?I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power, and have kept My word, and have not denied My name.? Revelation 3:8

MINISTRY UPDATE

Perhaps like me, as you consider the condition of our country; the political environment, the deep divisions that exist, the way many churches are adopting the perspectives and behaviors of culture rather than being salt and light, temptation to give ourselves over to worry, anxiety, depression and drawing inward toward isolation, can be pretty intense.

When these thoughts and concerns strike, I draw encouragement from what the psalmist wrote: ?Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God?, Psalm 43:5.

Whether in dark times or not, we need to stir up our faith in what is true and unshakable - ?In You, O Lord, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed. In Your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; Incline Your ear to me and save me. Be to me a rock of habitation to which I may continually come; You have given commandment to save me, For You are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, Out of the grasp of the wrongdoer and ruthless man, For You are my hope; O Lord God, You are my confidence from my youth? Psalm 71:1-5

2021 lies before us as a year full of challenge, but also as opportunity full of hope, life and Kingdom work. Truly, Jesus? declaration in John 4:35 is just as relevant today, ??I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.? And again, in Matthew 9:37 Jesus tells his disciples, ?The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.?

It has often been said the greatest times of growth for the Church were forged in difficulty and darkness. Endurance does not grow in easy times, but challenging and difficult seasons.

Christian churches in America and worldwide have been through some incredibly difficult and contentious decades. Polarizing theological conflicts have brought us to 2021, in which many churches are struggling with how to adapt to these internal challenges.

For example, so many within The United Methodist Church have been waiting with longing and expectation for what a new, faithful, orthodox revival could mean as a revitalized Christ-filled, Wesleyan expression in the world. This fresh movement has been forged out of great pain, trial and struggle within the UMC to retain the authentic teachings, hope and life revealed in the word of God.

Those who oppose the clear teachings of Scripture on God?s design for family, marriage, sexual expression, and identity have framed the narrative and cultural conversation as: one is either a kind, loving and affirming person who celebrates whatever behavior, sexual expression, identity or gender persons embrace for themselves, or one is bigoted, hateful and oppressive to these minority groups.

Nothing could be further from the truth, which is not to minimize that some people have been hateful and cruel, even some within the Church. However, the idea that all who believe God has a better way and His design for human flourishing is radically different than the world?s solution, are somehow homophobic, or transphobic bigots is simply untrue.

Love & Truth Network does not exist to give orthodox Christians reasons to build walls against the culture, or moral ammunition to use against those who see themselves as sexual minorities. Rather, we exist because love, and our own experiences of freedom from slavery to sin, compel us to ?roll up our sleeves?, step into the pain and loss of those who also bought the lie of ?sexual/identity freedom? that culture has been selling.

Through online video curriculum, webinars, video training for pastors and their leadership teams, online mentoring and coaching, our website and newsletter, as well as in-person weekend ministry events, we?re equipping churches all across the country with a true Biblical message of powerful compassion without compromise; discipleship and transformation.

Given our trajectory, 2021 will be a year of increased confusion, addiction and further rebellion against God and His design for humanity. It will also be a year of clarity for His true Church. Love & Truth Network will always work to strengthen and equip churches all denominational and non-denominational perspectives with what is actually loving: the clearly revealed truths of scripture with regard to human identity as image bears of God and His revealed will for human sexual expression and abundant human thriving.

Many of you have partnered in prayer and financial support of Love & Truth Network because you have seen the need for a truthful, redemptive, and loving voice proclaiming what new life in Christ actually is. You?ve seen this in your own life as well as the testimonies that you read in these ministry updates. You don?t want others to be led astray into a shadow of Christianity without the true life-changing power, which comes through repentance of sin and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus.

If you have not yet joined with us, would you prayerfully consider that now? We would so appreciate your support in 2021. As you read this month?s testimony (at the end of this newsletter) think about the power the Church has to either offer life and hope to desperate people, or sadly, let them remain untouched by the impact of the true gospel applied to their need, instead, believing they?re uniquely broken and too much for a church to handle or help.

When you read Matthew?s testimony, think about how a church that was willing to talk about our common struggles as sexual beings; men, women and young people, could have been a vital lifeline to him. However, most churches aren?t addressing these common human struggles... that's a major reason Love & Truth Network exists.

This is why God raised up and prepared Love & Truth Network so many years ago as a renewal ministry for the Church. We want to see Christ?s Church rise up and offer the hope of real life; life out of sexual sin, sexual addiction, relationship addiction, mediocre marriages, and identity confusion.

