Quiet Time Toolkit

 I have now been a Christian for 14 years, since the year I left high school and completed my Higher School Certificate (HSC).  Since then I’ve been schooled in the Bible and devoted myself to understanding it, but until about 6-9 months ago I never really understood the power of prayer.  How long it has taken me to grasp it!   13.5 years…  I am often surprised that I am still a Christian given what a lousy pray-er I was.  At my former churches I was told what prayer was and though it was routinely practised, more often than not it was done because it was something Christians ‘just did’, rather than because they got to do it and had power behind it.  Prayer in some situations and in some circles was viewed at as an optional extra, something that was done when all other efforts failed; and Quiet Times (or Devotions, time where a person connects with God by reading Scripture and interacting with prayer and by various means) were viewed this way in particular.  In fact, I cannot remember many of my former church friends discussing their one-to-one Quiet Times as being a core part of their journeys with God or moments where they were significantly revitalised in their spirits.   (More often than not, time with other Christians, conferences, church, and other activities involving being in the presence of other believers).

That’s not to say that they didn’t do QTs, but their silence about them was quite revealing: either they weren’t done very often; or they weren’t done properly; or they yielded no insights or revelations; or they ultimately meant little to the people doing them, especially if they were done out of a sense of duty.  I was very much in this camp and eventually I stopped doing them, and the fact that so few others around me (seemed) to not do them either reinforced my decision to foresake them.  It wasn’t always that way for me: back in 1999-2001, at Mid-Year Conference of Campus Bible at the UNSW, students were encouraged to do QTs and we were shown how to do it.  A pity it isn’t re-inforced in a lot of fellowships.

 Recently I’ve been getting back into them and have made some very helpful, albeit dramatic, changes to the way that I do them.  Rather than squeezing in the Bible when I can (like on the train after a long day at work when I’m feeling knackered and can only keep the eyelids open with toothpicks and have the enthusiasm of a salted slug).  These are things that I have found helpful (no hard an fast rules, just helpful suggestions) and have dramatically re-shaped the way I connect with God.  You can see most of them in the picture to the left, and each one has a good reason for being there:

