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On Palm Sunday, Lent becomes Holy Week—the seven days leading to the cross. Perhaps the parallel between Jesus’ 40-days in the desert and His commitment to crucifixion is becoming clear. Jesus sanctified the desert for us. He made a way in our wilderness. Instead of a place of temptation unto despair, He transformed ‘the desert of loneliness into a garden of solitude’ (Leanne Payne). His reliance upon the Father there grants us grace to encounter Him in the harsh realities of

At the core of my same-sex attraction was the struggle to find a father, and so discover my own masculine power and purpose. I had a father alright, and a pretty good one: Thomas Augustus Comiskey. But for most of my life I could not apprehend that goodness, much less take it on as my own. In a language familiar to any desert creature in need of living water, I detached from him early on in my life. My own rebellion, coupled with his relational faults, inspired a wall. Behind

While en route to a Living Waters Leadership gathering in Europe, I was moved deeply by God’s heart for His European bride. The church there has played such a foundational role in western culture; from her has come our art, our music, our philosophy, and our ethics. In spite of her many faults and divisions, she continues to bear fruit that remains. She is the apple of God’s eye. I thought of our small band of wounded healers gathered in Holland from all over Europe—faithfull

At the dawn of the new millennium, I noticed a growing darkness in the area of gender and sexuality. Powerless to overcome perversion, western culture used its power to justify all manner of sexual expression. Around that time, I had a dream about a group of young people who were confused and seeking answers to their sexual identity questions. They were on a secular college campus. Older gay mentors began to confirm them as bona-fide gays and lesbians; as they laid hands on t

While doing a conference in Denver many years ago, a vigorous young man introduced himself to me as Christopher West; he was then the ‘marriage and family’ guy for the Archdiocese of Denver. He loved our emphases on healing through the cross and community. And he wanted me to have a copy of John Paul II’s book: The Theology of the Body, the late great pope’s sweeping take on human sexuality. Wow. What a meal. For the next couple of years I slowly ate what I now regard as perh

I hate idolatry. The worship of false gods turns humans into animals. While worship of the one true God humbles and exalts what is best in humanity, idolatry enslaves us. No-where is this more evident to me than in Thailand–the first nation I served that had no Judeo-Christian foundation. Through the veneer of Thai women dressed as dainty goddesses and orange-clad monks bending incessantly to Buddha, sexual immorality reaches new lows. The devotion to myriad gods and goddesse

I met Benjie Cruz at the onset of our first trip to the Philippines. Virmi, our gracious host, had arranged for him to be our liaison as we prepared for our first conference in Manila. Like our advances in any new country, particularly those lands where ‘religion’ tends to be very popular, I knew that the church establishment would applaud our efforts. From a distance. Most church leaders would encourage obviously ‘broken ones’ to attend but would steer clear of our gathering

Running hard in the jungles of Venezuela or on the pampas of Argentina (or crazy lost anywhere in Europe) may sound fun but actually it is exhausting. And so I was upon returning home after a particularly arduous trip. Annette and I took a few days off—no release; I increased my sleep each night—no release. Everything seemed hard and a hassle; even normal sources of connection and renewal seemed more a drain than a gift. I was approaching burn-out (the experts call it ‘pre bu

We landed in Caracas, Venezuela—the first of many advances in South America. The soil was rich for digging, and God’s merciful ones received us with open arms. Still we faced numerous obstacles to releasing Living Waters there. Suitcases never arrived; flights were cancelled, and the buses we took instead landed us in the wrong destinations. During our first training, in the jungle above Caracas, I stretched my bed-sheets tight across my frame to prevent the small unidentifie

Toni Dolfo-Smith’s help to me in Germany was but a glimmer of what he offered to the global work of Living Waters. He has since come alongside of me to release Living Waters in humility and power; he is matchless in mercy. I first met Toni 20 years ago at a Leanne Payne conference in Canada. I was on her team; he was curious. As a man vital in faith who had come out of homosexuality and recently married, he wanted to understand the ministry of ‘Living Waters’ and to benefit f

