John Dehlin

Welcome and Introducing the Thrive Studio

[00:00:25] You. Hey everyone, this is John Dehlin. I am broadcasting to you live this evening from the brand new Mormon stories slash Open Stories Foundation, Thrive Studios in Holiday, Utah. We just moved offices to a new location. We've been building it out and we're super excited about it. And I wanted to just take a moment to explain to everybody the kind of the plan for Thrive 2020 for those who have been following and maybe you haven't. We did a lot of activities and events through the Thrive name last year and sometimes I imagine it, some people may be curious, what's Mormon Stories? What's the Open Stories Foundation?

[00:01:21] What's Thrive and what is Thrive doing and what is it doing going forward? And so I just wanted to just take a couple minutes to explain what Thrive is going to be doing in 2020. So here is the plan in a nutshell. First of all, what is Thrive? Thrive is a community that's seeking to provide communities of healing and growth for, you know, Mormons experiencing a faith crisis and for post Mormons.

[00:01:54] Progressive Mormons are also welcome to attend. But. But obviously they're not the core audience for Thrive. So. So what are the main things Thrive is doing in 2020? The first thing that many of you will know about, but some of you may not know about is that we have been creating local face to face Thrive communities all throughout the United States. So if you go to the website thrivebeyondmormonism.com and you click there, you can find a map and on the map you can type in your city or zip code and it will bring up hopefully the closest local face to face Thrive communities that currently exist.

[00:02:42] There are several all along the Wasatch front. There's some in Arizona, there's some in Idaho, and there's Thrive communities popping up everywhere. I just created one here in Holiday, Utah, there's one in Springville, etc. And these groups are basically now going to be holding two types of events each month.

[00:03:06] The first type of event is usually held the first Wednesday of each month and it is called a healing group. And it's primarily targeted for Mormons who are in religious transition, people who are at a faith crisis or dealing with issues surrounding a faith crisis. But it's also for people just wanting to meet other progressive and post Mormons or people leaving the church or people who left the church in your local area.

[00:03:33] Again, it meets the first Wednesday of each month. It's locally led, it's locally organized, it's independently run, people are free to attend. And imagine that first faith Crisis Healing Group as just being a support group, like a therapy group basically for Mormons who need to talk about stuff surrounding faith crisis, mixed faith marriages, struggling with rebuilding a life after a faith crisis, dealing with believing family and friends, dealing with local leadership, with extended family, etc.

[00:04:04] So, you know, each group has its own schedule, but you can find those meetings. We in Holiday, Utah, here in Salt Lake, are having our first healing group Tomorrow night at 7 o' clock here in Holiday. I'll be leading that group. I'll be leading that group every month. Sometimes Natasha Helfer Parker will be joining. But you're welcome to attend that group if you want. Just reach out to me and I'll let you know how to join that group. The second type of monthly group that these local Thrive communities will be holding will be a monthly group focused on growth or life after or beyond Mormonism.

[00:04:44] So think of this as a book club or as a secular, I don't want to say Sunday school and a potluck. So we'll meet usually on the third Sunday of every month. We'll be meeting in holiday around 10am and what we'll do is we'll discuss, you know, a book or a chapter of a book or a TED Talk or a podcast episode, some prearranged topic, and then we'll have a potluck lunch or dinner afterwards. And again, the idea is just to heal and grow and move beyond Mormonism, to figure out what comes after Mormonism and, and to build local communities of support.

[00:05:22] It's not a church, but it is a secular community of people who want to figure out how to do life together. I'm hoping to build friendships in Community in Holiday where I live. And I know that there again are lots of these groups all around the country.

[00:05:41] We have created a content schedule for, for, you know, just, just in case all the groups want to kind of learn, you know, discuss similar content around the country. It'd be fun to all do that kind of together. If you go to thrivebeyondmormonism.com growth, you'll see that for January, the topic will be an essay from the book the Four Agreements.

[00:06:05] If you haven't read the book the Four Agreements, it's by Don Miguel Ruiz, I believe that's his name, Don Miguel Ruiz. And the chapter that we're going to be discussing in our first Thrive Growth group is Domestication and the Dream of the Planet. It's a great, great essay for people leaving religion and rebuilding a life afterwards. And so we'll be discussing that in our growth groups around the country.

[00:06:35] The one that will be held again in Holiday Utah will be Sunday 26th January starting at 10am so we'll discuss the chapter and then we'll have a potluck. So anyone again who wants to attend that as well can reach out to me and we'll add you to the group. So those are the local Thrive communities. If you can't find a local Thrive community in your area, you can go to the thrivebeyondmoreminicine.com website and and create your own group and we'll help you advertise it. And you can assemble Post Mormons and others in your local area to hold these groups. And again, it's just to support people in the great community.

[00:07:18] In addition to these local Thrive communities, what Thrive is also doing in 2020 is we are holding two annual conferences. So some of you may remember last year, or maybe even attended, we did a Thrive retreat in June of 2020, which was a full weekend starting on a Friday evening all the way through Sunday.

