Ray Church, but it will include, you know, LCU
students, tech students, and we're just
real excited about that. Lubbock.
You know, I don't know exactly who's heading it up.
We had about 30-35 folks in leadership there.
Yes, the Zoe conference in March, yes.
That's where we got started, and I know Joey
Drumwright, their campus minister, is involved
with that.
Denise and Warren McNeil are involved.
Rob Stewart, one of their elders.
They had several, if not all, of their elders
present there, and their wives.
So it was just a great, great time with them,
and I'm going to talk a little bit more about
that this morning, because that's what we're
hoping will happen all over the country.
It's time for us to get started.
So welcome back.
I know on the third day of lectureship, we're tired.
It's kind of like being at a retreat or some
kind of youth rally that lasts three days,
summer camp, and you get tired about this time.
But we're very glad that you're here with us
this morning, and look forward to sharing
some things that the Lord is doing here in
Abilene and all over the country.
So Stephen, if you will, lead us in a prayer to
get started.
Father, you are a great and awesome God, and we
come together this morning and praise you
for who you are, and thank you for all that
you've done in our own lives, and in so many
lives before us, and in lives that we have yet
to meet.
Father, we are grateful for opportunities that
we have to participate so powerfully
in your ministry with people who have
experienced brokenness and hurt, as we all have
in some
way or another.
Thank you specifically for this room of people,
and I ask your blessing on each individual
here, and I especially ask your hand of
blessing upon Sally Gary as she leads this ministry.
I pray that you will guide and direct the paths
involved in this ministry to be Jesus
to those experiencing same-sex attractions, and
I ask that you will provide the financial
support that's needed to do this work in your kingdom.
Father, please give this ministry the strength
to overpower all of the obstacles that Satan
puts in its way, and let lives be transformed
to proclaim your glory through this ministry.
In Christ we pray, amen.
I shared my story with you yesterday about my
own brokenness and how the Lord has led
me on a journey, a painful journey, not an easy
journey, but a sweet journey.
The greatest blessing of my life to have my
femininity restored, to have my family restored.
We're not perfect by any means, but we
certainly have experienced what the Lord can do
in a
family that is willing to truly put God first,
to truly put God at the center of our lives,
and I'm very, very grateful for my mom and dad
in that, especially today.
Thank you for being here and joining us in this
journey as my journey continues.
You see, almost immediately upon realizing what
the Lord was doing in my life, realizing
that that freedom was happening, that that
struggle was being removed through a process,
through a process of many years, the Lord began
to put a dream on my heart, a dream
for ministry, a dream that would provide
outreach for other men and women who, like me, were
searching for freedom, were searching for the
ability to live the life that God calls
us to.
And so more and more opportunities grew to
expand that dream and to make that dream become
a reality.
And so I'm very proud today to announce to you
that the Ministry of Centerpiece, the
brochure that you have in your hand, is the
outgrowth of several years of work that I'm
going to tell you about, how we arrived there
and where we're going in the future, and pray
as to how God will perhaps use you as a part of
this ministry, wherever you live, so that
truth can be known for men and women who
experience same-sex attraction.
This is the ministry of Centerpiece, and this
brochure was designed specifically for church leaders.
Good morning.
Church leaders who are engaged in active
ministry, people who have a heart for men and women
who struggle with same-sex attraction.
This is not a brochure that you necessarily
give to someone who's in the midst of that
struggle, especially for someone who has bought
into the idea that this is their identity,
that they have embraced a gay identity.
This is not necessarily something that you say,
here, go read this, be warmed and filled.
This is a brochure that will help church
leaders know how we are to respond, because clearly,
as we talked about yesterday, we just simply
have not known how to respond.
It's out of that ignorance, and I mean that not
in a condescending way, but in a purely
innocent way of our not knowing what to do,
what to say, how to respond, that we have
been afraid and have simply avoided this
conversation for too long.
It's my pleasure to introduce this ministry to
you today.
About seven years ago, I began dreaming what
that ministry would look like and how we would
put that together and what it was that the Lord
called us to.
About three years ago, I went to my elders at
the Highland Church in Abilene and said,
here's my dream, here's where I've been, here's
my heart for this ministry, what can we do?
Knowing the loving, supportive family that they
are, they said, let's talk about this.
So a few of the elders took me to lunch, Jerry
Strader and Roland Orr, Joey Cope joined that
discussion later, and we sat down and talked
about what we would do.
I said, let's put a team together that will
help us look at this, examine this very closely,
so that at every step of the road, we follow
what the Lord calls us to in this ministry.
It's about Him and His glory being revealed in
me and in so many others that's at the
very center of this ministry.
So I asked some dear brothers and sisters, I
first went to Jim and Janine Nichols.
Jim is the chair of the biology department here
at ACU and an elder at Highland, and
he and his wife have been dear friends for a
long time.
And so we had dinner, I shared my story with
him, I shared my heart, and Jim began to work
behind the scenes here at ACU to allow me to
share my story here on campus.
And from there, we added Dr. David Ray there in
the center of the picture, who is in the
Bible department here, Dr. Charles Mattis, Dean
of the first year program, Mark Lewis,
who is campus minister here, and Kurt Boyland
in the back, one of the counselors in the
ACU Counseling Center.
