Conversations with Former Mormon Authors: Michael Flournoy

In this episode, we sit down with Michael Flournoy, author of Tearing the Veil: A Guide for Sharing Grace with Mormons. Once a zealous Mormon missionary and amateur LDS apologist, Michael shares the incredible story of how a three-hour debate on grace, authority, and the nature of God began his journey out of Mormonism—and into the arms of Jesus.

Joined by our interns, Grace and Charlie, we explore Michael’s unique witnessing approach called the IRIS method, which breaks down the gospel into four key concepts: Impossible Standard, Reckoned Righteousness, Indomitable Gift, and Settled in Faith. Michael offers practical advice on utilizing Mormon vocabulary to convey biblical truths, explains why Christians should read the Book of Mormon when witnessing, and discusses the importance of playing the long game in gospel conversations.

This episode is packed with practical insights for anyone passionate about sharing the truth of God’s grace with Latter-day Saints. Whether you’re preparing for door-to-door outreach, engaging in spiritual conversations with missionaries, or just beginning to understand the Mormon mindset, Michael’s testimony and tactics will equip and encourage you.

For more from Michael, check out our review of his book "Tearing the Veil."

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Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Witnessing Christ podcast. Today, I am privileged to have our interns Grace and Charlie join me once again, and we also have a special guest. Michael Flournoy, who is the author of Tearing the Veil, a guide for sharing grace with Mormons. Reviewed that book a few weeks back and now we are excited to be able to dive a little bit deeper into some of the things that he taught us about in that book. So, Grace, Charlie, Michael, welcome to the podcast. Hey, hey. Good to be back. Good. Glad to be here, guys. Michael, tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, sounds good. Thank you. So I was born and raised in the Mormon church. My mom's family had been pioneers, members since almost the inception of the church. So I was a seventh generation Mormon. And I went on the Mormon mission to Anaheim, California. I start knocking on doors and talking to people and I ran into a guy named Lee Enox and he's an evangelical And he was he'd formed something called the Evangelical Debate Society. So they pulled us in and and started debating us for three hours. And his questions were primarily, who is God? Where do you get your authority? And how are you saved by grace or by works? And so that was a three hour debate. And I say debate, but it was really us getting steamrolled for three hours because, I mean, I went in there really naive. I thought, oh, everybody kind of admits that we're Christians as Mormons. Everybody likes us. And this is kind of my first indication that that is not true. So I was shocked. And what really bothered me was that he kept pulling up all these Bible verses to support his claims. And I'm looking at the Bible like, what? This can't be right. The Bible's on my side. How can he pull? Pull my own holy book out against me like this. And I didn't become, really convinced that the church was false at that point, but I did start to take the Bible seriously and I began to study, uh, The Bible through an LDS lens, of course. So I start reading the Bible and I start thinking, hey, this is actually, supporting my worldview. And I come off of my mission and I became an amateur apologist for the Mormon church. I wrote a book called A Biblical Defense of Mormonism. And I started engaging in debates on Facebook. I started getting invited to some podcast debates. And so I'm just studying and I'm arguing against, evangelical Christians. Night and day, pretty much any time I have a little bit of spare time because I'm trying to convince them how wrong they are. And around 2015, I come up with this bright idea because I notice a common theme in these debates that they're always bringing up grace. if I'm asking him, what do you have that I don't? They're like, well, grace. And so I'm like, okay, I don't need to study all of these topics and become an expert in everything. I just need to understand. And I need to be able to win that argument. And that's it. I can pull the foundation out from them and, and they're toast. They have to admit. That there was an apostasy and a restoration at that point. So I start going into a deep dive on that topic. And about a year later, I realized the Bible is not supporting my beliefs at all. I realize that I'm wrong, that grace is a free gift, not through any works of that I do. And so I came out of Mormonism. Into, into a saving relationship with Jesus. So that's the Reader's Digest version. Wow. And, and what a, what an incredible story that is. I always love to hear about those initial seed planting moments when God used a Christian. To have an impact on your life. And it sounds like your initial seed planting was like three hours of like, whoa, like, what do I do with this? So, it's awesome that you still remember his name and probably look with. With a different sort of fondness now on that individual than you did back when you were on your mission. Absolutely. I couldn't figure out what his problem was back then and now I get it. So you spent years being this amateur apologist for the LDS church and now you're writing books as a Christian when you're not writing books, what do you do with the rest of your time? Well, I'm running a business, so I'm an exterminator and that is taking up a lot of my time, a lot more than I thought. I thought I'm going to start a business and I'll have all this free time to spend with my family. Apparently that happens ten years down the road or something. So I'm still looking forward to that. But when I'm not, I try to, do church stuff and hang out with the family, when I have spare time I'll read or I'll write fiction too. Okay. Awesome. So a busy guy. So we're thankful for you making time to share with us this afternoon. Well, I am really excited to hear what Grace and Charlie have to ask you today about your book and witnessing approach. One of the things that I just really want to emphasize is as we've been studying these books over the last few months from our ex-Mormon Christian friends, One of the things that it highlighted to me is, again, how God has used so many different Christians to impact Latter-day Saint lives over the years, and sometimes those witnessing Christians May not even be aware of the long term implications of the seed planting and the nurturing that they've done. But another one that really has impacted me is how there are many different approaches to sharing the gospel. And what I appreciated a lot about your book, Michael, is you've got a structured way that you're Laying out for us that has become another tool that our interns and I have been using and we really want to share that Tool with folks today, as another tool that is in their toolkit. And, and I think that's one of the things I just want to emphasize is like, for those listening, we're not going to say you should walk away from this and this is the silver bullet. When it comes to Mormon outreach, even though it's a good one. but it is another tool to put into your toolkit that you can add to all of the natural gifts that God has already given you. So. Just wanted to say that as kind of a caveat that this is a great approach, but it is not the only approach. So. Well, just to back that up, I mean, I've had this. My copy for about two months and it's already worn out and dog-eared, So I do appreciate the tool and we're putting the tool to good use. Michael, if you don't mind me asking a couple of personal questions, you can decide whether you want to answer them or not. my first one is when you're telling your story, It sounds like your first interaction at the three hour debate is kind of the opposite of what we tell and even in your introduction you tell Christians to use as a starting point and yet the spirit used it to bring you to a proper understanding of grace and the truth. so I'm just curious, as you reflect on that now, having become a, a biblical Christian, what are your thoughts on that first interaction? Yeah, I try not to really start my conversations that way, but I think it just shows how great our God is, uh, because there's also been discussions where I've gone about it the perfectly right way that you should, and it still doesn't So it just shows, and this is this prideful thought when I, I had, when I came into