02 Feb 2017
A New Blog on Gender
Affirming Gender is a new blog site that Sam A. Andreades, pastor, author, and speaker, has put together to create an online forum to discuss issues of gender and transgender. Sam is the author of enGendered: God’s Gift of Gender Difference in Relationship, a biblical and engaging study of how God has given humanity the gift of gender, and of the difference that gender makes in relationships and the rest of our lives.
A few months ago, Sam gave us a rich, in-house teaching on gender and transgender issues, and all of us here at HARVEST USA want to commend his ministry in this crucial area. Check out his new website, and start thinking about and exploring gender in ways that are both biblically solid and, perhaps, different than you would think. That this is a discussion on gender we need to have now is an understatement, given that we now read almost daily about gender being immaterial to who we are as persons or changeable according to the opposite gender we would like to be.
Sam is giving us permission to post some of his blogs that we think help our followers to think through these issues in theological and pastoral ways. Get to know Sam…he’s well worth your time online.
Here’s Sam’s post on affirminggender.com, dated December 31, 2016:
I saw it begin at Yale in 1980…
It was in the campus air. Women’s Studies had begun as a field, laying a groundwork for Queer Theory in the 1990s. The people in the know would introduce it slowly, of course, to make sure it wasn’t completely abhorrent. It was the program to tear down the gender binary.
I noticed it in the women’s styles. Long hair was out. Wearing short hair as a girl was a statement. The style was not just easier to brush, but an attempt to cut off any sign that women differed from men.
There are several reasons for the destruction of gender, but this was one. The two camps of academic second-wave feminism (1970s–1980s) were battling about whether to empower women by showing them to be capable of supposed masculine traits or to seek equality by valuing femininity and what women do, working to reconstruct society’s values to value what women are. Neither side won exactly, but the resulting synthesis was a program to obliterate any sense of difference between the genders.
Some women resisted the program. Feminist author-to-be Naomi Wolfe was different, of course. Her incipient tendency to be a gadfly was evident even then in her long, full, flowing, brunette mane, which she refused to cut. She was annoying people even then.
Later-to-be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had just left the law school seven years before, with her hair intact. But she learned there, as we were all learning, that baking cookies was sub-par—if you are a woman, that is. That a calling of making a home for a family was for losers. In the process, we were being taught to disdain our mothers for the stability they made in their homes for us, the stability from which we went on to our great achievements.
They were right about there not being a difference in scalp hair. Men and women’s hair both grow long unless it is cut. As the apostle Paul recognized so long ago (1Co 11:14-15), “the nature of things” in Roman culture gave women of that time glory in their hair, as in American culture of the previous decades. So whose hair is long or short is not a matter of gender.
And yet it was.
Because gender is about relationship, ultimately with the other gender. Shearing that cultural artifact was about defying a practice that expressed a complement to men. It didn’t matter whose hair was short, but it did matter that there was some cultural way of expressing difference. And that was the point. Difference was to be erased.
But gender is all about making a difference. That is why Paul instructs the Corinthians to use the cultural practice to express truth about gender in marriage (v. 16). Erasing all distinction between women and men distances them from one another. And then follows the big mistake of believing that women’s problems can be solved without men, without reference to men, in spite of men.
But that will never happen. And that is why this blog exists. To call us in a better direction. For when you lose gender in relationship, you lose gender.
Welcome to the Affirming Gender blog, Post #1!
Updated 5.12.2017
18 Jan 2017
Raising a Child with Gender Brokenness
Seeing the gender struggle
One of our sons announced, almost as soon as he could string together sentences, that he did not want to be a man when he grew up. By the time he was four, he covered his head with yellow T-shirts and flicked his imaginary blond hair over his shoulder.
His dreams, both sleeping and waking, featured him in sequined dresses dancing on stage, with no one in the audience knowing he was male. For years, he wanted to wear fingernail polish, dresses, high heels, and feather boas.
His voice was high and his mannerisms were extremely feminine. He screamed his hatred for his body, “Why can’t someone just cut ‘it’ off and put in a hole instead?” He fantasized about what he had never heard of: gender reassignment surgery.
Our homeschool, all-male-except-mom family wasn’t expecting this. We weren’t expecting a son who kept sneaking into my dresser to try on my lingerie. We weren’t expecting a son who wrote stories about himself dancing with a prince at a ball. We weren’t expecting self-portraits with cleavage. We weren’t expecting a son who took down his curtains to fashion an evening gown.
In 1992, when our son was seven years old, I (Nancy) made calls and sent letters to Christian counseling organizations across the country, willing to pay anything if someone could help our son. One person said, “There’s nothing you can do about problems this serious in a child this young.” One of these organizations gave me a phone number. The receptionist there brightly chirped, “We absolutely can help your son.”