We began to look at what this ministry would
look like.
The first thing that we actually did began on
campus, although this is not an ACU ministry,
it is not a Highland ministry.
Centerpiece is a separate 501c3 organization
incorporated in the state of Texas.
It is its own entity.
I just happen to teach at ACU and happen to go
to Highland, but it's not officially affiliated
with either of those organizations.
How we started was Dr. Money graciously allowed
me to speak in chapel and to share my story,
to share what the Lord had done in my life.
And from there, as you can imagine, any time we
come forward and we make ourselves vulnerable
and we open up and we share, look, here's the
junk that's in my life, guess what happens?
Other people feel free to share their junk.
Other people feel free to come forward and say,
yeah, Sally, that's where I am.
What did you do?
Can you walk with me through that?
Well, of course.
That was my heart.
And so we put a group together.
We put a support group together here at ACU for
students who experience same-sex attraction.
For the last four years, over four years now,
Kurt and I, Kurt Boylan, the counselor, and
I have met in my home once a week with anywhere
from three students to 15 students who come
together and share common experience, share
different stories, but all with a common desire
to live the lives that God calls us to, to be
the men and women that he created us to be.
And so this has been a great blessing to me as
well as to those students who have come.
Many have graduated, and I still keep in touch
with some of those students who have gone
on to other places, who have desires to lead
groups in other places.
And this is what planted the idea in my head.
What if we could transplant what's happening in
my living room to other places?
And so from there, that became one of our main
focuses of the Ministry of Centerpiece.
I want to show you what our purpose statement
is, and you'll find this in the brochure.
This is our two-fold purpose.
What we said we wanted to do, that we felt the
Lord calling us to, was to establish a
ministry that would provide outreach for
everyone who experienced same-sex attraction.
The whole idea of centerpiece is built on the
idea of table fellowship.
The truth that Jesus calls us all to the table,
and we come with all of our junk.
He lets me come with my impatience.
You know, I've asked Him all my life, just
about, to give me patience.
To this day, He's not given me that patience.
I may struggle with impatience for the rest of
my life.
I may struggle with pride and arrogance the
rest of my life.
I may struggle with the idea, the constant
fight that this is about me and not about God.
That I'm in control, and I can do this all by myself.
I may struggle with that until I see Jesus, but
He still lets me come to the table.
He lets me come if I talk about you to other people.
He lets me come if I gossip.
He lets me come if I'm greedy.
He lets me come to the table if I struggle with
materialism, which I do.
He invites me there.
He invites me also when I was in the midst of a
struggle with same-sex attraction.
As you see, He loved me every bit as much in
1993 as He does today.
The fact that I followed Him makes no
difference to the degree that He loves me.
He loved me just the same.
So everybody, all of us, are invited to the
table, including my brothers and sisters who
experience same-sex attraction.
Whether they're on a path that I eventually
chose to say, Lord, I give it all up to You,
and I want to live exactly like You want, and
if that means removing this or calling
me to live this way, regardless of whether you
remove those feelings, then that's what
I want to do.
Even before we're in that place, the Lord calls
us to the table.
And so that's what centerpiece is about.
Centerpiece is different in that respect from
other ministries that you might be familiar
with, ministries in other denominations, the
Umbrella ministry of Exodus, because centerpiece
wants to reach out to men and women who have
embraced a gay identity, who have said, this
is who I am, because we know that what's most
important is a relationship with Jesus, a
relationship with the Lord, and you build on
that first.
And you know what?
When I get to come to the table and be with
you, when I am surrounded by brothers and
sisters in Christ who love me right where I am,
guess what happens?
It's just like eating a meal with Jesus.
I'm right there with Him, and the more I'm with
Him, the more I'm surrounded by you,
the more I want to become like Him, the more I
want to get rid of all the stuff in my life,
the more I'm aware that, Sally, you're not
patient enough, you're not being kind in times
that you need to be kind, and I need to change
that, because I want to be like Jesus.
That's precisely what happens to each one of us
as we come to the table.
So that's what this ministry is about.
That's what this first part says, to embody
Christ's unconditional compassion toward all
persons experiencing same-sex attraction.
We get to come to the table no matter what our
table manners are.
Whether we know which fork to use or not, or we
don't even care about which fork we're
supposed to use, we still get to come to the table.
The second part of our purpose is to support
people who are seeking freedom from unwanted
same-sex attraction, helping them to rediscover
in Christ their true identity as God's children.
It's a two-fold purpose, and I'm going to mix
you up completely because I'm going to
talk about the first purpose last.
So let's talk about the second purpose.
Let's talk about the desire to plant groups
across the globe.
We want to develop a concept that can be taken
to literally all over the world.
I happen to teach at a college campus.
I happen to work with college students.
The Lord happens to have given me a great heart
for college students.
I love college students.
There's a great independence and desire to
start out their lives on the right path, and
I find that in them here at ACU more than
anywhere else that I've ever been exposed.
Not that it's just ACU.
All Christian college campuses, I think all
young people at that age have that desire.
