Christian Counseling Under Attack From Gay Groups

Marcus Bachmann came out in defense of the Christian counseling business he and his wife, Michele, own, maintaining that they do not have an agenda of trying to change someone – namely from gay to straight.

After coming under fire from a pro-gay group that claimed Bachmann & Associates was practicing "reparative therapy" aimed at "curing" gays, Bachmann told the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune that such counseling is not their focus.

Rather, treatment for depression and anxiety is more commonplace, he told the local publication.

Bachmann himself specializes in marriage and family, depression/anxiety, anger management, and family of origin issues, according to the clinic's website.

Still, counselors would address the issue of same-sex attraction if those struggling with it requested help, he noted.

"Will I address it? Certainly we'll talk about it," he told the Star Tribune. "Is it a remedy form that I typically would use? ... It is at the client's discretion."

His comments come a week after Truth Wins Out released an undercover report, claiming to prove that Bachmann's clinic in Minnesota "does try to cure gay people."

The group sent John Becker with a hidden camera to the clinic where he told the counselor he wanted to get rid of his homosexuality and that he was Christian.

Becker had five sessions with the counselor during which he was told that it was possible to be free of same-sex attraction and guided on how to develop attraction toward women.

The counselor, according to Truth Wins Out, told the pretend patient that attraction to the same sex “is there, and it’s real, but at the core value, in terms of how God created us, we’re all heterosexual.”

"Our investigation clearly shows that his clinic has great antipathy towards gay and lesbian people and his therapists work to convert clients from gay to straight," Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen reiterated on Friday.

But investigative reporter Mark Benjamin found that Bachmann & Associates indeed isn't a "conversion therapy mill."

He wrote in Time magazine that judging from the recorded sessions between the counselor and Becker, the "therapist didn’t appear to claim any expertise in how to change Becker’s homosexual urges."

The counselor also admitted that he “doesn’t have a ton of experience with this issue” and told Becker that it is “important as we sort this out that you remember not to beat yourself up too much” about homosexual urges.

"Throughout the transcripts, Becker’s therapist came across as somebody who was willing to try to make Becker straight, but didn’t usually do that kind of thing for a living," stated Benjamin, who once posed as a gay man to find out how "reparative therapy" works.

Truth Wins Out – whose mission is to fight anti-gay religious extremism – nevertheless believes Bachmann & Associates is disdainful toward LGBT people and wants the business to end the "harmful and discredited practice of 'ex-gay' therapy."

Bachmann, who has been a clinical therapist in the Twin Cities for more than 20 years, clarified to the Star Tribune that counselors at his clinics do not force any treatment on patients.

"This individual (Becker) came to us under a false pretense,'' he noted. "The truth of the matter is he specifically asked for help.''

[By Nathan Black | Christian Post Reporter]






Reports: Marcus Bachmann’s Clinic Uses 'Ex-Gay'... by NewsyVideos

When The Leader Loses His Compass

Most people are familiar with the America’s Cup, the sailboat race which has attracted prominent competitors such as Sir Thomas Lipton and Ted Turner.  What most people don’t know is that there is a fresh water counterpart to that race, the Canada’s Cup, sailed on the Great Lakes.  The genesis of that race, how the Americans lost it the first time and gained it back the second, is one of the most interesting in yachting history.

In 1896 the Lincoln Park Yacht Club in Chicago challenged the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto to a cross-Great Lakes race.  The first race was held that year in Toledo, OH.  The Canadians were victorious, thus they named the race the Canada’s Cup.

In the same year, another member of the Lincoln Park club, Chicago rubber magnate Fred W. Morgan, commissioned the building of his new yacht, the Pathfinder.  Built in Racine, WI, its maiden voyage to Chicago was “the event of the season,” and people gathered on the docks to watch it glide into the harbor.  The Pathfinder was 140' long (a sizeable yacht then or now) and resembled the U.S. Navy’s battleships of the day.   It had telephones and electric lighting in an era when the vast majority of American homes had neither.

Two years later the Chicago Yacht Club, with Fred Morgan as its Commander and the Pathfinder the club’s flagship, issued a challenge to the RCYC for the Canada’s Cup.  The following year the Pathfinder steamed from Chicago to Toronto for the rematch.

The first day of racing was 21 August 1899.  The object was to start near the RCYC, round two buoys, and return to the club.  The Canadians’ yacht, the Beaver, had an accident right at the start and was out of the race.   The American yacht, the Genessee, had a chance for a default for the first race (it was two out of three to win.)

But such was not to be.  The Pathfinder was acting as a kind of “pace yacht” for the race, but in the haze on Lake Ontario itself got lost and missed the first buoy.  Behind it was not only the Genessee but steam yachts Siren and Canada!  The entire entourage mistook another buoy for the first official one, where the judges’ ship waited in vain.