Christianity is like, oh, I, I spent all this time as a Mormon apologist. I'm going to go convert the whole world because I speak their language and I know how they think. And I was really disappointed pretty quickly after that when I realized I had a super hard time conveying the gospel to them and they didn't want to listen to me for one reason or another. And so ultimately it's going to be up to God, it's God's movement in somebody's life, the spirit moving in their lives that is actually going to convert them anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I also find it interesting. you mentioned in your introduction, that, unfortunately the majority of people that come out of the LDS faith who are no longer Mormons don't become Christians. and oftentimes end up agnostic or even atheist. What makes you different? how did the Lord shape the path so that you'd end up here instead of there? Yeah, and I want to briefly talk about what you're saying, too, because I've known a lot of people who left the Mormon Church from my childhood and And I don't know a single one who is a Christian right now. All of the ex-Mormon Christians are people I met online. They're not people that I knew from before. Almost all of them are agnostic or atheist and it's incredible the uh, the amount of people that just completely reject Jesus even though they claim to be Christian the whole time. Once you take out the Mormon doctrine, they don't have any belief in Christianity at that point. So for me, I think what really made the difference was all of the Christians that God put in my life. and I remember Lee Enoch's even telling me, in our continued conversations, I I do want you to leave the church, but I don't want you to leave Jesus. I, I wouldn't want that for you. And, and so I, I saw the difference in the doctrine but that Jesus was elevated in Christianity but even with that there did come a point where I left and I was considering atheism for a moment because I said I'm tired of being Pushed around, told what to do, controlled and manipulated. And then the thought occurred to me like, okay, well, how much of this can I really blame on Jesus? And the answer was none. And so at that point, I stopped taking that thought seriously. So I did pretty much transition directly into Christianity. And that's what I wrote this book to do. I believe people can actually transition directly into Christianity and you don't have to become an atheist first. I really appreciated that way you phrased that, Michael, of how, like, how much of this can I actually blame on Jesus? And I've often wondered for those in this space, if that is a. A valuable question to ask as they're saying, oh, I could never trust organized religion again to just ask that question like, well, did Jesus do this or was this a distortion of what Jesus said just as a little stone in the shoe? Yeah, absolutely agree with that. so yeah, this kind of plays into, what we were just talking about. you had that initial debate experience and then it still took you a long time and you talk about how as Christians we should play the long game. And not rush the approach because it's going to take a while to unravel the LDS beliefs before you're ready to switch over to something else. So I guess one of my questions is. If you're not trying to rush it, like, do you have an ideal of how long you think that long game should be? Like, what's your timetable when you're talking with someone? Yeah, so it does a little bit depend on where the Mormon is in their journey. So with me, I'm a, I'm a Mormon missionary. I'm as, as steadfast as you can be and super stubborn. So I think I'm a little bit longer than what I would normally say the long game is. Uh, in fact, I was thinking about writing this fiction book at one point where like everybody leaves the church except for like ten people. And I was like, I would still be one of those ten Like, if that happened. But I think you should assume it's going to take a few years for a Mormon to embrace the true gospel. And that God's gonna send other Christians besides you to talk to them and that you're really gonna just play a small part In the conversation with them. And so usually I would say what you want to do is kind of find out where they are because everyone's going to be in a different place of understanding the truth, meet them where they're at and just guide them in a little bit more. Of that truth. Uh, because everything that they believe, even though they use the same words we do, it's down deep. It's very different from what we're saying. And so it takes a lot of. Explanation, a lot of teaching, a lot of patients just to get one doctrinal point across to them. And so I would just say, start with the most important thing for where they're at. And then, let it take time to shape in their minds, to get a foothold, if you will. But you definitely, unless they're like already asking you like, Hey, I don't think my church is true. You know, what, what should I believe? Then you can rush through it and just tell them everything, but otherwise take it slow. Yeah, I guess, you know, my mom and I are meeting with a pair of missionaries and then an older lady from their church with them right now and It seems like because of where I'm at in that life, I'm gonna be moving in like a month so our time with them is probably coming to an end soon. But, early on they said hell isn't really a big thing. We don't need to worry about that. Nobody goes there. And for Christians, like hell is a big thing. That's why we want to talk to you and have these conversations. So if you have like a shortened timetable like we're gonna be done meeting with them soon, do you think hell is something you should bring up and try and convey just the importance and significance of before you end those conversations? I think so. And another example of what you're talking about would be if you're talking to Mormon missionaries, I've had this happen before where I'm going a little too slow. And then the one where I thought I was making headway, they get moved and they're gone, and it's like you've six to twelve weeks at most. So with them, I am going to rush and do it a little bit faster, but even then I will try to have one meeting. Where I'm just talking to them. We're just connecting. We're just sharing stories. And for me, it's easy because I'm, I used to be Mormon. So I served a mission. And we'll kind of tell war stories, just tell all the crazy things that happened on each other's missions. And, and that's just a really good bonding experience for us. But then usually I'm going to bring up the problem that makes the gospel necessary. that we're all sinners. We're all condemned and hell is a real place and we're going to go there. And even if they don't believe in hell, I might frame it as you have to understand. I believe. That if you aren't saved, you're going to spend eternity in hell. And I have to share this with you because I care about you. And usually I get a pretty good response from that. So many of you listening heard about the acronym IRIS in a recent podcast episode that we did reviewing Michael's book. Michael, can you talk through that iris approach, in short form, it'll set the framework for some other things. So you talk about an impossible standard. Reckoned righteousness and indomitable gift. and then finally that it is settled in faith. So what does this Iris approach look like? So I came up with this approach because these are the doctrines that I learned that got me out of Mormonism, first of all, and I learned them in that specific order. As I was studying grace, I learned that, first we have this impossible standard. I cannot become worthy in God's eyes. No matter how hard I tried. And believe me, I tried really hard. I tried theologically first, and then I tried practically. I'm like, well, I can't use my brain to figure this out, but God wouldn't give us a commandment that we can't keep, right? So I'm just, I'm going to do this practically and just saw myself falling short over and over again. And so the impossible standard is the bad news that no matter what we stand condemned between a holy and just God. And then the art goes with that. So it's the good news of the gospel. Just to put it simply, reckoned righteousness. Jesus was righteous on our behalf. He kept every iota of God's law. For us. So that's one way to think of those first two letters. And then when you start getting to the second half, it's really talking about what does the gift of grace give us and when do we get it? Uh, so indomitable gift. I had some people suggest that maybe I changed that to invincible gift and I'm like, it's good, but I'm also trying to convey that you can't one up it. You know, and so that's why I used indomitable because it's invincible, but you also can't. Because every new Marvel superhero movie that comes out, there is a new invincible guy that can trump the previous invincible guy. So I like indomitable. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And I kind of came up with that just from having these conversations with LDS. I mentioned in my book that I was talking to my sister at one point about grace and At first she responded positively to it, but then she came back a week later and she's like, you know, you're right. Grace is amazing, but there can always be more. And that's, that's where you start getting into the LDS doctrine where it's like, we're all saved by grace, but you can be exalted by keeping the commandments in the LDS church. You can, uh, you can be with your families forever and you can, Become a god and you can have eternal progression. And so what this really aims to do is to bypass all of that and say, no, once I've received Imputed righteousness, I have it all. every blessing available to me is now mine. So indomitable gift. And then the last one settled faith is to say this occurs. At the moment that I have faith and I trust in Jesus because when I was Mormon and I accepted the first three letters of Iris, I was like, okay, well, maybe this happens in the temple, right? When I get sealed in the temple, then that's when I receive this indomitable gift. But if it all happens, you know, at faith or really early on, Before all the LDS ordinances, then it actually negates the need for there to be an LDS church. And so that was the point where I find myself leaving. You, you mentioned as you're talking about grace, the, this idea of imputed righteousness or a righteousness that is outside of ourselves. And that's one of the topics that. I just spend so much time with Latter-day Saints talking about is that they're big in talking about righteousness or worthiness. How do you help make that connection of that this is a imputed or an alien righteousness how have you found a talk about that? That's great. I actually like alien righteousness a lot, too. I did have an LDS apologist early on, and he still claims that I actually believe that extraterrestrials are giving me my righteousness, which I'm like, okay, dude, that's not what I was saying. Um, really that's what the first point of Iris is about the impossible standard. You really have to hammer that in because initially a Mormon will nod and they will say, oh yeah, absolutely. God's standard is impossible. And they'll say, but without Christ's help, I could never do it. And so you have to go a little bit deeper and say, well, even with divine help, it's still not an achievable goal. And they have to really understand that before you can get into reckoned righteousness, because They have to see that there's no other way to be worthy in God's sight except that somebody else did it for us. And Mormons are already predisposed to understanding imputation really well. Because they do ordinances for the dead, for those who have passed on and are incapable of doing it themselves. So they'll do baptism for the dead, they will do endowments, sealings for the dead vicariously. And so I will use those things and I will tie them in and I will say you already believe in imputed righteousness because when you are baptized for an ancestor, your act of righteousness is counted to them as though they had done it themselves. And that is exactly what we believe about the cross. We believe that Jesus's entire life was a vicarious ordinance on our behalf. And when he died on the cross, he counted all of his righteousness to us as if we had obeyed everything God ever asked us to do. And they understand that really well. Uh, they usually don't agree with me at that point, but it's a really good way to start the conversation. And they're always shocked that we actually believe that they have no idea. I, I really appreciate it, Michael, just hearing you speak because you have the, the Mormon vocabulary more native to you than we do. And as you speak, hearing you, Use very Mormon terminology to connect to the biblical gospel. And we often tell our Christian witnesses, you don't need to be experts in Mormon theology in order to do Mormon outreach. But I think there is an appreciation that I have when I hear someone like you speaking and you talk about Jesus in a way that is definitely going to connect in a different way than maybe someone that only has a Christian background can. So thank you for that. To that. Point though, Michael, I'm curious, what do you think about Christians, using language like that to help witness? Obviously we have to make sure we kind of agree on our terms or maybe you've defined terms so that we can clearly communicate, especially the ones that are different. but, I guess one of my fears is that it would be looked at as patronizing or something that I'm, trying to Two horn, my meetings into their words and things like that. What do you, what do you think? I think that as long as you've kind of built a little bit of a relationship first, it'll kind of fix a lot of that problem. But I think that you are right, and especially for me, I come from an LDS background, so they're going to expect me to know all of these words and to be familiar with the Book of Mormon. And I think my problem is the opposite because I don't have a need to have them define anything. You know, Mormonese is my first language, but maybe where I mess up sometimes is actually defining the Christian terms as I'm talking about them. Because sure, I understand what they're saying, but am I conveying what I'm saying all the time? So just, stopping once in a while and just saying like, does that make sense? Or, even if you do know, you can just stop and ask them, can you tell me Can you tell me about vicarious ordinances and how that works for the dead person? And maybe if they explain it first, you can just kind of springboard off of that. That's a great approach. Absolutely. So that brings us something that's been happening just practically quite a bit lately. Um, one of the strategies that we're seeing it a lot Is, um, an approach that basically says to us you're misrepresenting what we believe or there's your, you misunderstand what we're saying and things like that, even when we directly quote from official church teaching and they'll say, well, that's not what I believe. That's a misrepresentation of my faith. And you'll even cite it and they go, yeah, I don't know. where do you go then after that? When, once you, you present it, well, this is like what the church is, this is the official church teaching on this. And You're saying that that's not what you believe. It doesn't feel right to say, well, it sounds like you're in the wrong church. But where do you go after that? Yeah, it's super tough and super frustrating. I was just telling somebody about this the other day, but when I was a Mormon apologist, I remember sort of mining for a quote, and I found one from Harold B. Lee that basically says, if it's not in the standard works, It is man's opinion. And if it contradicts what is in the standard works, it is not true. And I was laughing because we can find quotes against them. And that's, that's quote mining. But if we do it in support of the church, then that's totally okay. but. what I did as an apologist is I would take that to heart and I would say, okay, well, anytime that there's some quote from an LDS prophet that contradicts what I believe or what, what the standard work says, I'm going to say, well, they were speaking as a man. And so. I very rarely will point out anything from the prophets unless it was Joseph Smith. You know, but I'm almost always going to point to something in their actual scripture. Doctrine and Covenants, Book of Mormon are Pearl of Great Price because they have a lot less wiggle room there. To say, oh, that's not translated correctly or he was speaking as a man because now we're getting to the core of their doctrine. In fact, they say that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of their religion. If they throw out the keystone, the whole structure collapses and they know that. They know they can't dismiss anything written in their own book. That's just some really good practical advice, Michael. And, and I think it, it builds off some of the questions that Grace and Charlie had shared with me we do use quite a few quotes from modern general