Pure Choices

Identity Matters

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Mike Carducci (Host), Ron Woolsey, Wayne Blakely

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Series Code: PC

Program Code: PC000033


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues.
00:03 Parents are cautioned that some material
00:05 may be too candid for younger children.
00:41 Hi, I'm Mike Carducci with Coming Out Ministries,
00:44 your host today on "Pure Choices."
00:47 Today, I'm gonna be interviewing
00:48 some very good friends
00:50 who are also my ministry colleagues,
00:51 Wayne Blakely and also Ron Woolsey.
00:54 Today, we're gonna be talking about identity.
00:56 Does identity matter?
00:58 Yes, I'm gonna start off with Wayne.
01:00 Wayne, can you give us an idea of where you came from?
01:03 Can you give us a brief history of what your life's been like?
01:08 Sure.
01:09 First I just want to say that it is such a blessing
01:12 to be able to sit here with my ministry colleagues
01:15 who have experienced what I've walked through.
01:20 You know, we've just all done it little bit differently.
01:22 And we arrive sometimes
01:24 with some pretty rough beginnings and I do a...
01:27 Or I give a presentation called Out of Innocence,
01:30 and then after that presentation,
01:32 I move into identity matters and it's my walk,
01:37 my journey that has actually brought me
01:39 into the scope of identity matters
01:42 that really says something about who I am today.
01:45 But first, I can share with the viewers a little bit
01:47 about my past and my past was one
01:50 that I certainly didn't choose as none of you chose.
01:54 My natural mother carried me throughout her pregnancy
01:58 and during that time she was adamant about the fact
02:01 that she was having a baby girl and not a boy.
02:04 Before I was the age of two-years-old,
02:07 she had broken my left arm in two places
02:10 on two different occasions.
02:12 And so not only was I rejected before birth,
02:17 I was rejected after birth.
02:19 And that shaped pretty immediately
02:21 how I was gonna respond to the male gender.
02:25 I was gonna find safety in the male gender
02:27 or at least I was gonna look for safety in the male gender
02:29 and I look for love in the male gender.
02:32 But, you know, I was fortunate enough
02:34 that my aunt and uncle adopted me
02:38 when I was at two-years-old, of course being determined
02:42 that my natural mother was so abusive,
02:44 I needed to be placed somewhere else
02:46 the State told my father that either he remove me
02:51 and have me placed elsewhere or they would.
02:54 And so an aunt and uncle had been praying
02:57 and they said that they talk to my dad
03:00 and said we would like to adopt him.
03:03 We want him to grow up in a place where he is loved,
03:06 where he's needed, wanted and shown
03:09 the love of Jesus Christ
03:11 because he hasn't experienced that to this point.
03:14 In the process the damage, you know, had already been done
03:17 and before I was three-years-old,
03:18 I was running around the house screaming
03:20 "I don't want to be a boy, I want to be a girl."
03:23 And I would dress up in little scarves
03:26 and whatever I could find that
03:28 that had to do with the female gender
03:30 instead of the male gender.
03:31 So, Wayne, I want to take you back just a little bit.
03:34 What was it that your mother said to you
03:36 that put that idea in your head
03:38 that you didn't want to be a boy?
03:40 That I wasn't accepted as being a boy
03:43 and that and so by my not being accepted as a boy,
03:48 the only way I could regain
03:50 any kind of acceptance or feel myself
03:53 as being the person I was supposed to be in society
03:57 was to try to role model myself after a woman
04:00 even though I'd experienced hatred from a woman.
04:02 Right.
04:04 I remember I read in the book Ministry of Healing,
04:06 it talks about the in vitro care
04:08 of every unborn baby and already from the moment
04:12 that that you were conceived,
04:13 your mother was so determined that she was gonna have a girl
04:16 that you are already experiencing rejection
04:18 even before you were born.
04:20 And then when you were born, the thing that you told me
04:22 in the passes that your mother said
04:24 "You're no good as a boy, you should have been a girl."
04:27 And I believe that hearing those tapes
04:29 also affected this understanding
04:31 that you were no good as a boy.
04:33 Right.
04:35 Is that true? Yes, it is.
04:36 And so after even the adoption, you know, you can imagine now,
04:39 I'm in a place where they didn't have
04:41 those tapes playing that, that happened,
04:44 you know, from my natural mother
04:45 they weren't present.
04:46 And so they couldn't figure out what was going on.