So we developed a program that's still in our heads.
It's not on paper yet, but we want to develop
resources and curriculum that could take those
groups all over the place.
Most recently we did a training workshop at
Lubbock, Monterey, at the Monterey Church
of Christ where we trained a group of 35 men
and women from that church, people in leadership,
people who just had a heart for that ministry,
how to put a group like this together.
We did the same thing on the campus of Oklahoma
Christian University.
Dr. Michael Neal, their president, led that
interest, and Neal Arter, their dean of students,
followed up with that and put a workshop
together for them.
We'll do training for you.
It's my dream that we could plant those groups
in all kinds of campus ministries, all kinds
of churches, literally all over the world.
I have a map that we have in the centerpiece
office in my home, and it did me great joy
to put a red pin on Lubbock and a red pin on
Oklahoma City, and I believe, I believe
that in my lifetime those red pins are going to
grow beyond anything that we can imagine
because men and women like you who have a heart
for this ministry are going to do that.
You're going to step forward and provide a safe
place for people that you know who are
struggling with this.
Let me tell you about the group that happens here.
God has performed a lot of miracles on my red
couch in my living room, literally every week.
Some weeks, you know, you can feel that
miraculous intent a little more than others,
but regardless
of the feeling, God's presence is known in my
living room.
It has grown into such a cohesive group that we
really don't plan anything anymore.
The Spirit truly leads us in that.
When we started out, we got some books, some of
those books that are mentioned on your
resource guide there.
We went through a book, and we'd take a book a semester.
We would open the group at the beginning of the
semester and invite people to come in,
and then after a few times, we would close that
group and say, no more new people this
time because the whole idea of group dynamics
is that you create a safe place, and if you
keep having new people come in all the time,
you disrupt that safety.
People are wondering, well, who's going to be
here now, and I'm not free to open up.
We wanted people to feel safe.
We wanted people to feel free to open up and share.
This has just been a wonderful experience.
I long for the day when we have a video of
students' testimonies where we can show you
exactly what students have gained from those groups.
I believe they would tell you that they do feel safe.
I believe they would tell you that the whole
idea of safety in numbers, and as Rob Bell
says in his new book, Sex God, there's a lot of
power in the words me too.
To know that somebody else has been where
you've been, and what does that look like
at the end of the tunnel?
What does that look like along the journey?
Whether God removes this from your life or not,
can you live a life that's pleasing to Him?
Of course you can.
All things are possible with God, and to hear
that once a week, every week, for the entirety
of your college career, that's a great, great
blessing, a blessing that I didn't have in
this specific context.
I knew that, but not as it directly related to
the struggle that I was facing most, and
that's a great blessing for kids to have that.
Let me tell you what you need.
These are the essentials for providing a safe place.
You may want to take some clear notes on this,
because this is important stuff.
The first thing you need are cookies.
You need cookies.
You need lots of cookies.
People sometimes look at me funny, my Bible
class looks at me funny when I'm repeatedly
asking them, could y'all make some cookies for
the group again?
Sometimes it's just a package of those, you
know, pull apart cookies that you stick in
the oven, but they're baked, and when students
walk in my house, they smell those cookies.
There's something powerful about that.
There's something powerful of being brought
back to a time where many of us grew up with
a mama who would put cookies in the oven.
My mama did that for me, and even though she
couldn't be here today, I know that she's
grinning at the thought of being able to do
that for me.
Do you have any idea how many folks don't have
that memory?
Didn't have a mama to do that for them.
We have cookies, and we will have cookies everywhere.
We have cookies at our display out in the hall
of servants over in the Bible building.
Well, last time I checked, we did have cookies,
and thanks to Casey Higgins, there have been
cookies all the time out there.
I will never forget the day that a young man
stayed after everyone had left, and there's
usually a plate of cookies still left.
We have enough that we have some leftovers.
It was just the two of us sitting there
talking, and he was sharing some things about
his own
life with me.
I just simply got up and said, you want to take
these cookies with you?
I went to the kitchen, and I started putting
them in a baggie, and I didn't think anything
of it at all.
It was just, you know, give this college
student, starving college student, some cookies.
When I came back to give him the baggie, there
were tears running down his face because his
mom had not ever done that for him.
And there was such brokenness in that
relationship that that reminder, that reminder triggered
a whole other conversation, and it allowed us
to go in depth to some of the real pain
that was behind his struggle.
I saw him a few years later.
He came to the door with a plate of cookies in
his hand, and he and I knew what those
cookies meant.
So if you ever, for the members of my Bible
class who may hear these tapes later, if you
ever get tired of baking cookies, just remember
that young man and how special that moment
was to him.
It's amazing what cookies and lemonade can do
to create a sense of warmth and a safety
in a home.
To meet in a home is extremely important.
The most important part of our group is the dog.
Yes, I have a little miniature weenie dog named
Chester, and students like to play ball
with him.
They like to watch him and his antics, so he
provides some entertainment.
The most important part of providing a safe
place for a group is the aspect of confidentiality,
the aspect that what we say in the group stays
in the group.
There hasn't been a problem with that.