1. Choose a quiet location- as quiet as possible- where there are no distractions.  Cafes, generally no because there are people and conversations about.  On the train, maybe not.  Maybe sit in a park or a bench somewhere where you can sit and just take in the goodness of God’s creation.  Not a place close to work or where they are others who may recognise you and interrupt.  I sometimes like to connect with God at home, but with it being so messy even when the kids are out and there’s no noise, my mind wanders.
2. Give the time completely to God.  Believe it or not, if you switch the phone off and heaven forbid if you lose it and don’t allow it to intrude your life, the world will not fall apart!  Shocking, I know.  Tell Facebook to get stuffed…  (Consider: If the prophet Daniel, a very busy, high-paid administrator of the pagan king Nebuchadnezzer could face Jerusalem 3 times a day and turn off his iPhone to connect with his Maker, is it really not a possibility for you and I?)  This is the same God who connected with the figureheads of the Bible (Moses, Elijah, David, Solomon, Abraham, Adam and Eve, Isaiah, Jesus, Holy Spirit, the apostles) as well as many martyrs (Bonhoeffer, Cranmer, Jonathan Edwards, Bunyan, Spurgeon, Wilberforce, etc) don’t you think he wouldn’t want to talk to the likes of you and I?  So talk!
3. Ask God how He made the mountains and not just the usual religious stuff.  Be prepared to talk about anything and everything and make it real.  Kids like to ask their dads about their work.  If a kid has a dad who is a television producer, he may say, “Dad, how do you get the images from the camera onto the TV?”  So ask God the cool, funky stuff.  ”So, how did you send manna from heaven?  Could I try some?” or  ”Man!  (Even though God isn’t.)  How on earth did you manage to be so kind to that screwball Balaam in the book of Numbers?” or “What did it look like when the Roman Empire fell?”  It’s important in all this to be respectful and presume not to take liberties or make it the only prayers, but this kind of thing is natural and has its place.  Even if you don’t get an answer, it’s so cool to ask!
4. Read the Scriptures and pray through them.  LOTS can be said about this, but to read Scripture and to apprehend it- not merely comprehend it- by personalising, owning, and emotionally engaging with it.  The Bible is God’s perspective on yourself and you’ll need that because our hearts are sick (Jer. 17:9) and often don’t even understand themselves.  So being God-centred is critical.  Don’t allow emotions or even your reasoning skills, as sharp as they are, to deceive because they can (Prov. 3:5-6).  Even the most seasoned and well-experienced ministry workers get things wrong (e.g. Billy Graham) so don’t kid yourself; get yourself in it and enjoy it!  And even if it is a challenging part of Scripture like Leviticus and Deuteronomy (which can feel like watching wet paint dry), ask God to keep you going and reveal His life-changing insights.  After all, the Torah (‘legal’ books of the Bible) are actually wisdom lit (Deut. 4:6).  As I discovered, even the genealogical lists of the Bible can reveal the most surprising insights about God’s character!  Use the Psalms as a model to pray through: I have never been disappointed in doing so!  (The small book ‘Praying the Psalms’ by Walter Bruggemann is a terrific resource on this.)
5. Pour your heart out to God.  It says it right there in Psalm 62:8 (“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us”).  Engaging with God is not (meant to be) purely intellectual, and if it is for you then you need a re-evaluation.  We’re not robots or fembots: we’re people and people have emotions which are core parts of their humanity.  Use them as a means of connecting with God and if you need help doing it, Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions are just what the Good Doctor ordered.  Bring everything to Him: good, bad, fugly, beautiful, terrifying, and name it for what it is.  Don’t know what to say to God?  Tell Him.  Angry with God, maybe even hate Him?  Tell Him.  Be careful how you speak and don’t take liberties or be profane, but be frank and don’t hide anything.  Why shouldn’t you?  He knows it anyway but wants to hear it from you and have a relationship.  And if we don’t tell Him about the stuff in our lives, how can He help or heal if we don’t TELL Him?
6. Remember that in prayer God will talk back!  He doesn’t just sit and listen as Dr. Freud might, nodding his head and umm-ing and aah-ing.  So let your words be measured (Ecclesiastes 5:1-3) and don’t ramble.  As I have learned the painful way, God is untamable.  He’s the wild God and trying to domesticate Him and assuming about Him will only make Him wilder, in a way.  So be prepared.  And it may be a surprising answer.  If we pray vengeance against another, be careful because He may actually answer the prayer, so it’s wise to be careful circumspect about what we ask for.  If something is spoken to your mind during prayer, test the spirits and make sure it really is God speaking.  Test whatever you hear with the Word.  Yet God will and does speak to His people as we would with our everyday friend so expect and open up to it, as disorienting as that can often be (Ex. 33:11).

As I have in my picture, I like to make QTs interesting and fully engage myself.  I don’t use all the things all the time, but they help:

1. I have my Bible (HCSB), of course, with pen and highlighter to note anything that really strikes me.
2. I have a small brown notebook to jot down anything that God has to say to me.  When I look back on it, it’s amazing what He has been saying and doing: He never misses a thing.  I also like to write down prayer points and answered prayer.  That REALLY opened my eyes to the power of prayer in both small and big things!  I also jot down powerful stuff that is spoken to me in church.
3. In my black notebook (under the small brown one) I have written down some awesome songs and hymns that I have come to love and speak to my heart, such as Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah and Count Your Blessings.  I also have found and posted them here on this blog so I can listen to them if I’m away from home.  They open my heart and speak truth into it and gives me models of how to engage with God because, like a sheep, I’m prone to forget.
4. I have a book of Common Prayer.  I have the Australian Anglican book of CP and the Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals.  I am going to start using them with my family throughout our days together.  As a former Catholic, I came to enjoy liturgy and the structure they give to engage with God, and sadly many Reformed evangelicals have disdained liturgy and thrown the baby out with the bathwater.  But there is so much RICHNESS in it and when used in community and with charismatic flair they can really set devotion on fire.  Liturgy is magical, but it is not magic, and used well (rather than legalistically and ritualistically) it can be a source of richness.  Not a necessity, but something to think about  ^^
5. I draw pictures with crayons and coloured pencils!  I portray visually and artistically what God has been showing me which helps me to apprehend, own, and emote His Word.  In this picture I drew as many things that I could of Hebrew Bible stories, like the building of the temple and the Yam Suph (Red Sea) crossing.  I sometimes even draw pictures of God loving me and being with my family.  When I look back on them they have a funny way of speaking to my heart and keeping me safe.  I don’t quite know why, but that’s ok  ><
6. A cup of tea!  Twinings is 10/10 and Bushell’s is tops.