“How?” I clung to the phone.
“We do gender reassignment surgery.”
I quit making phone calls.
Seeing the sin
If our son had been born with a hole in his physical heart, we would have repaired it. What would be wrong with fixing this hole in his soul? Our son’s anguish was clouding our understanding of Scripture. So, we read the Bible with him, hoping to gain a God-honoring perspective on gender. Instead, our son wanted to be Delilah.
As we dug through the rubble of our son’s gender brokenness, we saw his sin. His unbelief that God could help him live as a man. His rebellious demand to be what he wanted to be, not what God made him to be. We also saw our sin. Our fear that God might not work the transformation for which we prayed daily. Our proud and rebellious accusation, “Millions of children bond with their biological sex. How could God keep such a good gift from our son?”
Seeing gospel opportunity
In 1993, after reading an afterword in one of Larry Crabb’s books, I wrote to seek his help. Dr. Crabb urged us not to think of our son “as having a qualitatively different struggle than any boy learning the joys of manhood. Think of it as a continuum and [your son] is at the far end of the struggle, but still on the same continuum of all boys.” United with Christ, we believed God would give us the same courage we were calling our son to embrace as, together, we lived for Christ, rather than for ourselves:
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. (2 Corinthians 5:14-16, ESV)
In place of fear, the love of Christ began to control us. God gave us eyes to see our son by faith and celebrate glimpses of God’s grace at work.
We saw God’s truth as our confusion became conviction that, not only was our son’s gender a gift from the King to be lived for His glory, so was ours. We saw God’s power as our son took broken but beautiful steps of faith.
Dr. Crabb also gave this advice: “Pray together as husband and wife about how the picture of MAN and WOMAN can be lived out clearly, not by trying hard to do so, but rather by expressing joyfully the deepest part of who you both are…” Living out our genders became a joyful current, and we prayed that our son would be swept along in the beauty and symmetry of God’s good design for male and female.
Seeing God together
We helped our son illustrate a book we wrote outlining simple teaching about biblical manhood and womanhood. Later, we wrote a chapter book [1] that gently wove the theme of biblical manhood into its child-sized plot. We used cloth dolls to tell stories of children living out their genders for the glory of God. We built a castle for our son to sleep in, as a reminder that God was his protection amid what was for him a terrifying prospect: becoming a man. We fasted and prayed that our son would see his gender as hallowed, rather than happenstance. We laid hands on our son while he slept and spoke blessings over him. We recruited two dozen people who prayed daily for our son and our parenting. We cried—often.
And we saw God. We saw God’s truth as our confusion became conviction that, not only was our son’s gender a gift from the King to be lived for His glory, so was ours. We saw God’s power as our son took broken but beautiful steps of faith. We saw God’s mercy as the treasure of the gospel worked in and through jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7). We saw the goodness of the God who “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). We saw God’s glory, and that became enough.
Beyond seeing
As our son moved through his teenage years, he became more masculine. Recently, he said, “I’m so glad you didn’t turn me into a girl.” Instead, his struggle with same-sex attraction became the frontline of his fight. He remained involved in church and shared his struggles with his pastor. As he matured, his heart orientation toward God and His Kingdom strengthened. After moving to another city, he found a Gospel-centered church where he is involved in a strong small group. He is fighting his fight, but it is still a fight.
If our son, however, now claimed to be our daughter, our story of seeing God’s glory and becoming satisfied with Christ alone would still be a good story. It glorifies God when Christian parents teach their children that gender is a gift from the King to be lived for God’s glory—regardless of the outcome.
We don’t simply show mercy to children who hate their gender because we hope the mercy will change them. God calls us to delight in showing mercy because it glorifies the God who shows extravagant mercy to sinners. Working for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23) may involve spending oneself and seeing no fruit. Mercy that flows from the love of God shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5) glorifies God even if we never see results from that mercy. “We walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Seeing beyond
“Now we see through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). We fight for glimpses of God’s glory in His Word and His world. One day, however, our faith will be sight. We will see Him as He is and be changed to be like Him (1 John 3:2). Our present sufferings—anguish for a child who struggles with gender, marital conflict over how to disciple a child who longs to change genders, hurtful comments made by others, dread over a child’s future—will work for us a weight of glory (2 Corinthians 4:17). We will enter the glory we fought to glimpse. And it will be more than enough.
Chuck and Nancy Snyder, with permission from their adult son
[1] Lions for Ajax, to be published by Shepherd Press.
Updated 5.23.2017
James Sutton, Associate Pastor, Christ the King PCA in Raleigh, NC, shares his church’s experience of partnering with Harvest USA.
