Pastoral Prayer Ministry

by David Blair Corbett (Notes) on Saturday, 27 August 2011 at 15:08...

Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.

3-4You didn't think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he's such a nice God, he'd let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change. Romans 2:2b - 4  (The Message)

[This passage was posted, as a statement related to my own life and is not meant to be a "hidden message" to someone I'm in relationship with or who is a friend of mine on FB.]

by David Blair Corbett (Notes) on Saturday, 10 September 2011 at 12:49 (on Facebook)

In my view, I need clear moral standards built in love… That is what I see successful parents doing, even today where moral greyness seems to reign… These parents unashamedly nurture and guide with consistent standards (that are moral), this brings peace and security.

Living by “the Law” (legalistic religiousness) can be very destructive, it seems, yet, living without standards or via some form of moral relativism has been taking cultures to destruction for millenia… So what’s a body to do??!!

Without loving, clear standards, we grow up to become anxious seekers of instant gratification who never know how to grow up to emotional maturity – that sounds like half the adult culture in North America, to me!. Without these clear, loving moral standards, we don’t know the difference between love and lust… Youth often rebel and refuse moral standards because they are reacting to the way some parents "deliver" these standards (in fear & anger, maybe?) or because the “rights & wrongs” aren’t adhered to by the “messenger”. Being a “Free-spirit” is too often a euphemism/rationalization for being a clost or even bold rebel, in my finding… Many teens can’t find their way through the morass of moral “greyness” our culture has been handing out for decades…

Loving nurture always includes boundaries and clear messages of where you begin, and I end, so to speak… Doing hard things (as far as right and wrong) is what grows us up!   We really need to have those in our lives who will help guide and care for us as we learn to do those difficult things…  This essential is sadly lacking out there today!

Some feel we know what is morally correct from nurture alone… This discounts one’s spirit… We know authentic Love when we sense Love, some say that’s intuitive… I say it is Spirit. And soul alone cannot learn to be loving, it is experienced in one’s alive and functioning spirit, which has learned and been aided to live at the forefront of each of us – taking preeminence. Personally, I think we do not teach this well, or even at ALL, in North America.

Morals have been expunged from too much of public education over the past 40 years or so, only to create a vacuum that darkness has slowly filled to the point where some public schools are more like hi-security airport clearance areas at the entrance ways! Now many public education leaders and legislators are scrambling to bring in character/moral development curricula!!! Go figure!?

When I was in university, one of my advisers was the founder of values clarification training for educators. His family-life was an admitted total ruin and this person (a secular Jew) was quite willing to share how a loved one of his required a very stringent moral rehabilitation in a 6-month intensive Judeo-Christian program to “straighten them out”! For those uninitiated in this ideology, let me just say: look it up online…  If you want to discern the true worth of an ideologue, look to how they raise their kids and then see what Truth there is in the philosophy they espouse!

We are so strange… We want to see an orderly society where people are kind and respectful and yet… “Oh, let them go to university and “find” themselves…” Hubris! Too many kids looking for themselves, in university, end up depressed and at the counseling center!!! I’d like to say they find what they were looking for there, but I’d be lying to you… Disenchanted, and lacking true moral guidance and support to do the hard work of growing up emotionally, a large percentage of them drop out…

I had put out, by various forms of digital heraldry, that I was going to this PK event last night.  In the end, I saw 5 other men join me from Guelph, KW and Brampton.  It was a great joy to have my daughter's fiancee join us!

Houston Street Baptist Church

It was a pretty packed house at Houston Street Baptist Church in a venue that I am guessing could hold 800 or close to it.  We got 2nd row seats and settled in for a great night.  There were plenty of seats as we got there at 6:30ish, but it sure filled up.  The place was buzzing and we weren't to be disappointed.