I wanted to share these things because they have helped me a lot and they can probably help others.  I like to get creative with prayer because they help me to be real and to engage deeply with God, but when doing so I keep in mind that I need to speak with God on His terms.  May it help you, reader  ^^

Prayer for a lukewarm heart

O Infinitely Passionate Father,

You have created me with the capacity for deep affections — to love, to loathe, to desire, to delight, to excite, to grieve, to laugh, to enjoy, to fear, to be depressed, to be thankful. And you made me this way that I may glorify you by finding you my Supreme Satisfaction and the Fountain of everything delightful.

But I confess that my affections for you are often grievously tepid while my selfish interests steam.

• I am bold to defend my own honor and reputation and often timid to defend yours.
• I am quick to satisfy my bodily appetites and often slow to feed my soul with the Bread of Life.
• I squander moments devoted to communing with you while carefully protecting moments devoted to banal entertainment.
• I am distracted from speaking with you by books that need straightening, email that needs answering, and a bald spot in the yard that needs seeding.

I am easily and foolishly concerned with worldly success and prosperity while languid and unmoved about the greater things of another world!

And I know that my errant affections are most offensive to you when I hear of the infinite height, depth, and length, and breadth of your love for me in Christ Jesus,

• Of your giving your infinitely dear Son to be offered up a sacrifice for my sins,
• Of the unparalleled love of the innocent, holy, and tender Lamb of God, manifested in his dying agonies, bloody sweat, loud and bitter cries, and bleeding heart,
• And all this to redeem an enemy like me from deserved, eternal burnings, and give to me unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory,
• And my response is cool, lethargic, and indifferent.

O gracious Father, thank you that your Son’s great sacrifice is so great and so sufficient that it pays even for such sins of erroneous affections!

But, my affectionate Father, I am humbled to the dust that I am not more affected at what affects you! I repent of being “slothful in zeal”! No more, Father! Make me boil in spirit as I serve you (Romans 12:11)! To be moved by your glorious gospel and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4) is why you gave me affections! Nothing in earth or heaven is greater or more important.  

Today, I take to heart your Son’s warning: “Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm… I will spit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15–16). Merciful Father, make me hot! Whatever it takes, whatever it costs me, give me the Spirit-salve for my heart-eyes (Revelation 3:18) so that I may see what is Real, believe what is True, treasure what is Valuable, and forsake what is worthless.

In the name of Jesus, your glorious Son, the Pearl of Great Price, amen.

This prayer was inspired by and adapted from a portion of Jonathan Edwards’s book, Religious Affections (the last three paragraphs of Part 1), and was posted online by Desiringgod.org.

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Reactions and Responses to Sun-Herald article on Liberty

In today’s Sunday Age and Sun Herald, a number of readers responded to last week’s articles.  There was the typical misinformation and spiteful hype (such as one opinion from two presidents of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australasia, both of whom are tragically unaware of the damage done by gay relationships and whose own views on sexuality are themselves moralistic impositions.  They also demanded that Christianity change, which itself implies that they themselves are inflexible.  Their condemnation of notions such as healing portray their own ignorance of God’s saving power).  Here are the decent letters:

Right to try

MICHAEL Lallo suggests that ”ministries are preying on gay shame”, based on the feeling of people who have tried to change [their homosexual tendencies] and failed.

Does the same premise stand for those who have tried to give up alcohol or illegal drugs and failed, for the thief who wants to reform or the paedophile? Are they damaged by those who try to help but fail?

What about the ones who succeed? Is it wrong to try to help someone out of their ”shame” of an addiction? Of course not, because the people who seek help know that what they are doing is wrong. Guess what? So do those homosexuals who try to leave their sexual addiction behind. Some do, some don’t, but they all deserve the right to try.

Peter Stokes, Bayswater (http://www.theage.com.au/national/letters/harmful-healing-20120414-1x0ei.html#ixzz1s4gAXNdg)

Well timed

At first, I thought an article about Christian groups helping same-sex attracted men and women to change was an unusual story to publish on Easter Sunday (”’Healing’ the gay worshipper”). But then I realised it’s the perfect story. Easter Sunday is about new life and hope that is offered to us all only because Jesus rose from the dead.

These groups may not work for everyone but the same could be said for any support group, Christian or otherwise.

But one thing is for sure: the love that took Jesus to the cross, and the power that raised him from the dead, are available to us all, whatever it is we want to leave behind or change.

Claire Smith Roseville

Michael Lallo and Jonathan Swan have produced a very one-sided argument. Their case studies included only practising homosexual men and no reformed homosexuals. Surely Haydn Sennitt’s life would have offered readers a chance to decide on the benefits of ministries that help people who genuinely seek help with unwanted same-sex attraction.

