My 10 worst ministry mistakes - Greg Stier

We all make mistakes. And God can use all of our mistakes, missteps and mess ups as essential ingredients in transforming us into his masterpieces!

Over the last 27 years of full-time professional ministry here are my ten worst ministry mistakes:

1. Not prioritizing prayer

Up until 2008 prayer was the caboose, not the engine, of my ministry efforts. Sadly, it took The Great Recession to see a true progression in my prayer life. Now prayer, specifically intercessory prayer, is driving my ministry efforts forward in ways I never could have imagined. Learn from my mistake in this area and let prayer propel your life and ministry efforts forward (1 Timothy 2:1-8.) You will not regret it because God will do "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or imagine...." 

2. Putting ministry before marriage

Twenty years ago my wife and I had a blow up during a Bible study where I eventually came clean about my "mistress" called ministry. It was embarrassing (since I was the pastor of the church) but liberating at the same time. The cat was finally out of the bag because everyone in our church soon discovered (thanks prayer chain!) that there was a giant pain point in our marriage.

This phenomenal church rallied behind us and helped us make strides in our marriage. Since then we have experienced steady progress toward victory. I thank God for a loving, strong and committed wife who has been willing to journey with me through a quarter of a century of failing forward toward a healthy marriage.

3. Separating evangelism and discipleship

For years I viewed evangelism and discipleship as distinct Christian priorities. There was growing deep in discipleship and then there was going wide with evangelism. But over the years God has made it clear to me from his Word that both are so intertwined that separating them risks breaking something precious.

When Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 4:19, "Follow me and I will teach you to fish for people" he forever linked evangelism and discipleship. As my friend Doug Holliday says, "Any discipleship that doesn't begin with evangelism and end with evangelism is not Biblical discipleship." 

As a result of this realization, we have identified seven values that can help any youth leader build a youth ministry that is effective when it comes to winning teenagers to Christ, equipping them to grow in their faith and unleashing them to reach others. Apply these seven values in your youth ministry context and you will discover the power of keeping evangelism and discipleship side-by-side, not separate.

4. Ready! Fire! Aim!

Last year I had the privilege of going to a shooting range with a ministry partner and he let me shoot his sniper rifle. He coached me through the process and really helped me learn how to aim. He explained to me that an inch off the bull's eye at 100 yards means completely missing the target at 1,000 yards. 

What's true in shooting rifles is true in leading ministries. If we are one inch off the bull's eye God has for us in ministry, we may completely miss the mark a decade from now.

Working with great "sharpshooters" like our President, Debbie Bresina, and our Vice President of Ministry Advancement, Phil Hildebrand, has helped me slow down, take a deep breath and take true aim before I squeeze the trigger. This ready/steady process has moved us from a "Ready! Fire! Aim!" ministry to a "Ready! Aim! Fire!" one.

5. Reacting vs. Responding

My family is a group of reactors. When I was a kid, I witnessed my family "react" to situations with fists and fury. My very urban, very violent family members were ready to throw down in an instant. I thank God that over the years they all have been redeemed by Christ and transformed by the power of the Gospel!

But I did get a strong dose of their reaction first, think later DNA. This sort of zero-pause reaction time has gotten me into trouble over the years in ministry. While I don't usually throw someone in a headlock I can quickly attack someone verbally if I feel cornered or being condescended to.

I'll never forget getting a confrontational e-mail from a national ministry leader who didn't like one of my sermons that he hadn't even heard. He had heard about it and didn't like what he thought I had said. His arrogant e-mail made me so mad I was ready to get on a plane, fly to his house and confront him to his face. 

One of my co-workers at Dare 2 Share simply said, "Respond, don't react." So, instead of boarding a plane, I stopped and prayed. After calming down I wrote a direct but gently worded e-mail with my manuscripted sermon attached. Within hours, he e-mailed me and apologized. After reading my sermon he admitted that he had jumped to the wrong conclusions about what he thought I was implying. He asked for forgiveness which I gladly granted.

"Respond, don't react" was some of the best ministry advice I have ever received. 

