?For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.?
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Ephesians 2:10
Dear friends & ministry partners,
I hope this update finds you well and blessed ? practicing the joy and fulfillment of living out the ?good works that God prepared beforehand that you should walk in?. As for Transforming Congregations, we have a number of important ministry opportunities before us. Your prayers and financial support have made all of this possible. I?ll share just a few of those events with you.
March 25, 2023 - I am excited by the invitation to join Rev. Mark Ongley and Debra Baty last weekend, for the ?Leading with Love ? Building Bridges to Sexual Wholeness? event - a day of inspiration and training at Harmony Zelienople, a United Methodist Church near Pittsburgh, PA. We would love for this event to become a blueprint for similar equipping opportunities at other United Methodist and Global Methodist churches and conferences. In fact, there have already been a couple of inquiries about us coming to other areas for this purpose. Would you introduce the idea to your pastor or leaders? I would be happy to talk with any interested leaders about this possibility.
April 27-30, 2023 - We have already mentioned to you in a very recent email that my wife, Melissa and I will be exhibiting at the Christian Medical and Dental Association Conference in Cincinnati, OH. We have the opportunity of showing 2 promotional videos during separate plenary sessions, and we?re especially blessed to offer an hour-long workshop for their spiritual life and family track.
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Transforming Congregations and Love & Truth Network are teaming up to inform these Christian professionals and promote the various ways we equip the Church - pastors and lay-leaders - on topics of identity and sexuality for this CMDA event. These are matters that most Christian medical professionals are also highly concerned about and motivated to have both biblically and scientifically based answer to.
This is one of those few opportunities each year where we believe the extra cost associated with having a prime exhibit location, and opportunity to put our promotional material and videos before 900+ Christian medical professionals is a wise investment in the Kingdom. We hope you agree. Will you partner with us to help make this event a success as we seek to build connections with UMC, GMC, and other churches across the nation? Between registration, exhibit cost, travel, lodging, and marketing materials this event will cost close to $9,000. If you?d like to support this opportunity you can simply give a one-time gift to Transforming Congregations at transformingcongregations.org/donate
Every gift makes a difference!
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May 3-5, 2023 ? The C12 Current ?23 conference in Denver, CO is the world?s largest gathering of Christian CEOs, business owners, & executives. As a member of a C12 group this will provide Garry with 3 days to network and share the ministry of Transforming Congregations with Christian business owners and influencers within local churches attending from all over the country.
Please pray for us regarding these, and many other ministry opportunities in the months ahead. If you?d like to also support the work of Transforming Congregations, please follow this link.
The time is now to throw off distractions and ?everything that so easily entangles? (Hebrews 12:1). Even as Christians, we have many worthless pursuits and empty aspirations, all centered around temporal worldly matters. It?s past time for many of us to wake up and engage in the things that will last into eternity. What did Jesus save us for? It was not just so we would go to heaven when we die ? that?s a byproduct of our new life in Christ. He saved us to become warriors in His Kingdom. Not to fight against flesh and blood, but against ?principalities and powers? (II Corinthians 10:3-5). He saved us to live out the good works that He created for us to walk in (Eph 2:10). Lost people, even children growing up in Christian homes, need to see and experience what new life in Jesus ? that which is vital and authentic ? really looks like.
Don?t you agree that evil is becoming more bold and more blatant? It?s no longer just lurking in the shadows, seducing people out of their everyday lives and homes into dark places with the promise of comfort, fun, excitement, affirmation, sexual exploration, etc? Rather, for quite a number of years now evil has been increasingly emboldened to move out of hiding and into mainstream culture. Healthy shame, God-given conscience, and a sense of guilt over sin and wrongdoing have all been rejected as prudish and backward religious thinking. Instead, sin and evil are brazenly celebrated.
Whether its women shouting out and fist-pumping their abortions, degenerate and confused men dressing up in extreme sexualized versions of women to ?read? to and gyrate in front of little children - with parents giving hardy approval, or school systems/teachers lying to parents and indoctrinating impressionable children into all kinds of identity confusion and sexualization, we have become a profoundly broken and dehumanizing culture. Evil is now regarded by many as good. Good is regarded as evil (Isaiah 5:20).
