we interview more women than men. Maybe it's because women like long form more than men. I don't know. I don't know why we have like 70, 30 or 6535 ratio of women to men. But we do so anyway. That's what it is.

[01:20:58] If you have ideas on how to get more men, I'm all ears. But we, we love our men and women and non gender specified viewers and listeners. Evan Dietz writes. Thank you so much for your work John. You are a lifesaver. Work like yours pulled me out of a very dark place. Any tips on how to get family to listen to what you have to say? Thanks for all you do Evan.

[01:21:23] Yeah, I would say start with the gospel topics essays. If they're interested and curious, start with other faithful podcasts like Julie Diazevedo Hanks or Last She Said it or Marriage on a Tightrope or you know all the other faithful podcasts out there.

[01:21:42] That's one thing you can do. You can also just pick the more faith promoting episodes I've done with like Patrick Mason or Hans Mattsson. There's so many Jim Bennett, there's so many faithful Mormons I've interviewed. That's one thing you could do.

[01:21:58] And some of those episodes like Leah, like Donna Showalter or Leah and Cody Young, some of those episodes of Just like in it to Win it Super Faithful Mormons. Those are often a great place to start. But also don't push people if they're not ready to consume Mormon stories. I just say I wouldn't push them. Let them have their own journey is also another approach.

[01:22:23] But also Evan, check out the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis podcast@mormonfaithcrisis.com There are so many excellent episodes there to give you advice on how to communicate with believing family and friends, how to come out to believing family and friends and I just think that's an underutilized resource. So go to MormonFaithCrisis.com to check that out. Tristan says, Is there any way the team can have episodes about the church's safe pointing tactics? I don't know what safe pointing tactics are, but if someone tells me what they are then I can consider that. So email me and let me know. Jessica writes, Margi has great additions for pretty much every episode.

[01:23:07] I agree. Love Margi. Thanks Jessica Spencer Greg Nielsen writes, Margi has been amazing as a co host keeper on the show. I plan to thank you. Greg Nielsen John Levitt writes, Start selling third anointings. I love that. Let's have a third anointing.

[01:23:25] No, I'm kidding. No. But we're grateful for anyone who's willing to donate or support us. Maven says they mean safeguarding. I Still don't know what that is, but email me if you want to tell me what you mean by that. Gorf says, I feel like without Mike, LDS Discussions should get a new title. Gorf. That's good feedback. The only other thing I'll say is that every time we do a new Mormon LDS Discussions episode, we promote the old ones. So you'd be surprised at how many people who are new have never and will never hear of LDS discussions or of John Larsen or of Simon Southerton or of the Thrive stories or whatever just because they're in the past and they're not gonna go to the website or check out our past archive.

[01:24:17] So doing new episodes of LDS Discussions is a way to keep it alive. And of course, if you go to the playlist, it starts with the earliest episode. So once they go to that playlist, they'll start with Mike's first episode and go all the way through. That's the thinking.

[01:24:39] Po Kodge says we should do a panel of Never Mormons. I agree. We've got some great Never Mormons who have applied. If you're a Never Mormon and you want to be on the podcast, please apply. We would love to have a panel of Never Mormons. And I just want to interview ex Amish, ex, you know, ex Seventh Day Adventists, Adventists, or ex Christian Scientists, any ex cult member, ex members of high demand religions, evangelicals, Catholics. There's so many good interviews that I want to do, so please apply.

[01:25:19] And I would love to do a panel of Never Mormons. So Gorff is saying I would love a new gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis series. I will let Margi know. Thanks, Gorf. Jessica Spencer writes, the smaller, more private thing would be so cool. Movie nights would be so cool. Yeah. So if you want to have some connecting one, you know, 1 to 1 to 1, 1 to 5, 1 to 10, 1 to 100 kind of events with me, the best ways to become a donor, honestly, not because I want to exclude people, but it's just a way that I can know who's really, really invested in what we do.

[01:26:08] There are other ways to communicate that to me. So just find a way to communicate to me that you really are committed to what we do. Don't or not. I would love to find a way to get together with you.

