Transcript

Andrew

Encourage me. Impatient me in this process of becoming chaste or integral or whole. How do we encourage those who are saying this is just taking way too long? Because it's, you know, not happening the way I maybe wanted to.

Christie

It's so worth it. Integration. And all of the costs of the pains along the way is so worth it. I love being as integrated as I am now. I can't believe how much better life is on this side of the I'm not that I'm done. I'm not claiming to be done, but oh my gosh, my capacity to love and be loved, to enjoy life for what it is. To love my kids, to love the kids I teach, you know, all of that. Like, oh my gosh, life is so much richer. And and I would say, number one, it's worth the fight.

Amanda

Amen.

Christie

And you're making more headway than you think you are. Yeah. Like things are changing. I promise, even though it feels like like every time we go to Jesus, he's faithful.

Amanda

God, transform transforms every area in our lives that surrender to him. But what that looks like is always up to him. And looking back, you know, I, I like to cycle a lot. And sometimes I ran through these dark tunnels and sometimes I can't see anything. I don't have a light in this or that. It's just like dark. healing is not happening as fast as I want it to.

I just remember looking back from other seasons of temptation, I'm not going to always going to be in this darkness. This I know the light is coming and I'm just going to keep doing the things that I know to do. And that's just hold on and pedal and like keep going forward and, and really as I do that day by day taking it day at a time. Yeah. Looking back I'm like wow, God you're so faithful.

Yeah. And you're so true. And and remembering that when I come up to another dark tunnel is just gives me so much peace and grace that I can do this. And the Lord has me.

Andrew

In this beautiful God. One thing that I find so helpful. The Catholic Catechism describes chastity as a lifetime plan. Yeah. So the task of becoming chaste does not end until we see him face to face. So when people say, oh, I'm still struggling here emotionally, or maybe with sexual temptation and or, I'm not yet completely clear in my masculine, it's like, welcome to the club. Right. I just think you're right. And this virtue of becoming integrated body, soul and spirit, it won't be done for a while. Yeah. So hold on. Yeah.

Morgan

The faithfulness of God. I remember at the beginning, after I had just recently shared with Karen, you know, the the the brokenness in me and in our marriage, the Lord provided me with two men to walk with. And I didn't want to walk with these guys because they didn't understand me. You. I liked them. But they didn't get it. They didn't understand what I was going through.

Their sexuality was much more intact in the best sense of the word, but they were broken in their own ways, too. But they didn't get me. That's what I felt like. But. But, for over ten years, we met weekly. That's a long time. A long time.

And and and the reason being is that as as we went along, it's like the Lord revealed more and more places where he was giving me what I needed so to not forsake the gathering, you know, no matter what.

Andrew

How can I make the church better? If at times my struggles seem so big.

Amanda

I'm reaching for sainthood. I'm reaching. I know that's what God wants. But I'm still a sinner and I'm still divided. And this is why we need Jesus. This is the gospel. This is why he came because of our sin to deal with sin and death. And he's done that. And, yeah, it's just taking off the mask and it gives people permission to take off theirs. And I've seen that in such beautiful ways in my church.

Christie

You know I agree with that. I would also say on the kind of on the flip side, we're the only ones that are to that are completely defining ourselves by our pathetic weakness. You know like I think I wake up in the morning, I think oh my gosh I'm in it again. This is all I am. This is all. But actually we're more than that, right?

So we could just go to church and work with the kids in kids ministry, or help set up chairs or whatever it is and actually walk out in the truth that this struggle, this hot mess that I feel like I am is actually not an accurate representation of myself. You know, it is my accurate representation of how I feel, but it's not an accurate, accurate representation of what is true.

And so I'm going to like take steps in the truth even if I don't feel the truth. Yeah. And I'm going to go up and pray for somebody at the end of service, even though I feel like I got nothing. You know, it doesn't that that supposedly, you know, if God is big is if he says he is, then it doesn't really matter, right? You are a hot mess.

But you have made a commitment to help set up a sound system. Set up the sound system. Like we can be empowered to be more than the hot mess we are.

Amanda

That's good. You know. Yeah.

Andrew

Right. I'm going to start setting up the sound system.

Christie

It really does.

Marco

Finally, I think you would. You would mess it up.

Andrew

I, I would.

Christie

Be.