[00:07:41] A weekend of healing, growth and community. Lots of speakers, breakout sessions, workshops. The best talent we have to offer in terms of therapists and coaches and speakers. We had David Bacavoy, we had Natasha Helfer Parker. We had Sean and Crystal Escobar.

[00:08:00] We had so many cool people. We had marriage on a Tightrope, Katie and Alan Mount. And there's people I'm forgetting, but just a bunch of amazing people. Julia de Azevedo Hanks came, Anthony Miller, great people came, also my dear friends Chelsea and Jeff Gardner. And we just talk about important topics to people in Mormonism and moving beyond Mormonism. It's a two and a half day event.

[00:08:28] It's going to be awesome. And we're going to do that in June 2020. We'll be getting you the dates in the venue for that soon. And then in November 2020, we have what's called Thrive Day, which is a full day of healing, growth and community where we have great speakers.

[00:08:44] We had 1700 people attend thrive Day last year and we hope next year we'll break that record again. We had Wayne Surmon, we had Amber Skora, we had Laci Green, Natasha, myself and a bunch of others. And you know, look for US to hold two global Thrive events in Salt Lake City in 2020, one in June, one in November. And then finally, the last part of Thrive for 2020 will be regional Thrive conferences. And so already Phoenix, Arizona, the two local Thrive groups there have teamed together to organize a local regional Thrive conference February 1, 2020 in Phoenix and then in April from April 24th to 26th.

[00:09:30] The Midwest Thrive people are creating a workshop conference in Chicago April 24th through 26th. And so if you go to the thrivebeyondmormonism.com website, click on events, you can see these two events and you can register for each one. If you want to have or hold a Thrive conference in your area, you can just email us@thrivebeyondmormismmail.com and we'll collaborate with you on how to organize a conference there.

[00:10:02] Thrive is designed to cost nothing or next to nothing. All these events that we do are either free or just charging enough to cover the venue costs and the food costs. But nobody you know Thrive is in no way organized to make anyone money. So far it's operated at a loss and as long as we have generous donors and supporters, it will probably continue operating a loss. And when we do charge people for these events, it's literally just to cover the cost of the events.

[00:10:35] So that's what the vision for Thrive 2020 is all about. Now let me just read comments and questions from the people who are tuned in live and Angela writes, I was raised in Holiday. That's awesome Angela. Glad to hear that. Teresa writes, Great idea. Thank you Teresa.

Community Messages and Thrive 2020 Plans

[00:10:54] Teresa also writes I was talking about the Four Agreements book today. Love this book. So glad. Karen writes. Thank you Karen. We love you. Thanks for tuning in. Juliet writes, hey John, excited about this direction. Such an evil apostate thing to do. Oh wait. Ha ha. Juliet, we love you. And shout out to Juliet for organizing Throw Chicago. It's going to be amazing.

[00:11:15] Hope you guys can attend. So that's all the questions we have right now. We hope you enjoyed this presentation. If you have ideas or suggestions or any questions, please email us@thrivebeyondmormonismmail.com we would love to entertain your questions again. If you live in the Salt Lake Holiday area we would love to have you come Tomorrow night, that's January 8th at 7:00 clock to our Thrive center here in Holiday, Utah that's also co located now with the Mormon Stories Office and the Open Stories foundation and the amazing Natasha Helfer Parker who has moved her Symmetry Solutions into the Thrive Studios as well. If you need a great therapist in the Salt Lake area or anywhere, Natasha Helfer Parker can help you along with her great coaches and therapists at Symmetry Solutions.

[00:12:07] So please check them out as well. We are all about bringing healing and growth to post Mormons and even progressive Mormons. So Oh, Juliet Burke. I got you confused with Juliet Rogers. So Juliet Burke is my amazing friend in Oklahoma, separate from Juliet Rogers. It was Juliet Rogers who organized. Who was organizing Chicago Thrive. Juliet, we'll look for you to organize Chicago. I mean, Thrive Oklahoma or Thrive, you know, Southeast or whatever that is. When the day comes, we would love to do that.

[00:12:42] Christopher writes, first Thrive event I got to attend is this Saturday in York, Pennsylvania. So shout out to York, Pennsylvania. Theresa writes, love, Natasha. So glad you enjoy Natasha, Teresa. And anyway, yeah, Juliet says, Thrive Tulsa. Let's get Thrive Tulsa going. So anyway, thanks everyone for tuning in.

[00:13:04] Please let us know if you have any questions. We're excited about to see what we can do in Thrive 2020. And of course, we're super grateful to Clint and Jenny Martin and all the group leaders of all the Thrive groups all around the country, and Natasha Alfer Parker and, you know, my friend Tyler Alden and all the great people who are helping make Thrive possible. You guys are awesome. And please spread the word and take care, and we'll update you soon on other cool things going on at Thrive. Take care, 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.