04:49 I mean, they knew some abuse had taken place,
04:52 but as I began to grow up
04:55 and pass the ages of three and four and five
04:58 and I kept having more and more
05:00 desires for feminine type things
05:02 rather than masculine things, they didn't know what to do.
05:05 They reached out to teachers, they reached out to pastors,
05:09 nobody could fill them
05:10 and as to what should take place.
05:12 I went to school and, you know,
05:15 as soon as I entered school
05:17 I was teased, harassed and abused.
05:20 I hated school. By who, Wayne?
05:22 From the classmates who noticed
05:23 that I was different from other boys.
05:26 Male and female?
05:28 Yes, from girls too
05:29 but there was more comfort in women
05:31 than there was in men because the femininity,
05:33 they could identify with that it wasn't offensive to them
05:36 whereas in the male masculine role
05:41 as you're presenting with feminine characteristics,
05:43 you know, that's just not acceptable.
05:45 So the program is called Identity Matters
05:48 and already you are only an elementary school
05:51 and I'm confused myself how is it that a little boy
05:55 who is rejected by his birth mother,
05:57 you know, who said, "He was no good as a boy,
05:59 should have been a girl."
06:01 How was it that you attached to the feminine side
06:03 when it was also the feminine side that had abused you?
06:07 Because I was still looking for that acceptance.
06:09 I was still trying to get back to
06:11 what I was supposed to have been.
06:12 Well, all right.
06:14 And so already you painted a picture
06:17 of extreme confusion for me, keep going if you would.
06:21 So throughout my junior high and high school years,
06:27 I was still isolated. I was isolated in the church.
06:31 I was isolated when I started working.
06:33 I was... I had a female walk
06:37 that I didn't know had developed
06:40 but that it had and people would say,
06:42 "Oh, nice swing on that gate"
06:45 or they would start whistling and they would call me sissy,
06:48 homo and, you know, all kinds of other things
06:52 that I would go home at the end of that day
06:55 and I would go into the bathroom
06:56 and I would punch myself in the face
06:58 and I would scream at God and I would say "Why, God, why,
07:02 I was supposed to have been a girl not a boy?
07:05 Why am I having to endure this pain, this abuse?"
07:09 And I couldn't seem to change anything.
07:11 How old were you at that time?
07:14 When I was doing that, I was about 12 or 13.
07:17 Okay, all right.
07:18 And my dad would try to who is now my uncle
07:21 or my uncle had become my dad essentially,
07:24 he would try to get me out there to the garage
07:26 and to hold a ranch and, you know,
07:29 to do the manly things and to play baseball
07:32 and but the fact of the matter was,
07:34 I would swing at that ball
07:36 and it might as well had a hole in the bat,
07:38 I just couldn't hit it, you know.
07:39 The only thing I could really do was run
07:42 and thankfully, you know, my hips didn't swivel
07:44 when I ran or I probably would have gotten
07:46 teased about the way I ran.
07:48 But there were times I had to run pretty fast
07:50 because guys were chasing me
07:52 to pull my gym shorts down or want to beat me up
07:55 and I actually found out a couple years ago
07:58 that a guy that was going to school
08:01 in the same class as me looked a lot like me
08:04 and he had been being beat up on the way home from school
08:07 because they thought it was me.
08:09 So, Ron, as you're listening
08:11 to Wayne described his childhood.
08:14 Even though it's a far cry or different from the way
08:18 that you were raised, can you identify
08:20 with what he was going through at that age?
08:22 I can relate very much to Wayne's feelings
08:25 and his identity,
08:27 though mine came about in a much different way.
08:30 My mother has told me
08:31 that out of the four children that she had,
08:34 I was the only one that was planned.
08:37 So I wasn't rejected in vitro, I was not rejected at birth.
08:43 Very much planned and wanted but I was molested
08:46 when I was four-years-old and from that point on
08:52 it was a traumatic experience for me
08:54 and I didn't tell my parents what had happened,
08:57 I internalized and because I did not deal with it.
09:01 At four-years-old, I didn't know how to deal
09:02 with something like that.
09:05 But soon after that I started wetting the bed
09:08 and my parents had trained all other children by the time
09:12 they were two in that area.
09:14 So all of a sudden two years later
09:16 I am regressing, I'm going backwards
09:18 and my father didn't understand,
09:20 he thought I was just being lazy.
09:23 So he started dealing with me in an abusive way, emotionally.
09:29 He tried shaming me and to stop being lazy.
09:32 They even took me to a doctor
09:33 who told them I just being lazy,
09:35 there was nothing wrong with my kidneys and so.