Andrew

Mad. That's right. We're not very good at. No. I'm not clear on what she's saying. Very confusing, but. But I'm hearing it there. No, no no, no. I think I think the point of being a struggler. Because when I think of struggle, I'm not thinking. All I am is my struggle. I mean, I'm aspiring. Yeah. But I'm. I'm weak and because I'm aspiring, I experience a certain weakness, even a certain shame that, I'm.

I feel a little awkward, a little hobbled, but I'm reaching. Yeah. And that. That's a very particular witness. That's a pretty whole expression of being a weak person. But I think the church needs to get this. Yeah. And I think pastors, priests, lay leaders, home group leaders. I think that we all need to get that.

And I think that that is something that when we can articulate as best as we can where we are yet, wow, we're reaching for what we know is more noble and truer. And what Jesus has for us. Even though, like Paul says, I haven't yet taken hold of it. Right? But I want it, you know that that's that's body life. Yeah.

Christie

Yeah.

Andrew

Yeah. I mean, that's the kind of community I want to I want to go to, but it easily falls into either the presumption of unreality. I'm realized I'm completely healed. And then it's like, okay, beautiful. Praise God you're untouchable or I'm only a hot mess, right? And because I'm only a hot mess. Now you've got to codify me as the gay mess. Or, you know, it's like, no, come on, we're sharing that for the purpose of something greater that we have to say with all integrity isn't fully in our grasp. Right. But I'm reaching and, I think in that way, we make the church better.

Christie

Amen. Yeah, I.

Andrew

Yeah, I see that. If I may say, my pastor is, a great pastor. so faithful and and he has just by the grace of God, entered into our world and is a hardy member of living waters and so on and so forth. And it's it's it's freed him up in a beautiful way to bring himself into the word and into, you know, his setting the table for us, for the Eucharist. He is a whole enough man for sure, but able to articulate where he's not right. And in some ways that that breaks the bread for us. Beautiful as much as anything.

Morgan

That's a man that's, becoming more and more free of shame and so totally. And so then, you know, for me, anyway, at the church I'm at or the my community or whatever, I can make an offering to the people in my life more and more without the shame that kept me silent or divided or embarrassed. the shame of sharing at that level is just it's falling away. It's more and more falling away. And so the good of what I have to impart can come in whatever form a prophetic witness, you know, that needs to, to bring correction. And the best sense when I say correction, I mean like new perspective and of understanding what it means to be whole and, and a chaste person.

Marco

I think the church, the church is the ground for my healing. So she's the church's mother for me. So she's. She's got it.

Amanda

All.

Marco

She has, like, these medicinal treasures, you know, whether that be the Eucharist or community or the sacraments. So I need that, you know, and if I don't appropriate all of those medicines to my stuff, my wanting to go into queer identity or my same sex attraction or whatever it is, if I don't appropriate those medicines, I feel like I actually don't. I'm not reaping all that the church can give me. And so when a member comes and hobbles in, I think it's great news. It's like you're you've made it to the right place.

Christie

One of the things that I actually found really hard when I first became a Christian was the song amazing Grace. There is a phrase in that song says when we've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing his praise. And when we first began I thought, oh my word. Like, how can that be good? 10,000 years? I just think, I can't, I can't even imagine that being good.

And what I am discovering as I because it sounds so boring, right? But what I'm discovering, as I walk in more and more integration, more and more of how I am, who I am is I become more like Jesus. And so I can imagine that the joy of being with him in eternity, like I, that becomes something I look forward to, I hope for, and I and I even inspires my now like I am not.

This is not the end. What I do here on earth is not the end. But what I am doing here on earth is becoming that which will go on forever, ever. And so I was just reading to the day the verse that talks about in the twinkling of an eye, we will all be changed.

And I think I look forward to that twinkling, and I look forward to, I think that the work of integration we do here makes that something that we can begin to taste. We can begin to imagine what heaven will be.

Morgan

When I think about being face to face with Jesus. I want to be able to, at least on this side of eternity, whatever that looks like. I want to be able to say that I submitted as much as I could. My my sexuality, the affections of my heart that are broken, that are defensive, full of anxiety. I want to be able to say or hear him say that you did. You did a good job. You did.

You did what I asked you to do as best as you could, and not in perfection, but certainly with earnest desire to say, Lord, this is what I this is. This is who I want to become. All that you've asked me to become, and I hope that that happens.

Steve

Sexual wholeness prepares us for eternity by allowing us to surrender our various sins and brokenness to our Lord, to trust him in the process. To persevere with him in the process. And that leads us on into eternity. That relationship with Jesus close relation ship. We have to be close as we surrender and persevere with him, and that creates a close relationship with him.