Treating any addiction is a long process, which is overlooked and cheapened by calling it a cure.

The only true cure for our disobedience to God (be it homosexuality or anything else) is salvation by Jesus.

Anna Mori Gold Coast

(http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/hinch-talks-back-about-motives-for-speaking-out-20120414-1x02m.html#ixzz1s4iICcbh)

Can we love or forgive ourselves?

 Today I came across a discussion on the Facebook page of an American pastor whom I respect and it centred around this issue of whether or not Christian people should love and forgive themselves.  I have had to think about it and do it in my own circumstances, and I thought it worth discussing here because when it comes to healing, I believe it is critical for people to forgive themselves, but more on that later. 

Is there anything in the Bible to justify it or explicitly teaches forgiving self?

In a simplistic, straightforward answer: no.  However, this does not mean that the idea isn’t there.  There are many things which the Bible doesn’t explicitly teach but where the idea is floating around in close periphery, such as the Trinity, but that doesn’t mean that it is not there.  It also relies on the assumption that just because there is not one verse in the Bible about a particular subject that it is therefore unbiblical.  There is nothing explicit in the Bible about gender reassignment surgery, but were one to read the Hebrew Old Testament law, draw from human design in Genesis 2-3, and read 1 Corinthians on men not wearing women’s clothes- and vice versa- one could easily build a case using first principles. 

With regards to forgiving oneself, there are some parts of God’s revelation that come close to teaching on it.  When Jesus was asked ‘Which law in the Jewish Torah is the greatest?’, His answer was: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind …  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Matt. 22:37, 39-40, HCSB, emphasis my own).  The implication here is that people don’t love other if they first don’t love themselves, and this is something which actually sums up the entire Bible.  The point was one that Jesus had already made in the Sermon on the Mount: So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matt. 7:12, NIV).  We live in a world where people hurt others and they do it not necessarily because they’re selfish- though that is a part of it- or because they’re just mean.  They turn on others because somewhere deep inside they’re turning on themselves.  Someone has put a wound in them; since hurting people hurt people, they perpetuate the same cycle of hurt that was shown to them. 

How can a person love themself if there has been no healing in the relationship between the person and their self?  Jesus also said “Love your enemy”, but if your own enemy is your own self, then how can you love anybody else let alone God?  Queen Elizabeth II rightly said in December 2011 in her Christmas address that people are very often their own worst enemies, and it staggers me to think that somehow a Christian can forgive everyone else but not their own selves. 

 OK Jesus never explicitly taught that people ought to forgive themselves, but then again He didn’t teach about a lot of things.  He never explicitly spoke a chapter and verse against smoking, tattoos, and drug abuse or infanticide but does that mean He condoned them or doesn’t care about them?  One must always be careful of using arguments-from-silence in denying the existence of something that really is there or teaching that something is there simply because it wasn’t spoken against.  It stands to reason that people can and even should forgive themselves. 

Aren’t we called to carry our cross and deny self?

As one person asked in the discussion thread, how can a Christian forgive him/herself when they are told to carry their cross?  I have many problems in taking a Biblical command/injunction such as ‘carry your cross’ and then building a doctrine around it to say that people should not look after themselves.  This idea also crops up when people say, “Look at Jesus!  He only cared about other people’s needs and not His own”: translated to today, this means that if a person grieves abuse that they had suffered and struggles to love themselves then they are somehow ungodly and should just snap outof it, serve others, and move on.  This is not helpful.  In fact, Jesus often looked after Himself- He withdrew from crowds to connect with God and when He was in a boat with the disciples as a storm blew He slept on the boat (in other words, He put His own need for sleep before the comfort of His friends).  Not only that He grieved too, for Lazarus, for His people, for His own self in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This question misses the point of what Jesus said in Matthew: if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love others an deny self.  Someone who denies himself must first love and be at peace with himself.  Otherwise all one’s good deeds will not be done in love and will sound like an untuned piano (1 Cor. 13:1-3). 

When Jesus commanded His people to deny themselves it was NOT to deny their needs but to deny themselves from trying to meet those needs through sin!

So a person can be fully confident that God will meet their needs, and that by having their needs met they will find rest for their souls and therefore be able to love and serve God and others.  Those who don’t look after themselves and cannot let go of the sin they whold against themselves cannot move forward.

