?For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength?? Isaiah 30:15

MINISTRY UPDATE

We are pleased to let you know that our first online teaching is in its final stage of edits and will be uploaded to our new teaching platform very soon! The title of this new project is:    ?8 Reasons Pastors Are Using Porn? and why you might be too?. For those who have been reading our ministry updates it won?t be any surprise to you that pornography and sexual sin and addiction are massive issues within the Church. Leaders and pastors are not exempt.

This online curriculum is for the purpose of offering help and support to pastors (and anyone else) struggling with sexual integrity, as well as a way to help churches understand and walk through these common, secretive and damaging areas of sin and shame.

Beauty can flourish out of ashes (Isaiah 61:3). God is glorified through authentic and complete repentance, when we embrace a journey out of bondage, through humility and vulnerability. ?He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.? Proverbs 28:13.

Our goal in putting this video curriculum together and working to gather many transparent testimonies and perspectives from male and female pastors and Christian leaders has been all about revealing a pathway of redemption. It?s all about becoming Christ-followers and leaders who practice integrity ? the experience of living one integrated life, rather than living multiple ?lives?, contrary to one another; a public image to cover up the lie of our disintegrated sin patterns done in secrecy and isolation (1 John 1:7-9).

Stay tuned, shortly, we?ll provide a link of where you can watch the introduction for free and decide if you?d like to engage with the full curriculum. We?re excited and feel very blessed as a ministry to now develop, shoot, and edit solid quality video-teaching content.

Our first concern is getting truth out by releasing high-value content through an online platform that is easily accessible 24/7. However, we?re also aware that in addition to growing our base of support through churches and donations from individuals who understand the value of Love & Truth Network, we also know that our curriculum can provide another opportunity for growing our ministry and expanding the influence we can offer on these vital areas of need within the churches of all denominations.

I mentioned in my last ministry update that I had been asked to join a taskforce subcommittee working to develop a ministry plan for effectively caring for men, women and youth impacted by sexual brokenness. The project and recommendations have been presented to a leadership team for evaluation.

The team has been amazing and we?re all so blessed by the opportunity to provide a framework for care and ministry in such an historically neglected area. This work has the potential to impact a new worldwide denomination coming out of The United Methodist Church, to not only have a biblical perspective on marriage, sexuality, and identity but also to become an intentional, compassionate, well equipped ?teaching hospital? for men, women and youth within the church who have been caught up in the epidemic of sexual sin and addiction.

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 Webinars 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.

TEACHING CORNER

I love the passage we chose to start off this ministry update, from Isaiah 30:15 ??In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength??. There is so much hope and such a wonderful invitation to fix our eyes and our expectations on the one constant, the one who never changes. Sadly, though, this verse finishes with the hard-hearted condition of God?s people, ??but you were not willing. And you said, ?No, for we will flee on horses? ?.

In that time and culture, ?fleeing on horses? was their way of saying to God, ?no thanks, we?ll take care of ourselves, we?ll protect ourselves, we don?t trust you to take care of us How frequently we do the same thing (minus the horses). We might turn to our bank account, investments or career for security. We might binge on TV, social media, food or alcohol. We might escape our boredom, our internal pain or void and emptiness by turning to sexual sin; pornography or an affair. We may decide that saving sex for our marriage partner is an outdated, silly ideal that can?t possibly apply in today?s culture, so we move in together with our boyfriend or girlfriend. We think we can have a thriving relationship with God, while living contrary to His design and His commands.

So often sin isn?t just about the particular ?flavor? of sin/s we indulge in, it?s also about meeting our needs ourselves, without relying on God, without meeting our deepest needs and longings His way.

While wearing masks and appropriately distancing, I was at a pastors gathering recently. It was truly a blessing to be together with other pastors. Part of our time was spent being encouraged by the sharing of a local ministry leader, who led us in a 10 minute session of silence before the Lord, and listening for Him ? in our own places of need.

Afterward, our group, and later other groups, shared that this 10 minutes of getting quiet and listening and sensing the Lord was deeply refreshing, and something many didn?t know when the last time was they had stopped to do this.

Remember, these were pastors; men and women who love Jesus, and lay their lives down constantly for the sake of ministry and serving others. Yet the truth is, even ministry can be a snare to us. Even in the context of ministry we can essentially say by our behavior, ?no, God, I?ve got this? and we can unwittingly seek to meet our own needs apart from true reliance on God. The function and activity of ministry, and the way we feel needed or praised and valued can all be forms to self-medication for pastors and Christian leaders, and then when stress hits, or marriage and family become strained, or people within our church make it clear they don?t like us or think we?re doing a lousy job, we become vulnerable to doing things we never dreamt possible as a pastor or Christian leader.

The curriculum I mentioned earlier, on pastors and pornography, is all about helping pastors and congregations understand that we are all vulnerable to reject God?s invitation to rest, trust and get quiet with Him and instead find quick counterfeits to meet our own needs whenever we want, without the need to wait on God and His timing.

That gathering of pastors represents the ?cream of the crop?; pastors who not only have a desire to come together to encourage themselves and each other, but care deeply about serving God and His church. These were good men and women, but to hear over and over again that a simple 10 minutes session of getting quiet and listening for God was so rare and profound for them, this should tell us something about the fumes that many, if not most, pastors are operating on. This creates extreme vulnerability for Christian leaders and for the churches they serve.

