Questions to Ask Mormons
Respectful questions for a conversation with a Latter-day Saint friend, neighbor, or colleague, covering Sunday and the ward, callings and tithing, the temple, missions, and where doubt can be spoken about. Ordered so the searching questions come after some trust exists.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Did you grow up in the church, or come to it later?
Why ask it
Converts and lifelong members describe the same church quite differently, and the answer frames everything after it. Converts usually remember the decision; people raised in it often describe a later moment when they chose it for themselves.
What does a normal Sunday look like for you?
Why ask it
Sunday is long and structured, with meetings, classes, responsibilities, and often a meal afterward. Hearing its shape explains why the rest of the week is organized as it is.
How big is your ward, and how did you end up in that one?
Why ask it
Congregations are assigned by geography rather than chosen, which surprises people from traditions where you shop for a church. It also means their congregation is literally their neighbors.
What's your calling at the moment, and how did you get it?
Why ask it
Members are given unpaid roles, from teaching children to keeping accounts, usually without volunteering. The answer shows how much unpaid work their faith actually asks of them each week.
How does family home evening actually work in your house?
Why ask it
A weekly evening set aside at home is a standard practice, and in reality it ranges from a prepared lesson to noise and ice cream. The gap between the ideal and the household is where the honest answer lives.
What does the temple do that Sunday services don't?
Why ask it
Temple worship is separate from weekly meetings and not open to everyone, which is among the most misunderstood parts of the faith. Ask what it means to them rather than for a description of what happens inside.
How do you handle it when someone offers you a drink?
Why ask it
Declining alcohol, coffee, and tea is a small recurring negotiation in social life. The first answer is usually a well-worn line, and the interesting part is how tired they are of needing one.
How does tithing work in practice?
Why ask it
A tenth of income is expected and is connected to temple access, which makes it a more consequential commitment than a collection plate. Ask how it is paid and who sees the records.
How did serving a mission, or not serving one, shape things for you?
Why ask it
Missions are close to universal for young men and common for young women, and not going carries its own weight. Either answer opens onto family expectation and how they handled it.
What happens when a family in the ward is in trouble?
Why ask it
Mutual aid here is organized rather than improvised, with assigned visits, stored food, and a bishop who can authorize help. Ask for one specific instance and you learn what the community actually delivers.
What do people assume about your church that isn't right?
Why ask it
You will hear the corrections they are practiced at making, which is worth knowing. Follow it by asking what they wish people assumed instead, and the answer becomes theirs rather than defensive.
What does continuing revelation mean in your ordinary decisions?
Why ask it
The teaching that revelation continues through living leaders is the doctrinal center of the faith, and members apply it very differently in personal life. Ask for an example from their own year.
How do you read the Book of Mormon now compared with when you were younger?
Why ask it
Rereading is where interpretation becomes visible. Someone whose reading has changed can usually say what changed it, and someone who says nothing has changed may simply not read it often.
What do you do with a teaching you struggle with?
Why ask it
Every observant person holds something uncomfortably, and the strategies differ: study, waiting, setting it aside, quiet disagreement. The question needs some trust, so it belongs late in a conversation.
Who can you talk to honestly about doubt?
Why ask it
Whether doubt has a safe audience, a spouse, a friend, a bishop, or nobody, says a great deal about their experience of the community. A long pause before the answer is itself the answer.
How does your faith come up at work?
Why ask it
Being identifiably religious carries small costs: assumptions, jokes, invitations declined, questions at lunch. The answers are practical rather than theological, and mostly about how much explaining they do.
What has changed in the church during your lifetime that mattered to you?
Why ask it
Members follow institutional change closely, from meeting length to missionary rules to policies on families. Which change they name tells you what they actually care about.
What's the hardest part of being visibly religious at the moment?
Why ask it
This is where politics, family, and public perception meet, and the answer often concerns being spoken for by people they did not choose. Let it stay complicated rather than tidying it up for them.
What would you want me to ask that people never do?
Why ask it
It surfaces both what they are tired of and what they never get to say. Expect an answer about ordinary life rather than doctrine.
If your faith ever changed, what part of it would you want to keep?
Why ask it
An unusually searching question that only works once the conversation has earned it. What someone would keep tends to be concrete: family practice, service, the discipline of a standing weekly commitment. That is the part their faith is actually supplying.
Talking about faith with a friend
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask well
Ask about practice before doctrine
What someone does on a Tuesday is easier to describe, and more revealing, than what their church officially teaches. Doctrinal questions tend to produce institutional answers.
Use their vocabulary
Members generally say Latter-day Saint, ward, calling, and temple. Getting the words right signals that you have paid attention and spares them a small correction they make constantly.
Ask for one example rather than a summary
A request to explain the faith produces a lesson. A request for what happened at church last Sunday produces a conversation, and the details are where the interesting parts sit.
Save the hard questions for later
Doubt, history, and contested church positions all land better once some trust exists. Opening with them turns the conversation into an audit, and people answer audits carefully.
What to avoid
Asking them to defend the institution
Individual members did not write the policies and often disagree with some of them. A question shaped as why does your church allow this puts someone in a position they never asked for.
Opening with polygamy
It is the most predictable question they get, and the practice was ended by the church well over a century ago. It reads as a jab even when no jab is intended.
Treating one person as a spokesperson
Practice varies between families, wards, and countries. Asking what most Mormons think gets you a guess, while asking what they do gets you something accurate.
Pressing on doubt after a deflection
If a question about doubt gets a short answer, that is a boundary rather than an evasion. Coming back to it another time works; pushing in the moment usually ends the honesty for the evening.
Words worth knowing first
- Ward: a local congregation, assigned by where you live
- Stake: a grouping of wards in one area
- Calling: an unpaid assignment within the congregation
- Bishop: the unpaid leader of a ward
- Temple: a separate building used for specific ordinances rather than weekly worship
- Latter-day Saint: the term most members prefer for themselves