I can honestly attest to the fact that we have
not had any problems with confidentiality.
Let's face it.
Most people who will come to that group don't
want anybody else to know they've been at
the group.
So they're not going to say, well, guess who I
saw over at Sally's the other day?
Is it scary to come to my house?
You better believe it is.
You better believe it's scary.
It takes courage beyond belief for a student to
come that very first time, and that needs
to be supported.
I've had students who have parked way down the
street and walked.
Students who have walked just hoping and
praying that nobody sees them going in the
other direction
while everybody else is going to Moody to chapel.
There have been semesters when we've met at
chapel time, and students have been given
chapel credit.
I turn a list in to the dean, and the dean is
the only one who sees that.
Nobody else has access to that list, and they
get chapel credit.
But most of the time, we've met in the evenings
because that gives us more time to discuss.
But it takes a tremendous amount of courage.
That is the scariest thing that a student can do.
I personally, the question is whether or not
you would have a group meeting at the church building.
I recommend a home simply because there's
something very special about being invited
to someone's home.
Jesus going to Zacchaeus' home.
There's a message in that that says, we're on
the same level there.
You are invited to be a part of my family in my home.
I think that's very critical there.
The perception of going to a church building
makes it more support groupish.
We think of the old episodes of Bob Newhart
where he has the support group.
Well, some of you are not old enough to
remember Bob Newhart, but you remember those support
group images that there's something wrong with
me that I've got to fix.
This is more of a place of safety and warmth
and being invited into somebody's home.
There's a closeness that we've experienced.
I don't have to clean house anymore.
These are my kids.
This is my family.
If I get that feeling, I'm hopeful and
prayerful that they get that feeling too
because that
is the kind of love in that environment that we
want to share.
So, yeah, do it at home if you can.
We have only two rules and I'm not a big rule
person, but it's important to me that students
feel safe in my home.
What happens with the rules, number one, you
need to be very intentional about the purpose
for which you are coming and that is to seek
out the life that God calls you to live.
You are seeking a deeper relationship with God.
That is of utmost importance to you.
That means, therefore, you are not coming for
the purpose of finding some type of inappropriate
Inappropriate relationships will not cut it.
You're not coming there to find someone of the
same gender to form an inappropriate relationship
I can be very honest with you and say that that
has not been a problem.
Is it true that there may be feelings of
attraction for students in that group?
Of course.
There may be feelings of attraction with a
group leader in your situation and people
who are coming from the group.
Does that have to be a problem?
Of course not.
We've been very fortunate, I thank God, that
students have been so intent on truly seeking
Him that they've come and confessed those
things to me.
They have come and said, look, I'm having trouble.
This is really difficult for me.
I'm attracted to this person who's in the group.
Does that mean I can't come?
Well, of course not.
What are you thinking is going to happen there?
Do you have some accountability?
You're having accountability with me right now
and I am honored by that.
Those are the kinds of rules that you set up.
Plus, again, let's not talk and disclose what
someone may reveal in confidence to us outside
of the group.
I think it's worked very well because we have
people praying for this group all the time.
The second purpose that we have is what we
talked about earlier and that is that we want
to go into a world that either doesn't know
Jesus in the first place or what we've learned
of Jesus is not very appealing.
That process started a long time ago.
If we look, however, just at the past 10 years,
I could take you through an entire history
of how we have treated the issue of
homosexuality, but let's look, because we're
limited for
time this morning, let's look just at the last
10 years.
In 1998, a man by the name of Matthew Shepard,
do you remember the story of Matthew Shepard
in Wyoming?
He was a college student, 18-year-old in
Laramie, Wyoming, was in a bar one night and
two men
who were there at the bar discovered that he
had embraced a gay identity and they started
harassing him, started teasing him, actually
enticed him to go with them and they took
him out to an open, remote field and killed
him, left him for dead.
On the day of his funeral, another man by the
name of Fred Phelps, Topeka, Kansas, from
the Westboro Baptist Church, led a group of
people who called themselves Christian to
Matthew's funeral and they carried around signs
outside Matthew's funeral that said
God hates fags.
Reverend Phelps has devoted himself to this
fight against homosexuality by doing such things.
He targets the funerals of men and women who
have died of AIDS.
Most recently, a young man who was killed at
Virginia Tech, whose funeral was in Augusta, Georgia.
Reverend Phelps was there with his group and in
the name of Jesus, they marched around.
That's the kind of message we are up against.
When that's been the message of Jesus, can you
imagine what an uphill battle it is to
say, oh no, what's really needed here is a deep
and personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Wait a second, the same Jesus that this Fred
Phelps guy is carrying around?
I don't think so.
Then we have messages like this from the
Reverend Jerry Falwell in referring to 9-11.
The reason the Twin Towers were hit by those
planes was because there were homosexuals
in the building, touted all over the media,
made the headlines.
Reverend Falwell later apologized for that
statement because he realized how inaccurate
it was, for starters, but also how hurtful it was.
To his credit, he apologized, but the damage
was done.
This is what the world sees as Christianity.