We’ve long known sexual brokenness was an issue in our church, even though nobody talked about it. We’re happy to confess pride, fundamental forms of idolatry, destructive anger, jealousy, etc. However, invite us to shine a light onto our experience of sexual brokenness and we get a little sheepish. Doesn’t everyone?
But the Bible reminds us that it’s pretty clear those struggles are going to be there. It even anticipates that we’re going to do our best job of convincing each other and ourselves that they aren’t there. In general, we lived up to that prediction. For a long time, our church’s culture was like a mutually agreed-upon conspiracy of silence.
But something amazing happened a few years ago. Some of our members began pointing flashlights in the direction of their hearts and, in particular, the scary sections hiding their sexual struggles. Some of them just didn’t have a choice, but many did. Some of them were doing it because they actually believed the gospel that their pastors were preaching.
At first, it was as difficult as you might imagine. As we were shepherding our church, we kept running into all kinds of fallout from porn addictions. Then, we’d start developing leaders in our church only to discover they were engaged in some disqualifying sexual sin or another. There were things that we wanted to do, but so many of our potential leaders were being taken out by these sins.
Slowly, quietly, we found ourselves with a group of guys who wanted to meet regularly to talk about some of their deepest, darkest sins. . . They didn’t want to live in darkness anymore.
But even though it was hard and frustrating at times, it was also beautiful. Slowly, quietly, we found ourselves with a group of guys who wanted to meet regularly to talk about some of their deepest, darkest sins. They were eager to apply the gospel to each other’s hearts, to brainstorm about how to help each other, and to pray for one another because they trusted that Christ could do miracles. They didn’t want to live in darkness anymore.
God provided for us by introducing us to Harvest USA. A group of men began to go through Dave White’s workbook, Sexual Sanity for Men: Re-Creating Your Mind in a Crazy World. We had a biblical counselor in our church who volunteered to meet with these guys on a weekly basis. This counselor also took the time to meet with the guys one on one. All kinds of fruit began popping up in their lives.
Not long after, we had a men’s retreat, led by Harvest USA. At that retreat, another group of guys started to open up about their sexual struggles. Encouraged by the fruitfulness of the first group, we started discussing the need to have something similar to the book study on an on-going basis. The trouble was, the counselor who had been working with them moved and was living on the other side of the country.
We decided that the fruit we were seeing wasn’t just the work of this counselor. We decided to operate like it was the Holy Spirit at work, bringing the gospel through the body of Christ.
So we stepped up our game, so to speak. We needed additional help, and that meant training for the men who were already leading. We contacted Harvest USA and were delighted when they informed us of their Partner Ministries training.
They sent us some basic materials, and then we set up a time for their staff to video teleconference with our group to talk through a suggested model for how to set up a standing group. A lot of their practical suggestions were soaked in wisdom and would’ve taken us years to figure out on our own. They were incredibly encouraging, and we organized a weekend for one of their staff to meet with our core group.
The training experience included a full complement of helpful tools as well as some great tailor-made advice on how to apply those tools. Like us, they believed the beautiful fruit we were seeing was the work of the Spirit, and so they taught in a way that drew us to seek him more.
It’s encouraging for our group to have an experienced staff “on call” whose wisdom they can draw from when they encounter particularly challenging situations. God uses their experience, their humility, and their training to help empower our church to continue to shine the Spirit’s light on the dark places we all have in our souls. Overall, it’s one of the most exciting things God has done in our church.
Updated 5.12.2017
The need to address sexual sin in our churches has never been more important. Check out our main article from our Spring 2016 magazine newsletter (“Living Faithfully with our Bodies: It Still Matters, But the Church Must Help”). It makes a persuasive case for why a whole church commitment is needed to help sexual strugglers. To be effective and powerful, good theology must always move into people’s lives. As was said in the main article, “Something more than words of expectation and exhortation are needed.” What is needed are brothers and sisters to come alongside, partner with, and help strugglers walk in God’s truth.
This is why Harvest USA has developed a program called Partner Ministries. Increasing freedom from sexual sin cannot happen outside the body of Christ, and we want to equip and train churches to be that body that graciously and compassionately comes alongside strugglers with the mercy and truth of Jesus Christ.
Our Partner Ministries team seeks to do exactly what our name describes. We want to partner with churches in ministry to sexual strugglers. We recognize this is a hard area of ministry and that more specific training is often necessary—and that is what we can provide.
What does a Partner Ministry with Harvest USA look like?
Unlike our other seminars and training events, establishing a Partner Ministries connection with Harvest USA is an ongoing relationship. We want to be a resource for your church that you can access to continually improve your own ministry to sexual strugglers. How does this relationship develop?
- We meet with your key pastors and leaders to discuss what your church needs for establishing a ministry to sexual strugglers and develop with you a ministry plan.
- Before we come to your church for training, we’ll prime the pump with your key volunteers by sending you some of our resources to help get them thinking.