Because of this the Americans missed the chance for a forfeit.

In those days it was easy for everyone to follow the largest, most magnificent yacht on the Great Lakes.  But they still got lost.  Unfortunately things haven’t changed as much as we would like to think.

Many times, we are led by those who are supposedly the best connected to God and the most enlightened among us.  Yet we still experience decline every way it can be measured.

In the end the only one we can trust for the truth is He that is the truth, Jesus Christ.  Through Him all things were created, so He is most knowledgeable as to what we need.  And, of course, He is the real “pathfinder” from the ultimate challenge of life, death itself, as we walked out of the tomb after those who didn’t care for his challenge of their authority had him executed.

It’s time for all of us who have followed what looked to be the biggest and most magnificent thing “on the water” to turn to He who actually walked on it.

[Based on https://www.vulcanhammer.org/2011/06/23/when-the-pathfinder-gets-lost/]

Pastor Robert Schuller Removed From Board of Directors at Crystal Cathedral

Amid reports that Robert H. Schuller, the founder of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, had been voted off the board of directors, a statement from the church Monday said that only his position changed.

“Recently, the board of directors of Crystal Cathedral Ministries voted to change Dr. Schuller’s position from that of a voting board member to the honorary Chairman of the Board Emeritus, a non-voting position,” said the statement released by the church.

The move is apparently aimed at relieving the 84-year-old pastor of administrative burden so that he may have more time for speaking and writing.

“This will free up Dr. Schuller’s time for more speaking engagements and a writing project he has wanted to tackle. He will also continue to speak in the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral and on the Hour of Power, and meet with staff in creative and vision-casting meetings,” the statement added.

This comes a day after Schuller’s son, Robert A. Schuller, told The Orange County Register that his father was ousted because of his differences with the other board members. The elder Schuller had been pressing to add more members to the board, a move resisted by the other members.

“A majority of that board consists of paid employees of the church and that's a serious conflict of interest," Robert A. Schuller added.

He said that in a vote that took place more than a week ago, his mother Arvella, a member of the board, was in the minority who voted against the move to remove her husband.

“They kicked him off. ... I feel bad for him because he’s had to watch his life’s work go down the toilet the last three years,” The Los Angeles quoted the younger Schuller as saying, who was himself ousted by the board in 2008, two years after he had replaced his father as the senior pastor at the Garden Grove megachurch.

The longstanding family dispute has only become more acute in view of financial problems of the church, which last year sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. And this year in May, the church decided to sell the building and 40-acre campus for $46 million to an Orange County developer.

The reins of the church are currently in the hands of two of Schuller’s daughters: Shiela Coleman Schuller and Gretchen Schuller Penner.

Schuller’s eldest daughter, Sheila Coleman, is not a board member but controls the ministry as the executive director of ministries and missions. Her husband, Jim Coleman, is the president of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries. Meanwhile, Gretchen Schuller Penner leads the television ministry.

“Dad will continue to provide leadership for this ministry through me for as long as possible,” said Sheila Coleman in the statement. “I have and will continue to defer to his wisdom and honor him for his unprecedented accomplishments.”

The father and daughter, however, have been known to have differences of opinions. More recently, it was regarding a controversial step by Sheila Coleman, in which she had asked the choir members to sign a “covenant” that they would adhere to a biblical lifestyle and abstain from homosexual behavior. The covenant also strongly emphasized that church leaders and choir members be all Christians. The father reportedly wasn’t very pleased with this and told The Orange County Register that he would have never personally approved it.

In any case, the statement made by the executive director Monday will do little to silence her critics, among whom her niece, Angie Schuller Wyatt, is the most vocal.

In a guest column she had written for The Christian Post after the May decision to sell the church, she said: “This abhorrent behavior conveniently hides the perpetual underlying issue among Crystal Cathedral leadership. The leadership (my aunts to be more specific) do not want to relinquish control even AFTER they have failed on an epic national scale. In any U.S. corporation, the leadership would be REMOVED in the face of bankruptcy.

“As long as the current leadership maintains control, there will be no positive change at the Crystal Cathedral. They’re buying time by hawking one of America’s greatest cathedrals. Their actions will only delay the inevitable. It’s like loaning money to a gambler.”

According to CNN, about her grandfather’s ouster, Wyatt said: “It was surprising, but not completely unexpected,” hinting that there was a pattern in the way, both her grandfather and father, Robert A. Schuller, were voted out.

“They did it behind his back, just like they did to my dad. They conspired behind his back and made this happen,” Schuller Wyatt said. “This board is causing the demise and the destruction of the Crystal Cathedral.”