Forgiving self (relationship with self: loving the inner enemy)

When I left the gay scene and for many people I know who are in relational brokenness and sexual addiction and yet wish they would leave it and trust God, an enormous impediment in their willingness to leave is unforgiveness of self and judgement over God.  They believe that God cannot and will not forgive them for all the terrible, shameful things that they have done.  It’s a seductive lie from the Enemy that God is too powerless or uncaring to forgive sin and it has a profound effect on people, especially for those who have come from home environments where parents withheld support and nourishing love if their child ‘double crossed’ them.  As a reult they blame themselves and constantly live in fear of other’s disapproval, rejection, an potential anger.  Is it any surprise that they labour to receive God’s free gift of love?  Is it any wonder that they push others away so much out of fear and struggle to love and even forgive themselves? 

For such strongholds to be broken, there often needs to be continual drawing close to God for His love and comfort (2 Cor. 1) and for the person to see themselves as God sees them in Christ!

Being able to see how wonderfully God has made and gifted them (Ps. 139) and to be surrounded by people who will reinforce this is important.  Self-loathing often takes some time, prayer, patience, and persistence to overcome, but it is possible. It involves renouncing lies and jaundiced voices in one’s heart and appropriating God’s loving grace through connecting with Him in Scripture, prayer, and joining a church community of safe and supportive people.  Being double minded and sins of omission and comission mean that we war against ourselves (Romans 7), but God does have an answer.

In order to enjoy victory over sex addiction and resist homosexuality, a very core part of my own healing was forgiving myself by owning God’s love for me and personalising it with emotional connection.  This is not some half-baked fantasy: it was very real and still is for me today.

What if I cannot forgive myself?

If you are a Christian and you struggle with loving and forgiving yourself, it’s OK: it’s not that you cannot forgive yourself. In fact, you can but it’s a matter of the will.  God has made if possible for you to love yourself, so take to heart what is said in 1 John 3:20-21: Even if our conscience condemns us, that God is greater than our conscience, and He knows all things.  Dear friends, if our conscience doesn’t condemn us, we have confidence before God (HCSB). Go to God, confess the labour of your heart, and take His word at face value that you are no longer under condemnation.  Don’t just read the Bible, but let it percolate deep into your heart and appropriate what is said in Romans 8:

• Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus (v.1);
• What then are we to say about these things? (vv. 31-19)
• If God is for us, who is against us?
• Who can bring an accusation against God’s you? No one, because God has justified you.
• Jesus is right now interceding for you.
• Who can separate you from the love of Christ? Nothing and no-one.
• For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!  Not even your own conscience can separate you.

So love and forgive yourself, and allow God’s forgiveness to reach you even if you can’t see or feel or taste it right now.

Reply to Sun Herald article

Today I wrote a detailed response to last weekend’s Sun Herald and Sunday Age articles.  To be honest, it wasn’t a great article but it wasn’t completely negative.  Still, it contained a lot of falsehoods and misinformation about Liberty and those who once ran it.

Sun Herald article on overcoming homosexuality (8 April 2012)

In today’s Sun Herald there appeared an article on healing from homosexuality that included an interview with myself …  It gave no proof that healing from homosexuality is impossible and made no attempt to genuinely understand ministries like Liberty and Beyond Egypt, but just ran on a few unsuccessful stories and the usual scare campaigns (trying to change yourself will cause you to hate yourself, be depressed, and commit suicide) by Venn-Brown and Martin.  Yesterday I had an email exchange with a journalist from the paper, Jonathan Swan.  This is what I actually said to him, and you will notice that much for what I said was left out.  I also have two children and not one child as the article stated:

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1. If a person comes to Liberty with “unwanted same sex attraction”, what do you do to help them?

 

We only provide support to those actually want to overcome homosexuality.  We do not evangelise the gay community either.  However, if people do seek support out of a desire to overcome homosexuality, we offer one-to-one meetings as well as support groups and occasional conferences.  However, if people do not want this support they are under no obligations to make them do it and if they desire to stop we respect their wishes.

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 2. I’ve interviewed a man who went through the Liberty program years ago with Christopher Keane. He described a three-month program with weekly “support group” sessions, where they watched videos that explained the causes of their homosexuality, did group confessions about homosexual thoughts and actions and then closed with prayer. Is that structure roughly the same or has it changed?