It was once well understood that it?s the responsibility of adults to put the needs of children before their own. Yes, sadly, there has always been child abuse and selfish adults who look out for themselves first, but generally the broader culture has known and agreed that a child?s real needs should come first.
In addition to the most egregious form of child abuse ? abortion ? children (and an adult?s perceived right to have one) have been commodified on the basis of adult desire rather than what is actually best for a baby. Sperm and eggs can now be shopped and procured to create the ?ideal baby?. Wombs can be rented for the right price. Increasingly, our culture is making children into little more than a product. According to an Atlantic article from 2018 ?In 2010, the most recent year for which good data is available, some 30,000 to 60,000 babies born in the United States were conceived through sperm donation?.
That may not seem like a big deal, but children long for connection with their biological mother and father. According to author and children?s advocate, Katie Faust, in her book Them Before Us: ?Children have a fundamental right to be known and loved by the two people who made them: their mother and father.? It?s a right that?s recognized worldwide.
I found the following quote by David Popenoe, cofounder of the National Marriage Project, on the website, thembeforeus.com - launched with Katy Faust?s book by the same name - ?We should disavow the notion that ?mommies can make good daddies,? just as we should disavow the popular notion?that ?daddies can make good mommies.? The two sexes are different to the core, and each is necessary?culturally and biologically?for the optimal development of a human being.?
Tragically, abuse and exploitation abound ? abuse of girls, boys, women, and even men, in some cases. Purposelessness, anxiety, and depression are at all-time highs. Our young people especially are suffering. Dr. George Barna?s report entitled, Millennials in America, published in October 2021 reveals just how much this generation is struggling. In fact, a new book inspired by this report is hot off the press - Helping Millennials Thrive: Practical Wisdom for a Generation in Crisis - available on Amazon. I am privileged to have been asked to speak in the panel discussions on this report, as well as author one of the chapters in this new book.
Concerning Millennials - earlier today I was on a group Zoom with pastors from all around the country ? a mix of generations. We listened to and engaged with a powerful teaching on the Kingdom and a call for a true revival in the Church, specifically in a renewed love and passion for (and accurate use of) the Word of God. There is so much slop passing for preaching these days - so much of secular psychology and self-help/motivational speaking filling the pulpits of too many churches. This is fine for men and women giving a good Ted-Talk, but not for those who have been entrusted to proclaim the living and active Word of God (Hebrews 4:12), and ?equip the saints for the work of ministry? (Ephesians 4:12).
During a Q & A segment of our meeting, something was mentioned about fog machines, lighting, and other tech as not being bad things per se, but also delivered with a caution of not relying on technology and great performances to draw crowds. Rather, we need to be focused on making disciples who make disciples.
One of the young millennial pastors who oversees a multi-campus church in Florida asked to share regarding that comment. He was adamant and his words were searing ? ?I have to speak here and I?ll be brief?, he said ?Millennials and younger generations absolutely despise the kind of atmosphere that often fostered by fog-machines and musical performances delivered as worship. We hate it! We want what?s real. We want the deeper things of God. We want preaching that calls us up to more than we?ve been!?
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This was a powerful, beautiful statement by a young, passionate follower of Jesus and Christian leader. He reaffirmed what I have been convinced was true for years, and what Dr. George Barna revealed in the Millennials in America Report.
Even with all the gathering, growing darkness, I am so encouraged by young men and women who are fed up with and sick of cultural Christianity. God?s light is becoming brighter and clearer. I believe God is purging His Church. Compromise and hypocrisy are becoming less and less appealing to true followers of Jesus Christ. This is one reason the Global Methodist Church is so vital for such a time as this. Faithful, orthodox United Methodists finally have a new place to gather together under the unity of living out and proclaiming a true gospel and faith in Christ Jesus. This is a fresh and desperately needed beginning indeed.
I?m encouraged that younger generations are craving authenticity. Nothing is more authentic or more meaningful than the true gospel that calls us to die to ourselves and be raised again with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I?m hearing more of a genuine seriousness and sober urgency about things that really matter. I am incredibly hopeful as I travel across the country and speak (and listen).