“They weren’t letting him do anything anyway. Those of us here see it as symbolically awful,” said Pastor James Kok, who has been on staff with Crystal Cathedral Ministries for 28 years. “They had effectively stopped listening to him two or three years ago. It’s symbolic, not functional. He was mostly put on the shelf by his daughters.”

About the leadership style of the sisters, Kok said, “They just do things. They don’t ask anybody.”

[By Subodh S. Lal | Christian Post Contributor]

The Pastor's 10 Commandments

1. Know your Bible better.
2. Be a man of prayer.
3. Don’t lose sight of Christ.
4. Be deeply Trinitarian.
5. Use your imagination.
6. Speak much of sin and grace.
7. Use the “plain style” - language that is clear.
8. Find your own voice.
9. Learn how to transition.
10. Love your people.

[from Sinclair Ferguson]

Disappointment

Lord, I can almost taste the bitterness
of disappointment;
my shattered expectations and dreams
are like gravel in my mouth.
So help me—my strength fails.
Help me
to realize all that has happened,
to see, beyond the betrayal,
Your hand and Your love.
Through the failure of man
You move silently but surely,
even making human wrath
to praise you
and to being about my good.
Teach me
in this disappointment
to empty my mouth of grit
and to savor instead
the delicacies You have prepared for me.
That I may honor Christ,

Amen.

[from Institute for Nouthetic Studies Blog by Jay Adams]

Counseling For Pastors Has Never Been More Important

10 Keys to Being A Healthy Pastor:

1. Let God restore your soul daily.  Psalm 23.  Matthew 11:28.  Worship.  Prayer.  Solitude.  Listening.  Bible reading.  “I pray for you to know the REST of Jesus in all things.”  The enemy will deceitfully persuade you that you have many things to accomplish in order to keep things running.  I am all too aware of this temptation.  Simplicity in Christ leads us to only one thing to do - let Christ do it.
2. Give your marriage priority attention.  A bad marriage ruins the rest of life.  (Remember the Proverbs.)  A good marriage fortifies you for the rest of life.  Is your home a tunnel of chaos or an oasis of rest?
3. Work with your personal rhythms.  Work early or late depending on your personal rhythms.
4. Keep your Sabbath rest.  A principle of creation:  rest one day in seven.  Sabbath is a day to pray and play.
5. Do the things only you can do – and delegate the rest.  Be ruthless in simplifying your work. Empower others!  Take some time now to save much time later.
6. Focus on results not time at work.  The point is not to clock your time but to get things done.  Focus on your highest impact activities.  Managers do things right.  Leaders do the right things.
7. Get regular exercise.  If you are healthier and fit, you can work harder and you will last longer.  Exercise is a huge stress reliever.
8. Ask for help.  Secrets are dangerous.  Need help?  In the last 18 months, has a trusted person told you, “I think you need to talk to somebody about that.”  If the answer is yes, get help.  Every prominent Christian leader and pastor I know, regularly visits a counselor.  It is okay to ask for help.
9. Let God heal your anger.  Ask God to show you … heal you.  Ask a close friend if you seem angry.  Consider:  Elder prayer, counseling, talking with an insightful friend.  This is enormously important!
10. Don’t be crushed by criticism.  Consider the source.  Be willing to receive criticism from trustworthy people – people who are for you, who are insightful, who are not negative.  Consider if you are a pleaser.  Galatians 1:10.

[from MMI Weblog by tpeters]

What would it look like if we focused less on the things that make our churches entertaining and more on making disciples?

The Church of God in Christ Bishop James Oglethorpe Patterson Jr. died on Saturday.

Bishop Patterson was born in Memphis, Tenn., on May 28, 1935, to the late President Bishop of the Church of God in Christ, Bishop J.O. Patterson, Sr. and Deborah M. Patterson. He was the grandson of the COGIC founder Bishop Charles Harrison Mason.

Known as both a churchman and a statesman, Bishop Patterson served as chairman of the General Assembly, the legislative body of the church for nearly 11 years. As chairman of the General Assembly, Patterson supervised all sessions of the legislative authority of COGIC.

“Bishop J.O. Patterson was a wise and faithful chairman who served in one of the highest offices of the Church of God in Christ,” says Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake. “The General Assembly of the church is the doctrine-expressing body of the church, and Bishop Patterson led that entity effectively and with vision. He will be greatly missed. We offer our sincere prayers to his wife, family and the Pentecostal Temple congregation.”

Known for his quick wit and incredible sense of humor, Bishop Patterson practiced law in Memphis. He became active in state and local political life as a state representative for one term, state senator for two terms, Memphis city councilman for five terms and as interim mayor of Memphis in 1982.

The local home going celebration is scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. The jurisdictional home going celebration will be held on Thursday at 7 p.m. Both services will be at the Pentecostal Temple Institutional Church Of God In Christ Memphis. The National Home going Celebration will be on Friday at 11 a.m. at Mason Temple in Memphis.