conference talks or Liahona magazine articles and we're getting this pushback. And one of the approaches that you really take in your book is to actually use the Book of Mormon a lot in your approach. I'll let Grace ask some specific questions about that, but I want to know, have you always done it that way? And what has the response been when you have used The Book of Mormon How has that worked for you? Well, I will say I've always done it. And the reason, the reason for that, because when I was studying, you know, grace and sin and damnation and everything, Somebody brought up imputed righteousness to me and I'd never heard of that. So that is one of those words that Mormon vocabulary does not mimic us on. They have no use for that word. It is one thing that will make them stop in their tracks and say, what is that? You know, and so I start thinking, well, what if that is true? And so I start studying it, but where do you think I start studying it first? The Bible, no. I open the Book of Mormon and I start reading there and I find support for it in the Book of Mormon. And so then I look at the temple and I'm like, yeah, they're doing these ordinances vicariously for people. That's another symbolic, uh, Showing of this gospel. So I started thinking maybe it is true. So then I start trusting the Bible enough to go look in there and it's overwhelmingly portrayed in the Bible. And that's, that's when I really knew that it was true. Uh, now only the first, like, two points of Iris are really supported by the Book of Mormon. Once you start getting to what does it get you and when does it kick in, it's, Completely contradictory on itself. It's not a useful tool. And I used a lot of verses in my book to really kind of just show Christians that it's there. But I would never use that many verses talking to a Latter-day Saint because sometimes the response is confusion. It's like, well, why are you Using this book if you don't even believe in it. And so I'll just try to use a few verses to hammer in a point at the beginning. But my goal is always to get to the Bible. As fast as I can, but if all I can do is convince them that God's standard is impossible with the Book of Mormon, I consider that a huge win because the rest of the, the logical fallacies are going to be huge at that point if they accept that doctrine and they're still trying to go to their church. Yeah, so that very well ties into the, one of the questions we had you have the Book of Mormon in your background, but for the everyday Christian, we don't, so. Like, like I said, we're meeting with missionaries right now and they're like, oh, read the Book of Mormon. And I'm like, well, this is a great opportunity for me to read it and then be able to like quote stuff to them. Um. But do you think Christians in general, if they're going to be witnessing, should read any of the Book of Mormon or try and be familiar with it? Do you think, like... If they kind of cherry pick those passages to like support the I and the R of Iris, do you think that'll come off as inauthentic? What's your opinion on that? I think that every Christian who is witnessing to Mormons should read the Book of Mormon. I think that it is a must read. If you're gonna, especially if you're planning to use verses in it, because usually when I see cherry picking happening, it doesn't work very well. And I'll give you an example of an argument I used to see a lot when I was a Mormon apologist, but they would pull out this verse in, in Alma. Where there's this king, King Lamoni, and I think Ammon or Alma goes to preach to him, and they talk to him about the great spirit, and they point to that, and then they point to Doctrine and Covenants. In the Book of Mormon, it's calling him a great spirit. In the Doctrine and Covenants, it says he has a body of flesh and bone as tangible as man's. But if you look at the bottom of the page, it gives an estimated time. And it says 400 B.C., And it's like, did Jesus take flesh yet at this point? And so we just can't, we couldn't take that seriously. So you want to be able to just have said I read it and you know, here's some thoughts. If you haven't read it, I do not recommend using the Book of Mormon at all. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, just knowing context helps too, um, especially like in the Bible, we try and talk about passages and context. So then if you're going to be picking a passage out of the book of Mormon, it kind of makes sense to know some of that context as well. And not just cherry pick. Yeah, I guess another question is you use very like specific passages in your book from the Book of Mormon. Do you think those are like the ones to use? Because as far as I've gotten into the Book of Mormon, like, I just got to Alma, but there's so much material before that that I'm like, oh, I could use this passage, I could use this passage. Do you think, like, the passages you have in your book are, like, the ones to use, or do you think there are other ones? Well, I went through looking specifically for those passages when I was studying it. And those were the ones that impacted me the most as a Mormon. So yes, I would say that they're really good ones to bring up. To that, if you'll let me compliment you a little bit. the ones you chose, and then I'm using the ones you chose, the context supports the point that you're making. Um, which again, unless you've really, really studied the Book of Mormon thoroughly, um, as a Christian Who's kind of a, I don't know, a, a tourist in the Book of Mormon. Um, even when you, like, you can even do some research on it and still be wrong about what the context really is. It's really easy to do that. So, I trust you a ton and it's proven to be, contextually both relevant and accurate to what is being said. So you did a great job of that in the book. Thank you, Charlie. Yeah, to that point, Charlie, I think that's important not only when we quote passages from the Book of Mormon, but also when we do that from the Bible. And even as I am preparing right now to send about eighty-five Christian teenagers out to knock on doors for our upcoming mission trip. in the past when I've given them proof passages to use in our illustrations, it's like, here's a proof passage, here's an illustration that goes with it. This year I'm really trying to help them understand When did Jesus say this in the context of his ministry and really help them have the specific context for a quote that they're going to use because that will allow them to have a lot more. Grounds to build upon rather than just pulling a verse out, which Mormons can do too. I want it to sink in a little bit deeper. So you did a great job with that in the book as Charlie was saying. Yeah, and I'll kind of piggyback on what you're saying real quick too, but one thing that Mormons are going to be very eager to do, and I used to do this, is you do sort of an avalanche of Bible verses when you're trying to support your Your stance. And so you'll go like, oh, I'm going to support a baptism. For example, they'll go from one corner to the next. And just find one verse and throw them at you. And most Christians are just stunned into silence at that point because they're like, oh, wow, that really does seem Like you're making a really good point here, but what you got to do is you got to not let them do that and say, well, let's examine each of these one at a time and let's look at all the context. And once you do that two or three times, they start getting really doubtful about all the other ones. Because if you can do it with a few of them, you can probably do it to all of them. And spoiler alert, you can do it to all of them. Great advice. In your book, you, talk quite a bit, especially early on about identifying what kind of a Mormon maybe you're dealing with as far as whether they're social Mormons, doctrinal Mormons, or spiritual Mormons? Um, I am curious about picking your brain a little bit. How do you, um, identify or what are some markers early on in a conversation that can help you kind of figure out which direction to go, especially if it's somebody that you don't have. You know, even somebody that you're talking to in the break room at work, you have a little bit more time and flexibility to kind of feel that out. But when you're sitting across to somebody you might not get in another meeting with or you're on a zoom call with somebody that you kind of had to talk into talking to you. Um, you don't have a lot of time to figure that out. So I'm curious what, if there's any like practical tips you have for trying to figure out which lane