If you and I are silent, if you and I don't
take up for the Rogers that we talked about
yesterday, and maybe we don't approve, and
maybe we wouldn't overtly say something so
heinous as this, but we didn't say anything at
all, can you imagine what a battle we have
ahead of us to take Christ to the world?
I'm up for that battle.
I hope you are too, because the Lord who leads
that battle is capable of anything, more than
we can ask or imagine, and we can combat
statements like this, but it's going to take
every one
of us.
It's going to take efforts that are a little
outside of our comfort zone.
The second goal of Centerpiece is to someday
provide an internship program that will train
men and women, prepare teams of people to go
and live in predominantly gay communities,
live and work there, get jobs in that
community, live in the neighborhoods, move to Oaklawn
in Dallas, move to the Montrose area in
Houston, move to DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C .,
move to South Beach in Miami, and live there
and work there among people who need to know
who Jesus is, not the Jesus that Fred Phelps
carried around, not the Jesus that Jerry Falwell
talks about, but Jesus who lived and worked and
conversed with the people that the Pharisees condemned.
That's what we want to do with Centerpiece, is
to take Him to a world that doesn't have
an accurate picture.
I love this neighborhood picture because it
reminds me of my friends Brady and Misty Cottle
who are in Oaklawn in Dallas.
Brady is a former struggler whom the Lord set
free several years ago.
He and his wife Misty and their little baby
daughter that they adopted from China live
in Oaklawn.
They have a home there.
They're sponsored by the Farmer's Branch Church
in Dallas.
Brady and Misty take their little girl in her
stroller and roam through the neighborhoods
praying for the men and women who live as their
neighbors in that neighborhood.
They know their neighbors.
They invite their neighbors over for meals.
Once a week at Brady and Misty's house, they
sponsor a home church.
On Saturday nights, they have worship there
anywhere from 35-40 people from all over
the Dallas-Fort Worth area come and worship
with them.
They have another night where they have a meal
in their home for the men and women in
their neighborhood.
That's the kind of thing that Centerpiece hopes
to plant literally all over the country.
Will we be able to measure how many people are
coming to Jesus with something like that?
Probably not.
We may never know the lives that we're touching
because of that.
But God will.
And let God reap that harvest there.
But we're to plant seeds.
And that's what I hope that we can do someday
with the ministry of Centerpiece is to plant
those seeds in neighborhoods.
Maybe we buy a coffee shop in that neighborhood.
Doesn't have to be a Starbucks.
I just like the Starbucks emblem on the slide.
But maybe we buy a coffee shop and we train
people here in Abilene how to work in that
coffee shop, how to manage and run that coffee
shop, and then you move to an urban area,
a smaller town, and put something like that in
and it becomes a meeting place.
It becomes a place where people congregate.
And every morning when the same person comes
in, you remember that person's name.
And over time, you develop a relationship.
And over time, that person begins to see that
there's something different about you and
the way you respond to that person.
And yeah, you might know that the person
identifies himself as being gay.
That doesn't change how you respond.
Doesn't change the smile on your face.
It doesn't change the kindness in your voice.
And so hopefully there's a relationship that
can develop there over a cup of coffee.
The most important thing that I can share with
you this morning about how to respond
to someone who is in the midst of this
struggle, it's one thing to start a group.
Not every one of you will be called to do that.
Not every one of you can do that in your
community, in your church, although I ask you
to pray
about that because sometimes we think we can't.
Lord, you can't use me.
I wouldn't know what to say.
I wouldn't know what to do.
Oh, that's what we're here for.
We're here to equip you.
We're here to help you, train you to know how
to do that.
But not every one of you will be called to that.
Not every one of you will be called to work in
this internship program.
Not every one of you will be able to do that
for whatever reason.
God calls us to different things.
But most likely you're here this morning, you
came yesterday because you know somebody
who struggles.
You know somebody that you have a heart for
already and you want to know how to help.
Praise God for you.
Praise God for you in people's lives because
you may be the one connection to Jesus that
that person has.
So stay close.
And don't worry that I don't know what to say,
I don't know what to do.
Just keep on loving people.
Keep on loving people just like Jesus did.
And pray for those opportunities to have those
conversations if that's what's needed.
And God will give you those words.
He's already given you the heart.
And that's such a great encouragement.
It gives me goosebumps to think about that
because I know what a difference you make
in men and women's lives.
Sometimes we feel kind of like Denzel
Washington in the movie Philadelphia.
We'll watch a scene from this movie, I don't
know if you've seen it.
Back in the mid-90s, I think 93, 94, the movie
Philadelphia came out.
It's the story of a man played by Tom Hanks.
Tom Hanks won the Academy Award for his role as
a man who was an attorney working for a
firm in Philadelphia who contracted AIDS and he
was later fired when the firm learned that
he had AIDS.
He files a wrongful termination suit and he
goes to Denzel Washington to represent him
in that case.
And upon first meeting, Denzel didn't even want
to shake Tom Hanks' hand.
He didn't want to have anything to do with him
at all.
He has a conversation with his wife about how
disgusting that whole idea of homosexuality
was to him and he didn't even want to have
anything to do with Tom Hanks because of it.
He comes around.