Yvonne

Something that has stood out to me as just such a gift of walking more and wholeness has been how free I am to say yes to God. When God invites me to do something, or when God invites me to to change or grow in a certain way to try something new. I'm so much more free. I'm so much more unencumbered to to say yes and to go to places that would have been really scary before.

I find myself just able to to stand up and and trust. I think, walking free from being trapped by idols, walking unencumbered and with my full freedom to say yes to what God wants. I get to live God's purposes now, which I know I'm going to be doing for all of eternity. For I get to celebrate with the Lord now and just continue that for the rest of eternity.

Daniel

My chastity, my wholeness. And Jesus is preparing me for eternity because I know that every choice I make matters. I know that my responding to God's prompting in areas where he's inviting me to surrender, inviting me to be known and even loved in those areas where I think to myself, oh God, I don't know that I can invite you into that or oh God, there it is again, you know, and and I need you, Lord.

And even looking at other people and saying, oh, I'm so thankful for you. Will you pray with me? Will you will can we just stand together and trust God here together? And I think it matters. I think generation will be so inspired by the ones you said. I'm not going to settle for less.

I'm not going to settle for the lie that says that I can just quietly be identified and that God can heal some people, but he can't heal me. What for? Why? What a waste of time. And I just think, no, there's more. And God is more than willing, more than able. All we have to do is say yes in an ongoing way.

Marco

One of my favorite lines in the catechism is that chastity is the promise of immortality. I don't necessarily know exactly what all that means, but I think I have an idea is that chastity grows in friendship. So chastity grows as you're in relationship to other people. And that naturally has opened me up to being a better friend of Jesus.

Naturally, if I didn't trust the Lord in this area of healing me from deep stuff, deep queer identification, deep same sex attraction, and and actually growing me to become a person able to dignified the opposite sex. I wouldn't be a good friend to the Lord. I wouldn't actually be, able to say that I trust you, Jesus here.

And in this way, becoming more a chaste person, enables me to to be more intimately connected with Jesus and obviously heaven. Eternity is union with the one. So I think in that way, chastity is is for eternity. Chastity for me has been pushing the limits. You know, of what I thought? Was my becoming. So there's something that chastity has been able to help me grow beyond what I even thought I was capable for. And in that mystical way, it actually prepares me to be, ready for the limitless ness of heaven.

Amanda

Chastity is the fullness of Jesus and other people for one reason, and that is I can't be chased by myself, my sexuality is is not just for myself. So I actually have to relate to people out of my sexuality. This is one of the reasons I kind of have a problem with the oh, you're tempted, so you should just cut off.

And so chastity being integrated into who I am as a female and what my body speaks means I need men and I need women, and I need to be in relationship with them because that is the church, men and woman. Yeah, the church should make choices or integration or wholeness, a goal for everybody because it is really who we are. God is is remaking us, right?

He's redeeming everything we are new creations now, and every day we're becoming more of that new creation. We are. That is chastity. I am a woman, and I am being more and more made into the fullness of who I am as I'm slopping off sin. That is what Jesus is about. And that's what being made in his image, in humanity is about.

Yvonne

I would say chastity is all about Jesus because my heart belongs fully to Jesus. My heart isn't split in a bunch of different ways. My heart belongs purely to Jesus. And I think chastity speaks a lot of of purity. it's about a unity of soul to I can be in an agreement with myself and with my creator, who I truly was made to be.

Chastity is about others as well, because how I interact with the world changes the world, and how I receive the world changes me. So if I'm going to be healthy, I have to walk in a way that is healthy, both for myself but also for the people around me. How I how I interact with people makes a difference in their lives.

And if I'm causing destruction, either for myself or for the world around me, that that's not creating the world we want to live in. That's not moving me toward eternity. That's that's devolving and damaging. So chastity is about chastity is about others. Because what I do matters.

Christie

I am eternally grateful for the community that I worked out the majority of my healing process in the community that I was in was one that had an expectancy, that God would transform people. Like everybody felt like everybody needed to be transformed. And so we're all in this together inside that community also was this value for inviting people in.

So there were lots of married couples that invited me in and shared life with me, and I was able to watch. I was able to watch women and men together in ways that really brought life to both of them. I was able to, and I watched a lot. I was like, what the heck is that?