to pursue there. Yeah, and I will say first too that it's not maybe as simple as I make it seem like it is in my book because you don't just have somebody who's 100% doctrinal Mormon or 100% spiritual. You're gonna have them front some, one of these, but they're often gonna have one in the background that's also really strong. And so everyone's gonna be a mixture of these to an extent. And I think at certain times in their lives, they might change what they are. I wouldn't say that I was a doctrinal Mormon my whole life, but when I got challenged theologically, It inspired me to go and start studying and debating Christians. And I never would have done that before. So I think that shifted things a bit. But if you're trying to figure out The Mormon that you're talking to, you can often find out through context clues, like just if they're talking about their church and the kinds of things that they bring up, whatever is the most important to them, they're going to talk about the most. So for my brother, We'll be talking and he'll just be like, oh, there was this miracle that happened at church. You know, I'm like, okay, that's a spiritual Mormon. Right there, which is funny because I've been debating doctrine with him for two years before I realized he wasn't a doctrinal Mormon and he was wasting my time fronting that and distracting me with it. But a good way is just ask them questions. Why are you a member of your church? Like if you give me one thing and just tell me what is so special about your organization and then their answer is going to tell you Give you a pretty good hint onto what they are. So if they say, well, I know because the spirit told me it's true and they start with that, you probably got a spiritual Mormon. If they say, well, it's got the most complete doctrine and we've got new scripture and it explains, it clarifies what the Bible teaches. You might have a doctrinal Mormon. And if they're just like, well, we've got prophets and apostles and we've got the best organization on earth and we are the most obedient, righteous people, well, you've got a social Mormon. I have really appreciated this framework, Michael. Um, I've kind of overlaid it on a framework that I have been using over the last five years as I'm thinking about, where is this person at on their spiritual journey? And the path that I've been using is really thinking about as different camps that Mormons go in and out of. And the way that I've often described it is on one extreme is the blinded camp. Where I often think of them as like the Apostle Paul, Pharisee of Pharisees, you know, the doctoral Mormons, like they are, they are the true believers. And then next to them, I would consider those that are kind of bound. Those that maybe see some problems in the Mormon church, but they're trapped because of family ties or cultural connections. And then there's the burdened, those that start to see like, I'm not pulling off this impossible standard that God has for me. And then there's the broken whose shelves have broken. Then there's the bitter, those that have left Mormonism and hate it. And then there's the believer. So for me, it's these bees, but I've also overlaid now your different types. Of Mormons into those camps and realize like there's these two different things going on. I just threw those bees at you for the first time. So we'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on them. I can share them again later with you too. Yeah, no, it sounds good. I feel like I got the swarm around me, you know? Yeah, yeah. Um, I will say like one thought that kind of came to my head is, uh, I would say social Mormons can absolutely be just as zealous as a doctrinal Mormon. In fact, I've been surprised lately because I thought all the apologists were doctrinal Mormons. Yeah. And lately that has not been the case. Uh, you'll see social Mormons going public and being apologists, but the way that they, they defend it is totally different where they're going to point to the fruits. Of the church and say, well, we're true because we, we have the most obedient, the most zealous people. we do the most good works out in the community. Even if we're wrong, can't you see that we're, we're doing so much good and what's so wrong about that? And how can you say that we're going to hell when we do so much good? A doctrinal Mormon wouldn't defend the church that way. They would really point to the Bible and try to steamroll you with a bunch of verses. So I do think that a lot of them could fit in those categories, but it also kind of would depend on where they are in there. Journey to, you know, a lot of things would be variables for that. Absolutely. So to follow up with that, I personally, I'm a seminary student who happens to also really love the doctrine and theological study and things like that. Like I don't go to the church that I go to on accident. Like I, I, it's one of those things that I really personally lean on. Like if I was going to organize myself into a, into a category, I'd be a doctrinal Christian, right? Um, and so I get frustrated sometimes. That's a theme. I get frustrated sometimes. Um, when I find that I'm kind of working on somebody who is Not a doctrinal Mormon. Um, is it wise, do you think, I think I know what your answer might be, but I'm gonna ask anyway, uh, for the sake of the listeners too. Is it, is it wise to kind of push on the doctrine Um, and maybe even like trigger them to turn into doctrinal Mormons so you can deal with them, deal with these issues then, uh, specifically, or do you think it's wiser to kind of let them stay in their lane and, and deal with them where they are? That is such a good question. And I don't know if I have a perfect answer for that. I get frustrated too. I remember I was with some other Christians and they had some sister missionaries in their home. And they were really excited to have us together, and so we start talking to them and even asking them, why did, why did they go on a mission? And they just said things like, well, we want to just serve the community and we want to, we just want to grow. And they didn't say a single thing. that would make you think that the LDS church is true. and I'm just like, what is going on like, I never would have answered that question. On my mission, I would have said I'm trying to save you people from going to a lower kingdom of heaven, probably. Uh, and so I think that doctrine is really important. I don't know. That you can really pull a Mormon out of the Mormon church into Christianity without them understanding the differences in the doctrine. So for me, I think my instinct would be To, to push on that doctrine a little bit, but I don't know if I would do it initially. I would probably, if they're like a social Mormon, I would try to befriend them. I might try to invite them to some activities to show them that I love them. And even when I did start bringing up the doctrine, I might not even bring up stuff that is against their church at first, but just, hey, did you know? You know, something that they and I could agree on, but just if you get them interested in the scriptures, in theology, They're going to be more prone to listen to some more stuff later on. So that kind of goes back to the playing the long game. As well. Now I would never. Pretend that, I'm accepting of them at the beginning. So I do want to say that too. Like I'm, I'm going to be pretty upfront with the differences at the beginning. And it's hard especially for someone like me because I'm an ex-Mormon and so a lot of times if you're a Christian who's never been LDS you've actually got a better chance of having A good conversation because they look at someone like me as a covenant breaker. I'm as dishonest as they can be. I left because I wanted to sin. Uh, but even so I'll, I'll share with them up front that I was raised in the church and now I'm Christian and I usually won't go real hard on, on why, but they'll actually ask me, what was it that made you leave the church at that point? I have their permission to go ahead and tell them. Yeah, no, I yeah. That's a little bit validating. I appreciate that. And there seem to be some who we interact with, and it seems to be more so online, which maybe tells you something too. but that just don't want to go there. It doesn't matter how much really cause there's a few people that I'm with chat with online that I know on a first name basis, like wishing each other happy birthday at this point. And, every time, every time we try and go there at all, It's just a, take the rubber stamp back out and we're going to go