6. Failure to multiply leaders

For years I was the only one who preached at Dare 2 Share. I did the inspirational talks, trained the students and equipped the youth leaders. After an early disastrous experiment in letting other speakers do the training, I got nervous about giving up the microphone. So, for almost a decade, another communicator could only get the mic if they pried it from my cold, dead fingers.

Over the last several years that has changed dramatically. We have intentionally begun to equip other leaders to inspire, equip and lead. Although it takes longer (and can still result in some micro-disasters) the benefits have been amazing. More teenagers can be trained in more places by more people.

I don't want to die, but I want to be able to die and have this ministry vision still move ahead powerfully. By multiplying leaders, this can actually happen.

7. Counting the wrong numbers

In the church and Christian conference worlds attendance numbers reign as king. But they shouldn't. It took years for me to realize this important truth. As a matter of fact, it took a research project that we funded for me to finally accept that one thing mattered more than attendance.

That one thing is impact.

This reality is pushing Dare 2 Share's entire ministry model upside down so that we can have as deep as an impact as possible with as many teenagers as possible (in that order!) We are excited to see what the results will be!

We must be concerned about the right numbers: the number of disciples being made and multiplied, the number of our teenagers growing deep in their faith and the percentage of our teenagers actively sharing their faith.

Big attendance numbers are fine but big impact numbers are even better!

8. Not taking care of myself

Having been out of shape in my late twenties (I weighed a junk-food-induced 225-ish pounds for awhile) I know the kind of impact that a blubbery, buttery body can have on the rest of one's ministry. My energy levels were low, my production levels were medium and my temptation levels were high. 

It took some close friends speaking hard truth into my life to help me begin to break these chains. When I finally did it really helped me minister more effectively on every level.

9. Comparing and competitiveness

"We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise."  2 Corinthians 10:12

I've never been good at sports so preaching and ministry growth has always been my court, field, and octagon. And I want to dominate my sport.

There have been far too many times than I'd like to admit that I've been driven by competitiveness rather than Christ. To be honest, I have to consistently monitor my ever-straying heart to keep it riveted to Christ and working for his glory not my own.

10. Self-reliance vs. Spirit-dependence

Early on in my ministry, I tended to be a "jumper cable Christian." I'd get a spiritual surge of energy from the latest/greatest preacher, podcast or praise song and get the Jesus jolt I needed to make it through the day. The problem is that, with this sort of hook-your-jumper-cables-up-to-the-anything-other-than-Jesus, you inevitably run out of juice.

Over the years I've been learning more and more what it means to plug into the steady current of the Holy Spirit who dwells in me. Regardless of mood or proximity to charged up events or preachers or music, He is the "ever ready" power source to give me the strength I need to walk victoriously over sin and advance His cause in my sphere of influence. Now I seek to live in a daily declaration of dependence on the Holy Spirit. This practice has allowed me to do ministry with fewer highs and lows and keep in step with the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:25.)

These are my ten worst ministry mistakes. If you feel so led, share one or two of yours. And let's fail forward together until we finally fall into the arms of the Lord Jesus who is cheering us on from the finish line!

The Nashville Statement

Preamble

Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences. The pathway to full and lasting joy through God’s good design for his creatures is thus replaced by the path of shortsighted alternatives that, sooner or later, ruin human life and dishonor God.

This secular spirit of our age presents a great challenge to the Christian church. Will the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction, clarity, and courage, and blend into the
spirit of the age? Or will she hold fast to the word of life, draw courage from Jesus, and
unashamedly proclaim his way as the way of life? Will she maintain her clear, counter-cultural
witness to a world that seems bent on ruin?

We are persuaded that faithfulness in our generation means declaring once again the true story of
the world and of our place in it—particularly as male and female. Christian Scripture teaches that
there is but one God who alone is Creator and Lord of all. To him alone, every person owes glad-
hearted thanksgiving, heart-felt praise, and total allegiance. This is the path not only of glorifying God,
but of knowing ourselves. To forget our Creator is to forget who we are, for he made us for
himself. And we cannot know ourselves truly without truly knowing him who made us. We did
not make ourselves. We are not our own. Our true identity, as male and female persons, is given
by God. It is not only foolish, but hopeless, to try to make ourselves what God did not create us
to be.

