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?Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.?

Isaiah 43:19


Dear friends & ministry partners,


My family and I are currently in the Northeast, ministering across five states. Melissa and I are teaching at nearly 20 different events during this summer?s ministry trip. While there is a lot of resistance to a biblical worldview within our culture and many compromised churches, we find that pastors, leaders, and many Christ-followers are hungry for truth. There is a deep desire to know how to lovingly and truthfully address the brokenness and abject confusion in both the broader culture as well as many churches.



The need is great, and opportunities abound. Between the work of Love & Truth Network (LTN) and its sister ministry Transforming Congregations (TC), my calendar is booked through the end of 2024, and we?re scheduling in 2025. Pastors and congregations are longing to be equipped.


I am especially honored and excited to exhibit Transforming Congregations at the General Conference of the Global Methodist Church (GMC) in Costa Rica next month. What a great opportunity to share the truth and narrative of transformed lives with many GMC churches and leaders connected all around the world!


For those who aren?t familiar with Transforming Congregations, much of the work we do is very similar to Love & Truth Network, but with more specific focus on unique challenges faced by the United Methodist, Global Methodist, as well as other Wesleyan and Methodist denominations.


If you haven?t been involved in the United Methodist Church, you may only be marginally aware of the recent developments happening in that denomination. For decades now, the UMC has grappled with questions regarding human sexuality ? as well as many other basic issues of faith and salvation. Ultimately, the mainline United Methodist Church has elected to go the way of a watered-down gospel - blessing same-sex unions, ordaining openly gay pastors, and affirming all things LGBTQ+.


As a result, the churches committed to remain true to an orthodox, biblical view of sexuality (despite very intense pressure from some quarters to conform to the ?progressive? standard) formed the Global Methodist Church ? a new denomination committed to biblical truth. This would be a place where faithful United Methodist pastors and congregations could affiliate as Global Methodists and focus on the work of making disciples of Jesus Christ ? at least for those who haven?t been embroiled in all the legal and financial challenges that particular bishops could throw at them to make their departure as painful and ruinous as possible. 


This was not an insignificant split, since the UMC was the second-largest Protestant denomination. The essential need for a steadfast and theologically sound renewal ministry that clearly speaks truth in love is more evident than ever. The error and destructive path that progressivism and watered-down scriptural teaching has had on The United Methodist Church is devastating. As a renewal ministry within the UMC for nearly 40 years, Transforming Congregations has been sharing the love of God and His power to transforming lives ? from all areas of sin and brokenness ? including LGBTQ+ confusion and practice. Rather than our mission diminishing, we believe God is calling us to expand our reach and influence for such a time as this. 

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Transforming Congregations and Love & Truth Network have been established and called to train and equip pastors, leaders, and lay-men and women in these vital matters, with both grace and truth. Countless lost and broken people need to know that Jesus provides a path of healing, restoration, and renewal. I would love for your heart to connect with what God has been doing through TC and LTN, and all that He is opening up before us in the future. If you have questions or need clarification on what we?re about in the Kingdom of God, please do reach out to us. We would share with you. 


God?s power and grace are just as alive and well today as they have ever been. Melissa and I are so grateful for the freedom we are able to walk in today, by His grace alone. We are also grateful that God delights in taking our brokenness and sin-stained histories and utterly transforming them into something profoundly meaningful for others who need to know God longs to meet them too, no matter how lost or broken they are.


Eleven years ago, sensing a clear prompting of the Lord and encouraged by the wise counsel of others, Melissa and I took what felt like a huge step of faith ? I resigned from my role as the pastor of soul-care ministries at what had become my home and family at a church in upstate New York. In 2013, I left twelve years of employment to begin the process of forming a brand-new non-profit organization called Love & Truth Network. (I?m thankful I wasn?t fully aware of all the work required to establish and fund such a venture!) This would be a new ministry focused on equipping pastors, Christian leaders, and churches all over the nation on topics of biblical identity and sexuality, and how to build authentic communities of rich and meaningful relationship within the Body of Christ.


In the fall of 2015, my friend and the director of Transforming Congregations at the time (Rev. Karen Booth) and I were serving together on the Restored Hope Network board of directors. During one of our retreats, Karen told me it was time for her to retire from leading TC, and she was recently awakened in the middle of the night with a strong sense that God was putting my name on her mind and heart to take over the ministry.


My response? I laughed ? loudly. Karen had been talking about retirement for the past several years, and I assumed this was just another one of those times. I could see by her expression it wasn?t. Still, I thought, ?There is no way I can take on another ministry role when Love & Truth Network is only two-years old and needing so much time and attention to build ? both in gaining momentum and awareness to minister in the Church, cross-denominationally and nationally, as well as developing partners and financial supporters to undergird the work.? But Karen was sure she heard from God on who was supposed to replace her, and she pressed me to pray about it. I agreed to do that much?