back to the same, conversations. do you have any, advice or insights on the, For lack of a better term, the blind follower who's not willing to test their faith at all. Yeah, and I'm thinking about one thing that you said, maybe I'm hyper focusing on this, but you're talking about talking to people online. And I will say it is a completely different story when you're talking to Latter-day Saints in person compared to online because the ones who are online debating are often the most hardened of the hard the ones and a lot of times they're. Their goal is to distract you from talking to other Latter-day Saints. And so they will just try to waste as much of your time as they possibly can. But, a big part of it is, and it's hard to do this online, but Show yourself and try to find ways to bond with them anyway. And I'll give you an example of something that happened to me, but I remember I was in one of the debate groups on Facebook. And uh, one of the Mormons got on and he started giving me a hard time. He's like, oh, here Michael goes again talking about imputation. Uh, it must be groundhog day. And so instead of getting angry at him, I continued the joke and I said, you know what, just because you said that I'm coming back here on Groundhog Day on actual Groundhog Day and I'm bringing up imputation. And then he actually commented and he's like, I was trying to be mad at you, but I can't be anymore. Guy's name was Neil. we actually became friends after that and like we would message back and forth. So sometimes Just don't take yourself so seriously and be willing to laugh at yourself a little bit. You know, we are just imperfect beings and, and sometimes we can look like, oh, well, we've got the true gospel. So we're going to hammer it down on you. But you can kind of show some humility that way. And it goes a long way. Same thing. Say you, um, say you do misrepresent the LDS church and they were able to show you that you were, um, It goes a long way to just say, hey, I apologize, for that. I didn't realize that you guys believed this. And, uh, that can just spread a lot of goodwill with your conversations with Mormons. Yeah. I mean, if we're going to meet people in person and spend the whole first meeting, just getting to know each other, like how much more so is that important that online? I'll also say I would rather have those conversations in person than offline too. Absolutely. Grace, what else do you have? Yeah, I'm going to transition down to talking about Abraham and Isaac because, Charlie and I both found this as a very interesting part of your book. we, we do often talk about Abraham being declared righteous and By faith before the sacrifice of Isaac. Um, but I was drawn to your statement like Abraham trusted in the promise of God and not in the means of the promise. And the idea of like asking an LDS person to like lay down their ordinances and just trust God instead. And I know, Charlie, you had some thoughts on that. Well, it's something that I understand very well and it has brought me personally great peace understanding that when scripture, especially Hebrews uses the language of testing. It's more of the idea of, testing for the purity of metal. What do you call it? Um, refining. Yeah. Yeah. Um, And so it's more of God showing Abraham just how strong his faith is to an extent. It's, it's a demonstration to us of Abraham's faithfulness and so forth, but it all happens after he has faith. And through that faith has already been made righteous by God, right? He's already been justified. and I understand that and I love, it brings me a ton of peace. I seem to be having, as a Christian, I seem to be having a really difficult time communicating that to Saturday Saints. Um, and I'm really glad that you used that. The story and we use the story regularly. Um, I don't seem to be having a lot of success communicating it clearly to members of the church. Um, so I guess maybe what I'm asking is, can you, give us the language to do that Because, like you said, you speak Mormonese a lot more fluently than we do, more fluently than we ever could, not native speakers. So I'm just curious how you approach that and how you talk about it. When you're doing your witness. Yeah, absolutely. and that's actually something that I only came to really understand maybe in the last two years. Uh, that principle, and it really hit me hard because. Mormons, you know, you'll bring up the, the temple ordinances and how they're not trusting Jesus because they're trusting in these ordinances, but they're going to just come back and say, I'm sure you've heard this. Well, I'm doing it because the Lord commanded it. The Lord created this. I'm doing it because I trust Jesus. And so that's what makes this Abraham story so interesting because Isaac kind of represents That same kind of thing where God says these blessings are going to be through Isaac. It's through Isaac that all nations will be blessed through your seed. You can kind of look at that and be like, well, is the promise, is it really through Isaac or is it actually still through Jesus? And he actually calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. And the way I kind of put that in my book is he calls on him To sacrifice the means by which this blessing was supposed to happen. And that is such incredible faith that he actually goes and prepares to do that. Believing not in the means of the promise, but in the promise giver that even if Isaac dies, God will still provide the promise that he offered. And so one thing is I wouldn't necessarily try to explain this to a Mormon. One of the things I mentioned in my book is with this acronym, you really want to make sure they have solid footing in the letter before Uh, the, the one that you're at. So I would not try to explain wreck and righteousness without going over how it is impossible to, to meet God's standard. Because otherwise they don't think they need it. They believe in empowering grace and that's going to be enough. And so same thing, an indomitable gift isn't going to make sense if they don't understand that it is actually Jesus's purpose. Perfect righteousness that we are given. So you have to kind of walk them through to before you get to that point. But I'll give you an example of how I use this recently. So I was talking to an LDS friend of mine. And I told him, and this is new phrasing even for me, but I told him that our doctrine on faith is in a sense a reverse tithing. So in Mormonism, they give 10% of their income. And the idea is that by doing so, you are making a sacrifice so that you will trust God more by showing, hey, I'm giving up 10% of my finances. But in practice, it often doesn't work that way. And I told my, I told my friend this, I said a lot of LDS and me included when I was Mormon would look at it not as a sacrifice, but an investment. Because when I pay my tithing, I'm forcing God to throw open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so great I won't be able to receive it. And so I told him that our faith is like a reverse tithing. And by not giving, by not doing these works that are supposed to give us favor in God's sight, I am showing faith in that he will still bless me. that he is still going to save me. Now I had to preface that a little bit because Mormons will look at a statement like that and say, oh, so you just want to sin as much as you possibly can. So The follow-up is, but just so you know, I'm not playing bumper cars out on the highway just because I have insurance. And, uh, and he actually said he liked it. You know, he said he liked the, uh, the principle. So that's an interesting way of going about it. Yeah, that made me think one of the one of the quotes or some one of the phrases that I think you had in the book that I've used a few times since is just like if if you have someone who loves you unconditionally, like it's not your goal to betray them as much as possible. and I use that with our missionaries two weeks ago as I was trying to explain just like our view of how do I obtain eternal eternal life? That's one thing. But like, okay, that's settled. It's done. I haven't talked about my works at all. And I kind of prefaced like now talking about works with that statement of just like, okay, it's been given to me, but that doesn't mean I'm going to try and betray God because he's done all of this for me. Yep. And, and sometimes I'll talk to the missionaries and this feels a little out of place sometimes, but, uh, I'll talk about marriage a little bit. I'm like, I know you guys aren't there yet, but when you get married, you don't take out the