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?It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another."

GALATIANS 5:1 & 13 (NASB)



Freedom, Brotherhood, and a Summer Matching Gift Challenge


Dear Friends and Ministry Partners,


As we close out the first half of 2026, I've been reflecting on all that God has done through Transforming Congregations and considering what I most want to share with you?our faithful partners in prayer, ministry, and generous financial support. The truth is, it's difficult to capture everything God has been doing.


So far, this has been a year of building momentum?many new team members learning their various roles, as well as growing in their understanding of all that God has envisioned for Transforming Congregations. In a very real sense, we?ve been adjusting our sails to catch God?s wind and join Him in all the ways He has privileged us to partner with Him?could there be anything better than that, joining God in His great work?


Your prayers, your joint-partnership, and your generosity have given Transforming Congregations the runway to strengthen our operations, grow our team, expand our reach, and equip more pastors and churches with biblical tools for relational and sexual wholeness than ever before. We don?t take a single dollar or a single prayer for granted. Thank you? truly!


Let me share some highlights from the last few months, and then cast some vision for what?s ahead.


? Band of Brothers Retreat ? The Highlight of Our Spring


Just a few days ago, we gathered a group of men for a three-day ?Band of Brothers? retreat?I always know God is going to show up when we join together to set aside time to focus on Him in worship, prayer, honest confession, and honest discussion. Of course, I never know how He is going to show up, and whether we will be attuned to sense Him?whether we will hear the still, small voice over the raging noise most of us carry within and without.


Once again, He was beyond faithful. After our first evening together, I went to bed repeating in my heart and out loud, ?Wow God?! I didn?t know what else to say. I woke up with the same refrain cycling through my mind and heart.


The balance of our retreat continued to be impactful. It felt like wave upon wave of God ministering to us, and his sons ministering to one another. This kind of depth cannot be achieved apart from raw sharing?honesty and vulnerability embraced in equal measure, without reserve. 


One of the guys was asked by a loved-one who had not been with us, ?How was the retreat?? His response, ?miraculous?!


Friends, this kind of depth ministry and transformation (and equipping local churches all across the country to experience similar authenticity throughout various ministry areas) is what your partnership makes possible. This is a real example of the teaching-hospital model I often write and speak about?the church intentionally learning to be a healing hospital for precious, broken people (which is all of us). At best, we are all ?wounded healers?, still in need of care and His outpouring through His Church.


This is what it looks like when the Church/The Body functions the way Jesus designed it?not as a place where we perform, but as a whole-enough family, where we heal.


If your local church would like to host or learn more about starting Bands of Brothers/Bands of Sisters or deeper small groups, Bible studies, etc?, reply to this email. We would love to support and equip you and your leaders in these methods of life-on-life discipleship.


?Am I Gay?? Named Best New Healing Resource


We are humbled and deeply grateful to share that just last week, my book ?Am I Gay?? was named ?Best New Healing Resource? by Restored Hope Network.


This recognition matters not because of any award on a shelf, but because it means this message of hope and biblical wholeness is reaching further. Every week I hear from men and women, pastors and parents, who are desperate for encouragement and hope. We list many solid resources on our website because we want to point people to both truth and hope. My book is just one of those resources.


If you haven?t read it yet, I?d encourage you to pick up a copy?not just for yourself, but as a resource to pass along to a pastor, counselor, or friend who is walking with someone in this area. The need is enormous, and most churches still don?t know where to turn. Paperback, Kindle, or Audible versions are all available on Amazon.


?? Podcast Growth: 170+ Episodes and Nearly 50K Followers on Pray.com


The Love & Truth Network Podcast on Pray.com (and all the major platforms) continues to grow. We?ve now surpassed 170 episodes of real redemption stories and biblical teaching, and we?re approaching 50,000 followers on Pray.com alone.


Recent conversations with Steve Goble, Andrew Comiskey, and our own team member Kyle Malkin have powerfully addressed masculinity, mercy, and God?s good design for sexuality and identity. We?re also investing in new production tools?including AI-assisted editing and short-form clip creation?to get these stories and teachings in front of more people on more platforms.


I am so grateful for those who reach out to us because they heard our podcast and believed they might be able to risk sharing their struggles with someone on our Transforming Congregations team.


If you?re not yet subscribed, find us on Pray.com or your favorite podcast app as ?Love & Truth Network Podcast?. And please share an episode with your pastor or with someone struggling who needs to hear it. You never know what God will do with a single link sent at the right moment.


? Melissa at Arizona Christian University ? A Kingdom Door


I?m especially excited to share a new development that Melissa and I believe is deeply significant for the Kingdom.


Melissa has been invited to serve as an adjunct professor in the graduate Marriage and Family Therapy program at Arizona Christian University (ACU) beginning this fall. She?ll be teaching ?Systemic Assessment and Treatment of Sexual Issues??a course that will equip future therapists with a Christ-centered, biblically faithful approach to gender and sexuality.


Friends, this matters more than I can express. The vast majority of therapist training programs?including many at Christian universities?have largely abandoned a biblical framework for sexuality. Future counselors are being formed without the theological grounding or practical tools to walk with people toward wholeness. Melissa?s presence and experience in that classroom is an opportunity to plant seeds of truth in the next generation of Christian therapists.