- We come out to your church and do an intensive weekend training where we will equip your people on how to do sexual brokenness ministry, from understanding how sexual brokenness develops all the way through how to set up and run biblical support groups for men and women.
- After that training, your church has ongoing access to our latest resources, including print and video resources, along with quick access to one of our ministry staff if your church needs a quick answer or is dealing with a crisis situation.
- We’ll also keep in touch with you periodically to see how things are going, provide feedback, and be available to come back to your church for further teaching and training.
Interested? Got questions? Email Brooke Delaney at brooke@harvestusa.org, and she will send you our Partner Ministries booklet to get you and your church started.
26 Apr 2016
One Woman’s Story from Enmeshment to Real Love
Twenty-one years into my marriage, my husband announced one day, “I’m leaving you for another woman.” I was devastated. I fell into a deep emotional abyss as my life and my heart broke into a million tiny pieces. My friend, “Lydia,” who had been talking to me for several years about Christ, stepped into my pain with gentleness and love. Into my broken world, she ministered to me, sitting with me for hours as I poured out my pain and my tears. She read to me from the Bible and continued to share Jesus with me.
Several months later I did ask Jesus into my heart and accepted him as my Savior. “Lydia” and I continued to meet almost daily; ours was a completely new level of relationship for me. With her, I felt complete and deeply known for the first time in my life. I needed her desperately and soon began to long for her when she was absent.
Without noticing it, my life began to revolve around our time together. When we were together, she held me as I cried and rubbed my back and dried my tears. Her touch was such a comfort to me, and there was an intense feeling of being connected. It was just a matter of time before we moved into sexual touching and then, a full sexual relationship. Even as a new Christian, I knew that this was not OK with God, and I struggled to understand how what felt so right could be so wrong. After several years, our secret relationship became public and what started out then as a whole new devastation in my life was actually the first step of a new journey into wholeness.
This new struggle lasted for many years. I have moved from identifying myself as a lesbian, to a woman who struggles with same-sex attraction, to a follower of Jesus who has experienced relational brokenness. I have learned, with the help of godly counsel and Bible study, that the intense, all-consuming, emotional connection I craved from another person was not God’s design. What I perceived as intimacy was a dysfunctional enmeshment, an entanglement of two relationally-broken people looking to each other to fill the space that only God can fill.
I had put my relationship with “Lydia” on the throne of my life, occupying the place that belongs only to Jesus. Praise God that he continues to heal me as I seek to worship only him and find the answer to all of my longings in Christ.
02 Mar 2016
From Despair to Hope: One man’s journey—Part 2
Testimony: By “Ben”
Read the first post to this testimony here. The power and hope to overcome pornography and other sexual struggles is not found in resisting impulses, changing one’s habits, or even in religious practices. It’s found in the power of relationship—specifically the transformative grace of Jesus Christ. One of our former support group members, who wishes to be anonymous, shares his story.
The turning point finally came through tragedy. My wife died, having suffered twenty years with a disabling illness. My horrible grief magnified the pain of my guilt. I know it doesn’t seem possible, but I loved my wife. I thought that God was punishing me by taking her. I know now this was not true. Perhaps he was protecting her from the potential consequences of my sin. In any case, God was demonstrating a “severe mercy.” It was severe and painful, but merciful because he was using these horrific circumstances to draw me to himself. I was finally reaching the point where I had had enough of the struggle.
Over the next twenty months, the Lord continued to draw me to himself as I began to regularly call out for him to reveal himself to me and take away the pain. For a long time, my behaviors did not change. Still trying to self-medicate, I engaged in sex more frequently and took more sexual risks. But I did not stop praying.
Two years after my wife’s death, I learned from my church’s new pastor that my spiritual condition was far worse than I thought. I had always thought that homosexuality and pornography were the roots of my sin problem. However, even before he knew my secret, my pastor told me that I did not need to merely stop sinning but also find rest from struggling. Such rest could only be found in the love of Jesus Christ.
One Sunday, my pastor preached on the man who came to Jesus with his demon-possessed son (Mark 9:14-29) for healing. When Jesus asked him if he believed Jesus could do the healing, the man replied, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24, ESV).
I needed help to believe that God could love me in spite of my sin
I was that man! I had believed in Jesus since I was five years old but still thought that God’s love was contingent on my behavior. I needed help to accept that I could never make myself righteous in God’s eyes. I needed help to believe that God could love me in spite of my sin. I needed to believe that not only did Jesus suffer the punishment for sin that I deserved, but that God had also credited Jesus’ sinless life to me. I needed help to believe that I was no longer an object of God’s wrath, but a son in whom he delighted. I prayed for another nine months, meditating on various scriptures, and tearfully crying out, “Help me overcome my unbelief.”