trash and do the dishes to earn your wife's Uh, favor, you do it because you love her. And, and that's, that's really the reason that we do works as Christians as well. It's not to gain favorites because we are favored. It's because we're trying to glorify God In connection to your response of grace line of reasoning here, this will be a question that's very practical for some of our Christian witnesses that are joining us on our mission trip here in a few weeks. Uh, we, we've taken a number of different approaches over the years to our witnessing. One I would say probably took more of your iris approach where we really focused on the impossible standard. We, we prefaced. Our door-to-door work with Matthew five forty-eight be ye therefore perfect as your Father, which in heaven is perfect, showing them the impossible standard. And then we used verses from Hebrews that talks about he hath perfected them forever that are being sanctified to really show that this is a pastime action. and that that's worked, fairly effectively knocking on doors in the past, but sometimes it led to a debate of what does the word perfect mean in the original Greek and it takes you off on a different path. And so this last year, we started a new approach where we are using the story of the parable of the prodigal sons in Luke chapter fifteen To really show the two different ways that you can be lost, either in your outright sinfulness or in your self-righteousness. And I really wanted to pick your mind on this one. And this was Grace had actually posed this question originally of like, as a Latter-day Saint, if you were hearing that story of the parable of the prodigal son, And we're trying to help you see God's impossible standard reckon righteousness and faith. How do we bring this about in such a way where they don't just respond at the end and say, well, Yes, the younger son does get a party now, but the older son, because of his faithfulness all of these years, Even the father says everything I have is already yours. Um, how do we, how do we talk a little bit more pointedly about that older brother and what his problem is? I've, I've had a few that, that make the connection that Jesus was talking To the Pharisees that were looking down. And so like, how do we get a Mormon at the door to recognize this story is about all of us that, that try to present ourselves as more holy and righteous than we actually are. Yeah, and I'm going to preface my answer with if anyone's wondering what should they be praying for, for their Mormon friends and neighbors, the answer is that they will be convicted of their sins. Because until that happens, They have no need for the gospel. Like Jesus says, you know, they that are whole do not need a physician, but those who are sick. And those are the ones that he came to call. So as long as they believe that they are righteous or that they are going to be righteous soon, It's going to be very hard. I will say that when I left Mormonism, I read the book, The Prodigal God, which, you know, from Tim Keller, where he talks about the two sons and When I started the book, I was thinking, what have I done? I'm going to go to outer darkness. How can I be so stupid? Letting my stupid morals decide what I'm going to do. And then I read The Prodigal God and I knew that I'd made the right choice because I finally saw that connection. Highly recommend it. but a couple of things you can point out in that story is, first of all, you show how unforgiving the older brother is towards his younger brother. And how that doesn't, you can even ask, does this seem like something that a righteous person, an attitude that a righteous person should have towards somebody who has come back into the fold? And obviously it isn't. Now, I've had Mormons say that, oh, yeah, he got to go out and he got to have his party, but his whole inheritance is spent. He's not going to get his inheritance later. One of the questions I like to pose to them is, well, that cow that got killed, whose was it? At that point. So he's taking the cow from the older brother's inheritance now and throwing a party for his brother. Maybe the reason he would be so angry. But the end of that parable is what's really so intense is that the older brother, it doesn't show him going back into the feast. He's so angry that he won't go. So even though... Everything is his, you know, theoretically it's, it's at his fingertips. He will not take it. And I think that's what self-righteousness does. You will not take the grace of Jesus Christ because why do you need it? No, I think that last point is the one that I'm really driving home. And recently I heard a Christian pastor preaching on the part of scripture where Jesus is talking about himself being the narrow door. And he turned it around and says like, as you approach the narrow door of Jesus, what are you bringing in your arms? And like, what are you carrying with you? And that's a picture that I'm trying to paint at the door this year is if we come to the narrow door of Jesus, And we're carrying all of our works and all of our ordinances and all of the things we've done. It's like we're, we're just building or holding our arms so wide. That even if we turn sideways, we cannot make it through the door with all of the stuff that we are carrying with us. And I want to connect that to the older brother. The reason why he can't come in and celebrate the The grace that is being shown to his brother is he doesn't get it at all. He thinks the only way that I can actually have a relationship with God is through my works. And we really need to say like, Lay your works down and come in through that narrow door of Jesus. You can't come in with your works. It just, you can't fit. Yeah. Any, any way to build on that at all, Michael? No, I think that's great. And another thought that you kind of brought to my head is, you know, would you say that the older brother likes mercy at this point? Is he a fan of grace? I don't think he is. He seems to really hate the idea that this guy isn't getting what he deserves. Yeah, he doesn't understand it because he number one doesn't think he needs it and therefore he doesn't want anyone else to have it either. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, there's a lot of problems with that. I've had similar things and I mentioned this one in my book, but the story of the young ruler who goes to Jesus and he says, oh yeah, I've kept all the commandments. Since my, my birth and Mormons will look at that and be like, see, what are you guys talking about? We can't keep the commandments. This guy kept all of the commandments. It was just that little tiny thing. And that's a double edged sword because first of all, it's like, well, do you have a little tiny thing? Possibly in your life because if one little thing kept him out, what's it gonna do to you? But the bigger picture there is that Jesus is showing Him that he's a hypocrite that he's saying he's keeping all the commandments. But if he really loved God that much, then it wouldn't have been a big deal to sell everything he had and follow him. Reminds me of Paul's language in Philippians, Philippians three where he Foolishly brags, in quotation marks, about all the good works that he's done and how he's the Jew of Jews, the Hebrew of Hebrews, and he has this giant pile of good works that he's stacked up. And then the language continues as he's talking about all these good things. He said, well, it's all lost. None of it's gained. And then he presents this prize. Like, and what is this prize, which Christ has given me? It is all of. What I was trying to earn with the good works that I was doing. And it's a one way ticket to my heavenly father's kingdom, right? I get to go be with God forever. And I can't both hold on to this giant pile of good words that I've amassed in my arms and then also take hold of the prize toward which I'm pressing. So instead, what Paul admonishes us to do is Drop all those things and sprint towards the prize. And that takes a lot of this to use your language. That takes a lot of trust to say, I'm actually, that's your tithing upside down thing again. Right. It takes a lot of trust to stand back and say, I am going to put my trust in what Christ says he's done instead of the evidence that I have in front of me that I'm a good or worthy person. Absolutely. Uh, it's, it's so hard to do that. Uh, in Mormonism, you grow up singing the hymn, I am a child of God. And what's funny is it used to say, teach me all that I must know. To live with him someday. And they changed the lyrics to teach me all that I must do to live with him someday. Which is, which is fascinating, Michael. I'm glad you bring that up because so many Mormons that I am talking to today are more focused on the knowledge aspect of what I need to know or learn for eternal life. Rather than what I need to do. And so it's fascinating that the song actually was more Mormon earlier or more modern Mormon earlier. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say this too. And, uh, I've been seeing a huge shift in the way that Mormons, talk about their gospel and, and how they present themselves and it will come off sounding more Christian than ever. And I know that some Christians will kind of get this idea. Well, I need to teach them about Mormonism so that they realize what the doctrine actually is. And with my approach with Iris, it's actually not doing that at all. It's going to say, oh, cool. You already believe that. Do you want to learn some more? Like, let's study some more on this topic and you just take them from where they're at and you just keep Just keep instructing them. I appreciate where you're going with that, Michael. And I wanted to, that was going to be my final question was how do we respond to the Latter-day Saint that we are having a conversation with that says, number one, why do you care so much? And can you really convince me that all of these good things that I am trying to do for God? Are actually going to prevent me from receiving the thing that I'm trying to get. Does that make sense? Where they're really saying like, how can you Christian really tell me that God is going to condemn me For striving and trying and enduring with all of these ordinances. How would you respond to that? Yeah, I had one LDS friend. He said to me, um, I'm always better than I was the day before. And so. I responded to him. I said, cool, what's your ETA for perfection? if you're having that much growth and you're getting that much closer to God every day, you must have an idea. And he's like, well, that's not what I meant. You know, I'm like, Okay, well, that's what it sounded like to me. And I have a lot of Mormons saying like they're repenting every day. And so that brings up the problem of why are you repenting every day? And the answer is, well, because I'm breaking the commandments at the end of the day, right? And then the other thing is too, is like, what is really, what is your motivation for the good things that you're doing? Is it really just for God? Yeah. Because if you look deep into yourself and you're really honest with yourself, there are a lot of motivations to do good things that are still selfish. You know, maybe I'm going to look like a really trustworthy person. Maybe it makes me feel better about myself that I'm living more righteously than everybody else. And it can become a pride thing. And so you have to really look deep into yourself and say, why, why am I doing these things? And a good example is the biblical account where Jesus says that many will say in that day, Lord, Lord, Did we not do many wondrous works in your name? and he says, well, I never knew you. And so they're basically saying, didn't we, didn't we pay for this? Didn't we earn this? What's interesting is in their accusations, they never say, well, God, didn't we love and trust you? That's never stated. It's all about the things that they did and what they now feel entitled to because of it. Yeah, and that really goes back to the elder brother and the prodigal too. And the way that I usually talk about that is he doesn't really want the father. He wants the father's stuff. And that's ultimately the problem in that parable too, they don't really want God. they're not looking for eternal life with him. They want the stuff that they thought they were earning. Absolutely. And that's, that is so true with Mormons because they're going to talk about, yes, what are you looking forward to in heaven? It's like, oh, I'm going to be with my, my eternal family and I'm going to have eternal progression and It's just like, and then you look at us and like, you're just going to be up there playing harps for eternity. And it's like, well, even if that is true, I'm going to be in the presence of Jesus. And how come you don't value that the same way I do? And that's the real question right there. Grace and Charlie, do you have any wrap-up questions for Michael? Yeah. Because of the fact that we're so plugged in with LDS culture at the moment, working with truth and love, we see kind of in real time from one general conference to the next how, LDS doctrine kind of evolves and goes. To what degree do you think it's important for Christians to stay up to date on that stuff? is it, More valuable do you think for Christians to be kind of like diving into general conference talks and things like that and making sure they're up to date on everything. Um, or being more fluent in the LDS scriptures, I guess. Book of Mormon specifically. Yeah. Yeah, I would, if it was me, I would say learn the Book of Mormon. Because that's never gonna change from being their keystone. Sometimes I feel like these talks in general conference matter for about a week or two and for example, the second Nelson dies and there's a new prophet, a lot of them are just going to forget about Nelson completely. And it's all going to be about what the new guy is saying. And that's the problem with ongoing revelation is it devalues all revelations from before because you need more to add to it, right? This is something I tell Mormons all the time is a good movie doesn't need a sequel. The only reason you need a sequel is if there was stuff that wasn't wrapped up, right? Or you want to make more money. Or you want to make more money, but you can tell because those sequels aren't very good a lot of time. Look at Home Alone three Sorry, I had to knock on that. It's not even the same kid anymore. And that's, that's what, uh, that's like what the Book of Mormon is. It's not even the same Jesus anymore. I love that. That's awesome. Good thoughts. Michael, you're speaking to our Christian witnessing audience that just has a heart for speaking the truth and love into the Latter-day Saint world. Is there any Final advice that you have for our listeners today. Yeah, I've seen A lot of Christians get a little bit disheartened when they realize how close Mormon words are to our words and That it can look really difficult. It can look like this maze that there's no way to get through it. And it can feel like there's nothing you can do to penetrate the Mormon's testimony, their beliefs, and they've been held on to for so long. So my first piece of advice is no matter where you are as a Christian, even if you haven't studied Mormonism, Forever. You're still somebody that God can use to reach Mormons. I've seen some of the best Christian missionaries to Mormons be people who never studied it before and they came and knocked on their door and they just start having conversations. So, uh, you don't have to know a ton about Mormonism. You need to know about The true gospel. And you need to be able to share that. And a lot of times, your heart for the Mormon is going to be what really makes them decide if they're going to listen to you or not. So biggest thing is love them. Don't be out there trying to win an argument. Uh, try to win their souls. Amen. Hey, that's amazing. Thank you for dropping that nugget with us. Really appreciate you taking the time and the effort to write this book. so again, the, the book, if you want to go out and get a copy for yourself is tearing the veil. A guide for sharing grace with Mormons and we just got our copies easily on Amazon. I think they showed up a day and a half, two days later. I would say it's a very accessible read, for the average witnessing Christian. And there's just going to be, as the, the nugget that Michael just dropped there, a lot of just good little takeaways that you can put into your, your toolbox. Grace and Charlie, thanks for working through that book and putting some questions together today. Michael, you have been a blessing to us. It's just phenomenal to see God bringing a Former Mormon apologist from that place to where you're at now, just using your story, really ultimately his story for his glory and then the good of his kingdom. we're going to keep you in our prayers as God uses you as his tool and instrument, but also that this book would also be a valuable tool and instrument. So. Thank you all. blessings as you get out there and speak the, the truth in love with the confidence your witness does matter. So thanks everyone. Have a blessed day. Thank you.