?But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects
into Him who is the head, even Christ.? Ephesians 4:15
MINISTRY UPDATE
As a result of my involvement with Transforming Congregations, I have been asked to serve on a subcommittee dealing with the vital topic of sexual brokenness. I?m excited for our first meeting and the opportunity to help develop a way forward for restoration and healing for the many, many men, women and youth within the church, who are living double lives. They are in desperate need of wholeness, currently without a clear or compassionate means of help or support.
As you know, we have been working on several new, online curriculum offerings. Jeremiah and I would so value your prayers for God?s wisdom and guidance, as well as Holy Spirit anointing on these projects. I?m pleased to let you know that we have recorded our first full video teaching. We have also begun interviews with pastors and leaders in this area, as well as men and women who bravely share their own testimony of struggle and how God has met them in some of their most shameful and painful places to bring freedom and restoration. We?re excited to release this curriculum in August and continue development our next online offering.
Just like you, we continue to see the impact of COVID-19 in so many areas of life. For us, Transforming Congregations has been most impacted by the shutdown of travel, and therefore our opportunity to offer weekend ministry events for churches in various areas of the country. This has impacted our financial support from teaching and preaching honorariums. Thank you so much to those who have continued to give during these difficult times. Your support has been an incredible blessing! If you have not supported Transforming Congregations would you consider adding us to your regular giving, furthering the work and ministry we provide for The United Methodist Church and a future traditional denomination?
In a recent Zoom-call with pastors who asked me to come to their area in Northeast Ohio for a multi-part regional pastor/leader?s training, we decided to bump my first visit out to February of 2021 with a follow-up gathering in May and multiple opportunities for contextual Zoom trainings for each church leadership team attending the onsite events. We?re incredibly excited about this opportunity to equip leaders on effective, biblical ways of transforming their churches through transparency, confession, and vulnerability.
This ministry event also highlights one of our methods of equipping churches: leadership team trainings over Zoom. I have been doing more and more of these events and they are a great, low-cost option for equipping various levels of leadership teams within a church.
Church staff, small group leaders, men?s or women?s group leaders, youth and children?s ministry leaders ? any area of leadership within your church could benefit from one or several of these online training opportunities. One of the great things about Zoom meetings (that Webinars can?t provide in the same way), is the interactive, very contextual teaching and Q&A discussion opportunities. We would love to talk with your pastor about what?s involved in setting up one or more of these Zoom training opportunities. Would you reach out to them and let them know about this?
We see in Ephesians 4 the Biblical model of body life is for leaders to equip the church for the work of ministry ?and He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ? Eph 4:11-12. Christ?s intention for the church is to be a place of healing; a teaching hospital rather than a place where we?re all hiding in our secret sins, whatever they are.
TEACHING CORNER
In these turbulent times where uncertainty, fear, anger, and anxiety have spread throughout every area of the country, it?s so reassuring to remember that God remains faithful and none of this has taken Him by surprise. Jesus is still Emmanuel (God with us) as much as He was the day He was born, as much as He was when He gave His life for my sins, your sins and the sins of the world, receiving all who turn to Him in repentance and surrender as sons and daughters, as much as He was on the day He ascended to His Father and sent the Holy Spirit to empower His Church to expand His Kingdom on earth through the influence and expression of radical, selfless love.
With everything that has happened within the past few decades and certainly the events of this year, Americans are profoundly confused about truth, what matters in this life and prepares us for the next, and awareness of what makes us most human; the image of God we each bear and are meant to reflect as He designed.
The current condition of our country should be a wakeup call to everyone who feels secure in their job, their health, their 401k, our American way of life. It can all slip away in only a few short months. Where is my hope fixed? Where is your hope fixed? I?m reminded of Paul?s words to Timothy, ?Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.? 1 Timothy 6:17.
It is imperative that each of us as Christ-followers stay rooted to the source of life, fixing our hope completely on Him, ?Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.? 1 John 2:28. ?For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Prescribe and teach these things.? 1 Timothy 4:10-11.
If we fail to keep our attention and hope where it belongs, we can be tempted to despair, become fearful and pull back further from a lost and hurting world. As a result, hope is diminished and love is constricted, but love has power to repel fear. ?There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love because He first loved us.?? 1 John 4:18-19
For years we?ve been told by activists that all the LGBTQ community wanted was a little tolerance. They wanted equality and the same opportunities as everyone else, secure in their work, unafraid in their own communities, and given the same right to pursue their dreams as everyone else. Who can disagree with those basic desires?
However, from my vantage point and having once been a part of the LGBTQ community, we?re witnessing an uprising much more expansive than a movement driven by activists who often use LGBTQ interests to grow their influence and take control over more and more aspects of society. Rather, we?re witnessing an all-out rebellion against the image of God, against the design of God for a healthy, thriving society.
We aren?t just seeing individuals (such as myself at one time) who themselves are rebelling against God ? that?s nothing new or original ? but a collective movement that opposes the Judeo-Christian morals upon which we were founded.
There are plenty of things we can look back on with genuine regret and repentance in our own lives and collectively as a country. We should never forget or obliterate remembrances of the sins of our past. We need to learn from them and never repeat such things.
