371 - Changing The Paradigm Around Sex In The Church

Foreign. Hello there, good listener. Welcome to the Pure Desire podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to breaking free from compulsive sexual behavior and healing from betrayal. I'm your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to episode 371 here. Joining me today is a guest co host, Mr. Rodney Wright. Rodney, welcome to the show. Hi.

Hello, Nick. I was thinking of a clever introduction. Like, you sometimes give a clever introduction, but I don't have any. It's honored to be here. I'm so grateful to talk about this subject today.

Hey, just seeing you and hearing from you is enough. We're glad you're here. Yes, for our longtime podcast listeners, they're noticing a change today that I don't have Trevor as a co host, and I didn't do my quippy, clever little introductions. We're entering a new season as Pure Desire. We've parted ways with Trevor Windsor, and he's pursuing other things, and we're moving into a new era with the podcast, and we're certainly going to miss him. 370 episodes, almost every single one of them with Trevor and I together. But as every listener knows, you know, nothing's forever. And we're in a place where it's just a new season. And so we're moving forward. And as always, you know, for us, the podcast hasn't been about Nick and Trevor. The podcast has been about the content and the conversations, and that's going to continue. And so over the next number of weeks here, I'm going to have guest co hosts, and Rodney's the first of those. And so a little bit of change. But, Rodney, we're glad for people tuning in with us today.

So glad we're here. And I'm kind of filling big shoes. You know, I'm really grateful for Trevor and just his passion and vision to the podcast. And we're definitely standing on his shoulders. And definitely, even as I look at the podcast room there, just the vision of creating a place where conversations could be had. And so, so grateful. I know as a board member and as somebody that works in helping our development department at Pure Desire, I'm just so grateful for those who come to Pure Desire to help. And I know that transition is a part of our spiritual growth if that, you know, we leave the churches. If that were the case, I'd still be in the church. First church in Salinas, Californ, California. But migration, that's the term I was looking for. Migration is a part of our spiritual journey. And so sometimes transition happens for all Sorts of reasons. And so our heart is for Trevor and the best for him on his next step. And just so grateful for all the voices and all the men and women that God is raising up. I think of Ashley and Heather and their voices are getting out there helping, helping women. And I'm just so grateful for my prayer always. When I joined Pure Desire, Nick was millions of dollars and thousands voices. And I'm really grateful that God continues to just provide resources and voices in his kingdom to help this real issue of sexual brokenness and move us to. To what we're going to talk about today, which is pro sex. Yeah, this is the pro sex.

Yes. Well, if you haven't. If you haven't checked out our new podcast with Heather and Ashley, Unfiltered, and the honest conversations they're having with women and for women, that's a powerful one. And today we're diving into some content we think is important and that' really understanding. How do we change paradigms about sexuality in the church? Rodney, why did we feel the need to address that today?

Well, it really came, you know, the clarity of like, sometimes the church is all what we're against. And sometimes in our movement, we deal with a lot of sad stories here, those of us that work at Pure Desire and also get to be a part of a lot of redeeming stories where we celebrate. And that's the summit coming up, which we should put an announcement in here. Come to the summit. Come to all the stuff around the summit. But I just thought, you know, I love that we also talk about that what we are for, we are actually for human sexuality. We are for healthy sexuality, we celebrate human sexuality. And if we don't really get on that side of it, it's just what we're against. I think we're just missing what God intended this whole thing to be is that we're image bearers and our sexuality is a part of this. And so how can we create a different narrative around this subject? And that's what we're going to do today.

Yeah. And Rodney is a member of our speaking team and the advancement team. You've spoken in how many churches do you think you've preached in and talked about sexuality and some of your story?

Maybe over 100, you know.

Yeah, I was thinking at least that. And I think I've been in almost that many as well. And I bring that up because I want to say to every listener up front, Rodney and I are both so pro church. And when we talk about changing something about the church, I Think some people can feel like, oh, you know, they're critical or think we're all doing it wrong. And if you're a pastor, I totally get that trigger because I had it for many years, too, as a pastor. But I want you to know our heart is for the church and how we can help see the church become the safest place on earth for people to bring their sexual brokenness and find hope, healing, and freedom in Christ. And so we hope today's conversation is a part of that. If anything is hard to hear, as a church leader or pastor, that's not our intent, but sometimes I know we've got to face hard truths or maybe a reality of where we're at in order to be able to move forward. So hope this conversation is a blessing to everyone today. Let's get into it as we talk about changing paradigms on sexuality in the church. All right, Rodney, great to have you here. We want to jump in on this conversation about changing paradigms in the church, about sexuality. And maybe to start with, I'm already jumping off list here a question that we didn't have, but why do we need to have this conversation? Why talk about paradigms at all as it relates to the church?

Well, you know, I kind of have a. I heard this from a friend years ago. And that paradigm is kind of a shift of thinking, moving from how we saw things before and just being objective. What was good, what was helpful, but what wasn't helpful, and maybe evolving or growing or maturing to new places where we think differently about things, you know? You know, from the world is flat to the world is a circle. You know what I mean? Like, we. We kind of have new ways of learning. And so I think in the area of sexuality in the body of Christ, I think there needs to be kind of a paradigm shift in not just, here's a problem, try not to step in it, but going back to just good education about what's good about our humanity, our sexuality, a more positive, proactive, educational approach. And I think, because we'll get into all these questions, I'll hold back, but I think we need a shift here instead of like a course correction, not just, I hope there isn't any more problems. Yeah, you know, Yeah.