[01:26:22] All right. Evan asks, how many applications to be on do you get? I think we've had about 600 since we implemented it. That's an estimate. And of course, what that means is not everyone is going to be invited on because they're more, you know, that's more than days in the year.

[01:26:44] But also, you know, sometimes we hold stuff for the future and sometimes it's just not a right fit for now. So, you know, know that if you apply, we may or may not choose you, but we would still love you to apply.

[01:27:00] And you know, one of the dreams I have, by the way, is that there's another Mormon stories that someone else runs that does other episodes, that does other perspectives on. I don't want to be the only Mormon stories out there. I just know that when I bring on other people to solo host, sometimes it's received well, but sometimes it's not. And so what I've learned over the years is for this Mormon Stories channel, it seems like people want me involved for the most part.

[01:27:33] But I would love to incubate or sponsor an additional Mormon Stories channel that isn't mine where more stories can be told. So, you know, again, if you're a donor or aspiring creator and, you know, and we can find a way to make that happen, I'm open to something like that.

[01:28:01] Gorf asks, is there a place we can check out volunteer opportunities for helping with Mormon Story stuff? Donate with our time. We've tried having time, you know, volunteers and donors in the past. Sometimes it's more work than we have staff to support, but I will think about ways to incorporate donors or volunteers as of now. Right now we just don't have the staff to support it. Maybe we'll staff up in the coming year where we'll be able to take advantage of volunteers more.

[01:28:35] Pocoj says, I'd honestly love to also see a series where you just talk to current Mormons and let them tell their stories of why they stay. If you are currently believing attending Mormon, I would heavily prioritize bringing you on Mormon Stories podcast. So please apply and I want to have you on. I want to have several currently believing and attending Mormons on Mormon Stories. I've done that every year and I want to see that continue. Jeff M. Says, I did donate on your main site but will donate again on the company site so you can get a match. Thank you Jeff M. For donating and donating with matching.

[01:29:16] Appreciate that. Molly Strauss says, I would love to see a panel on former or current Seminary Institute teachers and how they deal with the cognitive dissonance in the church's claims. That's a great idea. We've had Laura Schnell on the past, Mark Osland, you know Grant Palmer, we've had former seminary and institute teachers in the past.

[01:29:41] Molly I don't think current seminary or institute teachers would be able to come on Mormon Stories. I think they'd get fired. So that's ambitious. I don't think it's likely, but if you're a current seminary institute teacher and you want to come on Mormon Stories, you're welcome to come on. I always love having currently serving bishops, currently serving stake presidents, patriarchs, area authorities, you know, general relief sighting, presidency members, general young women's presidency members. If you're an insider, some of our episodes that do the best are insider people who have worked in the church, people who are in high level leadership positions, former mission presidents. The Roger Hendricks series was amazing.

[01:30:25] Again, Tom Phillips, Hans Mattsson, those are some of our classics. But we always want high level leaders and insiders. Reach out. If you fit that criteria. We want to have you on Elijah Davis writes, Would you talk to some of the leading apologetics who have a medial following? Yes, if they're ethical, if they're not bigots, if they aren't, if they don't engage in ad hominem, and if they're willing to have thoughtful, respectful conversations. I promise to be thoughtful and respectful to them as long as they show a willingness to be thoughtful and respectful as well.

[01:31:06] All right, Holly Holy Roller writes, you should dig into the cronyism of Mesa, Gilbert, Maricopa, et cetera. Arizona, where a lot of upper level management are Mormons and they make business deals with Mormon developers and businesses. I'm sure that's true in Arizona. I'm sure that's also true, Holy Roller. In Idaho and Utah. Did y' all know that recently some national news outlet did did an analysis of what city in the United States most voted for Trump per capita. And do you guys know? Anyone know what city in the United States voted number one highest voting for Donald Trump per capita? And I'm not saying that's good or bad.