The movie is all about the transformation of
Denzel Washington's character.
How he comes to realize that Tom Hanks is a guy
just like any other guy.
His struggle just looks a little bit different
from others.
And so in this scene that we're about to watch,
we see Tom Hanks nearing the end of his life
and it's the night before he's to take the
stand the next morning at the trial and give
his testimony.
And so Denzel is trying to go over the question
and answer period that they will have.
The Q&A as he calls it.
Tom Hanks is more concerned about other things,
more important matters in his life as he faces death.
So he wants to have those conversations but
Denzel Washington is struggling with that.
Let's watch and see how Denzel responds.
I would like to think that when he utters the
name of Jesus that that's who he's thinking
of and how Jesus would have gone back in there.
Jesus would have never left that man in such a
state of pain.
Nearing the end of his life and the questions
that he must have had on his heart.
The things that he must have been considering
and what a perfect opportunity to speak to
him about truth.
To speak to him about how God can take all
those fears that he must have been feeling.
That he can make all that right.
That it's never too late.
What an opportunity he had and yet his own fear
I think kept him from doing that.
His own discomfort.
You know the whole opera thing.
Maybe there are things that we're not
comfortable with that another person finds dear
and maybe
we don't know about that but it's important to
that person and it's important for me to
get out of my comfort zone.
To relate to them on whatever level they may
want to relate.
To be all things to all people as Paul tells us.
I think that's important for us to do when we
try to interact with someone who experiences
same sex attraction.
Maybe it's uncomfortable for us.
Maybe we don't know what to say but the things
that are essential for us to say we do know.
The things that are essential for us to do we
already know.
That's why you're here this morning.
That's why you're listening to this message
because you want to show the love of Jesus
to someone who doesn't know it or has forgotten
or has been completely disillusioned to the
fact that God loves each of us no matter where
we are.
Take those opportunities to be Jesus.
In fact I like to put it like this.
To be an Ananias to someone.
You remember the story of Ananias?
When Saul is on the road to Damascus and Jesus
is revealed to him and he loses his sight
there on the road and meanwhile back in
Damascus God is saying to Ananias.
Now look this guy Saul I'm going to send him to
you and I want you to take care of him.
I want you to go get him and bring him to your
home again and I want you to feed him
and take care of him and help him restore his sight.
What does Ananias say in Acts 9?
He says wait a minute Lord.
Don't you remember who this guy is?
You know he's the one who's been throwing all
of us into jail.
He's the one who's been killing us and you want
me to go get him and bring him into my house?
Bring him into my home and take care of him?
Well yeah Ananias I do.
I do want you to do that because he's going to
be my voice.
He's going to be my messenger.
He's important to me right where he is no
matter what he's done.
No matter where he's been or where he is right
now I want you to go get him so that you can
help restore his sight.
We've got to be an Ananias to the men and women
that God puts in our lives.
People that the other folks may ridicule us for befriending.
You may face some persecution.
You may face some doubts yourself.
The enemy will do anything he can to try to
keep you from being Jesus to someone who needs Jesus.
And that discouragement, that doubt, all of
that stuff.
People saying well why are you having anything
to do with them?
Well them is me.
Them is one of us.
There is no them and we.
It's all we.
We're all in the same boat and we've got to
reach out and be an Ananias to someone.
So you're probably asking yourselves how can I
get on board with this ministry?
How can I become a centerpiece supporter?
Let me tell you the most important thing that
you can do for this ministry is to pray.
To stay on your knees asking God to bless this
work, to open doors, to provide opportunities
for us to share truth with folks who need to
know the truth.
For churches to open hearts and open doors to
people who have been ostracized and excluded.
To help us learn together about the truth.
So pray for that to happen.
The 2nd thing is to host a centerpiece workshop
at your home congregation so that
you can better understand the same sex struggle.
What I find is that people are starved for information.
They simply do not know what to do.
They do not know how to help.
Just like in the movie clip, Denzel Washington
is not a bad guy.
He's a good guy.
He's a sweet man with a kind heart.
He just simply didn't know how to respond.
He needs someone to help him because I think
there's a willingness there.
And so we're more than happy to come in and
help you understand so that you can reach
out more effectively.
Invite centerpiece to train your congregation
to form a support group like the one we talked
about earlier.
I want red pens on that map in my house all
over the world.
By the time I get to go home, if it's a long
time from now, I want those pens all over
the globe so that there's a safe place in your home.
You see, it's one thing to say, oh, well now I
know somebody that my friend can call, that
my son, my daughter can call.
Yes, that's very true.
I've got a phone number I'm going to give you
in just a second and I would love to talk
to someone that you know is in the midst of
this struggle.
But how much more effective it is if the person
you love can talk to you, can talk to people
in his or her home, people that you've grown up with.
I know what that's like because I felt the need
to go somewhere else, to go far away
from the people who knew me and loved me and
that I had to interact with every week because
will you look at me the same?
Will you respond to me the same?
I know the truth is now that you would have.
I know that now.
But the fear is so great that if I tell you,
you will turn away that there is a need to
go somewhere else for help and we want to refer
people out.
Is Centerpiece a referral ministry?