What Jesus offers is exactly what every generation needs. He alone can answer the deepest longings and cries of our heart. All this confusion, rebellion, and anarchy against God and His design (I feel like I get it pretty well - because I went through years of hating the Church and even hating God - or who I thought God was). I think that?s where so many people are today, misunderstanding God because of assumptions and offenses they have taken up against Him, as well as the reality that the Church has often not reflected or represented Him well.
Consider the incredible work of God that recently began in the US through the Asbury revival in Wilmore, KT and has spread to so many other college campuses and churches in multiple States. We need this move of the Holy Spirit, and in alignment with what my friend was teaching during our Zoom gathering, we need a revived love and accurate handling of the living and active holy Word of God.
There will always be compromised, so-called progressive churches and progressive preachers who practice a ?form of godliness while deny it?s power? (II Timothy 3:5) and speak only what is pleasant and affirming to people who actually need to hear the truth of God delivered with love and compassion, demonstrated with action. Rather than preaching and teaching God?s truth, these false teachers ?speak pleasant words and prophesy illusions? (Isaiah 30:10).
As orthodox Christians, I believe we often view ourselves, our families, friends, churches, communities, country, and world through the lens of seeing behavior as either Biblical or unbiblical. And rightly so! However, even if we set aside a specifically Christian worldview for something that is more along the lines of natural law, or the basic beliefs of freedom of speech or freedom of religion, so much of what is going on in the world and the United States should be alarming to anyone and everyone. We are in desperate need of major course correction in every area of life, beginning with spiritual renewal.
In light of this, I?ve recently been pondering the effects of words like disintegration, confusion, disorder, rebellion, chaos, decay, and collapse. I believe these words describe the condition of all that is going on around us, particularly in the United States.
Sexual immorality and all forms of gender-bending are celebrated. Transgenderism has shifted from the very rare and painful experience of gender dysphoria to become one of the most illustrious pursuits that a man or woman could possibly engage in. Confused boys and girls and being swept up in one of the greatest lies of our culture and irreversible damage is the result. Young people are daily exploited by a perverted ideology that promotes war on their very biology, leading to chaos, dismemberment and destruction.
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Thankfully, God is still at work to rescue anyone who turns to Him out of their futile life ? regardless of what they have done or what has been done to them. He is still the great physician. I hope you appreciate my friend, Daniel Delgado?s testimony.
I was suicidal at 16-years-old. At the time, I was an openly gay-identified teen. This was at the recommendation of a misdirected school counselor who thought he was helping me. His counsel was a poisonous prescription to a more troubled life.
I had a Christian neighbor woman who noticed that my single mother was raising my brother and me alone. She observed me getting off the school bus and would hear the students yelling obscenities and negatively reinforcing the lies that I believed about myself. Broken-hearted over what she had witnessed, she was compelled by the love of God to pray for me {2 Cor.5:14-15).
One afternoon, I was devising a plan to end my life. As this was happening, the Lord was speaking to my neighbor. She sensed the Lord was asking her to invite me to the church youth group that evening. At first, she stalled and argued with the Lord's timing and questioned whether she would obey. She recalled that she felt the presence of God lift away from her and felt impending doom as she smelled a putrid fragrance coming from my home. She discerned that this was the stench of death that was seeking to destroy my life (James 4:17).
She determined to respond to the Lord and invited me to church. I didn't know how God had led her until many years later, but her fearless confidence made a way for me to enter in through the doors of the church.
I showed up wearing a rainbow poncho, bell-bottom jeans, and platform shoes. Upon my initial entrance, people seemed stunned and hesitant to interact with me. But during the time of worship, the pastor's wife came forward and asked the men- young and old- to pray for me. Desperate for love and attention, I chose to accept this meaningful act of love and compassion and it imprinted a new experience for me in the church. It wasn't yet the moment of full conversion, particularly because I believed strongly that LGBT community was my home and I didn't think that the church was a place for me. But it was still very significant and important for me.
I moved into adulthood and feasted on the freedom to do whatever I wanted. I decided that I didn't need to identify as a man. And I began to fashion a self where I could emulate my "ideal" of woman. At the same time, I wrestled with that identification, as some of my trans-identified friends were being murdered, overdosing on drugs, and contracting HIV. I did not want that to be my story.
