?Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.?
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Ephesians 4:29
Hello friends & ministry partners,
I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season. It was both joyful and challenging for our family. It was discovered in September that Melissa?s mother had cancer, and before treatment could begin, she passed away in November. This followed on the heels of Melissa?s step-mother passing less than a year before.
Holidays are often a mixed bag of joy and sorrow. I learned a number of years ago that deep joy and painful sadness are not always mutually exclusive. These juxtaposed emotions can be experienced in the same season ? even the same moment. I am thankful for the genuine hope that knowing and walking with Jesus provides. What a void and emptiness within those who do not yet know Him? The greatest comfort in the passing of a loved-one is knowing they had their faith and trust in Jesus, and now they are with Him ? without cancer, without pain, truly free and in their eternal home. We had this confidence for both of these dear women.
So, however joy-filled or bumpy and painful your Christmas and holiday season might have been, you have a hope that is eternal. You have a God who sees you and knows you. He knows your heart?s ache to see your child/children/grandchildren/loved-ones come to their senses and turn to Jesus. Keep praying in earnest. Gather prayer warriors and faithful friends around you to walk with you and join you in the battle ? and join with them in their struggles. This is what I talk so much to the Church about ? the great need we each have to belong to a ?band of brothers/band of sisters? ? where we are truly known and truly loved and supported.
If there aren?t such groups in your church that are readily available to join, I encourage you to talk with your pastor or leadership to learn how you might help to form and facilitate such a group. We talk with pastors and help equip churches on these very topics. Please make sure your pastor knows that we are here to offer help and support to them.
I always prefer in-person, weekly gatherings and times to connect and encourage one another, but a secondary option for support (at least until an in-person group can begin) could be an online group. There are online groups for many different forms of support and affinity. There are Friends & Family groups that exist to support one another through the years of praying a child or family member into surrender to Jesus. These groups can be a lifeline of genuine support. If you?d like to learn how to either form an in-person group or join an online group, reach out to our ministry. We would be happy to talk with you.
Our final ministry trip of 2023 was near Boston in mid-November. I led a Friday night, all-day Saturday training event, and preached on Sunday. This was an incredible joy as men and women received deeply, eager to be personally challenged and equipped to love in truth ? in profoundly biblical ways. They gathered as an association of many churches, connected through the ministry of the pastor who invited me to teach and minister.
The pastor/bishop who invited me was so deeply moved that he asked leaders to gather two weeks later over Zoom for follow up and to put meaningful action behind what they had learned and received. I was blessed to consult and offer further guidance. Furthermore, plans that had been previous made for an upcoming men?s gathering were radically shifted to offer opportunity for genuine vulnerability and meaningful connection, based on my teaching from November. The resounding positive feedback and blessings that this large gathering of men received only underscores how deep the longing is to be known and validated, to be cared for and prayed with.
Finally, in December, Love & Truth Network and Transforming Congregations were blessed to exhibit at AmericaFest and show a brief video in front of 12,000+ attendees, introducing and explaining our ministry. Jeremiah and I had many excellent conversations at the conference and some great follow-up calls as well.
Last week, a young man reached out to schedule a time to talk with me. I learned that he saw the video and was totally blown away by hearing such a clear message, addressing some of the very things he had been wrestling with for much of his life. God is building His web of healthy connections and we are now a part of encouraging him and seeing how God draws this young man into vital Kingdom service. We are so honored and blessed to be a part of God?s plan and purpose in these days of such upheaval and confusion.
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You are a part of this too. Your prayers, financial support, and advocacy for us with your pastor and other leaders you know ? these are all important ways you partner with us. God often uses these means to open doors of opportunity that would otherwise remain closed. If you have not yet talked to your pastor or leaders about us and given them our contact information, would you consider doing that? If you know other Christian leaders who could benefit from the information we share, would you introduce us? This is how you become a meaningful part of our team, partnering with us in truly practical and powerful ways.
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Teaching Corner
One of our recent podcasts (episode 41) was a monologue on the topic of confidentiality and gossip. I want to take some time to address that issue here. In countless conversations and even quick connections when people catch me after a message or training event, I hear a common refrain: ?I don?t trust Christians?, ?I don?t trust my church?, ?I don?t trust my church leadership to keep my confession private.?