I think the truth is a paradigm is the way we see things. And sometimes before we can believe or behave differently, we have to address our starting point of how am I choosing to see things? And so, like you mentioned, the flat earth. If. If I see the earth as flat, then my beliefs and behaviors are going to be in accord with a flat earth. And that doesn't work well if that's not actually truth and reality. And I think that's what we're seeing and we're going to unpack in this episode is we may have ways of seeing our bodies, sexuality, the world that aren't necessarily of God or helpful. And we want to address that in a way to say, where could we make some adjustments that is completely consistent with scripture, is honoring of God, and is actually helpful in how we view and understand both sexual brokenness and our healing journeys. And so I'm grateful. I think you're the right guy for the conversation, Rodney. So let's jump into a little bit further. What are some of the negative messages about sex and sexuality we may hear from church or that predominantly are the messages that churches have used in, let's say, you know, the last 50 years?

Well, when it just comes to Western Christianity and this, you know, the Protestant faith, for me, a lot of it is just silence. Silence on sexual development and young people, silence on just education about our bodies and how they work, or even seeing the physical and the sexual as somehow the flesh, quote, unquote, the word sarx in the Greek, where the scripture says, don't walk after the flesh. As if somehow we see that as my physical body or my sexuality are somehow evil innately, rather than just seeing we're made in the image of God. And our body and our sexuality are wonderful parts of how God made us. We're image bearers of God. And because of the silence and not knowing really how to talk about that, I think there's just a lack of education because of a lot of discomfort maybe for some of us of just how to deal with our negative history, sexual history, and then how to then begin to teach something different. Because it's scary work to dive into some of those parts of our lives. And for church leaders, unfortunately, I think they just tried to outrun the problem or outlast the problem rather than turning and saying, hey, I don't think what we're doing is working very well, you know, and one of the things about the digital age is information is so right in our face and it's so right out there that our kids are going to learn, and there's a lot we can learn. So I think our silence, seeing our physical and sexual is bad innately, and then just a lack of healthy education of, hey, let's start educating individuals about what is good and helpful and healthy about our human sexuality that can be celebrated.

Yeah, yeah. I think you bring up a really good point that many of these messages that are negative and from the church may be unintentional. They're not. Maybe expressly being said, they're not. I think about the list I jotted down here, these aren't words I heard a pastor or leader say in the church, but it's all the things they didn't say or the things I concluded because of what they said. And so, as I'm sure we're going to say at other parts, like, you and I are both so pro church and we believe in the church and we want to see the church thriving, but we were a part of growing up in churches that didn't necessarily equip us with some healthy messages about sexuality. And I think of my own experience and what I've heard from a lot of others, I think I would echo the paradigm was that sex is bad. Sex isn't something we talk about. And maybe the corollary of that was that God was essentially uninterested in anything to do with sexuality because it was bad. It was all sin unless it was within marriage. And so that was a clear message of God designed sex for marriage. That's the only place it happens. And like everything else is bad, which really created a disconnect, you know, for me as a teenager and growing up in church when I wasn't married, it's like, what do I do with those parts of my life, my mind, my thinking, my body, that are inherently sexual? And as we know and are going to talk about, that God created sexual. I didn't know what to do with those other than think of them as something that I wasn't supposed to bring into my faith journey. And I think that became for me a misconception about God, that anything that had to do with sexuality, God was just as embarrassed about it and silent about it as my parents in church seem to be. Because I remember hearing some of the questions that my siblings would ask that would come up and kind of the reaction like, oh, we don't talk about that here, or that's not. You know, it just didn't feel safe. It didn't feel normal. It all felt kind of big and scary and wrong and of the world. And so in that avoidance, I think those were some of my assumptions that the church is really against anything to do with sexuality unless it's happening in marriage. And then I think another maybe flawed assumption or a negative message I got about sex or maybe from the silence was an assumption. And I'm getting Into our next question a little bit, but that if within marriage you loved the Lord and were doing your best to be a good husband, good wife, that good sex was just going to happen. Like that there would just kind of be this unspoken connection that couples would have because now you were having sex within marriage like God planned. And then the church never talked about how to equip couples for that or prepare them to have conversations, even as a married couple. So even in the area where I learned that sex was good, that sex was of God, there was no conversation there. It was kind of like, go figure it out on your own and hopefully it works out. Which just could. When there was some disconnect, when there were some issues, when my wife and I weren't always on the same page, which, you know, now looking back, I know with a lot more clarity, was because of issues that I brought into the marriage and my addictive patterns, like, of course it wasn't going to be healthy. But there was a lot of shame because I felt like, well, this is where it's supposed to work and all be easy and we're supposed to be on the same page. And when we weren't, that feeling kind of going back to, sex is bad, sex is dirty. It's like, well, maybe it's because there's something wrong with me or sinful in me that this isn't happening. And so you just. And then you don't have anywhere to go with it because the church isn't the safe place to come talk about sexuality. So I think we do get stuck in the silence and make a lot of incorrect assumptions about how God feels when we're stuck in some of those places.

Yeah, you bring up a good point. Or we waited and did it, quote, unquote, God's way.

Right.