We believe that God’s design for his creation and his way of salvation serve to bring him the
greatest glory and bring us the greatest good. God’s good plan provides us with the greatest
freedom. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it in overflowing measure. He is
for us and not against us. Therefore, in the hope of serving Christ’s church and witnessing
publicly to the good purposes of God for human sexuality revealed in Christian Scripture, we
offer the following affirmations and denials.


Article 1
WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong
union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant
love between Christ and his bride the church.
WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous
relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made
before God.

Article 2
WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity
within marriage.
WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or
outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.

Article 3
WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal
before God as persons, and distinct as male and female.
WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal
in dignity or worth.

Article 4
WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original
creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.
WE DENY that such differences are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.

Article 5
WE AFFIRM that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral
to God’s design for self-conception as male or female.
WE DENY that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link
between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.

Article 6
WE AFFIRM that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the
image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers. They are
acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their
mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and
should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known.
WE DENY that ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex render one incapable of living a
fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.

Article 7
WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes
in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.
WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s
holy purposes in creation and redemption.

Article 8
WE AFFIRM that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and
fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in
purity of life.
WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s
original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

Article 9
WE AFFIRM that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant
and toward sexual immorality— a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual
immorality.
WE DENY that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral
behavior.

Article 10
WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that
such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.
WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral
indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

Article 11
WE AFFIRM our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or
about one another as male or female.
WE DENY any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor God’s design of his image bearers as male and female.

Article 12
WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming
power, and that this pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires
and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.
WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give
power for holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin.

Article 13
WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological
sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.
WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s
revealed will.

Article 14
WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s
death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who
repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure.
WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.



Scripture References*
Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15-25; 3:1-24; Ex. 20:14; 20:17; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Dt. 5:18, 21; 22:5; Jdg. 19:22; 2 Sam.11:1-12:15; Job 31:1; Ps. 51:1-19; Prov. 5:1-23; 6:20-35; 7:1-27; Isa. 59:1; Mal. 2:14; Matt. 5:27–30;19:4-6, 8-9, 12; Acts 15:20, 29; Rom. 1:26–27; 1:32; 1 Cor. 6:9–11, 18-20; 7:1-7; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 5:24; Eph. 4:15, 20–24; 5:31–32; Col. 3:5; 1 Thess. 4:3-8; 1 Tim. 1:9–10, 15; 2 Tim. 2:22; Titus 2:11-12; Heb.13:4; Jas. 1:14–15; 1 Pet. 2:11; Jude 7
* Scripture texts are not a part of the original document but have been added subsequently for reference


The Nashville Statement is an evangelical Christian statement of faith (drafted in August of 2017) relating to human sexuality and gender roles authored by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) in Nashville, Tennessee. The Statement expresses support for an opposite-sex definition of marriage, for faithfulness within marriage, for chastity outside marriage, and for a link between biological sex and "self-conception as male and female." The Statement sets forth the signatories' opposition to LGBT sexuality, same-sex marriage, polygamy, polyamory, adultery, and fornication. It was criticized by egalitarian Christians and LGBT campaigners, as well as by several conservative religious figures.(copied from Wikipedia)

Natural Marriage is Not Bigotry—It’s Biology

Written by 

Frank Turek | May 13, 2014

What reasons, other than religious reasons, might someone want to keep marriage defined as only the union of one man and one woman? There are actually thousands of reasons. They are born each day. Marriage must be protected to protect children.

How does that follow? How will children be affected by broadening the definition of marriage? To discover the actual truth about this complicated issue of same-sex marriage, it’s important to be correct rather than politically correct. 

Let’s start by identifying the main reason we have marriage laws in the first place. The main reason the government is involved in marriage is not to recognize that two people love one another or have a romantic affinity for one another. We don’t have marriage laws to recognize the fact that you get a tingle when Barbara wears that blouse. Why should the state care about just romantic feelings?