Finally, my desire to know God’s love was so great that nothing else mattered. I lost all fear of rejection. A friendship had been growing between my pastor and me. I told him that I wanted to share something I had never revealed to anyone. After my confession, to my amazement, he did not turn from me in disgust but told me that God loved me and he loved me. He showed me Romans 2:4 where Paul writes that God’s kindness leads us to repent. Through my friend, I felt God’s pleasure for the first time. I repented.
When I confessed to my pastor, I was waiting for the stones. Instead, my friend told me there was no more condemnation. Jesus, my Savior, had set me free at last.
Spiritual change doesn’t take place in secret. Only when sins come to light are the lies of Satan exposed. Satan had told me that no one, even Jesus, could love me. But he lied. In addition to caring brothers and sisters at Harvest USA, Jesus proved his love to me through many other Christians who encouraged me with the gospel. Among these were my children, my siblings, and my best friend of thirty years, who is like a brother. Satan told me that if any of them knew my heart, they would desert me. Instead—praise God—our relationships have grown deeper. I know I don’t deserve any of this. I deserve everything that Satan told me. All I can say is that it is God’s grace!
Although I am thrilled to share how God has worked in my life, it has been a painful exercise to recall many of the events. At times I just want to forget the past; I want it to have never happened. Thankfully God is redeeming even the way I view the past. He is teaching me that my past is not about what I have done, but is part of a larger story revealing what he has done for all of us. He is not asking me to share my story, but to share Christ’s story.
Christ’s story is simple. He has changed places with me. On the cross, he received the full punishment from God that I truly deserved, then gave me his perfect record. I am learning to share this story with joy because I’m beginning to believe the Bible. It tells me I am not the man that I used to be. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
24 Feb 2016
From Despair to Hope: One man’s journey—Part 1
Testimony: By “Ben”
The power and hope to overcome pornography and other sexual struggles is not found in resisting impulses, changing one’s habits or, even in religious practices. It’s found in the power of relationship—specifically the transformative grace of Jesus Christ. One of our former support group members, who wishes to be anonymous, shares his story.
I was reared in a family with one brother and two sisters—all older than me. In our home, my mother was the nurturing one, and although I loved her dearly, I craved my father’s love. He worked hard to provide for us and so was absent much of the time. When he was around, he was busy, tired, and easily angered. He rarely had time for me. His favorite saying was, “Go peddle your papers!” We shared no interests. Talking with him was always awkward. I’m not sure I ever really pleased him or made him proud.
I viewed my relationship with God in the same way. Although I desired him, I had little hope of having a relationship with him. He was unattainable. I tried to convince myself that if I was good and worked hard, one day I would be worthy of his love.
I don’t remember how young I was when I was first exposed to pornography. I doubt that it was very graphic, but I do remember it had a strong attraction. Then, as a teenager, one of my neighborhood friends showed me a hard-core porn magazine that he had stolen from his uncle’s bedroom. This was the first time I had viewed sexual acts between men and women. I was instantly hooked. The images burned into my brain and ignited my fantasies. However, instead of imagining myself with women, I wanted to sexually please the men who used them.
Other than some curiosity-based sexual exploration in my early teen years, I never physically acted on my fantasies with men until after graduation from high school. I had opportunity but feared crossing the line from thoughts to actions.
When I turned eighteen, I started to cruise adult movie theater restrooms and interstate rest areas. Sometimes I was a voyeur, sometimes a participant. More than once on the news, I saw the places I frequented raided by police. But that never stopped me from going back.
At twenty-one, I was arrested for engaging in homosexual sex in an adult theater restroom. During the night I spent in jail, I prayed for forgiveness and swore I would never act out again. But it wasn’t long until I took the same chances, and my desire for men grew stronger. I no longer just wanted to experience sex with a man; I wanted him to tell me that I was the best he had ever had. I didn’t merely want to please him; I wanted him to worship me.
Oddly enough, I rarely had sex with the same man twice. I knew that what I was secretly doing was not pleasing to God. It was more than homosexuality; it was idolatry. I tried to stop repeatedly. I did not want this life for myself. I wanted real relationships with real people and with God. I wanted to be married and have a family. So I compartmentalized my same-sex struggles and lived the illusion of the socially acceptable Christian life.
I attended a Christian college in South Carolina. Upon graduation, I taught in a Christian school for four years. I married a Christian woman, and we served the Lord in our church. Together, we raised a son in a home where we tried to actively live out our faith.
On the outside my life appeared normal and fulfilled, but on the inside there was not one minute of rest from my struggle with sin and my frustrated desire for God’s approval. For forty years I hid this part of my life from everyone, including my wife.