[01:31:59] I'm just saying it's just a piece of Mormon trivia. Anybody know? Anybody know? The answer is Provo, Utah. Provo, Utah as according to one news source I downloaded the video. I'll share it sometime. Provo, Utah is the number one voting for Donald Trump city in the United States. Thought you'd want to know. Boise, Idaho's up there as well.

[01:32:21] Not so much Salt Lake City or Park City. Anyway, thanks for that suggestion. Holy Roller. Tristan Lofting says I want a deep dive on how in the hell Checo Okazaki became a general board member for the Young Women's MIA Board in 1968, Checo Okazaki is a legend.

[01:32:46] It would be great to cover her sometime on Mormon stories. So thanks for that idea. All right. GM wants content in other languages. We are so desperate to do Mormon stories in Portuguese, in Spanish. We used to do it in German in other languages. We just need partners and we need staff to work with the partners. So that's something that I have on my bucket list. I don't know how to manage it yet, but I will work on it.

[01:33:18] Dear friend Bo Euler is in the house. Bo, you're one of my dearest friends. You have been a gift to me over the past year too. Bo Euler. Bo, thanks for your donation. Thanks for your super chat. Thanks for your help. Bo Euler, for your own Mormon you know the episodes of Mormon stories you've been on, but also cause you're on the Bishop's panel. But also for your help with all the panels we've done this year.

[01:33:44] But mostly thanks for your friendship and for who you are, Beau. And thanks for that donation. Love you, Beau. All right, Francisco Rebel Barros says, I'm from Brazil doing PhD at the U. I've been learning so much about Mormonism through this podcast. Thank you, Francisco. Love to meet you, maybe have you on the podcast, but it's great to have you joining us. Thanks for that feedback.

[01:34:09] Ellie writes, I believe that every person who is brave enough to speak their truth is a hero. I agree. Lots of comments from Gorf. Gorf omg. I would love an interview with the ladies from Atlas. She said it. If you want to reach out to the ladies from Atlass, she said it. And if they're willing to come on 100%, I'll interview them this year.

[01:34:30] Zebby Frutti can you get Tess Boney on? She is the Livestream Queen of Taylor Swift Eras tour and I heard she's at Expo in Salt Lake. If any of y' all have a contact with her and she's willing to come on, that's a hard yes.

[01:34:45] So just email her DM her DM me. Put us in a text stream together. I'd love to have them on Latter Day Digest. Where are they Now? Would be cool series. Yes, I would love to do a Where Are they now? Series and I think that's Glenn. Is that Glenn from Latter Day Digest?

[01:35:13] Just looking them up. I'm pretty sure that's Glenn and if it is Glenn, thank you Glenn. We appreciate all your support over the years. Gene, Am I saying Glenn? Holy moly. Thank you Maven for saving me there. My brain does brain burps sometimes. But Gene, you've been a great supportive fan over the years and friend Latter Day Digestion has done great work in the past year to check out Latter Day Digest everyone along with Mormon ish Radio Free Mormon Self on the Shelf. So many great creators out there. Alyssa Grenfell But Gene, Latter Day Digest, thank you for your idea of doing Where Are They Now Series.

[01:36:03] And thanks for your work with Latter Day Digest. Okay, we've only got a few more that Maven has starred and I hope we're not missing anything. If Maven should have starred your comment, please let her know. Howie Roark writes this channel's long form has no one listened to Peter Bleakley? If Peter Bleakley is doing more than 1213 hours at interviewee, I'd like to know about it. And we're still doing four or five hour episodes. If Peter Bleakley is doing more than that, I would be really surprised. But you know, it's possible. Check out Nemo the Mormon and all the Britvengers. They do great work by the way.

[01:36:44] But thanks for that comment, Howie. Donna Lane, thanks for the thanks for the super chat. Donna writes Never Mormon here. I donate monthly. I've been watching four to five years. Thank you Margi and John and the whole crew. You guys are great. Thank you Donna Lane for that donation for the super chat. Stephanie Hathaway Stephanie, have we met yet? I think we're buddies on Instagram. I think I'd love to have you on Mormon stories, Stephanie. Reach out if you're interested. But Stephanie, thanks for the super chat. And she says it's for her third anointing. Yes, we would love to do that.

