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Friends, I am just finishing a wonderful break with Annette and children and grandkids; I leave tomorrow with Abbey for our first Living Waters Training in Ubon Thailand. Ubon, near the Laos border, is a Buddhist stronghold with extremely limited Christian presence. We delight in all who will join us there, including leaders and participants from churches in six other Asian nations. Please pray for our freedom on all fronts to love and serve Southeast Asia wisely. Your prayer

‘We are struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.’ (2Cor 4: 9b, 10) As our fast continues, I am especially grateful for the parents of strugglers who are becoming prayer warriors. I believe that the mightiest members of God’s healing army today are mothers and fathers whose children have ‘come out’ as LGBT+. Struck down by unintentional acts of domestic violence, these parents

As we proceed on our 40 days of prayer/fasting for loved ones, we discover a marvelous truth: prayer leads to intimacy with God. Simply being in His presence revives the soul. The God who gave all to gain us grants us a share in His generosity. Our stingy prayers swell with mercy for persons most in need of it. Prayerful intimacy makes us fruitful once more. The peace of His Presence contrasts with the holy unrest we feel when we entertain false intimacy. That includes turnin

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.’ (Matt. 5:7) Mercy is the heart of God. Fittingly, mercy is the core theme of the Beatitudes: the poor, the mournful, the meek and hungry welcome mercy like rain on broken dry ground. Jesus then exhorts such receivers to extend that unfailing love to those who fail them. No easy thing. To look with pity on the poor ‘out there’ and to give something of God’s generosity is one thing; to release captives who have captivate

‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ (Matt. 5:5) Weeping over one’s poverty is a gift. The contrite heart cries. Consequences of sin in our own lives and in persons we love reduce us to grief. Yet for that grief to become good, raised from the ‘worldly sorrow that brings forth death’ (2 Cor 7:10), we must surrender to Jesus. He bears our affliction and transports us to His Kingdom. There, divine comfort coaxes us to exchange rags for riches. The King defi

How do you love someone whose self has become a defense? My friend John found it easier to present outrageous escapades than the longings of his heart. At times we wondered: are gay sex and drugs really that important to him? We needed mercy to remind ourselves that the real John was much more than both. I first met John 35 years ago, before AIDS even had a name. He then lived in West Hollywood from which he bounced to San Francisco then back, a ricochet driven by failed atte

By Ann Armstrong We are heading into the joy of Christmas. In preparation for His birth, might you join us in ‘Twenty Days for Mercy’? Through prayer and fasting, we shall implore the Child-King to release those blinded by other masters. From November 6th to the 25th, we shall pray both for the sexually broken and for the Church, that she might reflect His mercy well. Truly the sexually broken are ‘harassed and rendered helpless’ by worldly powers (Matt. 9: 33-35); only mercy

Twenty Days For Mercy Info Page // Fasting Tips // Daily Requests // Daily Devotions By Ann Armstrong Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.” Mark 2: 19, 20 Several years ago I was introduced to the Bridegroom fast at IHOP Kansas City. The idea behind such a fast is that we, Jesus follow

I need a Spirited kick to rouse me from routine, the everyday drone that can drown out what God wants. Recently, God goaded me to share a bit of my story with a certain man. Unbeknownst to me, he was a Christian who had just gotten into his first serious ‘gay’ relationship. He did not like what I said but the Spirit wanted him to know something else. Or the other day, weary from a long day of demands, God called me to visit a neighbor who, recently widowed, was in an unusuall

‘Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shone like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.’ (PS 37: 5, 6) Last week’s Time Magazine featured photos of sexy lip-locked gay couples under the heading: ‘How Gay Marriage Won.’ The popular media prophesies an utterly gay-friendly America; in the words of Time, we are ‘eyewitnesses of history’, the successful homosexualization of our culture with ‘gay marriage

True marriage bears witness to all people, including to persons with same-sex attraction, of something deeper and more beautiful than two people sharing lives. It reveals a quality of sacrifice and mutual submission not unlike Jesus’ love for us. Early on in my journey out of homosexuality, still confused as to my sexual future, I caught glimpses of my parents’ love for each other. However imperfect, they always conveyed respect to each other; I noticed the very specific ways

‘Since we have confidence to enter the Most holy place through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us by His body, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith…’ (Heb. 10: 19-22) My friend Dean Greer returned broken to the church of his youth. He had left years earlier to explore the homosexual life; fed up with his folly and under the death sentence of HIV, he needed a place to rebuild his life. He discovered a hard truth: ‘The

‘Am I stone and not a sheep, that I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross, To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss, and yet not weep?’ – Christina Rossetti ‘A guilty suffering soul is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul.’ Edna Hong Maybe it hurts to slow down. To a church traumatized by sex abuse scandals, corruption in the ‘corporate offices’, and everyday injustices (parish and otherwise), busyness preserves us. Works defend us from our wounds. Better to

‘For we are reduced, O Lord, brought low everywhere in the world this day because of our sins.’ (Dan. 3: 37) Another pastor I know recently changed his view on homosexual practice and now believes it is compatible with the Gospel. One of his staff had repented of her lesbian past and had resolved, at no small cost, to live a chaste life. Hearing her senior associate’s new view opened doors for her. She has since met a vulnerable woman in the church with who she is now sexuall

‘In order for God’s image to shine radiantly in him, man must first receive the purification whereby the divine Sculptor frees him from that dross that conceals the authentic figure of his being.’ Pope Emeritus Benedict Obama is the CEO of this delusion. The President now insists that the US Supreme Court strike down Prop. 8—the decision of CA citizens to uphold the proper definition of marriage. He asserts that the whole nation should be subject to ‘what he and his administr

‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (Matt. 6: 21) A few years ago, my teenage son told me that the largest evangelical church in our city was winning over many of his friends. His concern? Those new converts continued in sexual immorality as the church ‘did not make a big deal about premarital sex.’ Later I read one of the pastor’s books in which he conveyed quietly that Christians had to become ‘gay–affirming’ if they wanted to be relevant to a new e

‘You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.’  – (IS 58: 11b) One sees this clearly in a good marriage. A man and woman, united in body and spirit, regenerate life in the form of children. Yet procreation is only the beginning. The wholeness of two complementary beings, committed for life, provides a stabilizing influence for all who intersect with them. I recall the generous love that both Annette’s parents and my own released to the neighb

‘The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity step forth out of the darkest night.’  – St. Edith Stein Suffering alone does not give us life or make us good. Jesus does. He simply uses suffering to reduce us to Himself. Serious trouble invites us into the desert to prepare for the resurrection He has in store for us. Of all the kinds of suffering that exist, the best kind involves suffering for being a Christian. The Church at Smyrna knew that suffering well. (Rev.2: 8-11) T

Maybe I fought because I believe that marriage belongs to God. He ordained it as the relationship that civilizes our sexuality, makes it truly creative and reminds us to be responsible for the kids we create from it. Marriage matters to God because every one of His human creations is impacted by it. And maybe I fought for marriage because I was sick and tired of the will of the people being overturned by the courts in my home-state of CA. Prop. 8 arose in response to one such

‘For Zion’s sake, I shall not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not remain quiet, until her righteousness shines forth like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.’ (IS. 62: 1) Such intimacy prepares us for the Cross. As Lent becomes Holy Week 2013, might we wait longer with Him on Good Friday, and so rejoice more fully with Him on Easter Sunday? Lent is a time of reduction. We pare down the extras in our life; we turn down the noise of a thousand voices in order