And it's supposed to be perfect because we had sex God way. We're having Christian sex. Right. And again, it goes back to some of those black and white kind of thinking, but, you know, two virgins can marry and not be very educated or understand much about sexuality, can't communicate about that subject matter, have all kinds of maybe physical issues or sexual issues or emotional issues or history issues in their life that may not be helpful for that. And the silence isn't helping us other than just wait till marriage. And this is where I think we just. That hasn't always served the church well or brought maybe the highest level of education. I've become such a believer in education about anything in life. Just learning and growing and my faith has really helped Me to just embrace this whole mindset of growth, not perfection and learning and following and maturing. And so I think that the question that we pose next in this. Nick, if I could ask you a question is go for it. What impact. What impact does this approach have on Christians and their view of sexuality? How would you see this has impacted the church? You got into that a little bit with your own story.

Yeah. You know, I think at an individual level, if we think that sex is dirty, anything outside of marriage is wrong and God is not, and the church are not very interested in sexuality, it's unsafe to talk about. Then anything that came up in me that was sexual, I think immediately felt wrong and sinful. And what we're going to talk about more in the episode, you know, understanding that God made us that way, that really wasn't a part of my thinking. And so anytime that I begin to have, you know, in teenage years, as you're growing and learning about the world, you start to have sexual thoughts about other people, about people of the opposite sex, and your mind starts to go down that road. There's immediate this guilt and shame factor of that's wrong. Don't think that way. Which, as we know from a lot of other topics, the harder we try not to think about something and the harder we try to just not be something, the more it actually kind of gives it energy. And I found a lot of that in my story, too, that because this area was so taboo, we didn't talk about it. When I started to take, when I look back on and see as pretty normal steps of exploration, of just trying to understand and figure out. And I'm not in any way justifying those things or saying, oh, go explore. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying looking at kids and development and curiosity, there were some things I got exposed to that led to next steps. And rather than having any understanding of, there's some pieces of this that God wired me for. It was the taboo nature of it, elevated the curiosity, it elevated the secrecy. And then when I was exposed to material, both involuntarily and then by my own choice, that sense of man, this is really big. I can't talk about it. It's really wrong. People would be shocked. So in the silence, it left not only the inability to understand what are some very normal ways that God designed our brains and bodies to work, it elevated the silence I needed to keep. Because now I've kind of entered into a world that my church experience has taught me we don't talk about and God doesn't talk about. So now I'm kind of entering into, I think, a lot of relationships in youth group with youth leaders, and even at church, feeling like, where do I stand here? Because if they knew, maybe the kind of thoughts that come into my head, the kind of things that I've seen, would I be accepted? Would I belong? Or would people conclude that you're not saved or you don't have faith or God's not? You know, we're given this very truthful and important theme that as we trust Christ with our lives, the Holy Spirit fills us. And I believe that's true. But that creates a real paradigm problem for a teenage Nick who's saying, okay, I believe the Holy Spirit. I mean, think about that. The God of the universe in some way inhabits my body and mind. That's incredible. And then in that same body and mind, I have these very evil sexual thoughts happening which make you wonder, maybe I don't have the Holy Spirit. Maybe I don't have God's love. Maybe his presence isn't with me. Because if it was, wouldn't I not think those things? And I think all those are. Those are some very normal things for us to wrestle with as we're coming to faith and growing in faith. But no one helped me have those conversations until much later in life. And I see all of those things as byproduct of kind of the culture that was handed to me about sexuality.

Yeah. So the silence creates questions, but no one's there to answer and help you process that question. And so I think the silence is part of the real struggle. When we struggle, can we talk about it? And you know that my wife Tracy and I wrote a book. And really, you know, the simple Cliff note of the book is just be safe so your kids can talk about anything, you know, so, like, let your faith be encompassed about discomfort of feelings, our sexual development, difficult situations where we're hurt, whatever it may be, just creating that safe language to talk about it. I think of Dan Allender, who is a counselor up in the Seattle area and has done some really great work. I was listening to him the other day, and he was talking about. I think it was his grandson had an erection, and he went, this is wonderful, grandson. Congratulations. Your body is working normally. You know, And I just thought, well, now isn't that interesting? That's a different way of more of celebrating their sexuality instead of shaming or hiding. And I just know for me in my world that when I grew up, my sexual feelings were first Connected to shame, not just normal curiosity. There was no framework of saying, rodney, when you hit puberty, here's what you can expect, or, here's some of the changes that's going to happen. Here's what wet dreams or nocturnal emissions are like. This is how your body functions. This is where your nerve endings are. And of course, I wasn't a good reader. That was part of my developmental handicap.

Yeah, your trauma story.

Yeah, I was just looking at the pictures, no pun intended, instead of reading the details. You know, I needed somebody to sit down and conversationally say, rod, here's how the body works, but not in a sexualized way, in an educational way. This is how God made the female body. They're image bearers of God, too. This is how God made the male body. They're image bearers of God, too. This is strategic nerve endings that you feel pleasure in. God did that. Right. So that the first thought of sexuality is, oh, I've got some framework now that's healthy about. This isn't bad. This is good. I just now have to manage this. This is a part of becoming an adult. Just like body odor for junior hires. I think of junior high boys and body odor. You got to manage that, buddy, you know? So let me teach you. You know what I mean? Here's the shower. Here's deodorant, you know, and it's just a part of that. If we could just take that mindset about, oh, they don't know. And we can't let our shame keep us from going back and helping them, you know, and, so what is it that we need? And I just appreciate all the voices within Christendom that are moving back toward the educational approach, are helping us talk about these in healthy ways so that when we first have sexual feelings, shame isn't the first thing that we feel. But, oh, Grandpa, my dad, my mom talked about this, and I have some framework now to know what to do to manage this instead of our silence, letting porn be the sex educator of our kids.

