Most days, Mike Haley is hard at work speaking at Love Won Out, holding press conferences, challenging the media’s love affair with the “homosexuality is normal” myth, defending ex-gay ministries, answering hate mail and death threats, or simply being a walking billboard of God’s mercy in an organization he once despised. And he’s never been happier.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Born into a family with a strong spiritual heritage—Mike’s lineage includes pastors on both sides of his family—he initially received the Lord at the age of 8. But being the only boy born to a controlling father who owned sporting goods stores helps explain the direction his life took.
“I was going to be the best football player, the best basketball player, the best baseball player and the best everything my father could possibly make me.“
His father’s way of making him a man was to take him on hunting trips. Often, his dad’s friends would go along.
But times of supposed masculinity and being “one of the boys” turned into times of humiliation, when Mike shirked the recreational shooting his father relished. His resistance earned him the term “sissy” and “worthless”—angrily pronounced on him in front of his father’s macho friends.
At a time when he should have begun to identify with and emulate his father, Mike instead gravitated to the security and acceptance provided by his mother and sisters. Further attempts to teach him sports like baseball only frustrated Mike’s dad more, resulting in further humiliation.
“Why don’t you just go in the house and be with your mom and sisters because that’s where you’d rather be anyway!”
Even though his father showed open hostility, Mike, nonetheless, desperately craved his father’s attention and approval.
Before long, a man began to work for Mike’s father and provided all the attention Mike desperately longed for. The man took him to Disneyland, the beach, affirmed who he was, appreciated his body . . . something his father never did. At the age of 1l, that attention turned sexual.
Starved for male affirmation, he was too young to call the misguided attention what it really was: sexual abuse. The abuse continued through junior high and high school because the man met a deep need in his life. Before long, Mike had jumped headlong into the homosexual lifestyle, becoming involved with other men in Southern California as well. Being a blond, surfer-type boy, he had no trouble attracting those willing to pay attention to him for sexual needs.
By this time, Mike had bought into the familiar gay rhetoric about a “gay gene” and the 10-percent-of-society-is-homosexual myth. Was that the case for him? A high school counselor seemed to think so:
“You just need to realize you have been born gay, so rid your life of internalized homophobia because you have been raised in the church . . . and embrace it.”
Still he was troubled. A year or so later, Mike was counseled by a youth worker at his church that he simply needed to read his Bible and pray more. But it seemed as though the more he read and prayed, the more frustrated and angry he became at the God he had grown up loving, because change was not happening.
Mike moved away, hoping to find the carrot-dangling happiness that always eluded him with a new partner, a new city, a new identity. But through it all, he remained in close contact with his two sisters who provided unconditional love and pictures of his niece and nephews. The letters and snapshots scribbled with ‘Uncle Mike, we miss you’ made him long for normalcy and family life.
“I wasn’t hearing from the church that change was possible. I never heard that in my life.”
Finally in 1985, Mike heard for the first time that homosexuals could change. He had gone to a gay gym at 11:00 that night, and found himself making contact with a man he’d seen there and wanting it to lead to sex. He followed the man out to the parking lot where the man abruptly stated that he was a Christian walking out of homosexuality. It seemed like rubbish to Mike at the time.
“I thought to myself that this guy was crazy, and God wouldn’t do that for you because I tried it and He didn’t do it for me.”
As they continued to debate whether change was possible, the man made several references to another man named Jeff Konrad who had left the lifestyle, was studying the root causes and writing a book. While driving from one area to another, the man shared what he had been learning from Jeff, and he challenged Mike in his relationship with his father. Suddenly, the man’s eyes widened and he shouted, “Oh my gosh, there’s Jeff right now!”
Mike then heard a voice saying, “Was My arm too short to rescue you?”
From that point forward, Jeff Konrad became a symbol of hope in Mike’s search for wholeness. Back and forth their discussions would go over the next four years . . . Mike arguing that change wasn’t possible; Jeff insisting that it was. Through all of Mike’s many moves, Jeff continued to write. His cards would say things like, “I don’t even know if you are getting this letter, but God loves you, I love you and change is possible.” (Their years of letter-writing eventually became the book You Don’t Have to Be Gay.)
After living in the homosexual lifestyle for 12 years, Mike had to admit to himself that he wasn’t happy. Increasingly, he realized he was just a commodity. And to continue finding worth and value to men, he needed to be an attractive commodity. He worked out two to three hours a day, did injectable steroids, even became bulimic. With effort, he could pull off looking the part, acting the part and dressing the part. But the price was too much to pay. Finally, in December of 1989, he came to the end of himself and picked up the phone. It was a prodigal son moment. But instead of the father, God used Jeff Konrad as the male authority figure Mike needed.
“You have been so faithful to me, surely the Jesus you know can be that much more faithful. Please help me get to know Him.”
It was the beginning of his journey back to a wholeness he hadn’t known since the age of 11. He left the lifestyle, moved in with a sister and attended an Exodus International conference not long after.