Before we were married, I tried to share my secret sin with my fiancée. Not being totally honest, I told her that I had sex with a man one time and assured her that this was in the past, never to be repeated.
I wanted to believe that what I told her was true, but it wasn’t. I sneaked away to have anonymous sex in an adult bookstore just three weeks after we were married. Realizing that determination alone would not bring me victory, I became all the more unwavering in hiding the truth. I feared that being honest would cost me my wife, my family, my friends, my job, and any hope of having what I perceived to be a “normal” Christian life. Pornography and same-sex encounters continued to be very much part of my life throughout twenty-one years of marriage.
Realizing that determination alone would not bring me victory, I became all the more unwavering in hiding the truth. I feared that being honest would cost me my wife, my family, my friends, my job, and any hope of having what I perceived to be a “normal” Christian life.
Over the years, I sat in Sunday school classes that discussed relevant topics like sinful addictions. I wanted to be honest about my struggles and free of them. I longed for others to walk along side of me and encourage me. But I didn’t see anyone else struggling. Instead of facing my sin, I sat silently in pain, telling myself I just had to try harder. Loneliness and despair, however, drove me deeper into my sin patterns. I continued to hide the truth because I was convinced that no one would love me if they knew the truth. I feared rejection from other Christians more than I feared hell.
I did seek help during those years. Twice I paid psychologists to hear my confession. Both were Christians. Neither were helpful. One told me that if I wore a rubber band around my wrist and snapped it every time I had a lustful thought, I would eventually associate pain with the thought. That would lead me to eventually stop acting out. It failed to produce the promised result.
The turning point finally came through tragedy.
You can continue reading Part Two by clicking here.
17 Feb 2016
You Can’t Fix Your Porn Problem Alone
The power of community is where we experience the transformative power of the cross in our lives. “Tom” came to Harvest USA to end his decades-long pornography addiction. What he got was that—and much more.
How long have I been living a lie by pretending that pornography and my flesh are not huge issues for me? My story of struggling with pornography began like so many others—when I was young. Just before my tenth birthday, I went to my classmate’s house to look at some Playboy magazines that he’d hidden under his bed. Even though I was not a Christian and didn’t grow up in church, somehow I knew this must be kept secret, hidden from my parents and my siblings. Going over to my friend’s house became a regular occurrence.
When I became a Christian as an adult, the guilt and shame of looking at porn, which was now years later, came into sharper focus. The nagging guilt now became overwhelming. Yet I continued to live a double life of secrecy for over a decade. No matter how strong the guilt and secrecy, I was terrified to let anyone know. Would anyone understand?
Then God brought a prayer partner who also struggled with Internet pornography. But he was doing something about it. As I saw him walking in the light and the freedom he had in Christ, I began to learn how to walk in the light too. By confessing what was happening in the darkness to my prayer partner, I began to realize how great God’s love for me was. As I considered the seriousness of my sin, I realized how great my debt to God was. Rather than be crushed by that, however, the cross of Christ got bigger and more significant to me. This is what Jesus came to die for—my sin! The gospel began to grow in new ways and new places. But I still struggled with porn, I’m sad to say.
Years later, God led me to marry a devout Christian woman. Now I thought: My porn struggles would finally be over. I don’t need to fantasize about sex with someone anymore. My loneliness would end.
On the outside, I looked pretty good, solid, upright. But on the inside, I continued to treat women as objects to be used. How ugly!
Those who know about struggles with pornography addiction know that, of course, didn’t happen. I began to live a double life again. On the outside, I looked pretty good, solid, upright. But on the inside, I continued to treat women as objects to be used. How ugly! Mercifully God led me to another godly man who became my prayer partner. After another long period of indulging in porn, I confessed my sin to him. He gently encouraged me to discuss my porn use with my wife and then follow up with my pastor. It was my pastor who suggested Harvest USA as a good resource for men with sexual sin issues.
But going to a men’s support group terrified me. What scared me most about going to Harvest USA was being exposed for what was my most shameful problem and sin. I’d have to talk about how porn was controlling my life. I had to admit that I was too weak to beat this. I resisted going for a while. However, the Holy Spirit was on the move in my heart. I couldn’t resist.
At Harvest USA, I discovered I was not alone, and I was now no longer isolated. God was exposing the root of my biggest issue: unbelief. My sexual sin was but a surface symptom of what the real struggle was. I didn’t believe that God was enough for me, that I could rest in him and be satisfied, no matter what happened in my life.
In Mark 9:14-29, there’s a boy possessed by a mute spirit that threw him to the ground and into convulsions. His father sought out Jesus to heal him, crying out for help. Jesus replied, “All things are possible to him who believes.” What the father said next is what we all wrestle with: “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Jesus heals the boy, even though the father’s faith remained weak. What counted was not the strength of his faith, but the object of his faith. He sought out Jesus.