In the expanding world of Living Waters, God’s mercy always took the form of my travelling partners: alongside of men like Kin Lancaster, and women like Sonja Stark (our first international coordinators), we were able to overcome cultural and spiritual hurdles to releasing water from the Rock, Christ’s beautiful, broken bride. No solo efforts here. We became a united ‘body’ to serve the Body. All over the world. Jet-lagged, facing crowds for whom our offering was all-new, usu

One of the perils of my long distance running overseas is the threat of getting lost. No idle threat: I have been thoroughly disoriented in the great capitols of Europe (and beyond)–without map, address, or language with which to find a way ‘home’. I now recall amusedly what was then ‘panic in the streets’ of Helsinki, Rotterdam, Milan, Bergen, Munich, Copenhagen, and Brussels, to name a few. Yet nothing compared to the panic I experienced in the forests of Fountainbleu—the h

Digging ditches for God’s mercy to flow into the desert of sexual and relational brokenness—hard work made joyful by amazing workmen. No-one provoked more joy for Annette and me than partnering in ministry with Jonathan Hunter. We met Jonathan early on at the Vineyard Westside; he saturated himself with our early expressions of ‘Living Waters.’ As one who came out of homosexuality, Jonathan progressed quickly in holiness. He then sought to give himself generously to God’s pur

Throughout the eighties, Fuller Theological Seminary helped us to establish a sure foundation for our offering of mercy. (I was a student there studying for a Masters of Divinity, and to become a Marriage and Family Therapist.) Three recollections: my most demanding and fruitful course, ‘Theological Anthropology’ taught by Dr. Ray Anderson, probed the depth of what it meant to bear God’s image as male and female—it so resonated with my calling to restore that image through th

The first few years of Desert Stream had been defined by same-sex strugglers; that began to change as the word got out that men and women were digging a deep well of mercy in West Hollywood. Three particular groups of people broadened the scope of our offering. The contribution influenced the formation of the ‘Living Waters’ program. The first group was sexually addicted men. At that point, no one used such language (the term ‘sexual addiction’ was first coined in 1984). Yet

Although most of the healing and care-giving we did was behind closed doors, the waters levels rose and poured out onto the streets. The mercy could not be limited to the church; as Ezekiel prophesied (Ez. 47), the temple waters rose from our church, the Vineyard Westside and flowed eastward onto Santa Monica Blvd in West Hollywood, the center of the gay scene in LA. Charlie’s house, where our first group met for a couple of years, was right off the Blvd. It was thus an easy

Every Wednesday night for two years, we met in the home of a well-known interior designer. Charlie, along with many of his friends, was riding the first popular wave of gay activity on the West Coast. But after the disco and drug-induced orgies, these men and women cried out for mercy. Our pastor, Kenn, had introduced us to Charlie, a new convert at our burgeoning Vineyard Church. Annette and I would drive down Wilshire in her Voyager, with varying degrees of tension between

Three persons—three distinct currents of mercy—poured into Annette and I and became foundational to how we loved and served. Without them, our offering of mercy would not have been realized. Period. Each of us depends on human sources of God’s mercy to find life in the desert. These ones were Jesus’ agents for us. They helped transform our burning sand into pools. John Wimber was a pastor, church planter, and founder of the Vineyard Church Movement. God gifted him to release

Around this time I was baptized in the Pacific Ocean. Amid a winter storm, my pastor dunked me into the waters, and counted the old man dead. I arose with Christ into new life. It was timely. I needed to know that something really had changed beyond my subjective experience—how what Jesus did in entering those waters Himself and emerging out of them as the Beloved Son had relevance to me. Jesus’ baptism was unto death; His dunking foreshadowed Crucifixion. Similarly, His emer

The temptation to fall with other men sexually increased after I first proclaimed healing from homosexuality. The word of my testimony, through which one triumphs over evil (Rev. 12:11), seemed to invite the evil one to nail me! Now I see clearly, then I did not. I had become known (In a limited way) as one who had overcome the ‘gay self’. That declaration need to be refined. So God allowed some desert heat to test me. Would I stay true to Him even if offered a chance to real