It was so different from what I had grown up with that to see how one of the things that I that I saw a lot, which I found very intimidating, but but also beautiful, was the choices that both men and women, husband and wives were making to die to each other for the sake of the family. That was like a healing balm to my soul. That was something that really that really touched and moved me.

I had the opportunity of living with an elderly couple who had married for a long time, both madly in love with God. And it was it was profound to be around them because they knew the love of God in such a a beautiful way, and they were able to minister to so many people. So the woman, Sally, your name, would have like prayer meetings in her house where she would teach people how to pray.

And she just had this gentle love about her. And but the, the her husband was not that kind of guy. He didn't want to be in front of a lot of people. But what he did do was literally dent the floor with his knee marks, where he prayed like he prayed in the same place every day.

And you could see that the dents in the floor and there was there was a a commitment there that really, really moved me. Later, much later, when I got married and, and I remember, I remember this feeling. So my husband before we got married, I, I remembered we were we were together. We weren't even dating yet, but I was, we were in China and there was this pagoda, and somebody was taking our picture.

And he and I had known each other for a while, but. But at this moment, the Lord was like, this is this is the man that I have for you, for your future. And I was standing next to him. They were taking a picture. I put my hand on his shoulder and the thought came through my head. This is a man I could get behind.

Steve

A chaste. Couple and a married couple reveal the relationship between Jesus and us, the Bride of Christ and my love for my sweet Beverly. It is, It shows me God's heart for us and how he loves us. And she loves me. Back it reciprocally. And that unity and that oneness is just so amazing. That is what I look forward to in eternity with Jesus.

Morgan

Karen and I are on a journey together. These three and a half decades fraught with, a lot of un chaste, moments and seasons, mainly for me. But as we become more and more chaste with each other for the sake of each other, there is, an overflowing, spilling over into a community of people that just need someone fighting for them. In other words, having hope for them where they have no hope.

And Karen and I have a lot of hope now. We have a lot of hope for people that at one point I would have said, I probably don't have a lot of hope for them, and that just doesn't happen. I remember there is even one season when, the beginning of our healing process that a woman pulled Karen aside and said, you know, he's going to leave you and you can't trust this.

There is no healing for him. And kind of warned her, get ready, get out. And, and so we were up against that kind of a lack of hope. And yet, God has been so faithful and so redeeming of us that I think that's hope for a community. I dare say this woman, even that she would say, oh, the Lord, the Lord was faithful to them. He will be faithful to me...

Christie

And I was ready to spend the rest of my life doing that. That was a beautiful moment for me, and it was so shockingly different from how I ever felt about any woman I had been involved with. I had never had that sentiment.

That idea of I want my life to be together with his so that he can be all that he can be, not so that I can be all I can be, but so that he could be, all that he can be. Good news, of course, is that he wants me to be all that I can be. And so together we are are encouraging one another and and empowering one another. Now I'm making this sound perfect.

We're not perfect at this at all. But there is this, this posture that we have of real vision for one another's life. And, and then this commitment to serving one another that I think has blessed the church at large. It certainly has blessed the churches we have been in. And it blesses the people who come to our house.

We have small groups at our house all the time, and the idea that people can come in and they say things like, this is where I want to hang out, like single people who are in their own healing process. It's like, I want to stay. I want to bask in your light. And I think that's fine with me because I basked in other people's light before me. Right. So this is only it's only fair. Pay it forward.

Marco

Well, a chaste single person or a chaste celibate person points me to heaven in that, their heaven is about union with God. There is no marriage in heaven. So there is something about the purity of someone saying, especially a celibate saying. I'm forgoing that in a good way. I'm forgoing that for the sake of Jesus and His kingdom.

That's like a signpost to me, like, wow, this is this is what what we're headed for in a way, I think who did this so beautifully was Pope Saint John Paul the second in his ability as a as a celibate guy. He he had this incredible capacity to honor woman in his midst and to challenge others to do the same. He writes about how every man should honor every woman in his orbit.

And maybe it's that man to remind her of her inestimable worth and special beauty. And it's like, wow, that's incredible to think that I, as a man, chaste and becoming more chaste, have this beautiful capacity to honor everyone in my orbit. I think that's what she's people do. It's not that they're prudish or, afraid of relationship. They actually allow others to be more robust in their humanity.

And so in that way, the chaste single or the chaste celibate point us to union with Jesus forever by, I think, spurning us on to become more chaste, if that makes sense. Like, I know some, some priests in my life who are great priests. And there's something about their call to be fully surrendered to Jesus in their sexuality. And these are robust guys.