09:37 Here I had this trauma of sexual molestation
09:39 which I didn't know how to deal with.
09:41 I was actually robbed of...
09:44 I think now robbed of my manhood.
09:46 I was confused about my identity.
09:48 And then my dad was emotionally
09:51 misunderstanding me and abusing me
09:52 and so I felt rejection from him
09:56 and I was out of country family,
10:02 I was more of a gentleman rather than a rough housing man
10:05 and I started playing the piano when I was five-years-old.
10:08 And while I'm playing the piano,
10:11 the other boys were out playing football
10:12 or baseball or whatever and they would mock me
10:15 and make fun of me like you, Wayne.
10:17 I was a sissy because I would rather play the piano
10:20 than play football.
10:21 So from many different directions,
10:23 I started feeling this rejection
10:25 and not knowing how to identify who I was.
10:28 My father did not accept me, my brothers made fun of me,
10:34 the peer group did the same.
10:36 And so I grew up feeling confused and unaccepted
10:40 and not knowing really who I was also
10:43 and grew up being called a sissy
10:46 and all of that because of,
10:48 simply because of playing the piano.
10:51 It didn't help that I started crocheting
10:52 when I was seven-years-old, I don't suppose
10:55 because here I was a bedwetting,
10:56 crocheting, piano playing a little kid
10:59 instead of out playing football and baseball.
11:01 And so I guess I gave them ammunition
11:05 but nevertheless I grew up feeling confused
11:07 and warped and so forth about my identity.
11:10 But if you constantly feel rejection from masculinity,
11:14 doesn't it make sense then
11:16 that you would move towards femininity?
11:18 And so like you and yet totally different,
11:21 I didn't come from sexual abuse like you, Ron,
11:24 and I didn't come from physical abuse like you, Wayne.
11:26 I grew up in a home
11:29 where the dad was basically absent.
11:32 My dad was in the navy
11:34 and he was in the Navy jazz band.
11:36 He was good looking
11:37 and he was a hot-headed Italian.
11:39 So when he was gone,
11:40 you know, things were pretty quiet
11:41 with my mom and my sisters,
11:43 but when dad was home he was aggressive
11:45 and I guess it was abusive
11:47 because, you know, we heard a lot of words like
11:50 stupid, dummy, idiot
11:53 and my mom even confirmed a couple years ago
11:55 that that she would look at my dad
11:57 and think to herself "Why are you competing
11:59 with the two-year-old,
12:00 you know, in relationship to me?"
12:02 So at a time when I wasn't even conscious about that,
12:05 he was so aggressive and abusive
12:08 and then when he was gone,
12:09 I viewed that also as abandoning
12:11 that I basically rejected the masculinity
12:14 and reverted back to the femininity.
12:15 Mom was safe, you know, she wasn't explosive
12:19 and she was always there.
12:21 You know, Mike and Wayne,
12:23 as we're sitting here comparing our beginnings
12:27 and how we were derailed in life
12:30 from one way or another.
12:32 An observation is coming to my mind
12:36 that as we were being pushed by circumstances,
12:39 by rejection, by abuse, by molestation,
12:42 by absentee fatherism and so forth.
12:47 We eventually came to view
12:51 the male gender as the opposite sex.
12:54 We were not brought up in it, we were not schooled in it,
12:58 there was an absent factor in our development
13:02 to where it became more like a mystery,
13:05 like it should have been with the female gender.
13:08 The male gender became like the opposite sex
13:12 in which we are now attracted because of the mystique
13:15 and not having being schooled in that.
13:18 Would you agree that's kind of the way we ended up?
13:21 Ron, that is so profound.
13:23 It's explosive to understand that the things
13:27 that we share also that you brought out,
13:29 I can absolutely identify with them relate to.
13:32 How about you, Wayne?
13:34 Yeah, I absolutely, you know, because of the comfort
13:38 in identifying more in the femininity,
13:41 then why wouldn't you be attracted to the male
13:44 as was meant to be in the natural course of life.
13:48 There was nothing that was happening...
13:51 Excuse me, from, from within the school system
13:55 or inside of our church system
13:58 that was helping me find any kind of healing.
14:01 But what actually what I was doing
14:03 was I was reading the Word of God
14:04 and I was saying, you know, all the verses
14:06 that I was reading about homosexuality,
14:08 was going "Oh, my.
14:10 I can't believe this, dear Lord, this is me.
14:12 I didn't ask for this.
14:14 I didn't choose this, how could this possibly be me?"