As a pastor, I love pastors. This update and the curriculum we are developing isn?t about shaming or running pastors down. Rather, it?s a hopeful message that pastors who can identify with what we?re sharing, even those who have fallen into patterns of secret sin, have a God who is calling them back to integrity and back to a place of walking in real freedom and Holy Spirit empowerment.

In the Testimony section, I have shared over the last couple ministry updates about my experience with the church while I was growing up, particularly with pastors. Much of my experience (and so many people brought up in the Church) were far from helpful, in fact, many interactions with the Church and leaders were quite negative and damaged my view of God, how He saw me, and whether there was any hope for someone as broken as was. Of course, now, many years later I clearly see that my brokenness wasn?t and isn?t unique.

Thankfully, I have also had some incredibly healing experiences with the Church and Christian leaders; men and women who reflected God more accurately and clearly. It was those congregations and pastors who not only shared the ideal that all Christians should strive for, but also shared their failures, struggles and sin bents. They ultimately were willing to admit their imperfections and their need to Jesus and community to help them walk faithfully, despite the pull of their flesh toward sin and familiar ways of meeting their own needs apart of God.

For this curriculum project we?re finalizing I had the distinct privilege of interviewing about a dozen pastors and Christian leaders; both men and women, who were courageously willing to share their stories of sexual brokenness and porn addiction and to help us understand how these sin struggles develop, as well as how to find freedom. One leader shared a story that I will mention quickly here.

She reminded me that we attended the same conference a few years back and when her table of pastors began discussing the topic that group was to interact about; ?how can your church become a safe and transformational place for people to heal from sexual brokenness?, she recalled that one of the pastors at her table simply admitted that he could never bring up the topic of sex or the reality of the wide-spread sexual immorality in the Church, without losing his job. His church would just not stand for it.

This is tragic to me. Churches that are going to offer real hope, real healing, real life-change through Jesus, are going to be willing to get themselves equipped, prepared and realize they either have the power to turn people away from God or toward Him. There is nothing more center-place in the broader culture than sex, identity and human sexuality. Likewise, there is nothing so prevalent, so shameful and so addictively lived out in secret within the lives of regular church attenders, than sexual sin.

Again, God greatly desires to exchange beauty for ashes, but to do so, Christian churches must be willing to address sexuality and identity in open teaching, honest testimonies, and hope-filled pathways of support. To be clear, when I use the expression hope-filled I am not downplaying the pain or power of sexual addiction or identity confusion. These are complex struggles and on some level these desires and temptations may be a cross Christ-followers choose to bear (Luke 9:23), until they step out of this life, into the next. But it is so worthwhile surrendering to God?s design and His revealed will and Kingdom purposes for us.

TESTIMONY- GARRY?S STORY

(Part #3 ? continuing this theme from past ministry updates):

After a couple years, fully embracing a gay identity, moving in with a guy/breaking up, finding another guy/breaking up? and discovering the revolving door of gay-culture and relationships, I got sick of it all. My experiences were actually anything but ?gay?. What started out as euphoria landed me in all kinds of bondages and a decaying soul. I was young but felt old and used up.

I had become close with one of my ex-boyfriend?s moms while he and I were together and our friendship continued after we ended our relationship. I was in a bumpy process of turning back toward God but was burning hot and cold in that department; one day fully committed to pursue Him, the next equally committed to double-down on owning and living out a gay identity.

One day while I was visiting his mom, she opened about the hurts in her heart and her loneliness. It?s crazy, but I knew she needed Jesus in her life. I talked with her about Him and told her that He died for her sins. She opened her heart up to Jesus, repented of her sin and asked Him to be Lord of her life. All the while I was both excited for her and thinking this is the weirdest situation ever. How on earth could this be happening?with me of all people?

?What?s next?? she asked. ?What do I do?? ?Well, find a bible-believing church? I said. Next time I visited she told she had found a little church a few miles away and she loved it. I attended with her one Sunday and met the 30?s something pastor and his family. Christmas was around the corner and the both of us went on a caroling outing with the church. It was a lot fun.

I was musically inclined; I liked to sing and play piano. I wasn?t very accomplished in my piano skills, but I taught myself to play when I was at Bible College and I played every chance I had. I didn?t have a piano at home, and I thought that perhaps when the pastor of my friend?s church was using his church office, he might let me play for a while. I brought up the idea to him and he was receptive, but non-committal. I followed up again and even stopped by the church one weekday and sure enough he was there. I brought my songbook and he met me at the side door and let me in.

However, rather than letting me play the piano he explained that all the furnishings on the other side of the kneeling railing (which is where the piano was located) had been sanctified to the Lord? he stammered a little, trying to find the right words, or maybe realizing what was actually coming out of his mouth didn?t sound as reasonable as it did earlier in his thoughts?either way, he forged ahead and explained that I wasn?t the kind of person who could touch the sanctified things.

I know. You?re probably cringing right about now too. I was stunned. Yes, I was a mess. Yes, I was conflicted. No, I wasn?t lukewarm toward God; I ran hot and cold from one moment to the next. But I?m also the guy that shared Jesus with their newest attendee and encouraged her to attend this church. I also had a mother and father desperately praying for me and asking that God would bring someone into my life who would know how to help me and show the love of Christ to me.

Regardless, the sanctified stuff wasn?t to be touched.

I left through the little side door I had only moments before walked through. ?Wow, pastors suck,? I thought. Little did I know I was going to become one many years later.