The real reason governments have an interest in promoting natural marriage because only natural marriage perpetuates and stabilizes society. Strong marriage laws encourage men and women to procreate and then stay together to mother and father their children. That benefits children and all of society because children raised in biological two-parent homes  tend to do better and cause society much less trouble than children raised in other situations.

Why is this so? Because men and women are different. Mothering and fathering are different. A mother brings unique benefits to her child that a father cannot provide and vice versa. Same sex couples always deny children in their care either a mother or a father. Only natural marriage can provide and protect the parenting unit that every child deserves—a mother and a father. That’s why limiting marriage to a man and a woman is not bigotry—it’s biology . It’s based in the biological facts of nature and the needs of children.

Homosexual activists inadvertently admit this in arguing for same-sex marriage. While they assert that men and women are the same—that there’s no difference between homosexual and heterosexual relationships so those relationships should be treated equally—their entire case denies that point. If men and women were really the same, the activists would simply marry someone of the opposite sex—which according to them is the same as someone of the same sex—and be done with it. The very reason they are demanding same-sex marriage is precisely because they know men and women are drastically different.

Since same sex and natural marriage are different behaviors that result in different outcomes, they should not be treated equally. The law must treat people equally (which it already does) but not their behaviors. When the law treats these different behaviors equally the cultural understanding of marriage changes and children get hurt.

The law is a great teacher. It shapes opinions and behaviors for generations to come. Wherever same sex marriage becomes law, the public doesn’t come to see two types of marriage—natural and same sex. It comes to understand that marriage is genderless. In other words, by dropping the gender requirement, the law helps teach society that marriage is a genderless institution merely about the romantic desires of adults and nothing about the needs of children. Well, if marriage isn’t about the needs of children, then what institution is about children? Do we really think we can divorce children from marriage and avoid negative consequences?

We can’t. In fact, we’ve been experiencing negative consequences since no-fault divorce laws passed in the 1970s. Those laws make dissolving a family too easy and should be repealed. They also help teach people that marriage is only about the desires of adults, not the needs of children. If marriage is all about my happiness and not the needs of children, then I should get divorced if I’m not “happy.” The law is teaching me that if the tingle is gone I should move on. No wonder families break up at alarming rates, and children are damaged in the process. Making marriage genderless through same sex marriage will further hurt children by annihilating their connection to marriage completely.

Making marriage genderless also impacts what we teach our children. In Massachusetts , for example, parents now have no right to even know when their kids as young as kindergarten are being taught about homosexuality, much less opt out of it. Why are we indoctrinating five year olds with any information about sex, especially homosexuality? And why is California now mandating that homosexuals must be identified in public school curriculum and only depicted in positive ways? Nothing negative can be said even if it’s true! That’s not education; that’s propaganda. Our education system is politicized and propagandized and our children are the victims.

Some states even dictate how parents educate and counsel their children outside the schoolroom. California, along with New Jersey, now make you a criminal for counseling your own child out of unwanted homosexual desires. Do you realize the totalitarian nature of this? The state has given itself the obligation to indoctrinate your children into homosexuality and taken away your parental right to counsel them out of it. Are you the parent of your own child or is the state? Is this still America?

If all of these observations make you mad, don’t blame me—I didn’t make up the facts of nature. I didn’t make up the fact that men were made for women and that babies only come from their unions. I didn’t make up the fact that mothers and fathers are different and bring unique parenting skills and benefits to their children. I didn’t make up the universe in such a way that children tend to turn out better when raised by a biological mom and dad. I didn’t make up the fact that we all have desires we ought not act on, regardless if we are born with those desires or acquire them in life. These aren’t “my” truths or my morality. They are self-evident truths. They are not hard to know—just sometimes hard to accept.

It can be summed up this way: Conservatives try to adjust their behavior to fit the facts of nature. Liberals try to adjust the facts of nature to fit their behavior. No matter how well intended, the latter is an impossible approach that often leads to tragic results .

If we truly love and care for people, we won’t abandon self-evident truths and celebrate destructive behavior. When we do, not only do children get hurt, so do many others..... 