14:17 And so even though I was walking
14:20 with this more feministic type of personality,
14:25 I couldn't understand how was that I arrived at this
14:28 because I didn't choose this.
14:30 And so when I came out of the closet
14:31 or a gentleman brought me out of the closet,
14:34 you know, he said to me
14:36 "Hey, you know, your denomination
14:38 or Christianity has bred homosexuality."
14:41 And I said "What?"
14:43 And he said "Yeah, he says, you're gay, I'm gay,
14:45 I know other guys who are gay and we're...
14:48 They're very good at telling us
14:50 that the Bible says that this is sin
14:52 but nobody's telling us what to do about it."
14:55 And so I said "Well, goodbye Christianity
14:57 and goodbye God, you know, I'm out of here."
15:00 And I embraced immediately my gay identity.
15:03 Wayne, I have a similar instance,
15:05 it was after I had left church culture looking for resources,
15:08 looking for someone I could confide in
15:10 and after they said something so derogatory
15:12 about women I rejected and I walked out and I said,
15:15 "God, if that's the best you got, I'm out of here."
15:17 And a year or so later,
15:18 I'm in a gay bar on a Friday night.
15:21 The man in front of me orders a drink from the bartender
15:23 and they wish each other happy Sabbath.
15:25 And then I looked into and I thought,
15:27 you know, are you, you know, Christians?
15:30 And they said, "Well, yeah,
15:31 you know, we came from the same church
15:33 and I wish them happy Sabbath."
15:35 And then another guy further down on the bar
15:37 also said that he also had come from the same denomination.
15:41 And so again here I was on a Friday night
15:44 with four other men that had been ostracized
15:47 or lost out of the church culture
15:50 and had felt no opportunities for redemption
15:53 or no one that was willing to not only reach out to them
15:55 and call them back in,
15:57 but certainly not even relate to the issues
15:58 that we were all struggling with at the time.
16:00 So I understand and feel what you're talking about.
16:05 You know, I would say that even,
16:07 even if there were those in the church
16:09 that did care and were reaching out,
16:13 somehow it did not resonate with us.
16:16 And, you know, when I left Christianity
16:19 bitter against God and so forth,
16:22 my tendency was to blame, but I've been careful not to
16:27 because I realize, I had a lack of understanding.
16:32 And what I would say is that in my circles
16:36 where they were trying to help I suppose,
16:38 if there was an effort, they didn't understand how.
16:41 They didn't know how to reach someone like you and me.
16:44 They were not equipped.
16:45 They did not have the tools and that's one reason
16:47 why we're here today as Coming Out Ministries.
16:50 We have, we have come a long ways through a journey.
16:55 The Lord has led us to where we are today
16:59 through our own study, our own research,
17:02 our own experience to where now we three,
17:06 you know, in Coming Out Ministries,
17:07 we feel called of the Lord to help equip the church.
17:11 When I say the church, any Christian who will listen,
17:14 we have discovered by God's grace tools
17:17 that can help people avoid going the direction
17:22 that we went if we can reach them soon enough.
17:25 And so, I praise the Lord for how He has led us
17:29 out of darkness into His marvelous light
17:32 and He's given us now tools to work with,
17:34 so others don't have to experience
17:37 what we felt the rejection that we felt or perceived.
17:40 I love the way that you describe that, Ron,
17:43 and, you know, identity, you know, is this thread
17:45 that is woven through our very first experiences
17:48 even before you were born, Wayne.
17:50 And so as that identity is woven through this,
17:54 God has brought us together in an incredible way.
17:57 Ron, you've been a pastor and out of that lifestyle
17:59 for over 20 years, married with the family.
18:01 Wayne, you've been walking,
18:03 you know, with legitimacy for over four years now.
18:05 I've been out of this lifestyle for 12.
18:07 And all the sudden, just a year and a half ago,
18:09 little over a year and a half ago,
18:11 God miraculously brought us together
18:12 and our own individual ministries.
18:15 I never would have thought
18:16 that we would have had the scope of outreach
18:19 that we've had even as of today.
18:22 But what's incredible is even by our diverse past,
18:25 we also had differences in the ministry that we are,
18:28 that we are, that we present.
18:31 As a matter of fact, I relate to people
18:32 who are sexually defiled coming from pornography
18:35 and sexual addiction.
18:36 Wayne, your ministry is to reach out
18:38 to the church culture to,
18:40 you know, talk about educating the churches
18:43 on how to receive homosexuality,
18:45 how to relate and create a safe environment
18:47 and, Ron, who has a church and a family of your own.
