LEHI — Some Latter-day Saints are like the 42% of Christians who say that sharing their faith is “scary,” a communications leader for the Church of Jesus Christ said Wednesday night.
Some church members become paralyzed by perfectionism when it comes to sharing the way faith fills and enriches their lives, said Aaron Sherinian, managing director of the Church Communication Department.
“If you are on the sidelines, move off the sidelines and share what’s in your heart,” he said while delivering the keynote address to the 26th annual FAIR Conference at the Show Barn at Thanksgiving Point.
Sherinian gave practical advice on how to overcome that reticence.
A third of his talk was about statistics he said church members can use in talking with others. The numbers portray trending global growth and show the positive effect of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how the church “shows up in the world today,” he said.
But his chief point was that the most effective way to talk about faith with others is to follow the example of Jesus Christ by keeping messages simple and kind while sharing one’s own, authentic and real experiences.
“There is no person more expert at talking about your testimony,” Sherinian said. “There is no person more eloquent or prepared to talk about a lived experience than you. It’s what’s in your heart, full stop.
“You are qualified to talk about your experience as a follower of Jesus Christ. You are a witness of his power in your life.”
FAIR — short for Faithful Answers, Informed Responses — is an organization devoted to answering challenges to and criticisms of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, said the organization’s president, Scott Gordon.
The voices of church members are needed, Sherinian told an audience of 250.
“The general public is hearing a lot about the church right now, and more often than not, they’re hearing things from other sources that may not have the best intentions at heart,” he said. “The general public may be seeing parts of the church but missing the testimony of Jesus Christ and definitely not hearing about the (positive statistics).
“So it’s incumbent upon us to be generous and communicate.”
‘A faith-filled world’
Sherinian said too many believers think the world is sliding into disbelief when in fact, 75.8% of the world’s people identified with a religion as of 2020. He said he believes that percentage is increasing. He called faith “a major part of everyone’s human experience.”
“We live in a faith-filled world. Faith is not an outsider topic. It is a shared priority,“ he said.
Sherinian said some Latter-day Saints may have different experiences in their families, among their friends and in their congregations, but that doesn’t change the fact that the world at large is one of faith.
Faith-filled conversations and expressions don’t have to be lengthy, complex or have the answers to every question, he said.
Statistics: ‘A wondrous reality check about faith and the church’
Sherinian shared a slew of statistics he said are tangible, factual proof of the church’s strength, growth and impact.
“There are those who will find fault in these or any numbers,” he said. “There are those who will look to weaken global evidence by pointing to local examples that buck a trend. There will be people who will miss the trajectory of something because they want to talk about a discrepancy (or outlier).”
For example, he said:
- The church’s Gospel Library app has 1.3 million daily users.
- Its Bible Videos series has 680 million views.
- The church’s three universities, one college and BYU-Pathway Worldwide program serve more than 150,000 a year.
- The Seminary and Institute program enrolls over 800,000 young people, the most in church history, including the largest percentage of young adults ever.
“Reality check,” he said. “(These are) glad tidings, not hearsay. This is happening.”
Sherinian shared more:
- The church’s Youth Music has been streamed over 2 billion times. (“In some countries, rates of streaming can be up to 10 times larger than the local membership in that country.)
- The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square reaches over 4 million people each week.
- The church provided $1.45 billion in humanitarian aid in 2024.
- Latter-day Saints gave at least 6 million hours of service last year.
- The church’s FamilySearch.org website has 20 million monthly visitors, the vast majority of whom are not Latter-day Saints.
The church recently had more convert baptisms from June 2024 to June 2025 than in any other 12-month period in its history, he said.
The number of the church’s missionaries — more than 78,000 — directly contradicts the perception that young people are disengaging from faith en masse, he added.
“A miracle,” he called it.
He encouraged church members to talk about those statistics and point to the evidence of good the gospel does in their lives. Together, they are the fruits of following Jesus Christ, he said.
He quoted church President Russell M. Nelson, who recently said, “The best is yet to come as we fully turn our hearts and our lives to Jesus Christ.”
“What about communicating that?” Sherinian said. “What a heartening reminder that can — and might, should and does — infuse our communications with joy and with hope.”
The “joyous communication task” in front is clear, he said. “Find ways to be more comfortable, more authentic and to more frequently talk about the role of this faith in our lives, even when things don’t seem perfect, even when we don’t have all the answers, even when all of the incoming feels like it’s contrarian or filled with doubt,” he said.
Sherinian previously served as senior vice president for global reach at Deseret Management Corporation, which owns the Deseret News.