Little did I know, the Lord continued prompting my Christian neighbor and her church community to intercede for me. She mobilized other young adults from the church to agree with her in prayer. They would stand in front of my home with outstretched hands and ask Jesus to redeem my life from destruction. Some even fasted on my behalf. They were like well-oiled lamps burning brightly and petitioning heaven to bring me out of darkness and into the Light.
The Lord began to draw me with an everlasting love and my eyes began to open to the reality that I need an intervention (Jer. 31:3).
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The Lord sent help to me by way of this vibrant church that prayed fervently for my breakthrough. Eventually, I began to attend church again with openness to what God had for me. Sometimes, I would find myself wanting to argue with other Christians that there wasn't any hope for me to change. But they were kind and authentically offered a real meal of Jesus' love. They simultaneously held the line of truth and offered real grace to me in my disintegrated state. It enabled me to hear what they had to say. I was hungry for the truth and I wanted to know if there was hope for me (Jn 6:57).
One night I went up to receive prayer and a father who had attended this church for many years prayed and prophesied into my life. Truly, he carried the Father's heart for me and he began to speak loving words that caused my heart to break wide open. He said I would defend the kingdom of God as an ambassador and a foot-soldier in His army, and repeatedly affirmed how much our Heavenly Father loved me.
This was my converting moment. Waves of conviction and floods of his merciful love washed over my entire being. The power of the Cross became real to me as I was surrounded by members of the church that joined me here. Jesus shook me to the core and released the wind of His Spirit-bringing me back to life. I knew the way forward was my life fully surrendered to this Righteous King who rescued me from death and gave new life (Is 55:7).
It took a whole village comprised of many different members of this church. The precious body of Christ created a space for me to be experience the transforming love of God. They became a home for me and a place for me to land. I was surrounded by people who knew that Jesus was powerful enough to transform me and become my source of life. I began to follow Jesus. I showed up to church every time the doors were open. I joined the intercession team and began to go deep in the bible and prayer. I gained solid footing in my life in the Lord and in His Church. I learned to listen to wise counsel and was secured in the love of my community to make good choices that would help me to be ready to meet the Lord.
As time passed I realized I still needed a place to talk about the aftermath of some traumatizing things that had happened in my life. I began to look for other resources and I found a vibrant community in Kansas City that had a Living Waters program. It was here that I was given a safe place to address the hard and difficult themes that continued to surface in my life. In Living Waters, I was able to grieve some of the losses of not having an emotionally stable mother or a devoted father who could love me and help me develop as a man. I was able to get honest about these conflicts and was given the opportunity to allow Jesus to absorb the resentments and offenses in my heart.
I found that my brokenness and wounding inhibited me from being able to receive the good gift of other imperfect members of the Body of Christ. As I began to heal, I found that I was empowered to not only receive from but also to give freely to others. I started to commit to seeing the good in others-even if I failed miserably. It became clear I had a choice to fight for dignity and integrity of the church. I was empowered me to relinquish fears and wounds to the Lord.
A few years ago, I was led to go on search for a new church home. I landed at a local Anglican church in the center of a white upper middle class neighborhood. I felt led to becoming a member, but with some trepidation that I wasn't staying true to my Pentecostal roots.
Furthermore, I'm Mexican-American and I can't say that I've always been proud of it. When I was a child, I often fantasized about being loved by a kind, rich, intelligent white male. I hoped that this fabricated construct of a man would one day put an end to the ways I quietly suffered. I began to surrender these losses to the Crucified who bled for me here in the presence of my Living Waters community. I began to grow and mature as I forgave those who had wounded me and was able to accept my Mexican heritage. I am now free to take my place as man who need not waste time envying or lusting after others. Stepping into greater freedom and integration, I'm anchored by the love I've received from Jesus and His church, and I'm free to be agent of healing in order to make a difference for others.
Today, I stand in my authority as a beloved son and member of His church. I'm committed to finding the common ground with others at the foot of the Cross. We began to host Living Waters programs at the church and won the support of the pastoral team. The work of healing is hard and rewarding as we continue to fix our eyes on our coming Bridegroom-trusting our Redeemer who is making us ready for the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Lk. 21:28; Rev. 19:9).