18:50 You've been doing this ministry
18:51 and you've been doing your presentations
18:53 for 20 years by yourself.
18:55 So what's incredible is the way that this has come about,
18:58 but what I want to talk a little bit more
19:00 and I want to stay on this thing
19:01 about identity is, Wayne, as you came into Christianity,
19:06 talk to me about how your identity changed
19:09 and what that means for you today?
19:11 Well, when I first began to share my testimony,
19:15 I wasn't sure who I was that I was now.
19:19 And so I knew that I had been redeemed,
19:22 but I didn't know when I would walk into
19:26 public environments to speak, tell them who I was
19:30 and so it was said by one person,
19:34 "Well, you're still gay.
19:35 You know, you're gay Christian."
19:37 And I was like, you know what?
19:38 That's really what God redeemed me from,
19:40 why would I identify with what He brought me out of?
19:43 And so then I switched to this idea
19:46 of identifying by the attraction.
19:49 So they would say "Well, your same-sex attracted Christian."
19:52 I was like, you know what?
19:53 That's still kind of leaves me shackled to my past.
19:58 You know, that doesn't seem right.
20:00 It seems like there's supposed to be some kind of freedom
20:02 when you're baptized that you go under the water
20:05 that you don't really necessarily come up straight,
20:07 but you come up as a new creature in Jesus Christ.
20:11 Yeah, but it wasn't holy water, was it, Wayne?
20:13 Oh, I think it was.
20:15 I think that we have a tendency to think that,
20:18 that water is miraculous as its effect
20:20 but like you I came up still a homosexual
20:24 with the homosexual feelings
20:26 and definitely in sexual addiction.
20:27 Yeah, I don't, I mean, it was holy water
20:30 and that what transpired
20:32 there was that the old self died
20:34 and the new creature came up out of that water.
20:37 But what...
20:39 But from the standpoint and what, Ron,
20:40 you were mentioning a little bit earlier
20:42 about blame and ignorance
20:44 and I see some responsibility in here,
20:47 the church has been very much sitting,
20:50 watching this all take place,
20:52 you know, year over years and years
20:54 of the evolution of homosexuality
20:57 and really done nothing because of their ignorance,
21:00 they haven't known what to do.
21:02 And that's where I believe divine intervention came in,
21:06 and God said, you know what?
21:07 "I have taken people from worst places
21:10 and put them in higher places to show
21:13 and to reflect My love, My truth
21:17 and the teaching of what really needs to transpire,
21:20 the transformation that is possible through Me.
21:22 Not just about homosexuality,
21:25 but about adultery, about pride, about gossip,
21:28 about, you know, overeating about.
21:30 Whatever our sin condition is,
21:32 it's about learning to come together.
21:35 James 5:16 tells us to come together
21:38 and confess our sins one to another
21:41 and to pray for the healing that is possible
21:44 through Jesus Christ.
21:45 And I believe that is where the church
21:47 becomes the family that God meant it to be.
21:50 Awesome. Beautiful.
21:52 Ron?
21:54 When I came into the,
21:55 into the faith and later into ministry,
22:00 there was still confusion about my identity
22:02 because I remember as a new minister,
22:07 excuse me, but I would be doing ministry work
22:11 and with other people and I noticed that tongues
22:15 begin to wag if I was seen with one of the church
22:18 ladies doing ministry work.
22:21 And I thought, well, why would, why would that be.
22:24 I come out of the gay life,
22:26 there should be no concern here, you know.
22:28 I wasn't inclined to be straight or to marry.
22:32 I was just going to be
22:33 a Christian the rest of my life.
22:36 Well, then we had a young Bible worker
22:37 come and join our work
22:39 and he was a nice looking young fellow
22:41 and we were very good friends
22:42 and then we did some work together.
22:46 Tongues begin to wag
22:48 because now here's the pastor with this young man
22:51 and I got to thinking, I can't be seen with anybody.
22:55 My identity is so confused not with me,
22:58 I know who I am but the church doesn't know for sure.
23:01 I can't be seen with a woman,
23:03 I can't be seen with the man, Lord, help.
23:06 And, you know, the Lord intervened,
23:07 I mean within just a few months.
23:11 I met my wife who I really met as a child
23:15 and we were married and in short order
23:18 which surprised me
23:19 because I was not inclined to go that way,
23:21 but the Lord worked in such a way
23:24 that He created a new identity for me
23:27 and put me in a ministry, in a marriage and with family
23:31 and, you know, the tongues have never wagged since then.
23:34 And I think the Lord established an identity with me
23:39 because of the calling that He gave me in ministry.