This journey starts by looking inward to our own divided and compromised hearts, as well as to those we attend church with every week. This journey doesn?t begin by ?looking out there?. We can only lead people where we ourselves have been and now know the way? by the narrow path that Jesus spoke of.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD

In addition to online curriculum development, we are offering leadership team development, as well as individual coaching/spiritual mentoring for individuals via Zoom. We?re also offering Webinar equipping opportunities.

God has been so good to shine light on ways we can pivot from primarily in-person events and weekend ministry opportunities to virtual training and teaching.

We are so thankful for the increase and expansion that He goes before and provides. We are also thankful for you. Without supporters in prayer-covering and financial gifts we would not be able to offer these various equipping opportunities to a Church so much in need of the specific ministry God has uniquely prepared us for.

TESTIMONY- MATTHEW

I?ve never known what it was like to have a father. He left when my mother was only three months pregnant with me; never a phone call or birthday card. I?ve never seen his face. I?m the youngest of three boys. My brothers are seven and eight years older than me. My mother was completely overwhelmed by her own brokenness and the task of raising three boys on her own.

My oldest brother began sexually abusing me when I was three. It wasn?t just him, but his friends as well. I don?t remember how many instances of abuse there were, but I clearly remember being made to do degrading sexual things to them. He finally stopped around the time I went into kindergarten, but he wasn?t the only family member abusing me.

Until the last several years I could not even acknowledge to myself (much less tell anyone else) that my mother had sexually abused me. It was so shameful, so emasculating, I wanted to shove it down deep inside in an attempt to no longer feel the pain, severing all memory to it, but no matter how much I tried to detach, or minimize, or rationalize it away, it was always there on the periphery of my thoughts.

My mother?s neediness and instability were pretty extreme. She put a lot of pressure on me, even as a kid, to be her surrogate spouse or partner in some weird way. She was dating men who were married; she was always the other woman. She would tell me about the problems she was having with her boyfriends and asked me if I thought they would leave their wives and what I thought about her relationships. She shared details about her sex life that I did not want to know. At age 11, I remember her making me call bill collectors or utility companies to negotiate to get the power turned back on because she had not paid the bill for a few months. My childhood was filled with instability and abuse.

Looking back, I now see that I lived in my head way too much. I isolated myself at school and from my peers, and my way of escape was to retreat into the privacy of my mind. I would ?go away? and pretend to be the hero of whatever book I had just read, or movie I had just watched. I would make up stories of my own and ?live? in them. In my mind I could be strong and courageous and able to overcome any obstacle. In my boyish fantasies nobody ever picked a fight with me and won.

As I got older, my way of coping shifted from super hero fantasy to sexual fantasy, pornography and masturbation. I remember having an unhealthy preoccupation with sex long before puberty, before that kind of curiosity would be considered normal. I knew even then my feelings and behavior were unhealthy, but I did not have anyone to turn to for help or direction. We lived in a very small town and my mother was well known and liked in the community. She threatened me a few times never to talk with anyone about our home life.

I saw hardcore pornography for the first time at age 12, and now 29 years later, I can still see those low-quality grainy images in my head just as clearly as if I had viewed them yesterday. I was completely fascinated and drawn in, the hook firmly set in my soul. I was horrified to realize I was drawn more to the images of men than women.

The reality of sexual and physical abuse and my own sexual choices dogged me at every stage and circumstance of my life. I blamed myself for being too weak and vulnerable. In my mind, I was a pathetic, wimpy, sorry-excuse-for-a-boy who should have been less fearful and fought more to fend off the abuse. As I grew up and became a man, I was disgusted and repulsed by the kid I once was. If I could have taken a knife and cut my adult self away from him entirely I would have? in a sense I did.

My hatred for him (the little boy me) was a powerful, rage-filled wall that affected (and infected) every area of my life, at every stage of life. I came to understand that my intentional refusal to be integrated with myself as an abused and fearful child, and to welcome Christ?s healing into the severe wounds of my early life, destabilized every relationship and every circumstance around me.

When same-sex attraction occurred around puberty and persisted, it felt like a nightmare, especially as I got older and these feelings became more intense rather than fading. I did not realize it at the time, but the damage of not having a father to identify with in those early developmental years, and going through all the abuse from my brother and mother set the stage for a severe fracture of my masculine soul.