Yeah, yeah. What we're talking about is discipleship. That discipleship means that we are training people to grow in Christlikeness and their understanding of who God is and what God is like and. And what that means to my ways of living and behaving. And unfortunately, sexuality is often skipped over as an area where we need discipleship. And yet, if we are all born into a fallen, broken world, we need discipled. We need to be discipled in our sexuality just as much as we do in relationships and in faith. And I Think that's the paradigm we're after. But unfortunately, Rodney, throughout history, in many ways, the church has been known more for what we're against and being against sexuality. I mean, you think of back to Puritan culture in early America and the scarlet Letter, things like chastity belts, the purity movement, you know, being very. And I think the heart of some of these was very wanting to honor God and obey him with our bodies. But I think what the world saw of the church, they have also put on God. That God is a prude, that the church is full of prudes. They don't understand anything about sex, which I think, frankly, can turn a lot of people away from God and faith because they've been given a very distorted picture. And so when we think instead about the truth of how God presents himself in scripture and what God has to say himself about our sexuality, what are the kind of things that you think about, of how we understand God's view of sexuality through his own words to us in scripture? Yeah.

You know, I remember saying this one time in a message that I gave, and somebody was appalled that I even said it. That God is sexual.

Yeah.

That may not resonate with every hearer because the majority of our experience about sexuality has been damaging and negative. And if that's the case for you, I'm sorry that this is difficult to hear. I'm not trying to trigger your trauma or cause more pain, but when you realize that we're made in the image of God, male and female, and that the ability to procreate. To procreate comes from God and the ability to feel pleasure comes from God, and the ability to bond comes from God. That we are image bearers. That the God who creates now invites us to participate in the gift of creating and the joy of that. I have a niece that's right now in the hospital. She just got an epidural. So a shout out to Brooke Estes today. She's getting. She's delivering a baby. My sister is a labor and delivery nurse. You know, the joy of that. There was a day when Nick Stumbo came into the world and Rodney Wright came in the world, and there was hopefully a lot of joy, you know, that. Look at this life. And. And if we don't see our body as good as sexuality is good, that God is sexual. I think that's such a key thing to have a starting point on because it's like internal family systems or the book by Jenna, Help me with the.

Name of it all together.

You altogether you. Thank you. It's a good part of us, but sometimes a good part in a wrong role. And because sexuality has in some ways caused more hurt, maybe in society or in. Or are in Christendom than help because of abuse or because of addiction or betrayal or whatever it may be. You know, I think, unfortunately, just if we could, those of us that would have the courage to find healing and then go back and offer a new narrative for the next generations that's following us in faith. And you mentioned holistic spirituality. I'm a real advocate for that. That's a big part of our discipleship. Discipleship. Integrating the way of God in all areas of our life.

Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that comes to mind for me is how often we might start our teaching in Genesis 3 of a sinful world. We're fallen, we're dirty, we're wicked. And there's some truth to sinfulness and missing the mark with God and our need for a Savior. But there is also Genesis 1 and 2 that talk about the beauty of God's creation. And I've always found it so remarkable, especially once I started in my own healing journey, to look at Genesis 1, where God says, you know, in our image, let's create them male and female. That when we learn about male and female, which is a sexual distinction, it's a gender rooted in our body parts and brain chemistry and hormones and the reproductive cycle that is by and large sexual in nature, that that's the place God says, I see my image. And I in some way need both the maleness and femaleness of humanity together for my image to be fully seen. And that just to me is remarkable, that there's something. It says to me, there's something about my uniqueness as a male and others uniquenesses as a female. That when we're together in the kind of relationship that God describes in Genesis 2, of the male and female coming together and being naked, unashamed, and being made one flesh in God, that there's something there, that's the image of God, that is uniquely sexual. And I get that in our recent culture, some have taken the metaphor too far. And I don't think we want to do that. But it is interesting that in scripture how continually the metaphor of marriage and us being the bride of Christ is kind of rooted in some of that male, female relationship of God describing himself as the bridegroom and coming to take his bride. And then when Israel walks away from the Lord in their history, how often that's referred to as adultery or pursuing other lovers. That there's, I think, something about God and his relationship to us that is uniquely connected to that intimacy and I think needs to be explored more. Because God doesn't seem to be ashamed of using sexual metaphors to describe his relationship with his people. And yet we're, I think, ashamed to even talk about how God created us. And so how could we look at Scripture and unpack more? This is God's creation. And yes, there are ways in which sin and Satan in a fallen world have marred and distorted what God intended. But if we could keep in view like, this is what God intended. This was God's plan. This was God's goodness. I know as a teenager, if I was listening, because I know not all teens are listening when we try to share some of these things, that could have changed my whole paradigm of approaching sexuality, that rather than hiding it from God, perhaps I would have brought it to God in a different way.

Right. I sometimes have said to high school boys, I recently had dinner with a couple of high school boys in the Portland area who are one's. One's an educator and one's a business banker. And they just said, rodney, youth group. Some of the best times for us was when you got us up early in the morning, we had breakfast, and we talked about how to manage our sexuality in healthy ways, they said, because we didn't really have a lot of those conversations, and you were willing to go there with us and really help on that regard. But I think there's something about sexual integrity. And when you think of sexual integrity, I want you to think of words like this around sexuality. Honor, respect, dignity, worth, value, consideration, maturity, kindness. Those should be adjectives that describe what sexual integrity is. That we're doing all things with the best interests of ourself and other people.

Right.