Daily, Jesus is healing my unbelief. When I am drawn to the world and the flesh for comfort and escape from difficulties, I speak the gospel to myself: Jesus died on the cross for my sins; his blood washes me clean even though my sins run red like scarlet. The best thing that’s happened by joining a support group is the freedom of confessing my sins, experiencing the power of prayer, and knowing that by the power of the Holy Spirit my Abba Father is speaking to me, shepherding me, and holding me in his embrace. He will never let go of me.
“Tom” lived most of his life “in the shadows.” Read John Freeman’s chapter, “Living in the Shadows: Life as a Game-Player,” from his book, Hide or Seek: When Men Get Real with God about Sex, followed by another testimony of how a defeated man discovered hope and change. Click here to get it.
Robert Lynn, Associate Pastor, Knox Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Part of Harvest USA’s mission is to encourage and equip churches to reach out to individuals struggling with sexual brokenness and sin. Several years ago, two Harvest USA staff members traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to meet with the pastoral staff and present a seminar at Knox Presbyterian Church. Pastor Robert Lynn spearheaded this cooperative effort. He writes how God has since used him in the lives of strugglers and how he has reaped personal benefits. Here’s another blog post that will encourage you to lead a support group for men; you can read it here.
I recall some years ago, one of the pastors I serve with stopped me as we left a bi-weekly meeting. “I’ve got to tell you,” he said, “that you’ve really changed over the past eight months or so. You seem so much more relaxed and at ease. You’re taking things in stride in ways you didn’t use to…” The conversation went on a few minutes as he articulated the differences he noticed. I was taken by surprise, but it didn’t take long to see the significance of the eight-month time frame.
A bit of background might be helpful to understand this small tale of pastoral transformation. Eight years ago, I found myself in a difficult season of ministry for me. It was difficult to the point of me thinking, “I don’t want a new church. I want a new career!” The last half of 2007 was a time of tending to wounds, so if you had asked me at the beginning of 2008 how I was doing, my answer no doubt would have been, “Great.” And on many levels, God had done some wonderful heart work, but clearly the work wasn’t finished.
What happened in my life that took my healing to new depths. Quite literally, God opened a door, and one by one a string of men struggling with sexual sin entered my life. They’re still coming. I look back now and see that God was preparing me for all this—understandably, I couldn’t see that then.
What is the result of walking with these men in their sexual struggles? First, there is the opportunity to bring good news to them again and again. I have the privilege of calling them to the only One who has the wisdom and power to make all things new.
What is the result of walking with these men in their sexual struggles? First, there is the opportunity to bring good news to them again and again. I have the privilege of calling them to the only One who has the wisdom and power to make all things new. It seems that I’m always talking about the gospel!
Second, there is growth and strengthening of my own faith—my own understanding of how Jesus is sufficient for the men and for me. When I begin to grasp that and stake my life on it, things begin to change. Jesus will meet all my needs; therefore, I do not need to trust in worldly things to find meaning or peace.
Third, there is an overflow of deep, deep joy. As I read the Psalms, David provides words that say it best, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound” (Psalm 4:7, ESV). How can fellow sinners get together with the Gospel at the center and not see an explosion of joy? If anything brings new vitality and passion for ministry, it’s Gospel-promised, cross-purchased, and resurrection-guaranteed joy.
Fourth, I have a new love for my fellow strugglers. In 401 AD, Saint Augustine wrote his friend Pammachius, “I have seen your inner being… Seeing this has made me know you, and knowing you has made me love you.” I have experienced this same truth. These men have all let me into their hearts to see their needs. I have seen Christ at work in them as we engage the Gospel. Seeing has made me know them and knowing them has made me love them.
Finally, I now realize how much a pastor needs strugglers. My personal struggles have been ministry wounds and anger, while theirs has been sex, but we each need Jesus desperately. To my surprise, I find that the one who points them to Jesus needs Jesus as much as any of them.
Updated 5.19.2017
With the legalization of gay marriage, Christians more often find themselves invited to same-sex wedding ceremonies. This poses a dilemma for believers of whether to attend an event that celebrates a life-union that God nowhere approves of in Scripture.
Declining to attend seems like an easy solution. But because it involves friendships or family connections, the matter can be quite complex. The issue is more difficult if the wedding involves a child or other close family member. (For additional insights, read our mini book, Your Gay Child Says “I Do.”)
Reaching a decision will involve careful theological reflection, an understanding of your relationship with the one(s) getting married, and earnest prayer. Here are some things to think about that we hope can help you make a wise decision.
The space for this article is not sufficient to adequately examine the scope of Scripture on this matter, but here are three scriptural principles that should guide you.
