Exodus International

kparis
Most of us had come out of the gay life or a struggle with same-gender issues. Gay activists picketed the conference. There were bomb threats, and the Bay area newspapers featured vitriolic diatribes from gay activists seeking to discredit the idea that homosexuals could change. Thus, ex-gay ministry rose like a Phoenix from the strange ashes of several dozen people’s redeemed lives. We blazed a trail into uncharted territory for others to follow. I was 25 years old, married not quite two years, with our first child on the way. I could not have predicted that my ministry and our family life were about to take a radical, unexpected turn.

In 1971, at age 19, I was terribly conflicted by my homosexuality, and on a desperate search to find a friend who felt the same way I did to love and be loved by; but God intervened. Two Christians shared the Gospel with me, and I placed my faith in Christ. Within a year, because of my dramatic conversion and background, I was inundated with invitations to speak to youth in churches, camps and conventions throughout the Midwest.

As a rock musician, I had performed alongside REO Speedwagon, Three Dog Night, Canned Heat, Country Joe & the Fish, Ted Nugent, and many other rock artists of the 60’s and early 70’s. Our band enjoyed remarkable notoriety for a group of teenagers still in high school. We performed in various venues for crowds as large as 60,000-- heady stuff. I quickly embraced the hippie movement with all its trappings. My life revolved around sex, drugs and rock and roll. That milieu was the locus of my distorted, shaky identity. I began drinking in 7th grade, was introduced to marijuana in 10th grade (1967), and a cascade of drugs thereafter for the next five years. It was a turbulent time in our culture--a stormy, unstable season in my own life.

This was my testimony to Christian youth for many years to come, but there was a private, more sensitive, painful dimension to my childhood and adolescence I did not include in my testimony in the early years of ministry. In Conservative settings, it would have been unwelcome. Doors that were currently opening up for me to witness would have been swiftly shut.

I recall experiencing same-gender attractions in kindergarten, though they had no conscious sexual connotation at that early age. Though I had suffered incest quite young, my volitional sexual awakening occurred at age eleven with a close neighborhood friend my own age. This friend and I carried on regular sexual activity for five years, along with another friend the same age. Two male teachers molested me as a young teen. All of these experiences had a devastating impact on my childhood development.

As a new believer, I understood from the outset that all sexual immorality was sinful and inconsistent with a life of obedience. My surrender to the Lordship of Christ was unconditional. It was not dependent upon whether God healed me of my struggle with homosexuality or not. I was clueless why I had suffered with this problem growing up and had no idea what to expect now that I was a Christian. Could I change? I was prepared to live a chaste, celibate life if need be.

Beyond my same-gender issues, I grew up in a conflict-ridden, very dysfunctional family. It was a classic, textbook environment that often produces children who struggle with homosexuality. When I was 17, my mother moved out unannounced, abandoning our family, ending their chronic, troubled marriage. Who in their right mind would intentionally marry?

God is is truly a God of new beginnings, who writes FREEDOM on our hearts, who sets captives free and places orphans in families. After three years of a deep friendship and budding romance with Sherri, we were married in September 1975. Sherri has been God’s greatest gift to me in this life--my lover, best friend and partner in ministry. God blessed us with two precious sons who love the Lord, are now grown, have married and are blessing us with grandchildren.

I attended that first Exodus conference primarily out of curiosity to meet other Christians who had also struggled with homosexuality.

Prior to 1977 there were no Christians I was aware of who were openly sharing that they had once been homosexual. People in the Church just didn’t talk about these things, save for occasional derogatory remarks. After the Oakland conference (1977), I maintained contact with Frank Worthen and others I had met.

By 1980, nearly half of those coming to our local ministry for counseling were guys struggling with homosexuality. By the end of 1981, three-quarters of my client load were dealing with homosexuality, and I was being asked with increasing frequency to speak in churches on this topic. Like Frodo with the one ring (the Hobbit creature in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy), I never set out to establish a specialized ministry in the field of homosexuality. I didn’t seek it out--“it came to me.”