Please pray for her as she prepares. This is holy ground.


?? Equipping Pastors & New Resources in Development


We remain committed to putting practical tools in the hands of leaders who want to create cultures of honesty and healing in their churches. Here?s what?s in the pipeline:






***If any of these resonate with a need in your church or community, reach out ? we?d love to talk.***


? Team Update


The Lord continues to build our team. We?re grateful for the strong social media foundation Jordan laid during her season with us, and we?re actively exploring partnerships with Grand Canyon University students to bring fresh energy to our social media marketing and graphic design. There is an entire world of need that can reached and influenced (negatively or positively) across the internet, and without geographical boundaries. Of course, we want to be a strong source of positive, hope-filled, gospel-centered influence. What a mission field!


We?re a team of nine now?more than double where we were a year ago?and every new team member represents more capacity to serve more churches and more people. Thank you for making that growth possible.


? Summer Matching Gift Deadline: August 31


Our Summer Matching Gift Challenge ends August 31. Generous partners already invested their gifts into this summer?s $20,000 seed-fund because they have previously witnessed their seed donation prompting others to give generously, often resulting in 3X (and sometimes more) than their original gift. That?s all because of you and others who have given regularly, as well as toward these fun and impactful matching challenges!


Here?s the practical ask: We?re making progress toward our halfway mark of $40,000, but we need your help to cross the finish line and achieve our final goal of $60,000 by August 31. Whether it?s $25, $100, $500, or $5,000?your gift enables us to equip pastors, develop excellent resources, walk with men and women who are desperate for hope, and expand our team for specific and expanded impact.


I?m also excited to share with you that in beyond to our Summer Matching Gift Challenge, as part of her development and fundraising responsibilities, Kelli has been working meticulously to put together two important communication tools?a longer and shorter version of a ?Case for Support?. Both of these will be used to help potential partners and foundations know much more about our ministry, our teaching & equipping work, and the breadth and life-changing impact God is pouring out through Transforming Congregations all around the country, and even extending to our partnerships in Nepal and Kenya.


Be on the lookout for the smaller, 2-page version of this Case for Support. I will send that as a link in a future email. I would love your thoughts on it, if you?d care to share them!


? TEACHING CORNER: ?True Freedom ? Pressing Into What Jesus Purchased?


As we approach July 4th and our nation?s 250th celebration of independence, I?ve been thinking a lot about freedom?not just the political kind, but the kind that Jesus purchased for every one of us.


President Reagan once said, ?Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn?t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.?


Ronald Reagan was talking about national freedom. But that principle is profoundly, urgently true in our spiritual lives as well.


We cannot coast on last year?s (or last decade?s) breakthrough. We cannot assume that because we once had a victory over sin, we?re permanently free. We cannot get comfortable and believe we?ve ?arrived.? There is always more freedom to press into, more growth and maturity to attain, more of the old self that needs to be surrendered, and more of the new creation that needs to be walked out.


Why? Because God's work refining us into His Son's image is an ongoing process for each of us. And we have enemies that never rest. Satan prowls like a roaring lion, seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8). The world relentlessly normalizes what God calls sin and mocks what God calls holy. And our own flesh?rebellious against God by nature?is always seeking self-gratification, always whispering that the old ways were better.


The world calls that whisper ?freedom.? Follow your desires. Throw off every boundary. Be true to yourself. But every time?every single time?that counterfeit freedom delivers the same destination: emptiness, shame, misery, and deeper enslavement to the very thing that promised liberation.


Jesus said, ?Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin? (John 8:34, NASB). And Peter warns of false voices ?promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a person is overcome, by this he is enslaved? (2 Peter 2:19).


But here is the hope: ?If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed? (John 8:36).


True freedom isn?t the right to do whatever you want. It?s the power to become who God created you to be. And the evidence of that freedom is beautiful?Paul calls it the fruit of the Spirit: ?love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? (Galatians 5:22?23). A person walking in those qualities is genuinely free?free from the tyranny of anger, lust, fear, and shame. Free to love, serve, forgive, and walk in the fullness of life.


This July 4th, as fireworks light up the sky, let them remind you of a freedom far deeper and even more costly than any earthly nation could offer (as important as that is, and as much as we should honor the men and women who gave their lives for our freedom). I?m talking about a freedom purchased by the blood of Jesus. A freedom that must be fought for, protected, and pressed into?daily, in community, by the power of the Spirit.


Don?t settle. Don?t coast. There is always more freedom ahead.


For a deeper dive into this teaching, listen to my full July message, ?True Freedom,? on the Pray.com App?available July 12?and as a Sunday special speaker this message will loop the entire day (you can?t miss it).


How to Stay Connected and Get Involved








Friends, we are halfway through the biggest year in LTN?s 13-year history. The harvest truly is plentiful. Thank you for being laborers alongside us!


And as July 4th approaches, Melissa and I will be praying for you?that the God who sets captives free would meet you in whatever you?re carrying right now, and that you would know the joy of pressing deeper into the freedom He?s already purchased for you.


We?re so grateful that you?re walking with us!


Rev. Garry Ingraham

Executive Director