Reaching a decision will involve careful theological reflection, an understanding of your relationship with the
one(s) getting married, and earnest prayer
- Be in the world but not of it. Knowing how to engage with the world is important for Christians. Being set apart from the world (who we are and how our lives reflect who we live for) is demonstrated by our living in the world. Loving and investing [time] in our neighbor is the means by which the world comes to know God.
- Freedom in Christ. 1 Corinthians 8 and 10 and Romans 14 are key passages where Paul argues for the freedom of the believer to engage with others in society, centered around the contentious issue of that day: eating meat from an idol’s temple. For Paul, (Christian) freedom involves examining issues of motivation, concern for the impact on other believers, and the context of the situation (see 1 Corinthians 10: 23-33 and Romans 14:20-23). Freedom in Christ enables us to think through how our actions affect others.
- Faith/conscience. Paul’s conclusion in Romans 14 is that we decide on issues such as these based on conscience, and that if one remains unsettled, then it is wiser to not participate because it “is not from faith.” Christians can stand on both sides of difficult issues, so the freedom we have in Christ to discern how to live strategically in the world should move us to extend grace to those who decide differently.
After examining Scripture, which must be the basis for all decisions, here are some relationship issues that can guide you in making a decision.
- What is your current relationship to the person getting married?
Are they a casual co-worker, friend, distant relative, or someone with whom you have a closer relationship (like a family member)? Has the invitation been given to everyone in your office, department, or family? Or, has it been given to you because you have a closer relationship? These factors can help you determine how best to respond. For example, if the person is someone with whom you have a good friendship, then you are in a position to speak directly to him or her about the issue of attending. If your friend knows you are a Christian, then this becomes another opportunity (or maybe the first!) to discuss your faith and how that influences your decision.
- What would you be trying to convey by your attendance?
Some people make the distinction between supporting the person, whom they love and care about, and supporting the event, of which they don’t approve. In making this distinction, it can communicate that attendance is not an implicit approval of their marriage. This is a meaningful distinction. We do this constantly in our other relationships, communicating our differences but remaining involved in each other’s lives.
This distinction may depend on how vocal you have been about your faith. What kinds of conversations have you had? Do they know you are a Christian? Do they know your views about homosexuality? If so, your presence could actually “stun” them or really mess up the categories they may have about Christians like you? Christians, living intentionally by the gospel, can sometimes be confusing to people, causing them to rethink their positions and perhaps see new and bigger realities. That’s a good thing.
If you feel that attending would lend weight to your Christian witness, then you might go. Your attendance would be in line with your desire to pursue a relationship because you care for them, and you want to keep the relationship open to have further opportunities to share the gospel with them.
- What are you concerned about if you decide to attend?
Are you afraid that your attendance would communicate your approval? Or, are you afraid of explaining why you feel you cannot attend? Are you afraid you would not know how to act or how to talk with other guests, most who would support the marriage? There can be lots of fear involved in making this decision. Ask the Lord to guide you regarding all these issues. Fear or anxiety about disappointing someone is never a good motivator to make a decision. A better question is this: What response might cause further openness to the gospel?
- If you decide you cannot attend, could you substitute something else?
If you reach the conclusion that you cannot attend, you might consider an alternative response. For instance, giving a card or gift would still show your care for them and acknowledge that this was an important day for them (it was, but you don’t necessarily have to join in on the celebration).
If you are close to the person or couple, but still conclude that you cannot attend, then consider taking them out to lunch or dinner. Of course, this may be an uncomfortable get-together, especially if the person will feel hurt by your absence. But a quick follow-up may go a long way toward bringing understanding and another opportunity for you to share your faith. Another decision some people make is to not attend the wedding (because of the nature of wedding vows) but to attend the reception (if this is, of course, agreed upon by the wedding couple).
- Do one or both parties claim to be Christians?
Someone once said, “We shouldn’t expect Christian behavior from non-Christian people.” If the person or persons getting married are unbelievers, this doesn’t mean you have an unhindered green light to attend—but if someone claims to be a Christian and yet is in rebellion to God’s design and intention for how his people should live, and is celebrating it and inviting others to join in, then that is another matter.
Many would argue that even if one of the parties is a confessing Christian, attending would be entering into their delusion that the marriage union is fine with God and is sanctioned by him. But some will make the distinction that attending is not the same as approving.
As you can see, these are hard issues! Your decision must come from wrestling with Scripture, drenched in prayer, and discussed with close friends or family members. But know this: Your wrestling with this is itself evidence of your heart wanting to do the right thing to honor Christ and to open doors for the gospel. Realize that there is no ONE answer to this, but there is one thing you can count on: Like Jesus, you’ll probably be misunderstood regarding the implications of any choice you make. So, when you make your decision, know that you have made it on the basis of what will honor God, and be at peace on that basis.