It's very holistic in that way because it speaks of our growth and maturity, you know, just in understanding our sexuality then also, of course. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, to bond, to have pleasure, to reproduce, seeing that these are not evil things, sometimes we don't even have a good theology of pleasure. Like, we're laughing too hard at these jokes. We better stop. Or, you know. And then the Bible says laughter is medicine to the soul. Right? It's healing. So, like, you know, I love having a good laugh where I just, you know, it just. It releases some good things. So there are times when we can enjoy things in life and not see everything is so negative or evil or bad. And I think there just needs to be. In Scripture, it's Interesting. Scripture even talks a lot about the mismanagement of sexuality. Not only what's the dignity and health and value of that, but it speaks a lot about, you know, dysfunctional activity and dysfunctional relationships as far as incest and as far as adultery and as far as just some things that are pretty brutal. If you take an honest look at scripture about the stories in the Old Testament. And then Jesus comes along and he seems to be reframing how we see each person as an image bearer with worth and value. And I love this about Jesus. He was always elevating the dignity and value of women. Not making them objects, but making them image bearers, their true identity of who they were and the woman caught in adultery. Sometimes I say, Jesus would have healed the man too, had his friends brought the man to Jesus. You know, just when you think you have a friend, right, Nick, your buddy doesn't bring you to somebody that can help you with that. But I think just a more holistic approach to how we look at the scripture and how we see our bodies. And starting as that as a starting point to help the next generation.

Yeah, yeah. So we unpacked some of the negative messages that people may have received or inherited from a church culture that treated this as so taboo. Let's flip the page a little bit and ask the flip side of that. What are some of the positive messages about sex and sexuality that we need to emphasize in the church? What would you encourage leaders, pastors, teachers to say, man, these are the positive messages people need to hear?

Well, you know, I think the best message is that wherever you are on the spectrum of understanding or learning about your sexuality, there are people and resources out to help you to grow in this arena. So this is what kind of saddens my heart is I work with pastors and missionaries, Nick. They haven't grown or found healing or maturity in their area of sexual brokenness. There's history in their life they're afraid to face and turn because it may seem scary. So they just keep running. So I think the health of our church leaders is so important. That's why I would always love to get in front of as many Bible colleges as we could and as many training institutes to really talk about that. Our health in this area is so important, and doing that work is hard work, but it's really rewarding work because now your heart is free and you can begin to help other people. But just going back again to what I talked about earlier, our body is good, our sexuality is good. It comes from God really. Starting that. And then the positive about you can have age appropriate conversations about sexuality. You're not going to expose your kids too young when they're learning language. Just the appropriate, proper terms about their genitals and that staggered way of learning. So just the more we can embrace sexuality as something beautiful and something good, whether we're single or we're married, it's just now managing it in healthy ways. And scripture gives us some guidance on that. And then start those conversations sooner and let home be the safe place. And so I think those messages are really important to get out and to educate adults and parents about how to create a home that's like that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I was thinking that if one of the big challenges is that sex is taboo, sex is dirty, God's not interested in sexual. The flip side of it is the healthy message to say that God is deeply interested and involved in your sexuality. You know, one of the ways I've said it at our events is there is nothing you have ever thought, done or said about sexuality that comes as a surprise to God because as the author of it, he's, I think, deeply aware of all the ways it could be mismanaged. And rather than looking to zing us with, you know, his lightning if we step aside, I think for him it's more the grief of, oh, I've, I've created you for good and for a good thing. And when it's being misused, I know where it leads and the pain it can cause. And I want to help and be involved. And so if we saw God as a helper, how often has Jesus described the Holy Spirit in our life as a helper and applied that to our sexuality? What a difference that would make versus I think most of us have carried a framework of God as judge, God as critic, God as whatever the metaphor is, instead to say, man, God cares deeply about my sexuality. He created it, he's aware of it, he knows, and he wants to help, not shame. And then with that message, I think is to say to people in all different seasons of life, you are not alone. If you're struggling with pornography, you're not alone. If you're struggling with healthy sexuality within your marriage, you're not alone. If you're working through issues of health and erectile dysfunction in middle age and later in life, you're not alone. Because anything to do with sexuality, I think the enemy's message is just, boy, you're probably the only person dealing with this, and it's probably something you did wrong. And if Other people knew they'd be horrified or repulsed or angry. Just figure it out yourself. And it shows up in research that would suggest people feel more comfortable talking to their doctor about sexual issues than to their pastor. And by far. Now, I get that the doctor on the medical physical side may have more training and awareness, but it says something to me that the safe place people find is a doctor. You know, you think about the sterile environment. A doctor's office is where you're often sitting there and you know, you've been asked to undress to a level of appropriateness so the doctor can check you out. And that's the place we feel more comfortable bringing up hard questions. That says something to me about what's going on in our churches, because I just think that should be the safest place now. There is an appropriate time and place to ask hard questions. But I think that's the positive message a church can bring out is to say you're not alone. These questions are not unique. The things you're facing are not unordinary and God is deeply involved and cares about what you're going through. And then the last one I'll bring up in terms of a positive message. And I've heard you talk about it, Rodney, so maybe you want to riff on it a little bit. But that idea that not every sexual thought or desire is evil, and I think I really felt that way especially as a teenager, like man, any desire is of my flesh. And it actually quite honestly taught me to fear desire as something being very fleshly and sinful. When the truth is God's the author of desire. God is the author of sex and sexual desire. And yes, absolutely, there's ways that it can quickly be used in ways to take us away from God. But at its heart, at its core, I think we need people to hear, and they need to hear it a lot, that, that sexual desire is God given and your capacity for desire is from God and even your desire. And I know people don't like to think of it this way because we typically refer to lust in a sinful manner. But I've tried to explain to people, I think we need to embrace that my capacity for lust is actually God given. Because if lust, if we break it down to a definition and think that lust is my ability to have a strong sexual desire for another person, well, I hope to God that when any one of us meets and is dating and engaged to our future spouse, that at some point in there, there is strong sexual desire for that person. Even though we're not yet married. And would we look at that and say, well, all that is evil and wrong? I mean, I know I felt that way, but there, I think is a right element of that that says, well, actually that's what God made me for. So that one day when I started to be of the right age, I would be interested in marriage and connection. Because the flip side is, and God did this. In the animal kingdom, sexual reproduction is not about desire. It's just about its chemistry, its physicality. It's the animal kingdom of like, we just reproduce so that life goes on. And God could have made sex to be just a very kind of non emotional, non desire kind of thing, but he didn't. He really rooted it in this kind of inner part of us that desires to be known and to be with another person. And so is all of that lust in the sense of sin? Or is some of that the capacity for which God made me? And I can even hear for some listeners, like, I'm going into that, they're getting nervous, like, oh man, that doesn't seem right. And again, I get that very quickly it can go towards unhealthy things. But if at the core we say sex is good and it's from God, my desires are good, and at the core they're from God, how do I, going back to your words, how do I learn to understand, manage and manage desire from a sense that is respectful, that is good, is honoring that would, I just think, change the conversation for a lot of people.