23:42 And I just rejoice to see how the Lord can take us
23:47 from wherever we are, put us where He wants us to be,
23:51 He will give us the identity
23:53 that we need to accomplish His purposes.
23:55 Oh, that's right, Ron.
23:56 And, you know, when I came in a church culture,
23:58 I didn't even know what well, defile was.
24:02 And so like a little kid who sees a bug in the milk,
24:04 you know, and if they are really young
24:06 they just drink the milk, you know.
24:07 And then as they get a little bit older,
24:08 they take the bug out of the milk
24:10 and drink the milk.
24:11 And then, you know, by learning,
24:13 by the time they get to be about three-years-old
24:14 they recognize that the milk is defiled by the bug
24:16 and they don't drink the milk.
24:18 So as I began that journey with the Lord,
24:20 you know, I got baptized
24:22 and as I start to walk with Him,
24:24 it was a lot of falling down but Jesus was encourager
24:27 to tell me to get back up
24:29 and I never chose to be straight.
24:31 I didn't think it was possible, therefore I didn't pursue it
24:34 and I knew I certainly couldn't change my behavior.
24:37 I wasn't going to do what I did in high school
24:39 and just do behavior modification
24:40 by getting a girlfriend and living frustrated.
24:43 That in itself was a private hell.
24:45 And so what was great as Jesus said,
24:47 "No, Mike, you can change your attractions.
24:49 You can change your feelings.
24:51 All I'm asking you to do is submit them to Me,
24:54 let Me take control of them."
24:55 And as I started walking with God
24:57 and again messier first, I would fall
24:59 and He would say "Get back up."
25:01 But as I kept in that same direction with Jesus Christ,
25:04 I started to get relief from the sexual addiction drive
25:08 and then I also started to get relief
25:10 from the same sex attraction
25:11 and then and then regular attractions
25:14 to the opposite sex started coming in.
25:16 Spiritual growth. That's right.
25:18 And so each one of us...
25:20 I've been out for 13 years, you for over 20
25:23 and Wayne for four
25:24 and we're all still in different positions
25:26 because God knows that He can't give us all of it
25:28 to go through at one sitting.
25:30 He knows that He's gonna give it to us
25:32 as we can handle it.
25:34 And we're here to testify of His saving grace
25:36 at every stage along the way.
25:38 And I might add, my marriage has been for 20 years.
25:42 Now I came out of the gay life 21 years ago,
25:45 I've been married for 20.
25:47 Together we have five children, five grandchildren.
25:50 The Lord is good. Yes. Yes.
25:53 You're powerful example.
25:55 I would just like to say that if you're watching
25:57 and you're part of a church ask for your pastor,
26:02 ask for your leadership to get involved in the process
26:05 because rather than watching...
26:07 I believe that God wants you to get involved
26:09 in the process of the healing.
26:11 And so it isn't the embracing
26:14 of the same-sex attracted individual
26:17 or the sinner with any sin temptation
26:19 that the transformation begins to take place
26:21 as you reflect the love of Jesus Christ.
26:23 Amen. Wayne, that's a great thought.
26:25 And so for audience out there,
26:27 we definitely want to let you know that
26:29 that as we have shared our history
26:31 you can see how the identity has gotten so confused
26:34 by the circumstances and the situations
26:37 that were done in vitro as well as the things
26:40 after we were born and as we were being raised,
26:42 we know that you also probably know
26:44 somebody who is struggling with homosexuality.
26:46 And so we want to encourage you and to talk to your pastor,
26:50 take it to the local conference
26:52 as well as the general conference
26:53 and to let them know that you need these resources
26:56 that you want to be able to reach out to this community.
26:59 And so as you, as you write your letters
27:02 and call your local pastor, we want to encourage you
27:06 that we can actually get the word out
27:08 that there is redemption available for homosexuals.
27:11 And so, Wayne, if you would give us our final thought.
27:15 You know, as a prodigal returning
27:18 versus the church body, it's so important for us
27:21 to keep the spirit of humility with one another.
27:24 My returning and forgiving the church for their ignorance
27:28 and the church in forgiving itself
27:30 for not having addressed this
27:31 over all these years, get involved now.
27:33 Great.
27:35 So as we come to a conclusion, we want to thank you
27:38 for watching our program on Identity Matters.
27:40 As you've experienced today, identity truly does matter
27:44 and we want to encourage you to continue watching
27:46 as Coming Out Ministry hosts on Pure Choices
27:50 during the next several days.


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Revised 2016-02-18