Just last weekend one man approached my ministry table. ?I hear what you were teaching about the need to be vulnerable and share the deep things. I see the passages you used to support your teaching, and I agree; but what do you do when you?ve taken that risk with your pastor and then hear from another person in the church that the pastor?s wife told them the personal and shameful details of that conversation??
Gossip has destroyed trust in the Church. There are other factors for diminished trust, but none more pernicious or wicked than gossip. God hates gossip. Read what Solomon writes on the topic, ?A worthless man digs up evil, while his words are like scorching fire. A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends? (Proverbs 16:27, 26). In addition, ?There are six things which the LORD hates. Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers? (Proverbs 6:16-19).
The language of the Bible describes gossip as using our words against others like scorching fire and spreading strife among brothers and sisters; it?s perverted and evil, an abomination to God. We need to heed this language and sharply rebuke gossiping. So many people wouldn?t set foot in church, have walked away from church, or are hiding in church because they do not trust that their confession and pursuit of help will be a private, confidential matter.
To the man who approached my table, I encouraged him to go back to his pastor and ask how his wife knew his personal, private confession, and why was she talking about it with someone else? This is the very definition of gossip ? ?someone who is neither part of the problem nor part of the solution? sticking their nose into another person?s business and spreading their private and confidential communication... spreading it like ?scorching fire?.
Sadly, even if these leaders had loose lips and were practicing gossip, the likelihood of acknowledging it and repenting is slim. Too often in these situations deflection and denial seem to be preferred to honesty, ownership, and potential exposure of leadership failure. At times, to make matters worse, the tables are actually turned against the offended party to cover up the sin of leadership in gossip. The struggling person who risked vulnerability to find help is actually ?thrown under the bus?, sometimes in very public ways. This is spiritual abuse. And God hates it.
Even David succumbed to the temptation to lie and connive ? killing the husband of Bathsheba to cover up his adultery and moral failure as king. If he was susceptible to blame-shifting and deceiving, we should all be cautious of assuming we wouldn?t try to find an ?easy? way out to avoid exposure and the consequences of our sin.
On the other hand, if a leader/s recognizes their sin of gossip, humbly repents, and seeks to make restitution, we should be quick to forgive and know that while it may take some time for trust to be reestablished, this leader is demonstrating the kind of humility I want in my shepherd and spiritual authority. I would want to give another chance to them. Who among us hasn?t blown it with saying things we ought to keep to ourselves?
Thankfully, most of us haven?t experienced this kind of violation of trust in our spiritual leaders. Rather, it?s in our interactions and relationships with other brothers and sisters where we most experience this kind of violation of trust. It only takes an occurrence or two for us to pull back and refuse to risk trust again.
But we can?t stay there. We can?t allow the enemy to divide and conquer (a primary tactic of his). We have to fight for genuine community. We have to take seriously the job of becoming the kind of person we want others to be for us ? trustworthy, compassionate, patient, loving, gentle truth-speakers, who maintains the confidentiality of others.
I stated in our podcast on gossip that there is an exception to confidentiality. If someone shares that they are planning harm to themselves or others, such a revelation triggers a breaking of confidentiality for the sake of protection from self-harm, abuse, or worse.
Transformation Stories
As always, I am ending this ministry update with a story of God?s grace and redeeming love in the life of someone He has drawn into His Kingdom and set free from sexual sin and/or identity confusion.
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Billy Burleigh?s Story
?No matter how many surgeries I had, every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a man staring back at me.?
I had many difficulties as a child. In addition to being unusually skinny, I had a speech impediment and learning difficulties. In fact, I didn?t learn how to read until about the fifth grade. I was very uncoordinated and lacked athletic skills, which caused me to be teased by classmates and friends. When I was in the first grade, I remember having the recurring thought that God had made a mistake. I would pray before going to bed, ?God, please make me a girl before I wake up.? To make matters worse, when I was in the sixth grade, I was sexually molested. Scared and ashamed, I hated my private parts and wished they were gone!