In early 2016, Karen did indeed retire, and I took on the additional responsibility as the new part-time director of Transforming Congregations (despite my initial assumption and response). God has a way of making what seems impossible, possible. Shortly thereafter, I was introduced to my first general conference in Portland, Oregon, in what Karen rightly teased me would be my ?baptism by fire into the United Methodist Church.? I experienced up-close-and-personal the hotly-contested battle between biblical and revisionist (false) views of human sexuality within the denomination.


It is hard to believe it?s been more than eight years since I have had the honor of beginning to lead Transforming Congregations. TC was launched nearly 40 years ago as a renewal ministry for The United Methodist Church and as a biblical alternative to Reconciling Ministries (an organization within the UMC committed to normalizing, celebrating, and exalting into every area of leadership all things LGBTQ+, spurred by theological error and a revisionist view of what the Bible clearly calls sin).


With the founding and successful launch of the Global Methodist Church in May of 2022, the purpose of some incredible and longstanding renewal ministries within The United Methodist Church has been fulfilled. However, that certainly is not true of Transforming Congregations. Our work of equipping pastors, lay-leaders, and congregations within the GMC, as well as within the UMC, is just as vital today as ever, perhaps even more so.


Recent expansions of our ministry include a completely renovated website that provides support for three primary groups:


1)    Pastors/Christian leaders needing personal care as well as training for shepherding and equipping those in their congregations

 

2)    Parents and loved-ones of strugglers/prodigals

 

3)    Strugglers looking for help in their personal wrestling with sexual sin/addiction, relational brokenness, and/or identity confusion

 

We provide resources for each of the three groups, as well as online curricula on sexuality, relationships, and biblical identity. Our blog also speaks to these issues. We provide both in-person and virtual consultations with pastors and church leaders, carrying out our equipping ministry across the country and beyond, through various trainings, retreats, preaching, and ministry weekends. Our weekly podcast interviews (both video and audio) are another powerful way we?re encouraging pastors and lay-people throughout our country and around the world.


Now the Lord is writing a new chapter for TC, building on the solid foundation of the past and leading us into opportunities for even greater influence and growth than we have yet experienced. Here are three big steps for TC toward that new chapter:


1)    We are working to rebrand and rename Transforming Congregations for future ministry, while maintaining our emphasis on both orthodoxy and compassion in restoring biblical identity, sexuality, and more meaningful relationships within the Body of Christ. Our tagline at Love & Truth Network is ?Leading with Love/Anchored in Truth.? This balance holds true for the future ministry of Transforming Congregations as well.

 

2)    We are excited to expand the ministry reach and influence of TC beyond the UMC and GMC into other Wesleyan/Methodist denominations as well. The Nazarene Church recently underwent a controversy familiar to United Methodists when a long-time seminary professor was let go for teaching contrary to the Nazarene position on these issues. The need for TC?s ministry is coming to all churches and all denominations, even the more conservative ones.

 

3)   As Good News is winding down it?s ministry over the course of 2024, TC will be shifting its home from within Good News to come under the oversight and guidance of Love & Truth Network. LTN is in its eleventh year and offers nearly identical ministry as TC, but to the broader church ? non-Wesleyan/Methodist denominations. There has already been much collaboration and shared resources between these ministries over the last eight years.


We couldn?t be more thrilled about these opportunities ? preserving the long, rich history and institutional knowledge of TC, while positioning the ministry for future growth for the benefit of the UMC, GMC, and other Wesleyan and Methodist denominations.


If you?ve been following my ministry updates for Love & Truth Network, you know that I often mention this isn?t a ministry of only a few of us on the frontlines of this work. Rather, you are a vital part. We need several key things from those who partner with us:



 


 


 


 

Love & Truth Network is a member of ECFA, and enjoys their certification of financial accountability. You can know that your gifts are being managed with integrity.


I would be happy to have a conversation with anyone who might have questions or need further clarification on the future of Transforming Congregations or Love & Truth Network. Please feel free to reach out to me online or you can email me at gingraham@loveandtruthnetwork.com


It is truly a privilege to serve Jesus together in this way ? participating in this great work of opening eyes blinded by the deception of the world and the enemy of our souls - setting captives free to live into something so profoundly meaningful as the particular Kingdom-work they were made for in their generation. Nothing is more fulfilling than partnering together for these incredible purposes!


Ways to give:








Love & Truth Network

4410 W. Union Hills Dr. Ste#7, Box 283

Glendale, AZ 85308

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Thank you for linking arms with us!


Your fellow-laborer,


Garry Ingraham

Executive Director