Christians ever identified themselves by inner desires?  Don’t we all experience a multitude of desires we deal with besides sexual ones?  As a single female Christian, it never occurred to me to identify myself related to any sexual desires.  I am not alone.  Among Christians, there are life-long single men and women, widowed men and women, divorced men and women, who have obeyed God’s commandments while remaining celibate during periods of their lives.  Furthermore, they never identified themselves by any desires they experienced during those same periods of their lives.

Dear Dr. Johnson:
I read your USA Today article, “I’m a gay, celibate pastor of a conservative church.”  Here’s a trick for de-scalation.”  My first thought was why would a Christian–—and a pastor at that–—take an issue controversially engaged and involving believers of a specific church and denomination out to the world–—a world that generally mocks Christianity and Christians? A second thought came immediately–— that this is not “de-escalation,” is it?  If anything, it’s a bold escalation bringing an unbelieving world into the church’s business.
Perhaps it’s time someone other than a married man or woman address you due to our mutually-deprived lives in accordance with God’s righteous laws–—deprived but not unfulfilled or unfruitful.  To begin with, you state you’ve been investigated by church authorities . . . because of your sexual orientation.”  As this issue is long-standing and quite public, you appear to miss the focus, that is, your promotion of “gay Christian identity” more so than your inner conflict.  You appear to insist on identifying yourself by desires.  Since when in Christianity’s history have Christians ever identified themselves by inner desires?  Don’t we all experience a multitude of desires we deal with besides sexual ones?  As a single female Christian at 80 years of age, it never occurred to me to identify myself related to any sexual desires.  I am not alone.  Among Christians, there are life-long single men and women, widowed men and women, divorced men and women, who have obeyed God’s commandments while remaining celibate during periods of their lives.  Furthermore, they never identified themselves by any desires they experienced during those same periods of their lives.
Specifically, why would any believer choose to self-identify oneself with a biblically-communicated deviant desire?  Both Plato and Aquinas taught: “It is sexual vice, among all vices, that has the greatest tendency to destroy rationality.  Sexual desire can seriously cloud the intellect even in the best of circumstances, but when its objects are contra naturam, indulgence makes the very idea of an objective, natural order of things hateful.”
Further on in the article, you confess: “I’ve found myself at times curled up in a ball on my office floor weeping.”  You do not define or describe exactly on what basis you wept.  Was it because you struggle with your desires?  Was it because you feel persecuted?  Was it perhaps a combination of both?  What it reveals is that you weren’t “gay.”  You were, in fact, “miserable.”  I haven’t curled up in a ball, but I know what it is to weep before the Lord.  They were times of recognizing sinfulness in diverse areas of my life and God’s many, many mercies and acts of grace in my life for which I knew I didn’t deserve.  We all need to humbly weep over any sinful desires, e.g., lust for power, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, and more.
Now permit me to specifically address your insistence on identifying yourself as “gay.”  The word “gay” is essentially a euphemism, isn’t it?  It’s “a mild or pleasant word used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive,” according to the dictionary.  In other words, it’s a cover-up word.  It’s used instead of “deviancy,” “homosexual,” “lesbian,” or even “sodomite.”  It softens something that is biblically very offensive to God.  I can’t remember anyone being willing to call himself/herself a “deviant Christian,” a “homosexual Christian,” a “lesbian Christian,” or “a sodomite Christian.”  Would you be more honest to use any one of the genuine words for what you are claiming?  If you chose the actual word for the sin and sinful temptation you struggle with, would you choose to so identify yourself then as such a believer first, and secondly as a minister of the Gospel? Those terms sound terrible, don’t they?  Well, truth reveals the awfulness of sin and temptation.
I’m sorry if someone or others have hurt you unkindly and unnecessarily.  Many of us have been hurt by fellow believers.  At the same time, we have to do some soul-searching in order to ensure we did not do or say anything that deserved honest, loving, rebuke.  As a pastor, you must be aware that there are many diverse sexually immoral desires even believers struggle against.  So far, none of those are employed to identify one’s Christian faith.  Do you really want that door opened?  If alleged “gay” Christians insist on being so identified, wouldn’t the rest of us feel the need to identify ourselves otherwise?  Do Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican priests need to outwardly identify their sexuality?  Wouldn’t that become a quagmire for the church?
For millennia, there have been single or bachelor pastors/priests.  It did not provoke unwarranted curiosity.  Hopefully, the majority practiced celibacy, not as a sacrifice but as an act of obedience and love for God’s holy law.  The same is true for non-clerical men and women who devoted themselves to God’s holy and righteous moral standards.
Back to bringing the world into this ecclesiastical issue:  Wasn’t it unwise to do so?  Would the Holy Spirit lead you to put fellow believers and your fellow elders into a position to be further mocked and scorned by the world?  Was love the driving force or a desire for affirmation and sympathy by the many unbelieving “gays” and others who will take your article and run with it to hurt Christians who humbly seek to follow God’s commands?
A shepherd’s vocation is to protect the sheep—not to expose them to danger or derision.  It’s not too late for you to rethink and relinquish identifying your faith by an immoral and sinful desire.
I’m just a single Christian woman who has lived a long life accepting all the limitations and proscriptions our most compassionate God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—communicated to the unmarried knowing they represent His love.  But I’ve never felt any need to identify my faith by any desires, especially any morally sinful desires.
Sincerely in Christ,Helen Louise Herndon
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.