[Source: Charisma Media]

The Organized Church in America Is In Trouble

For years mainline churches in America have been in decline.  The Catholic Church with all their legal problems, the Episcopal Church with all their controversies, the Presbyterian church with decreasing membership, the Methodist church closing many churches, and since 2009, the Southern Baptists.

Again in 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention baptized fewer people in 2010 than any time since the 1950s.  The nation's largest Protestant denomination also saw declines in overall membership and attendance.

Emory University's Baptist Studies Director David W. Key Sr., who is a Southern Baptist, said the decline reflects the fact that the membership of many Southern Baptist churches is aging.

The only growing denominations in America are Pentecostal, and that is minimal.

What is the problem?  CLICK HERE to learn more.

Eddie Long: My Wife Has Not Left Me

ATLANTA -- A statement was issued Tuesday morning regarding circulating rumors that said that the wife of Bishop Eddie Long had left him in the wake of the out of court settlement with four young men who accused him of coercing them into sexual relationships.

"Gay" Group Wants Baptists to Apologize - Not Likely

Get Equal, a pro-homosexual advocacy group, has launched a petition drive that calls on the Southern Baptist Convention to apologize for its teaching against the homosexual lifestyle.  Organizers on the group’s website contend the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is causing harm to the lesbian, “gay,” bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and petition signatures will be delivered this week to the SBC’s annual meeting in Phoenix.

Terry Fox, senior pastor of Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, and a longtime leader within the denomination, says the group is looking in the wrong place for an apology.  “I think they’re the ones that owe America an apology,” he contends. “Their whole platform, that whole organization ... is nothing but perversion, and it damages families, it damages children.  Ultimately, it damages our own society.”

Pastor Fox, who has been in the ministry for over 32 years, says he is proud that his denomination has stood strong on moral issues in the midst of increasingly liberal Christian teachings.

“It shows [Get Equal] think[s] they have become an accepted organization in America, which I would beg to differ with them,” the pastor adds.  “Any poll you would take from any region in America, including the more liberal parts of the country, they would find that they’re out of sync with all of society.  So I’m embarrassed for them for even asking for an apology.”

In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention repudiated slavery, denounced racism and issued a public apology for the role the denomination might have played in harming African-Americans. Get Equal leaders liken its desire for an apology to the same action 15 years ago.

[by Russ Jones - OneNewsNow]

Old Navy goes Gay

Old Navy is now selling "gay pride" T-shirts in support of President Obama's proclamation designating June as "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month."

Old Navy's rainbow T-shirts are part of its "Love Proudly: Pride 2011" campaign. The shirts reportedly went on sale June 1 and will be available at select stores throughout the country. Old Navy is donating 10 percent of the proceeds to the "It Gets Better Project," a pro-LGBT campaign.

The T-shirt designs include a white shirt with "Love Proudly" written in the colors of the rainbow, and a black shirt with rainbow-colored stripes.

According to reports, the T-shirts are being sold at some Old Navy stores until the end of June or until supplies run out. Old Navy is already saying they may increase the number of stores next year.

Homosexual activists are encouraging Old Navy to carry more 'gay' shirts in more stores next year.

If you would like to get involved, you can let Old Navy president Tim Wyatt know his decision to engage in corporate promotion and financial support of homosexuality is a bad idea, considering the number of mothers buying summer and back-to-school clothes.

CLICK HERE to send your letter to Old Navy.

Elva Howard Update

Elva Howard, mother of COGOP General Overseer Randall Howard, has been moved to a rehabilitation center where she will receive physical therapy to help her return to her normal independent and active life.

Sister Howard is 88 years old and is expected to make a good recovery.

Please keep Sister Howard and the family in your prayers.

Elva Howard Update

Elva Howard, the mother of COGOP General Overseer Randall Howard, was hit by a truck Wednesday while she was standing in tghe check-out line in the garden department at Lowe's in Cleveland, Tennessee.  Sister Howard was air-lifted to a Chattanooga hospital.  It was a traumatic event and the man who was standing beside her is still in critical condition.  Sister Howard has five broken ribs and a fractured vertebrae.  She will recover by God great help.

Sister Howard is still in a lot of pain.  Please continue to pray for this precious family.

Sister Elva Howard served the Church of God of Prophecy for many years as International Women's Ministries Director.

Opportunity to Help Northeast Alabama Tornado Victims

Synergy Ministries has had boots on the ground in DeKalb County Alabama since Wednesday giving out bottled water, ice, batteries, and baby diapers. We will be here working for the duration because this is where we live.

We will shift into counseling mode Monday, providing free counseling at the Relationship Clinic to tornado victims.

If you would like to help, CLICK HERE and donate.

Thank you so very much.