"Over five years, I'm guessing we've had 100 to 150 different people come and meet with us," he said.

While the Cache Valley chapter meets only twice a month for discussion at a restaurant, other Utah chapters are more socially oriented, he said. The St. George group has dozens of active members and regularly hosts speakers, and the Utah County group holds regular social events. A few other chapters have formed in the United States and Europe, with one in Australia.

Scott Stevenson, a PostMormon.org board member, said he hopes that word about the organization's outreach will help calm some of the fear generated in family and friends when someone they love leaves the church. "I was a returned missionary, married in the temple and was serving as the Elder's Quorum president in my ward when I left," he said.

It was a rocky road, even though his wife decided to leave with him. The decision was softened somewhat by the fact that they were living in Canada when they left the church, and they moved back to Logan shortly afterward.

"I was lucky (my wife) left at the same time. For couples where one spouse leaves and one stays, the divorce rate is really high," Stevenson said. As the son of a local stake president, he knows his decision is difficult for his extended family, but they have not ostracized him or his family in any way, he said.

"We just don't talk about church stuff. They've never hesitated to have us over for dinner."

Others are not so fortunate, Ricks said, adding he was told a member of his extended family would not be attending the family reunion if he were present. A descendant of Thomas Ricks — for whom Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho) was named — generations of deep faith in his family make his work with PostMormon.org a difficult pill to swallow for those who believe he has endangered his status among the family in heaven.

"We're not into angry protests. But that's what people who leave the church are perceived as," angry, vocal and often hateful, he said.

"There's this stigma from within the church about what those who leave the church are like," Stevenson said. "There are thousands of people who leave and never have anything more to do with it. You don't hear about them."

Many simply keep a low profile and avoid discussion about leaving, both at home and at work. "I didn't want to be the office anti-Christ," Dobbs said. " I don't believe the 'one true church' model. I believe though there are differences between many religions, there can be a common core in many things."

That's part of what draws people to the Web site and to transition groups like the one Dobbs runs at South Valley. "Most of people in my group are still formally LDS though not believing," he said. "It's no longer spiritually satisfactory. They feel a conflict of values they had," but still love parts of what they believed.

Both men said they see themselves as bridge builders.

"One of our main goals is ... to reach out to people like us without upsetting others in the community," Ricks said. He believes that's why he's faced almost no opposition in Cache Valley since posting the billboard. "We want to help re-educate Mormons about family members who leave — that they are not necessarily bad, horrible people," he said.

"If we could have any positive effect on that, I would die a happy man."

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E-mail: carrie@desnews.com