Experiencing sex God?s way and reserving sexual union for marriage is a position all Christ-followers should embrace and live out, because to ?follow? means that we are obeying the one we claim to follow. The problem with our society isn?t that secular society doesn?t care for the things of God and pursues self-gratification above all else. The problem is we in the church aren?t any different, or at least not by much. Statistics reveal just how hypocritical we are; just how driven by sex/porn, greed, power and self-gratification we are.
It is past time to repent, but it is also time that the church gets serious about addressing our utter lack of sexual and relational discipleship, as well as our embedded environments of secrecy, sexual sin, gossip, mistrust for one another and lack of transparency and vulnerability.
I have spoken to so many struggling men and women, many who grew up in the church, and often hear people say as they reflect on struggling as a young person or an adult, ?the church is the last place I would have gone for help?. Think about that. The body of Christ is the last place most people would ever come to for help ? at least for anything more than financial help.
When people are struggling with sexual sin, deep relational issues, abuse, internal doubts and questions, the last place they feel safe is in the church, but when Jesus was here in bodily form, sexual sinners, prostitutes, thieves, liars, societal outcasts; people who wanted something more in their lives, were drawn to Him. Why doesn?t the church look like that?
My hope is for a new Wesleyan denomination that doesn?t merely want to get out from under the weight of constant arguments of human sexuality and LGBTQ activist behaviors, but a new denomination that graciously and truthfully takes on the vital issue of God?s design and purposes for humanity created as male and female, and a Biblical prescription for human thriving as relational and sexual beings made in God?s image.
The Church can no longer afford (it never should have) to take a verbal stand, while quietly, secretly doing just the opposite behind closed doors. Nor can we continue the sins of omission by not thoroughly preparing men, women, and young people with the tools and relationships necessary to understand their own powerful sexuality and relational needs, along with how to steward those needs with honesty and vulnerability with a few trusted others on the same mission within the body of Christ.
Equipping the United Methodist Church and a future traditional denomination on these vital realities and topics is why Transforming Congregations exists. We?re here to support and strengthen pastors and Christian leaders on how to develop environments of both safety and transformation. We desperately need both and, in most churches, (when it comes to restoring sexual wholeness) we have neither.
These are weighty and big purposes, essential for churches to be equipped, for the days we?re living in. Will you partner with us through prayer and by financially supporting our work?
As I mentioned in our last ministry update, I will be writing about some of my experiences with pastors as I grew up in the church. The following page picks up where I left off in my last newsletter.
TESTIMONY- GARRY
(Part #2 ? continuing this theme in future ministry updates):
I was 17, and my mom and I were hanging freshly washed clothes on the line to dry when I abruptly stammered out the words? ?I think I?m gay.? After a moment, recovering from the shock, mom responded, ?I?ve been so afraid you were going to tell me that one day.? My mother loved me and knew that I was really struggling. She didn?t know what to do. But she prayed, agonizing on my behalf to the God she loved. If nothing else, this news energized and added urgency to her prayer life like nothing else every had.
Several months later, it was at my mother?s encouragement (she set up the appointment), that I agreed to meet with another pastor in our area who was quite well known and respected. He was indeed kind and gracious. He patiently listened to me stumble through my secrets and struggles and how much I wanted help and for God to take away these desires? ?why isn?t He answering my prayers??
This pastor was gracious in his manner as he listened. I was so thankful for that. When I was finished, he proceeded to explain that I needed to commit to three things: Bible reading, scripture memory and prayer. I guess it never came up and he just assumed that I wasn?t doing those things, but I had a huge stack of 3×5? cards filled with relevant passages from the Bible that I memorized and recited most days. I was reading my bible and praying? at least, I was trying to pray. My shame and profound sense of unworthiness made that a challenge, as did the elephant-in-the-room question that I already asked the pastor: ?why isn?t God doing something to help me? Why isn?t He taking away desires I don?t want, and His word clearly warns against?
As I left this pastor?s office, I didn?t feel hopeful. I was grateful that he at least listened and showed real concern and care, but since the only things he could offer were the very practices I was already doing I didn?t see how that was going to help me.
While at Bible college my inner life was a jumbled mess of turmoil and unresolved struggle. I rolled out of bed one morning, staring blankly at the concrete block wall of my dorm bedroom, depression and hopelessness weighing on me. I felt exhausted all the time. I already missed my first two morning classes? again. I pulled my clothes on and started off to my next class, but when I was about to push open the main door of my dormitory, I could see the Dean of Students and Dean of Men walking briskly toward the building.
Panicked and suddenly wide awake, I ran back to my room and locked the door. I was just about to jump out my open window (I was on the first floor) and escape? I had no idea where. I heard a loud knock at my door, followed by my name. It made no sense to run from this, so I opened the door.
A few hours later I was blankly staring at a blur of trees and landscape out the passenger window of my brother?s car. He was taking me and my few belongings to his house, my new home. The Dean of Students called him (their co-valedictorian the prior year) to come and pick me up. I was being expelled because they could clearly see I was depressed, and they were afraid I might be suicidal.