Despite giving my life to Christ around 13 years of age, and coming to the clear realization that God had been protecting me all along and I was never actually alone, even in my worst moments, my teen years were a complete contradiction as I descended into a black hole of sexual promiscuity, ever increasing pornography addiction and dangerous behaviors.

In my imagination, I wanted and envisioned a family of my own, but the notion of being vulnerable or emotionally intimate with a woman was not just unappealing, it actually felt frightening and dangerous. Through all the craziness, I still had a mental picture of the man I so desperately wanted to grow up to be.

At age 17 things at home finally reached such a crisis point I decided I?d be better off on my own. Over the next year or so, I was living the adage, ?out of the frying pan, into the fire?? but God never took His eye off me.

Through a complex series of small ?coincidences?, I was invited by a young couple I had gone to church with to come and live with them. Theirs was a radical, self-giving love; something I hadn?t known of before. What was meant to be just a couple months ended up being nearly a year. I experienced stability with them.

I moved to a different town after about a year, began working fulltime and found my own place. To my amazement and delight I met a girl who quickly won my heart. I had been afraid that I would ever feel this way toward a woman, but I was struck and in love. After only several months of dating we got married. A year later our son was born, and eighteen months later our daughter arrived. God is good! I thought I had made it. I thought the life I had always pictured was mine now.

Porn was slowly but steadily creeping back into my heart and life. I couldn?t begin to understand why I was looking at it. It had nothing to do with dissatisfaction in my new life of husband and father. I confessed it to my wife in the beginning; she wept a bit but completely forgave me. I promised not to do it again. That promise didn?t even last a year.

In 2006 my mother died under pretty horrible circumstances. To say there was a lot of unfinished business with her would be quite an understatement. That event set off a grenade in me I didn?t even know existed. I thought I had done the forgiveness thing, when in fact; I had only stuffed my pain and emotions. Overnight I turned into somebody else. I was angry all the time, literally every day for years. My wife would attempt a hug or want a kiss and I would snap at her.

I was in so much denial I could not see the damage I was doing. I thought our problems that had cropped up were all her fault. I figured the porn was something I was entitled to do since I was the breadwinner and worked so hard to provide for us. By the end of 2011 she and I were at our breaking point. Our marriage was almost nonexistent; she was starting to become bitter and angry, herself. I finally had come to terms with the fact that my behavior and life were unmanageable, in every sense of the word.

I finally began attending a Christian men?s group. Later, I joined a weekly group for guys dealing with porn addiction, which eventually led to connecting with an accountability partner regularly. It took a long time for me to fully open up; in the beginning everything I shared was general and vague. The men in my groups assumed I was a straight guy who had problems with porn, and of course, that?s what I wanted them to think.

Always careful with my words, and vigilant about how I talked about myself, I had to keep my big dark secret safe. While there was some small progress, I still inevitably found myself either back in front of a computer, my phone or with some anonymous guy I?d met online.

God did ask me when I going to finally stop hiding, and actually get real with others. But I fought Him; terrified to be fully known. I figured I had made it to the group... I was coming faithfully every Tuesday morning and that should be enough obedience, right? But He kept working on my stubborn heart.

Three years ago, I laid down my pride and began meeting with a Christian counselor. That experience turned out to be phenomenal. There has been some major healing and breakthroughs for me in that relationship. I began to finally allow the deep pain, shame and brokenness that had never been dealt with slowly surface in honest confession, holding nothing back and for the first time being fully known. The cleansing, healing flow from Christ?s work on the cross for me was being released through the love of God, the love of ?walking-partners? as well as my surrender to do life and relationships in the light.

I wish I could say my life is the picture of a happy Hollywood ending and I am completely fixed of all my issues. But even in light of God?s amazing grace, sin exacts a high price and even with authentic repentance and forgiveness, natural consequences can be severe.

My wife has been hurt by me in ways I can?t take back and while I would love the chance to heal together, and see our marriage healed, she has filed for divorce. Our children have had to live in the pain of spending their later teen years watching their parents? marriage implode. I didn?t just hurt myself; I hurt those closest to me. Those most blameless are the ones suffering the consequences of my selfishness. If I had the courage to deal with these issues years ago, I?d be sharing a very different story with you now.

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Even so, I?m embracing the truth that, regardless of my past and all my brokenness which will be unraveling and healing for years to come, I have a God who loves me and won?t leave me in a pit. I have brothers and sisters in Christ, I have three spiritual fathers; better fathers than my earthly father ever could have been, and I have a future and hope that I serve a God who can and does make all things new.