Back in the late 1970’s, the Lord called together a small band of men and women He had redeemed, to bear His light and testify to His power to set captives free and to transform our lives. He was raising up a standard to pierce the veil of this gathering darkness. We were pioneers who were willing to serve in an unprecedented, unpopular type of ministry loathed by the gay community and generally unwelcome in the Church. Many of us paid a dear price as a result.

I was the first Exodus ministry director to face a lawsuit. In 1983, a former client filed a $250,000 lawsuit against me. He had been a student at a Christian college and upon discovery of his homosexual activities, the college arranged for him to receive counseling from me in 1981. After three sessions he disappeared, but resurfaced in 1983, financially backed by the Gay Rights Advocates of San Francisco to wage a lawsuit. It lasted four years, and was an emotionally grueling ordeal for my family. Our ministry did not have liability insurance at the time. The thought that we could be sued never crossed our minds until it happened. Our attorney expenses reached a staggering $55,000. Though headed for a trial by jury, fortunately, it was settled outside of court in 1989 for a pittance, with no blame attributed. I learned later that the abrupt resolution was due to the imminent death of this young man from AIDS. Besides the legal attack, I have also had my fair share of death threats through the years. It has been a very challenging ministry from the outset.

I was elected to the Exodus board of directors in 1983, and had the distinct privilege of serving alongside Frank Worthen, Bob Davies, Alan Medinger, Andy Comisky, Sy Rodgers, Robbi Kenny and Mary Lebsock for several years. To this day I hold a special affection for these precious brothers and sisters and our formative years together.

In the past twenty-five years, I have counseled well over 2,000 people struggling with same-gender issues. I was the first speaker to be invited to teach a week-long seminar on homosexuality in the Biblical Counseling School of Pacific & Asia Christian University (Youth With A Mission-YWAM) located in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii in 1981, and returned twice more as a guest lecturer. Since then, I have spoken in well over a hundred churches (many of them multiple times), have addressed thousands of high school and college youth in a variety of settings on the topic of homosexuality, and have spoken and taught in many Evangelical Bible colleges, seminaries and conferences throughout the United States and Canada.

I have occasionally been asked whether I would choose a different path, occupation or kind of ministry if I could go back in time and begin again--perhaps something less stressful, not perpetually on the front-lines of battle, and perhaps more financially lucrative. Well, my only response is that I have sought to be faithful to embrace and live-out the call of God in my life as I have experienced it. Jesus never promised that it would be easy to follow or serve Him--quite the contrary. The only true peace and joy I have known in my life is in knowing, loving and serving the Lord.

Every year I receive thoughtful notes, cards, letters and photographs from people I have ministered to through the years, expressing their love and thankfulness for the work God did in them as we sojourned together for a time in counseling ministry. I’ve had the privilege of participating in God’s redemptive acts in their lives.

Dozens of young men who came to me as college students, convinced they had no options other than to jettison their Christian faith and jump head-long into the gay scene are now happily married, raising families, deeply grateful that God intervened. Countless men who were preparing to leave their wives and children for a gay lover were challenged with the Truth, called to repentance, and committed themselves to recovery and healing. Women who thought they could never love or respect a man, much less desire him, are now enjoying the goodness of Christian marriage. I could share hundreds of stories of changed lives. In light of this, I cannot imagine serving the Lord in any other vocation than I have these many years. When I read the cards and look at the faces of these precious men and women or in the faces of their children, I am humbled that this unlikely candidate has been given the opportunity and honor of coming alongside thousands of people to be a vessel through whom Jesus comes to love and minister to them.

This is an investment of life that will cross over into eternity; it will not pass away. This is part of our holy history as a married couple and family.

Kent is the Founder and Director of Nehemiah Ministries in Urbana, IL. Sherri serves as Office Manager. Kent and Sherri in Urbana, IL. Kent enjoys gardening and collecting Beatle memorabilia. You can contact Kent at Nehemiah Ministries, P.O. Box 773 Urbana, IL 61803 or by phone: 217-344-4636.

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