The Incorrect Assumption of Transgenderism....by Elizabeth Prata

The following article is taken from a blog entitled, "The End Time".  The author of both the blog and article is Elizabeth Prata.  Thank you Elizabeth for a very informative and God honoring article on a very culturally divisive issue.

"...what is in the mind cannot be questioned."

The above statement was from Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the author of "Try to Remember: Psychiatry's Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind".

It is from an excerpt from an Opinion-Editorial article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last week by Dr. Paul McHugh, formerly head psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University. [HTStand to Reason Blog] from which the above was taken. Their title was "Why the First Hospital to Do Sex-Reassignment Surgeries No Longer Does Them"

I thought Dr. McHugh's point about anorexia and bulimia was especially poignant. The comment about the 20-fold higher suicide rate of surgically transgendered patients in latter years having 'no explanation' was also poignant.

Christians have the explanation. The explanation is, the trans-gender seeker person is vigorously rebelling against God and denying His sovereignty over creation, including their own creation as a man or a woman. Rebellion against God and denying Him always leads to despair- because rebels have no hope.

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Halifax, Canada: "The familiar stick figures remain, so as not to confuse anyone used to looking for them to point the way to a washroom. But now Capital Health has added a third figure to the signs on some of its single-stall bathrooms in Halifax to represent transgender people, in a move designed to signal a welcoming environment to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individual."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Satan actively seeks moral decline. He seeks it in the individual and he seeks it in society. In attacking the family satan has had success in bringing about an acceptance of divorce, and an acceptance of homosexuality- at least as it's presented in the news and the media. The next frontier for acceptance of perversity is transgenderism, and polyamory (Multiple wives, or multiple partners under one roof.)  If satan can corrupt the marriage institution and pervert the nuclear family, thus normalizing terrible sin, he will have accomplished his goal, which is to rebel against God's holy standards. Getting an entire society to rebel is icing on the cake. (Romans 1:32).

Dr McHugh's information is of interest because transgenderism is the next frontier of satan's active battlefield. The cherry on top of the icing on the cake is that after getting individuals to fall, and after getting a culture to fall, is to get these perverted notions accepted by thechurch. It has been an onslaught lately.

Several weeks ago, a church identifying as Southern Baptist repudiated the biblical standard for sexuality and voted to keep a pastor who'd reversed his position on homosexuality as a sin. The reason for the pastor's change of heart? His son came out as gay, and rather than repudiate the sin in his son and go through the Matthew 18 process, the pastor chose to repudiate Jesus instead. His church voted to keep the gay-affiring pastor, thus the congregation repudiated Jesus also. In these cases I am reminded of Revelation 3:20. Jesus is outside the door of the church, knocking to come in.

The Presbyterian Church USA voted this week to change their constitution declaring marriage as a union between two people, rather than specifically between a man and a woman.

In the face of the swelling tide of gender role and sexual reversals, last week the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution stating in part, "The separation of one's gender identity from the physical reality of biological birth sex poses the harmful effect of engendering an understanding of sexuality and personhood that is fluid."

And this piece by Dr McHugh agrees, medically, biologically, and psychologically. Transgenderism is in the mind, it is a desire, an appetite. It is a disorder, not a biological reality.

Acknowledging transgenderism as a sin and not a disorder does not diminish the pain and anguish the gender confused individual possesses. However the glory of the Gospel is that Jesus died to pay for all sins, and to bring peace between Himself and sinners. Any and all sin, confusion, and anguish can be covered and helped by repentance and submission to the Great and Holy Comforter. He is a man of Sorrows Himself, understanding our pains and woes. He will help. Repentance, means a true rejection of one's sin, and in this case pleas to Jesus will be heard. It doesn't mean that one's anguish over sin will be immediately dissolved, but He sends a Helper in the Holy Spirit to aid us in resisting temptation. More than that He gives us HOPE, and changes our focus from self  to Him, that is always the greatest and most magnanimous place to start the path to true peace.

Here is Dr. McHugh

[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….

Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field….

We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription….

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 1:4)

And yet, our gentle Lord encourages us with this verse,

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1:20-21)