Deep within my own thoughts, as we drove, I rehearsed how much I hated God and especially hated the church and the Bible College; places I had come to believe had no real answers for me and no interest in helping with the mess I was experiencing.
Before long I found a job and started settling in to this new normal. I wasn?t expecting that in a number of months I would find myself once again sitting in another pastor?s office. Months earlier, my aunt invited me to attend church with her where I began to connect with a few other young adults. I also started dating a young woman from the church. For a guy experiencing a constant sense of same-sex attraction, this came out of nowhere. Maybe things were really going to turn around for me.
Out of the blue one day, my girlfriend?s brother made an off-handed comment about ?the weird gay bar in town?. He had no idea, but his words were like gasoline on an open flame.
Only two weeks before this revelation, my pastor called and asked if I would meet him in his office. It turns out he was concerned for the young woman I was dating, whose family had been in his church for many years. He was also concerned for me. He made some observations about why he was concerned and then paused for me to respond. Somehow, there I was again talking with a pastor about my pornography addiction and attraction to other guys.
I will never forget what he said to me, ?Garry, I don?t know how to help or even what direction to point you in, but I am going find help.? It was the first time I left a pastor?s office with a small sense of hope.
But then my girlfriend?s brother?s comment happened, and I felt an intense rush? the feeling was powerful and unrelenting. In fact, on my way home that night, I took a detour through town, trying to home in on where such a place could be located. Every night after that I drove into town, parked my car and walked around until finally I thought I?d found it: the gay bar.
Like the dog that finally catches the car, I didn?t know what to do next. I was terrified to go in. I?d never had a drink in my life, let alone been in a bar. After many evenings lingering outside in the general vicinity, I finally worked up the nerve to go in, and that was it. I came back day after day. It felt like I had finally found my people; somewhere I belonged.
No surprise, I hadn?t been to church in the last several weeks, so my pastor showed up at my workplace in the local mall, following through on his commitment to find help that I was eager for just a few short weeks earlier. He found a couple of really good resources he was excited to share with me. I wasn?t excited. And even though he was the first pastor to make the effort to dig and find what could have been a lifeline for me. I no longer wanted his help and told him so.
Feel free to watch a video overview of my testimony on our website to fill in some of the gaps that I?m leaving here. This isn?t so much about my story as some of the more memorable encounters with pastors and Christian leaders.
Everything You Need To Know About Homosexuality!
So many Christians have questions about homosexuality. Living in a culture that now affirms homosexual expression, it?s hard to speak graciously and truthfully about this most divisive issue.
Dr. Robert Gagnon, long-time friend of OnebyOne and Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University (for many years Rob was a New Testament professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary), is teaching online his signature course on homosexuality starting August 25 and will conclude the first week of December. It is an ideal course for pastors, elders, lay persons, counselors, college and graduate students who are interested in learning how to make a biblical defense of the historic Christian position on an issue that will be at the center of church deliberation for decades to come.
Course Description: A defense of the historic (biblical) position prohibiting homosexual relationships, the most controversial issue facing the church in the last half century. The majority of the course will focus on the biblical evidence, examining the relevant texts in Scripture both in their historical context and in their application for the present day. The ?Christian? case for approving committed homosexual relationships will be carefully critiqued, including arguments made by William Loader, James Brownson, and Matthew Vines, among others. Some attention will also be given to a philosophical nature argument, science, politics, and the related issue of transgenderism. No prerequisites.
When: Tuesday evenings, 6:30 ? 9:00 PM (Central Standard Time)
Cost: The cost is $280 if you register before August. 25. After that it is $300. The course will take place on Tuesdays. If you can?t do Tuesdays, the course will be repeated on Thursdays 6:30-9:00 PM
Register: Click here to register, scroll down to ?Fall 2020 Offerings (HBU Campus)? and click ?Register Now- Fall 2020 HBU.? If you have to miss a class, you will have the opportunity to watch a video of each class that you miss for the duration of the course. There are no prerequisites for taking the course.
Auditors will be given an opportunity to ask questions but are not required to participate. Auditors also have the option to do selected readings. There are no required readings.
Any Questions? Contact Rev. Jeff Winter Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Haines City, FL and Chairperson of OnebyOne, at jwinter777@aol.com
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PARTNERSHIP:
I?m incredibly privileged to share and teach in many churches around the country and I?m very encouraged by what I see happening in The United Methodist Church and other parts of the body of Christ.
Will you help us continue to share the true gospel and hope of life-change? Our message is being suppressed or ridiculed in every corner of culture and by many United Methodist Church leaders. We exist to encourage and equip The United Methodist Church to love in truth, to believe in the more that God can do in all areas of restoring sexual and relational wholeness in the lives of His sons and daughters.
*Please note: when giving online, after entering your first and last name, please type ?Transforming Congregations? into the [Company] field so your gift will be designated to Transforming Congregations.
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To give by check please make that out to Transforming Congregations & mail to:
Transforming Congregations
PO Box 132076
The Woodlands, TX 77393-2076