Right? And this is when our arousal template gets distorted. And we talk a lot about this in the group work. And it's about learning to retrain the brain and really. And how you see yourself, others, and ultimately God and embracing that in a healthy way. You know, earlier you talked about something that just came to me, Nick, about like this whole thought around trinitarian theology, which is Catholic, Orthodox and Christian, Protestant. We all agree in the Trinity, which is always amazing to me that we can agree on something, you know, because we're so divided about how we see things. And yeah, you know, the Pope and the scriptures and you know, all the different things, the traditions of the church. But one thought about trinitarian theology was the thought about the divine is that they're mutually indwelling. It's the sexual connotation. The Father, Son and Spirit, they're mutually indwelling, yet they don't lose their distinctiveness. They're still the Father, the Son and the Spirit and the three are one. That's how we try to even Define the Trinity. The three are one. So the same thing as marriage. A man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two will become one. So there's that imagery of mutually indwelling but not losing your distinctiveness of who you are, male and female, you know, and the beauty of, like, oh, man, just the. The whole thought of our human sexual connection is actually a shadow of their beautiful intimacy that they share with one another. You know, and again, sometimes we come to this whole conversation with distorted thoughts about sexuality. And. And so it's. It's the healing of it that I think is really important, where we can turn as tribal elders and share with younger generations, giving them a pathway to walk down that's much easier to follow than for some of us. It was like a moonscape, just trying to figure things out. Hitting a lot of bumps along the way.

Yeah, well. And when we hit those bumps, to know, oh, I can turn to my pastor, I can turn to my church, I can turn to my elder, I can turn to a deacon and not feel like I'm somehow going like a dog with my tail between my legs. And all the shame, like, I did these bad things. And. And again, there is a place for guilt. There is a place for shame in terms of. That can draw us to God. But this whole conversation, I think, has been so shaming to people that there is no normalcy. And that's going back to my doctor's office comment. I think that's what's interesting is when we bring up sexual questions with our doctor, it's normal. It's like, I mean, we might feel a little embarrassed to ask a question, but I don't think we go to the doctor with shame of I got these really embarrassing questions, but to church, I think most people feel that way. So just how do we make that shift of, I got a question, I.

Got a pain, I got a difficulty, I got something doctor. We're just trying to seek help because we know that the doctor's helpful. Right?

Yeah.

I think that's why we go to the doctor, because we know they're a little bit more clinical and they're going to be helpful to us, you know, and help us with. They know more than we know. And we. We're trying to get some good information here, you know?

You know, that's the vision we have for the church, that's the heartbeat we have for the church, that it would become the safest place for people to go to find help and freedom and healing. And we're all about that.

I want to add this. There are so many experts in the body of Christ around the area of human sexuality, sexual development, sexual education, sexual healing. It doesn't mean that Pastor. Let's just say Pastor Jim at first, first church on the corner has to be the expert in everything. You know, this is where churches, they have Dave Ramsey seminars to teach people about money and stewardship. And now they're educating at a younger age. Why? This is the beauty. This is one thing I really love about Pure Desire ministries and organizations like us is that we're trying to get material information. I'm so excited about what's coming in September for our high school students. But the SI101, the parent pieces, you can. There's so many resources that you don't have to be the expert, but you can bring those voices in and you can begin to educate. So why wouldn't we have a, you know, like a sexual discipleship? And why wouldn't we have this a part of, like, integrating our faith in all areas of life, like emotions? I mean, now I'm showing my age. What's the movie that just came out about? All the feelings. Now there's a second one. Out.

Yeah. Inside out.

Inside out, yeah. Right. So that movie hits home to just about all of us. Right. Because sometimes we don't know how to deal with our emotions. So wouldn't it be great if churches offered grief classes or offered ways to process or if you've been. You're working through trauma. But this is an important aspect, I think, about helping us just be better humans, be who God intended us to be. You know, God has such a high view of our humanity that God became one of us and that Jesus was a sexual being. You know, that Jesus was a young man going through puberty. Jesus probably had nocturnal emissions. That's hard for some people to even hear. You know, not my savior. Rodney, you crossed the line here. You know what I mean? But he was a man in all ways. Like, we were tempted, yet without sin. So his physiological body was just doing what it was made to do, you know, and not having shame, but moving toward. In health again, sexual integrity. Words like honor, respect, dignity for self and for others. I think that's a real beautiful way for me of how to. How to frame that.