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Yes, I was also a member of one of Chris’ support groups about 10 years ago too.  We follow, generally, the same structure.  But it is (and has always been) much more than this.  It involves people having an ongoing connection with God through Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and being connected with other Christian believers in church fellowship.  People need to take responsibilities for their own journies, and Liberty can facilitate that.  However, we offer support only and if people need help in more professional settings, then we can refer them onto a professional Christian counsellor or psychologist.  

However, going through a programme alone is not enough for people to overcome same-sex attraction or any other unhealthy form of relationship: personal relationship with God is a must, as well as healthy expectations and a long-term approach to help.  Liberty makes no guarantees about what the outcome of each journey will be for people: it really is up to each person as to what that will be for them.

 

Many of our opponents claim that our programmes cause people to be suicidal and depressed.  I have never personally experienced that, nor in anyone else that I have been in a support group with.  Some people give up, while others keep going and it’s different for every individual.  However, many people so successfully deal with their unwanted homosexuality.

 

We do not offer ‘fixes’ or ‘cures’ for homosexuality, but we do believe that it can be healed over time.  We also do not promise or promote sexual re-orientation, as we state on the front page of our website.  God wants people to be holy, not necessarily heterosexual!  Personal devotion time with God in heart-felt prayer, devotional time in the Scriptures, fellowship with God’s people, and even time spent with a Christian pastoral professional are critical to overcoming homosexuality and anything else for that matter.  

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3. In the US, Alan Chambers reportedly told a conference:“The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation.”  What is your response to that claim, and could you talk about any of your success stories?

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Putting a percentage figure on something like this is not something that is particularly helpful, and I cannot answer for Chambers.  As I mentioned before, success in this is very varied and it depends a lot on a person’s personal commitment, whether they have healthy expectations of what healing looks like and how long it will take, and so on.  

I have seen in myself and others an ability for people to overcome same-sex attraction by persistence, prayer, and patience.  Those who do it so it for themselves and not to measure up to some expectation of what others expect of them.  When they realise that overcoming is more of a marathon than a sprint, they begin to make significant progress and they experience.  It’s not easy and it often involves lapsing, disappointment, and frustration, but when they have a support network behind them and keep persisting they begin to experience significant breakthroughs even if they never experience attraction to the opposite sex and get married.  

 

In one study, Ex-Gays?  A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation by Jones and Yarhouse, who studied a number of people who had overcome homosexuality over a long-term period, noted that about 6 in 10 were able to do so and that suicidal tendencies and depression were not necessarily connected to these efforts.  

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4. Your newsletter from July last year mentions several NSW churches and universities that you were engaging with — how have those relationships been going and what churches do you now partner with?

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I am not comfortable naming those churches who are partnering with us because of the sensitive nature of what we do at Liberty Christian Ministries.  Had I more time to consider your questions, I could have asked around to find out if these churches would be happy to be named in this article, but I am not comfortable doing that.

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5. Anthony Venn-Brown and the psychologist Paul Martin have said many people have been psychologically damaged and even suicidal after going through programs run by groups such as Liberty and Living Waters. Do you believe that has happened or is a risk of happening?

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No.  If anything, the psychological damage can occur when expectations and motivations for change are unhealthy or unrealistic (e.g. I will stop being gay in a year so I can get a girlfriend and get married).  Often people get depressed when they realise that the journey is going to take longer than they had anticipated and when it get hard.  Some give up entirely because it’s so hard and it’s actually their disappointment with themselves that gets them undone, not necessarily the programme.  

 

To be honest though, some programmes have been unhelpful.  Those which have made unrealistic promises, like making people ‘straight’ in a certain period can, I believe, set people up for much disappointment.  Some programmes I have seen are very behavioural focussed and do not deal with root problems and those can cause a lot of long-term difficulty for people.  However as you would see on our ministry’s website page, Liberty is very careful about what it does and does not promise: we want to be faithful to what God promises and not to add to or subtract from it because that really can lead people down a garden path.  

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6. Lastly, if you have contact details for Christopher Keane that would be greatly appreciated.

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Unfortunately Chris and his wife have retired and no longer are involved with Liberty.

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Thanks,

Haydn.

 

A more caustic article appeared in the Sunday Age and was a typical hatchet job.  Those who attack ministries like Liberty simplistically argue that there’s not difference between cure and healing, but that merely betrays how out of depth they are.  They reprinted the questions and answers, unlike the SMH, but not all of my answers, only the ones they wanted to cherrypick.  The Age writer was a lot more lopsided than Swan, but it illustrates how tardy the reporting was.  They get the usual antagonists and extreme stories and make them sound like the norm.

Which Worship Level are you at?