[01:37:25] Let's see who else Bucky Boo says wants a panel on long ago ex Mormons from like four decades ago. Totally willing apply to Beyond. That sounds like a great panel. John Levitt wants me to bring someone back. Who knows, maybe I'm not going to say that person's name because they are not in contact. They've kind of ghosted me. They're not communicating with me. So it's not possible at this present time. Maybe that'll change in the future.

[01:38:00] Pink Slime writes Mormon stories for children, maybe only with parental consent, though Sheba hold writes, ever try reaching out to Johnny Harris? I have. If any of you want to reach out to Johnny Harris for me and get them on the show, I'd be thrilled. Maven is reminding me that Mormon Civil War is Peter Blakeley's channel and that he's Great. All right, so that's all that Maven has included in the comments.

Closing Reflections and Holiday Message

[01:38:32] There may be other comments or questions that people have made. I've only been looking at the ones that Maven starred and so anyway, that's all I've got right now for today's episode. I hope you appreciate the transparency. You should all know that my finances get released every year as a 990. That's a requirement for all nonprofits. So I'm not claiming that that's special, but you can. If any of you want to see Open Stories Mormon Stories finances, all you gotta do is just Google Open Stories Foundation 990 and you can check out all our past 990s that we filed since the beginning. We are proud to be financially transparent and we just filed our 2023 990.

[01:39:31] We usually file them in the fall because that's what our accountants traditionally tell us to do. So sometime I think next year our 2023990 will come out. And you know, that's how we're financially transparent. If you have questions about our finances, couple other comments are coming in. 32 Flavors says the episode with Sandra, Gerardo and Julia about Richard Bushman had me in tears laughing. One of the best episodes. I love it when we laugh and when we have fun. Thanks for that feedback. 32 Flavors Garrett Hansen writes, I've wanted to be on the podcast a long time. I worked at the LDS Motion Picture Studio and was a part of every major project that occurred during that time, including Shirley Van Wagenen's projects.

[01:40:14] All right, Garrett, if you've if you've already applied to Beyond Mormon Stories, please resend that application. And if you haven't, please apply because that sounds like a story I would love to share. Garrett Hanson okay, well, that's all we've got. Again, phenomenal 2024. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

[01:40:44] Donations seem to be flat or down, but they've been offset by YouTube and Spotify ad revenue. If you want us to never do ads again, all you gotta do is become a monthly donor. And if enough of you become monthly donors, we'll take all ads out of our episodes for as long as we're sustainable.

[01:41:06] We would love your feedback if you are in the mood to donate because it's giving Tuesday or end of the year, November December timeframe. Donations to Mormon Stories and the Yelp Stories foundation are tax deductible. You can do company matches. You can donate@mormonstories.org if you need our EIN number because you need to register us as a nonprofit, let us know. We'll get you that. You can donate anonymously. You can send us stuff through our P.O. box. We take Venmo, we take PayPal, we take.

[01:41:43] We take Zelle. If you want to sell mormonstories gmail.com, we accept that. And you know, you can always donate through Donor Box. And you know, if you want to donate anonymously, we'll help you do that however you want to. But anyway, phenomenal year.

[01:42:03] Super grateful for all the support. Nathaniel says thanks for the transparency. Love everything you do. Thank you. Nathaniel Barnard writes, I'm not a Mormon, but I have had an interest in the history of the LDS Church. I have a friend at work who shares my interest. I found the material for Mormon discussions to be especially helpful in our conversations. Glad to hear that as well.

[01:42:30] Maven says Donna says her chat was missed. Did we do it? I don't know what chat Maven's talking about or who, which Donna Maven's talking about. So I don't know. I don't know. Too many chats, too many comments.