These are guys who, who, who could have been married, but for went it for the sake of Jesus. There's something about their witness to him that actually encourages me to be more chaste in my state in life.

Yvonne

,living a fulfilling, like a meaningful life as a single person. I think it points us to what we were really made for, which wasn't to just be in a one on one relationship. And it wasn't just for me and mine. What we were made for is our creator and for the whole world, and that I get to live that now as a single person in a way that is, I think it makes it really clear to the world, or I hope it makes it clear the world that there is there is life here and and that life is bigger.

David

I feel like we need to bring wholeness to everybody, and chastity is the fact that that is God's heart. what God is saying is that I love you where you're at, and that local church should be a healing place where you can come and be real, be raw and press your wounds into his nail pierced hands to receive his healing through transparency, vulnerability, and authenticity. And I think we've lost that where we have some type of facade and it is not the heart of Jesus.

Morgan

So I believe this concept or this reality of the virtue of chastity, has something for a church body that men and women not to be married, but to love each other and defer to each other and to call each other and up to see each other, to advocate for each other, to believe in each other. I just love that, it's becoming more and more evident even in our living waters world.

At our church, where I begin to see the women, how they interact with the men. And it's so beautiful. Where there was a sense of like, I don't want to look at the men. They begin to trust in the men, treat them so well. And, that is a gift to the body of Christ that I believe chastity has for us all.

Steve

The church needs to present wholeness to everyone so that we can be more in the image of God. Apart from him. We are distorted images, but with him we more reflect who he is in the world rather than a stunted, undeveloped, confused image. So we more clearly reflect him.

Daniel

I would say to the church, do not be afraid to hold the line of truth. Do not compromise the the truth that God has given us, and stand believing that the truth does not change and love people be about loving much, love much. Don't think too much, love much, and and be bold and know that that boldness is coming from the Lord himself.

It's coming from the power of the Holy Spirit to reach out, invite someone to your home, talk to them about Jesus. Ask if they if they need prayer, invite them to a church function. I mean, I even had a woman invite me to a women's luncheon or something, you know, because she just wanted me to experience Jesus. And I said, yes, thank you so much. I won't go to that. But yes, thank you.

You know, and I think the church just needs to be bold and and hold the line of truth, be compassionate and walk in love, real love that actually calls people to a standard and calls people to more calls, people to change, calls people to a, a savior who is able to redeem and heal.

Christie

One of the things that really deeply breaks my heart is the loss of faith in the church for change. The church is trying. It seems to me that you're just trying to be welcoming and expansive and invite all these people who identify as queer, and they're like, that's fine. There's a place for you here. And I feel like, of course there's a place, but we don't want to to leave people there.

And the idea that the church is going to leave people in their queer identification, and it just it breaks my heart. I'm not going to lie, it infuriates me. I would not be where I am today without a strong community cheering me on. Not always from the sidelines. Someone right, sometimes right up in my face saying no, I know you were made for more.

My daughter would not exist if I hadn't been inspired and encouraged and carried by the church. As I walked through my stuff and and my husband had his own journey. But we have to the idea that we would, we would be so remiss that we would be so accommodating. That's accommodating unto death. To me, that is insulting. Don't you? Don't you do that to someone. I am insulted at the idea that the church can't say yes.

Jesus isn't big enough to fix that problem. What we think we're accommodating, we think that's love, but that is actually calling someone a second class citizen. It's actually saying, you know what? God loves those people. He doesn't really love you enough to do anything about this disorder. And so I want to invite the church instead to have a message that says, God has great things. God is a God who redeems and restores.

You are not any worse off than the woman at the well who had five husbands. Like, I love that Jesus uses five husbands. That's pretty bad, right? And yet, if God can look at a woman who has five husbands and say, I have a way and a future for you, then of course he could do that. For someone who is disordered in their sexuality. The church has to cast the vision.

We have to be the place of hope, because the church needs to wake up and recognize that people like me, who have walked in the darkness want the light, and we're going to eventually go and say, this is not the life I want. Doesn't someone have something more? And the only one that's going to carry the light is going to be the church. And so I invite the church to stand up and say, yes, we don't.

We don't know how it all works. You don't have to have a whole like, theology about how it all works. But I have faith that your disordered ness can be reordered by Jesus, and I'm going to stand by that faith for you, even when you've lost it for yourself. I wouldn't be alive if I didn't have a church to do that.

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