I hope someday it is.
I hope that I can get a call like I got last
week from way far across the country and I
can say, oh yes, I know someone there, someone
who hosts a support group in your hometown,
in your home congregation and here's who you
call and you can go there and you will be
loved and you will be safe.
That's what I long for in this ministry and we
can make that happen.
It's not happening fast enough.
I told you I struggled with patience.
This is one of the biggest ways, but I know
that that can happen.
Next to the last, start a book club.
This is something we started just this last week.
Barry and I started that and we invite you to
join us.
We're going to meet once a month to go through
books on your resource list, books that will
help us understand the same sex struggle.
You can do that in your home congregation.
If you start with two people, go to three,
four, however many that you can get, that
is going to send a message loud and clear to
the person in your congregation who experiences
same sex attraction but is afraid to tell you.
If that's announced that we're going to have
this book club because we want to understand
and we want to be able to reach out more
effectively, guess what will happen?
The person in the midst of that struggle will
become safer and safer and safer to tell you
that they're in the midst of that trouble.
Last, but certainly not least, you can make a
tax-deductible contribution to Centerpiece.
We are looking for churches and individuals who
will partner with us in this ministry.
We've got a lot of work that needs to be done.
We have a lot of resource material that needs
to be created and that takes time and energy
and I have a full-time job.
We long for the day when we can devote more and
more of our time and attention to that
effort so that we can do workshops like this
all over the place.
That's my dream for Centerpiece.
If you need to get in touch with us, here's
where you can do that.
Our email address is centerpieceinc at Gmail.c
Om, C-E-N-T-E-R-P-E-A-C-E-I-N-C at G-M-A-I-L.C -O-M.
Or you can check out our website that's not
officially launched but it's up for the time
being at H-T-T-P colon backslash Backslash
C-E-N-T-E-R-P-E-A-C-E dot I-N-F-O backslash.
Or you can contact us at our new phone.
This is a cell phone that I keep and so if you
call this number, you're going to hear
my voice. 325-232-2528.
You get to hear a good old Texas accent.
Yes ma'am.
The website is up at the address that I just
gave you, the one that's on the slide.
It will officially be launched as soon as we
can make that happen.
We thought it would be last April and then May
and June and July, but it will happen.
I can promise you that.
Oh, I am so grateful for your hearts in coming today.
I look in your faces and I see that you have
hearts that want to be Jesus to people and
I'm thankful for that because that's what makes
a difference on this earth.
If I can answer any questions for you, I
certainly want to do that.
I'll lead us in a prayer to close out here and
then if you want to stick around and visit,
I am more than willing and available to do that.
If now's not the time, we can visit over the
phone later and I'm the one who checks this
email also.
So feel free to ask me any questions.
Let's pray.
Lord, I'm so grateful for the ways that you
work in our lives, for the miracles that
you perform on a daily basis that sometimes we
see and sometimes we're not yet aware of,
but you are working in each of our lives.
You are alive and present in our hearts and I'm
grateful for that.
I just pray that you would make us more and
more aware of your presence, of your power
to redeem us from the pit, to change us in ways
that the world thinks are not possible.
I pray for just more and more growth of centerpiece.
I pray your richest blessings on this ministry.
I pray that you would bring forth reapers for
the harvest, Lord.
The fields are ripe and we each know men and
women who are in the midst of a struggle with
same-sex attraction, whether they deem it as a
struggle or not, there is pain there,
there is hurt there, and we just ask your
blessings on those who are in that struggle
that you will bring peace and joy and comfort
and that you would put us in each other's
lives to be you to each other, to remind us of
how much you love us.
Thank you so much for that love, Lord.
Make us more like Jesus.
It's in his name we pray, amen.
Yes, you bet, I'd be more than happy to do that.
That's a very legitimate question, and I think,
let's address one thing first, and that is
this phrase of the gay lifestyle. No.
Oh, no, there's no need for you to apologize.
That's the phrase that I use, and I'll tell you
why I use that, and that is because I
don't ever want to be labeled according to
something that I consider my sin, just like
you don't want to be labeled according to your sin.
I will never put the label gay or lesbian on
anyone, even my friends, and I have dear
friends who have embraced a gay identity, who
have come to believe that that is who
they are, and we are friends, and we are
brothers and sisters in Christ, and that will
not change
because of a label that someone has chosen to
put on himself or herself.
But I will not call you gossip.
I will not call you fornicator.
I will not call you adulterer.
I will not put arrogant on your forehead and
refer to my arrogant friend.
You're a child of God.
I'm a child of God.
Nothing we can ever do or say or think or feel
can change that.
Now, your question was to the students who are
coming to this group and whether or not
they are actively embracing a gay identity.
No, the students who come to this group are not.
Now, does that mean that there is not an
ongoing question in some minds, perhaps, as to is
this who I am, because you see, the world says
that's who I am.
The world has that message, and it is constant.
I didn't have to grow up with that.
Students that I work with now have to grow up
with that message on a daily basis.
They are bombarded by the media, and even some
of us in the church have bought into
the fact, well, maybe this is who God made them
to be, because the biology that we talked
about yesterday, because of the biological
argument that I'm no more than my physiology.