Yeah. So, Rodney, task in a. Maybe a little different direction here. This can be a very challenging topic because there is a very personal nature to. Can become a messy conversation fast. We're not always equipped to know what's appropriate for a Larger audience versus one on. So it's sensitive. And I don't think we're trying to say, hey, just talk to everyone about everything all the time. That there are, I think, healthy ways to bring it up. So with that in mind, how can we bring out these healthy messages about sexuality and God's view of sexuality in helpful ways in the church without it creating shame and embarrassment for people that maybe aren't used to that kind of conversation in a church context?

Well, I would just think start with general education, so lower the shame and educate everyone. Just about, hey, we realize that this is a real issue in society and the church stats are no different than outside the church. And so we as a church are wanting to be proactive to just help educate mom and dad, educate high schoolers, educate adults about what's healthy and unhealthy. Again, this is where I am grateful for sexual integrity 101. So you can always start on the education. But I would also say, like, if you're sitting there like I was for years, feeling shame about your sexuality, there are people and resources you can go to in a much more private way. Whether it is a treatment program, whether it's a therapist or a counselor's office, whether it's a support group, like one of our betrayal and beyond or unraveled groups, or seven pillar groups, you know, you can go get help to on a more intimate level to say, here's what happened, here's my story, here's my negative sexual history. And I just need a safe place and people to process that. And it's not so you can get on stage and share your testimony next week or next month or next year. But it's just so you don't have to live with the shame and the bondage of what has happened to you or what you have done. And you can find some healing to begin to live your best life now, not letting the enemy use that as a foothold to really defeat you and to keep you silent in that. So, you know, sometimes this is where having places are. Like the Pure Desire website, where you can go to and ask a question with a group member or, you know, contact somebody and say, hey, where can I go? Who's a resource for me?

Yeah, one of the big things that comes to mind for me in terms of being able to bring out these topics in helpful ways is we've got to have the paradigm shift from it being just a care ministry or kind of the problem. Like, once it's a problem, then we have a way to help you because for a lot of communities, this is that problem that those people have. And if you're one of those people with that problem, then go to that care center or that group. And I'm grateful that many churches have a pure desire group when they discover someone has that problem. But we need to recognize that really limits people's desire to sign up for that group. Because then I have to acknowledge I'm one of those people with that problem that doesn't feel good. And so that goes back to, how can we talk about this along the lines of what you and I are saying? Discipleship, equipping, education, and changing the pronouns from those people with that problem to all of us in our sexuality need to understand God's goodness and his redemptive plan. And so our church has these opportunities to be equipped to be discipled, to learn so long before we're saying, hey, if you have a problem, go there. And we should have that. If you have a problem, go there. But hopefully we're not waiting until someone is bankrupt to suggest they learn financial stewardship. Hopefully, we're not waiting until someone has $50,000 in debt on their credit cards to say, wow, I think you need Dave Ramsey. We're seeing that there's some really basic stewardship principles that would help all of us live a better financial life and honor God and our money. And in the same way, there are some fundamental principles we can learn about healthy sexuality and that could be integrated into our system of educating and training people that everyone needs. And so if we can say all of us are understanding and growing, I think that's a big step forward. And then a lot is communicated by what we do or don't address on the stages, on the websites and the bulletins of our churches, that if there is never an opportunity presented to go somewhere and hear more or to take that next step, then I think that's where people do assume from silence. So I'm not saying, you know, every weekend we've got to be preaching on sexuality, but I think as a regular part of our routine, if people hear a story of healing, if they hear about an opportunity to go be a part of a group, to take a class, and we're communicating like, hey, we really believe that healthy biblical sexuality is something we all want to experience in our lives. And if this is something you've got questions about, we have this group or there's this resource we're recommending, there's a partner that we have, and when that becomes just a part of the church culture, even if we're not getting into specifics on stage, which probably wouldn't be appropriate, it is at least communicating. This is just a part of the life cycle of our church. And I think that would give people then the open door to step in and to start moving in that direction. And this is the thing we've seen. Rodney, I know you and I are encouraged when it is happening in a church. Church, it has a way of being replicated, because people start talking about it, they start sharing their group experience. They start telling a friend, like, oh, I went to this group, and it was really good. And when that's happening, it kind of can take on a life of its own, because now it doesn't have to be as much from the front because it's starting to be lived out in the congregation. And I think that's the idea. When it's actually both sides. People hear about it from the front or from the pastor, but then they're also getting that positive message from others that say, oh, I went through that group. That was so helpful to me, or my wife and I experienced a lot of healing taking this class together. That's the kind of thing we want to see happening in a church. So to just ask the question, like, how could we begin to normalize the conversation so that people begin to move in that direction long before they're shipwrecking a relationship or a career or a life?