Written by M. R. Conrad |
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Prayer is verbalized dependence on God. If we are not praying together, are our churches truly depending on God? We have strategies, seminars, books, and videos. We have programs designed to fill any lack in our churches. But no programs can replace God. And only prayer accesses His power (Ephesians 6:10-18) and His wisdom (James 1:5). God is the one who saves, not us. God is the One who transforms lives, not our programs. And God is the One who guides us as we look to Him.

No smoking gun for the demise of the weekly prayer meeting can be found. That Wednesday tradition is simply fading off the scene in much of American Christianity. As far as I can tell, nobody is trying to kill it. Regular prayer meetings are simply vanishing.1
What is replacing prayer meeting in the life of the church? In some cases, another preaching service has filled in where prayer meeting was last seen. In other instances, children’s ministry or outreach programs have stepped into the void. However, in an increasing number of churches, prayer meeting has given way to nothing. Few came, so, the service was cancelled, leaving little trace behind.
Of course, Christians pray in every church service, right? Why should we be concerned for the loss of a dedicated prayer meeting? Traditions came and go. We have freedom to pray when and where suits our schedules best. However, where regular prayer meetings have already vanished, what have we lost?
We Lost a Biblical Emphasis
The Bible emphasizes the importance of prayer, especially corporate prayer. The first church listed cooperate prayer as one of its pillars (Acts 2:42). We see the entire church praying together in the face of persecution (Acts 4:31; 12:12; 16:25). The first church leaders gave themselves to “prayer and the Word,” refusing to let mundane matters to dethrone this spiritual discipline (Acts 6:4). Paul gathered the leaders of the church at Ephesus for a time of corporate prayer (Acts 20:26). In the more than thirty instances of prayer in the book of Acts, no less than nineteen specifically refer to corporate prayer. Clearly, corporate prayer was vital to the early church.
We Lost a Historical Impetus for Evangelism
In church history, prayer meetings have often coincided with gospel advance. For example, the first missions movement in America began with the Haystack Prayer Meeting. Those at this meeting were instrumental in sending out Adoniram Judson, the first American commissioned as a missionary.2 Over a hundred years later, when evangelist D. L. Moody traveled to a city to preach the gospel, he started regular prayer meetings that continue long after his team had left.3
In our day, the general trend in society is away from Christianity. Many formerly robust congregations are now dwindling. Evangelistic fervor among believers has cooled, and even those committed to faithful witnessing often admit little fruit.
Where is the power? Where are the conversions?
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The teaching takes place not only by hearing the message that people around us sing, but by singing the message ourselves. This benefit is confirmed by modern observations about how people learn. People learn more effectively and more deeply if they not only hear, but try to re-express what they learn. Getting one’s voice involved deepens one’s participation. Singing engages our emotions, and may help to make the message more memorable. People remember songs that they have sung repeatedly, and embrace them more deeply. Their active participation reinforces their memory.

For decades now, Christian congregations have had to deal with differences in musical styles in Christian worship. Some prefer “contemporary music.” Others prefer “traditional music.” The differences become a source of contention. Sadly, we now have the term “worship wars,” as a label to describe the extent to which music in worship has become a battleground.
We should not want more wars, especially within the bounds of the church. Therefore, a discussion of music and singing in the church must begin by recalling Christ’s command: Christians should love one another as Christ has loved us (John 15:12 ESV; see 13:34; 1 John 4:19). Loving one another is a central principle in the life of the people of God. We need not only to teach the principle, but to practice it. Any disagreement or tension in the body of Christ should be seen as an occasion to practice Christian love.
My purpose here is not to talk about Christian love, important as that is. My focus is rather on one specific element: congregational singing. I wish not to create tension, but to ask both pastors and musicians, both leaders and followers in the Christian faith, to approach the issue of congregational singing with wisdom and with balance. For the sake of the health of the church, we want congregational singing to contribute to that health.
How do we best do that? In this four-part series, I briefly set forth my own thoughts. Even if other brothers and sisters may not agree, I hope this may help lead the conversation in a positive direction.
As we have observed, one prime factor is love, and with love, patience. We should bear with other people in the congregation, and bear with decisions about singing with which we disagree. But now what else should go into the decision-making and practice of a Christian congregation?
Mind the Goal
What should be the long-range goal in congregational singing? Everything that we do in Christian worship and in all of life, we should do for sake of honoring God, that is, for sake of promoting the glory of God: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). The glory of God is primary and essential.
In addition, the Bible indicates that church meetings should have the aim of building up the church: “Let all things [that take place when the people assemble] be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26). The goal is that the people should grow in spiritual maturity, not only individually but as a body, as a community. Nearly the whole of 1 Cor. 14 is about the importance of building up the church, and how this goal regulates and guides the details of what happens during a congregational assembly. Likewise Eph. 4:1-16 has a focus on building up the church. According to Eph. 4, the goal is “the stature of the fullness of Christ” (verse 13). We are “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (verse 15).
We have two goals before us: the glory of God and the building up of the church. These two goals are not two diverse goals that pull in opposite directions. Rather, each implies the other. Building up the church takes place properly only when we are serving God and seeking to please him. So we need to seek the glory of God in Christian worship.
We can also reason the other way, starting with the glory of God. Seeking God’s glory includes seeking to honor his commandment to love one another. This means we cannot seek God’s glory properly without attending to the goal of building up the church. Seeking the glory of God and seeking to build up the church are two sides of the same coin. The two aspects, oriented toward God and toward fellow Christians, are intended by God to work together harmoniously.
How do we build up the church? Much is involved. We need the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and among us.
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