“There were 800 other men and women sitting in the pews in this church with the same hurts, same pains, who wanted to know Jesus in a way that would help deliver them from this life-dominating sin. It was the most unbelievable thing I had ever experienced in my entire life.”
While there, Mike learned about a residential program for men and women struggling with homosexuality. Because of his sexual addiction, he knew he needed that type of 24-hour care. Before he left the Exodus conference, several men and women gathered to pray over him. One of the men read Jeremiah 15:19:
“Therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return then I will restore you. Before Me you will stand, and if you extract the precious from the worthless, I will make you My spokesman.”
(translation?)
Mike began to realize that God thought of him as precious and not “worthless”—as his father had.
The night Mike got home from the conference, he happened to meet a girl named Angie—a friend of a friend—who was also coming back to the Lord. She and Mike quickly became fast friends. When Mike ended up moving to Northern California in December of 1990 for the reparative therapy program, Angie stayed close emotionally, providing long distance support while he walked out of homosexuality. Mountains of hurt and rejection melted as Mike found a freedom he had not known before. He never again had a sexual encounter with a man.
Mike had always dreamed of being a youth pastor, a calling he had received at the age of 15 during youth camp. But because of his past, he believed it would be impossible. So he took a degree in Christian education from Biola University and applied for his teaching credentials. However, because he had a sexual arrest on his record—he was booked for prostitution in 1987—his application for a teaching license was denied.
Again, Mike found himself frustrated with the Lord because He had been given a passion for youth. Yet, there seemed to be no way to fulfill it. In the meantime, he consoled himself with Angie, with whom he had fallen in love.
By now, Mike was on staff of the reparative therapy ministry, and was in the process of moving with the ministry to Memphis, Tennessee from Northern California. But there was one important thing he needed to do before setting out for Memphis. On December 4, 1994, Mike married “the most beautiful woman on earth.”
As Mike and Angie were beginning to settle down into their new life in Tennessee, Mike felt increasingly restless with his work at the parachurch ministry. Yes, he was bringing men and women out of homosexuality—some from all over the world—but the passion for youth was still there. That year, during an anniversary celebration at Central Church, Tony Campolo spoke a word that troubled his soul for weeks.
“God’s call is irrevocable.”
Mike thought, What does that mean for me? I live in the South, used to be gay and a prostitute, and I want to work with youth, but how?
Two weeks later, the youth pastor position at his church opened up and Mike decided to apply. He gave his testimony to the pastor, then the parents and students, then the deacons and elders, the “pianist” . . . anyone at the church who cared to listen. Nine months later, a lifelong dream came true: Mike officially became a youth pastor! He and Angie thrived in their God-given callings; they loved the kids and the kids and their parents adored them. Through it all, the Lord showed Mike that there are still churches that believe in the complete, life-changing power of Jesus Christ.
Mike served in that position for almost three years, but in May of 1998, he got a phone call from an old friend who now worked for Focus on the Family. John Paulk encouraged him to apply for a position in Focus’ new gender identity outreach. Mike politely said no. John offered it two more times. And two more times Mike turned it down. Having been out of the Lord’s will so long, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving that secure place he’d spent his whole life trying to find.
But God had other ideas. One morning at 4:30 a.m., Mike was sleeplessly skimming a book entitled Spiritual Leadership, when the Lord spoke saying, “I want to sound the note through you.” He reminded Mike of the Jeremiah verse and His desire to use him as His spokesman. That was all Mike needed to hear.
He and Angie began the job at Focus in October of 1998. Instead of just ministering to kids at his church, Mike now speaks to youth all over the country . . . and enjoys a fulfillment in life he never expected to have. He is living proof that homosexuality is not inborn, but God’s ability to change hearts, is.
The homosexual community—stubborn holdouts in the “once gay always gay” debate—does have its surprising admirers of the Love Won Out message. They come to Mike and John Paulk quietly and unceremoniously, much like Nicodemus approached Jesus. One recent remark is typical:
“I just want to let you know I hated you. I hated Focus on the Family before I came. When I heard the message that I heard, I now believe change from homosexuality is possible, and I actually hope to be working with you someday at Focus on the Family.”
Responses like that make the death threats tolerable. Those who leave names and phone numbers get a return call from Mike and an invitation to talk. He tells them, “Come and hear our message. Because it’ll tell you that what your gay friends and the gay media are telling you, is so far from what our message really is.” “I’m secure in who I am. I’m not going back. I was there for 12 years. I know what it has to offer me. And what I have now, I wouldn’t trade for the world.”
P.S. Christmas came early last year for Mike and Angie. Son Bennett Michael arrived Dec. 15, 1999, an “exclamation point” in a full-circle story from wounded son to warring father of many spiritual children.
Additional Information:
Reprinted by permission of Focus on the Family. Copyright 2000 Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. All rights reserved. |