[01:42:48] But anyway, I'm just. It's another year. This will be our coming up. 2025 is going to be our, our 20th year on Mormon Stories podcast. So I started Mormon stories in 2005 and so 2025 is going to be our 20th year. So I'm excited to enter our 20th year of Mormon Stories.

[01:43:08] I hope to do something. Oh, okay, sorry. Maven is showing it. I did read this chat. So yes, Donna Lane's chat was read. I'm pretty sure I showed it, but I'll read it again. Donna Lane said never Mormon here. I donate monthly. I've been watching four to five years. Thank you, Margi and John and the whole crew. You guys are great. Yes, I said that. Yes, I believe I showed it. But either way, I'm happy to show it again.

[01:43:36] So thank you. All right. So anyway, to close. This has been the privilege of my life. 2025 is going to be our 20th year. We hope to outdo ourselves again. We hope to continue growing. We hope to do more just bread and butter. Mormon stories of everyday Mormons. More couples, more power couples, more insiders. We hope to continue our tradition of doing truth claims, of doing believers, of doing mixed faith marriages. We hope to keep doing panels. We hope to do more history and, you know, if we decide, we hope to do current events, shorts, meetups and other cool things. So thank you for the privilege and honor of my life.

[01:44:20] Other than being married to Margi and having kids, you know, professionally. Mormon Stories Podcast has been the honor of my life and I thank all of you who have helped make 2024 a great year, all of you who've made Mormon Stories possible over the years, all the donors past, present and future, and everyone who has done your part to help make everything possible.

[01:44:48] And I think Margi and I have at least another good five or ten years in us. We would love to, over time support other creators developing in the space so that Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation can live on after we're gone.

[01:45:08] That's a dream we have. Maybe in 2025 we can make more steps in that direction. Oh, by the way, Haley Rawl has been a great collaborator this year with Girls Camp Podcast. There's so many people I'm going to forget, but I have to mention Haley as well.

[01:45:25] Anyway, we want to continue doing what we do. We're grateful for the past 19 years, grateful for 2024. We're looking forward to 2025. If you are able to donate, become a monthly donor for the next year. That'd be fantastic. If you do can't donate. Don't be sad, don't feel guilty. Don't worry.

[01:45:51] You can always give us feedback. You can always subscribe to our channel. You can always like our content. You can always share it and watch our ads because that helps pay for what we do. Those are also ways that you can support us. Check out Julia's Analyzing Mormonism channel on TikTok and Instagram. She does great work as well. Of course, The Hidden True Crime podcast is always worth mentioning. So many other great people. Megan Connor's doing great stuff. Now Donna Lane wants to know if we're gonna have a 20 year celebration episode. I think we will. That's a great idea, Donna.

[01:46:36] Interestingly, we started In February of 25, if I'm remembering correctly. And I don't know when we're set to have our 2000th episode, but our 2000th episode is going to come out in our 20th year and I don't know if that'll be in the February. But anyway, yeah, we should celebrate and do something fun.

[01:47:02] So thanks for that idea. Let's definitely do some celebrating in next year. We hope to outdo ourselves. Grateful for our support. I'm exhausted. My voice is about to die. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Hope you've enjoyed the transparency. Hope you've enjoyed what we've shared. Please email us, please comment, please apply to be on the podcast and please add share like subscribe, spread the word, and most importantly, enjoy our content.

[01:47:40] Be good to each other, be kind to each other, heal and grow. The best thing you can do during or after a religious faith crisis is become your best self. And then bless your own life. Bless the life of those around you and contribute positively to the world for as much as you can. I hate it when ex Mormons blow up their lives or end up in a sad or a worse place than when they were Mormon. Sometimes it happens. Most of the time I see people heal and grow. But that's what Margi and I and our staff wish mostly for you. This holiday season, this Thanksgiving, this Christmas, we just want you to have a happy, healthy, thriving life with informed consent, loving those around you and living your big, best, bright, beautiful lives.

[01:48:31] So do that. Support us if you can. But regardless, thank you for the privilege that it is to do this podcast. You guys take care. We'll see you all again soon. Love you. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Bye, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.