And if you're listening to this podcast today, your pastor at your local church may not have that answer. He may not be able to lead that seminar or teach that class or have those right resources. Now, he may. But typically, this is where we would invite outside voices that are experts in that arena to kind of help in this regard. And who should be the educators? This is what I think about with children's ministry. If I were a children's pastor, I would want to educate parents, not educate the kids. I would want to resource mom and dad as the primary educator of faith and maturity and development for their kids. Instead of, I drop my kids off at church and say to the children's pastor, youth pastor, all right, fix them. Straighten them out. You know, keep them on straight and narrow. You know, but how do we resource mom and dad? This is where, Nick, since you've known me, my heart and Tracy's heart is to say, how do we equip parents? How do we give them tools and resources? How do we help them in this regard? And so educate, educate discipleship, normalize the conversation. Find healing in your journey. You're Worthy of love. And let that love set you free to be a part of helping some other people in this world that are really hurting.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love the conversation, Rodney, and I love your heart just to like you said, equip, normalize, help people walk into this. As we wrap up today's episode, are there any final encouragements that you would want to share with our listeners along these lines of changing paradigms about sexuality in the church?

I just would say your voice matters. Your voice matters in your local community of faith. Just sharing your story, owning your journey and then offering it as a possibility. I talked to a young man who's gone through our groups, leading groups and says, hey, I'm going to a new congregation. How can I help my pastor? And I said, start by just going, saying, hey, pastor, we're attending here. We love what you're doing for the kids and we're connecting here. And I just want you to know my story. I don't have any agenda. I just want you to know who's sitting in the pew and my testimony to what God has done in my life in the area of my sexual brokenness and the healing I found and the healing my wife has found. And I just want you to know that about us. And we are so grateful for where God has brought us to. And if I can ever help, here I am just that, just own it and love without an agenda. Because that way it becomes a real gift, I think, to your pastor of wow, he doesn't have any shame. She doesn't have any shame. That's kind of what set the fire for me. You can live the Christian faith without shame. How do I find this? You know, and that's what I would just say. So if there's an ounce of shame, keep finding help and healing and then in your local congregation, be an advocate for education. And PureDesire.org, you can find resources. And I'm grateful for Cliff and Joyce Pinner. There's some early, early, early voices back in my, my journey 25 years ago. Passionateconnection.com they were wonderful educators trying to help this subject move forward. And I would simply say I'm really a downline of their education and they had a great influence on me of what they're doing to give back and help the conversation be healthier in faith communities.

Yeah, yeah. We think highly of the Penners work and their ability to have some honest Christ based conversations that many churches weren't having. And we'll put some of their resources in the show. Notes. I think what you just said there, Rodney, is so important that if we're not on staff, we're not a pastor. The way we come across, we really need to make sure we're being positive and supportive. Because as a pastor, I can tell you one of the last things I needed was someone to come to my office and tell me more things I was doing wrong and more ways our church needed to help people that it wasn't doing. Because that burden of pastoring is hard. There's a lot, and you feel it. It's like, man, there's so much to do. How do we have time and energy? I don't know. And if someone brings up, even if they're well intentioned, like, how come we're not helping people in this area? It's like, have you seen my schedule? I could use a little help here. And that can just. Even if you're having the right desire, the wrong conversation can create a lot of closed doors. But if you go in with that attitude of man, love what you're doing, want to support you, here's something that's been meaningful in our life. If there's any way we could help with that conversation, we're here, we're praying for you. That can change the conversation. I would also just say if you're not on staff or a pastor, you have to be willing to assess the depth of relationship you have with a leader, because the more friendship or connection you have with a leader, you can be more honest, you know, and you might be able to go to someone if you're a friend of that pastor, and if there's a message that their bit or their piece on sexuality, when a scripture passage touched on it, came across as kind of shaming or condemning of someone who is struggling, you might be able to say, hey, I wonder if you're aware of how this might have come across to those in our congregation that are struggling with pornography. But if you don't know that pastor well, and you're just sending off that email again, that voice of criticism is like, all right, one more way. I'm not preaching right and I'm making people mad. So just be mindful of that. Yeah, I think in this area, I too, would encourage pastors. If you are a leader and you're listening to this podcast, you know, we are so for you and we're here to help, and we just want to say you don't have to do everything before you start doing something. Like Rodney said, you don't have to be the expert and have a degree in healthy sexuality before as a leader, you maybe start saying, hey, God cares about our sexuality. God's the author of our sexuality. I mean, those little steps forward could begin to open doors of conversation in your congregation that I think might surprise you. The fruit that it produces, where people start to feel like, oh, maybe it is safe here to bring my sexuality, my brokenness to God and ask for help. And so don't wait till you can do everything to start doing something. That's, I think, the last thing I would say.

I think it's such a good point, Pastor. You don't have to be the expert on everything. If you're in debt, you can just go to the Dave Ramsey course. It's okay. You know, like, sometimes we think the pastor is the expert on everything, and it's not the case, you know, so it's. It's okay. I just. Give yourself permission to seek help and to find resources and grow along with your congregation. It's really okay. In fact, I think it's a sign of a good leader when they're. When they're saying, hey, here's an area I want to keep growing in as well. I didn't really do this well, and so I want to get some education because this is really important to help our church in that regard.

Yeah.

And it's easier to do that when your shame is healed.

Yeah.

It's harder when there's still shame you're trying to outrun, you know, so.

Amen. Well, thank you, Rodney. I always appreciate you, appreciate your perspective and appreciate your heart. Thanks for being on the podcast today.

Oh, it's a joy. Nick, it's good to see you and good to see everybody here. Thanks, guys.

And as always, if you're a fan of the content, please subscribe, share the podcast with somebody, and leave us a review. It helps others find the podcast and might start their healing journey. If you want more information about our groups, resources, or counseling, please Visit us@puredesire.org and as always, journey on. My friends, you are not alone. Sam.