I continued to struggle secretly, feeling like I was actually a girl throughout childhood. An expert at stuffing my emotions, I managed to avoid dealing with my confusion until I fell in love with a young lady in college. Overwhelmed by feelings of love, I knew I had to deal with these confusing feelings of dysphoria. My sister helped me find a sexuality therapist, and I also started using the university?s resources to research transgenderism. Though I desired to be a ?normal man,? the messages I received were overwhelming: The only way to overcome my dysphoria was to change my body to conform to my inner identity. Still hopeful that I could live as a man, I married my college sweetheart and continued to seek therapy. But after five or six years of agony?and a failed marriage?I told my therapist that I wanted to identify as a woman. Struggling with depression, I was willing to try anything, and she affirmed my decision.
I changed my name from Billy to Billie and began taking a testosterone blocker and estrogen. Three years later, I had my first surgery?a penile inversion, an Adam?s apple shave, and a brow shave. Afterwards, the doctor and nurses had difficulty stopping the bleeding from my new ?vagina.? They packed my artificial vagina with gauze and put a sandbag on my lower abdomen in an effort to stop the bleeding. But it would not stop, and they had to administer a blood transfusion and plasma. Over time, I jumped through all the hoops and did everything I was supposed to do to try to change my sex. I had cosmetic surgeries to look more like a woman, but no matter how many surgeries I had, every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a man staring back at me.
Ironically, I had married a second time prior to these surgeries. Though my wife and I both identified as heterosexual, we presented as a lesbian couple after my surgery. We loved each other deeply, but our marriage couldn?t withstand the stress, and she eventually divorced me seven years later. I realized I had more problems than ever before. Changing my body had not resolved my internal conflict and had not made me happy. Instead, I was left with countless scars, two broken marriages, and drained financial resources. Depression began to set back in, and once again, I was searching for answers. So, I moved back to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to gain the support of my family. Desperate for change, I also cried out to God. The day I made the decision to surrender my life and my problems to Jesus, I actually heard him say, ?Now, I have some clay to work with.?
Slowly but surely, as I began to seek the things of God, circumstances in my life began to change radically. I returned to church and began spending time in Bible study and prayer. The more I learned about spiritual warfare and biblical identity, the clearer my mind became. It was as if someone had turned on a light bulb. As I read the books Reclaiming Surrendered Ground: Protecting Your Family from Spiritual Attacks by Jim Logan and Victory Over the Darkness and The Bondage Breaker by Neil T. Anderson, I had epiphany after epiphany. Within a year, at age 38, I began making choices to go back to identifying as a man. The entire process took about two or three years, and during that time, I changed all my documents and returned to my original identity as Billy.
I am now 54 years old. My thoughts are clear, and I am free of the mental turmoil I had as a kid and growing up. I am happily married to a woman. We have two beautiful stepdaughters and best of all, I have peace of mind. With the benefit of age and experience, I now realize the procedures I underwent as a young man failed me in several areas. First, none of my mental health counselors ever told me that all people have a continuing need for acceptance, significance, and security. As a child, I thought that by ?being a girl? my psychological needs would be fulfilled. But that was wrong. Second, the mental health professionals simply assumed that the only way I could be mentally healthy was to convince myself that I should have been, and therefore was, a woman. But that was also wrong. The many surgical procedures and drugs they encouraged left me worse off than when I began. Third, I had a number of childhood issues that the mental health professionals failed to uncover and adequately address. Had those issues (a speech impediment, a learning disability, and childhood sexual abuse) been dealt with properly, I may have never gone down the expensive and painful road on which I traveled.
I have great compassion for children and teenagers who feel this same inner incongruence. They look to their parents and healthcare professionals for guidance. Even as an adult, I relied on the mental health counseling I received while deciding whether to change my presentation from male to female. But in my experience, the mental health profession is so quick to promote identifying as the opposite sex that surgical procedures and drugs are promoted as the only real solution for those struggling. My mental health professionals led me to make a horrible mistake. This experience has led me to question whether most mental health professionals have adequate training to make the right recommendations for still-developing children and teenagers.
***Credit to our friends at Changed Movement for compiling and sharing this and other powerful stories of transformation through the power and love of Jesus Christ***
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