The Emcee (AKA: MC or Master of Ceremony) was one of the leaders of PKC, he's lean, 57 and a bit of a comic with an ability to do a tough, straight shooting interview.  His 1st guest on stage is a guy by the name of Glenn, who is of similar age.  The Emcee makes it clear in wry kinda way that he's got full permission from Glenn to "ask him anything"...  And he does...

Glenn's Story

Glenn's story is the dream of many North American men, he had everything... except contentment with his wife.  This hidden dissatisfaction/arrogance turned into a 4.5 year adulterous relationship with a woman at work (about 20 years into his marriage).  Glenn's wife asked him to leave eventually, as the truth of his adultery emerged.  Glenn ended up having his eldest (on-fire for Jesus) daughter come and stay with him as he continued with his mistress.  As an aside, the Emcee called Glenn on saying it was an "affair", yet the word adultery was seldom, if ever, used by either man (correct me if I'm wrong on that).

The story got worse as Glenn's wife became involved (with what sounded like) an adulterous relationship of her own, which lasted 2.5 weeks and threw Glenn into a suicidal depression.  This was the opportunity Glenn's dear daughter needed and she shared deeply with Glenn.  Glenn, soon after, recommitted his life to Jesus, alone, in a cafe.  Around that same time, a family conflict arose in Glenn's wife's home which necessitated Glenn returning to the family home to intervene.  What resulted was a reconciliation with his wife, Cheryl and he quit his adulterous affair that day!  Does this read like a novel?  Wow.  Now, in the Hamilton area, Cheryl and Glenn are mentoring couples looking to shore up their marriages.  Their ministry even has a venue for helping couples in crisis.  I believe you can contact the church that hosted this event for more details: Houston Street Baptist Church.

That was just the 1st 40 minutes!  Next 3 (of the 5 in the group) married, twenty-something guys come up for a similar front-stage interview with the Emcee about their men's group. It was a good discourse, summarized by saying that these guys were really being "brethren" with each other! Words like accountability (which Nate Larkin picked up on later...) and honesty got bandied about, and it sure sounded like these guys where the "real deal".  What I didn't hear was how much sobriety these guys had, how much fruit there was from the group relating/supporting.

Nate Larkin

After a 20 minute break with hi-sugar, rice crispie square snack (read Gary Taubes!) and bottled water (good stewardship of the planet? pardon me, while I love God's creation), Nate Larkin appeared.  He was worth the wait!  In a very unpretentious and plainspoken, wry monologue, Nate gave us the goods.  As a guy and minister who'd been hooked by porn at a young age and later as a new minister got hooked-in with lust again while on an educational trip about the destruction porn causes by touring the seedy side of NYC.  Prostitutes and many forms of lust ensued by Nate's choice for 12 some odd years and resulted in him leaving the ministry (as a senior pastor) after only 5 years.  Use of a 12-step sexaholics group in Franklin, Tennessee was the beginning of Nate's recovery from lust/sex addiction.  He talked about how he lied his way through an accountability group (in what sounded like a church atmosphere), and how he didn't trust the church or pastors to help him.  As a co-leader of a male, pastoral leaders', Christ-centred recovery group,  which is approx. 36 week, and based on the 12-steps, I can tell you that there aren't many "safe places" for ministry leaders to recover from such sin-sicknesses.

I really liked Nate's description of the many "flesh-faces" or false persona's of Nate.  My favourite face description (watch the play on words) was Mag-Nate (the flesh-biz Nate).  The guys loved his humour (which never was in the slightest bit off-colour).  He talked about our carnal natures in such a simple way that hit home.  Such teaching on the ways that the flesh operates and our freedom from sin, the flesh and the evil one being through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ of Nazareth (read the book of Romans), is essential Christian discipleship.  Great Biblical emphasis!

We heard of his founding of the Samson Society, which has a great online presence at www.samsonsociety.net   This ministry is another great "tool"/resource for Christian men who want to grow emotionally mature and get rid of the sin that so easily besets us.  Well done, Promise Keepers Canada.  Well done!