Well, of course you are.
Of course, as followers of Christ, we know that
we allow God to enter the picture, that
the Holy Spirit dwells within us and gives us
power that we can't even imagine, and so
we are not controlled by our bodies.
But are there some students who are wrestling
with that question?
Of course there are.
And anywhere you go, you will have people who
are at different places in that journey.
I grew up at a different time, and I never
bought into that lie that this was who God
made me to be, and that that was okay.
My students today have to confront that
constantly, and when there is no message from
the church
other than, well, that's a sin, that's an
abomination, that's just, quote, sick.
When that's the only message, there's no
opportunity for free disclosure of, look, this
is where
I am, I don't know what to do with this.
When it's met by total condemnation without the
love and support that's needed to change
anything about us that's not within God's will,
then what do you do with that?
You go to a community that will embrace you.
You begin to resolve that dissonance in your
mind in a way that will help you feel better.
Does that...
Yes, that helps a lot. Not
all of the members of the Soulforce group were Christian.
My question is in regard to the Soulforce group
and their visit to the ACU campus in
2006, March 27th.
I remember the day very well.
I am so proud of my alma mater for the way that
we responded to that, and I, too, Applaud
Dr. Money's leadership in that.
I got to be a part of that planning team and
sit in on the planning sessions in preparation
for that visit, and I know that my brothers and
sisters here on this campus, their desire
was to be Jesus to the men and women who came
with the Soulforce group.
It was our impression that Soulforce was a
Christian group.
It was led by the Reverend Mel White, who is a
gay activist out of Oakland, California,
and is the leader of the Metropolitan Community Church.
Mel certainly is a brother in Christ, a
believer, but he believes that this is who God made
him to be and has been very actively involved
in a campaign to promote that ideology across
the country.
He put together the group of Soulforce, a group
of college students who would visit
college campuses all across the country who
have any policy prohibiting homosexual conduct.
So ACU was targeted as one of those campuses,
and we were one of the few that allowed that
visit and invited students with that group to
come in, and we had meals together.
We listened to presentations given by the
Soulforce group, and they, likewise, were
very courteous to listen to us.
I presented my story and just shared what the
Lord had done in my life at a luncheon
that day, and that was not well received.
The message that there's an alternative to this
perhaps being something that can be changed
is not well received, and I understand why that
is so hurtful.
It's a hurtful message when you have embraced
an idea that has come from confusion and struggle
and pain, and then to have accepted, this is
who I am, and to have someone challenge
that is very hurtful.
I understand that, but at the same time, truth
sets us free, and that is my truth.
That is my experience.
Not everyone in the group is Christian.
Not everyone was even a believer.
I met students who were atheists, and so that's
where a lot of the struggle came in.
And there was no common ground among everyone there.
But a very, very respectful group, sweet, sweet
group of students that came.
You bet.
Yes, Ma'am.
Of course not.
I understand issues about minors, you know,
that you're teaching minors something if you
start about being a minor.
Is there a reason we don't do that?
The question is concerning at what age do we
start trying to help when there's gender
identity confusion.
As we talked about yesterday, there are some
developmental issues, some environmental issues
that can be relearned.
We can help parents to understand some things
to do and not to do in homes as we raise our
children, as we're raising men and women to be
masculine or feminine beings as God created
them to be.
I long for the day when we have materials and a
workshop for parents that will help
parents to know, here's how I can help my child
have a healthy gender identity.
That's what's needed, and especially in the church.
We have this idea that our little boys just pop
out little boys and little girls just
pop out little girls and that there is nothing
that alters that.
But there is, as we talked about yesterday.
There are messages, relationships that are not
as God intended between mom and dad and
mom and daughter and all across the board there.
So those kinds of things, yes, we can change that.
We can learn a better way to do that.
Can we address children's needs at a very early
age and perhaps prevent the development
of same-sex attraction?
I think so.
That's true.
The concern is for junior high, and my answer
to that would be it didn't start in junior high.
It's already becoming what's overt. Exactly.
It is already becoming, there is a phenomenon,
especially with little girls at the junior
high age.
There's a name for it called LUG, L-U-G,
Lesbians Until Graduation, and just this popular
idea of that being a fad that girls will be
attracted to girls, even as early as junior
high age.
And I have spoken with some young teenagers in
that dilemma.
Is that something that needs to be addressed?
Well, of course it does, of course.
And we can't get there fast enough.
We're working now to see if there's a way that
we can help the public schools address
this problem, to approach this more from a, you
know, not just tolerance.
And my friend that I was visiting with
yesterday shared this idea that we go beyond tolerance.
We share the love of Christ, and the love of
Christ is a lot more than just tolerance.
But we have not shared that message.
Our message has been this is the way, the only
way, and we want to fix you rather than
simply sharing love first and then letting the
Lord take care of what needs to be taken
care of there.
I think there are lots of things that we could
do, but it's a matter of getting information
in the right places.
And there are coaches pushing in the other direction.
Exactly, exactly.
And I would love to visit with you more about
that, about some ways that we can help.
Any other questions?