Transcript
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Hello everyone, this is Stephen Strang,
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and welcome to the Strang Report podcast.
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Today my guest is J. Lee Grady.
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You probably know him from the days
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that he was editor of Charisma Magazine,
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and he continues to write the column, Fire in My Bones.
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Today he heads up a ministry called the Mordecai Project,
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and we're gonna talk about that,
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but even more importantly, we're gonna talk about
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some of the scandals that are happening in the church,
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particularly at Gateway Church in Dallas.
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You wanna stay tuned to hear my very important
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and very compassionate conversation with Lee Grady,
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and if you have been hurt in this way,
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we pray at the end that you don't wanna miss
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that very special prayer.
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Stay tuned.
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["Fire in My Bones"]
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["Fire in My Bones"]
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Lee Grady, I appreciate you being on my podcast.
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It's good to see you after all this time.
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Of course, we've worked together for many years,
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and the thing that I wanted to talk to you about today,
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and get your views as a Christian journalist
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and as a minister in your own right,
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is the different scandals that seem to be dominating the news,
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and of course, scandals are not new.
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By any means, but everyone seems to be talking
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about Robert Morris.
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What do you think about that situation?
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Well, first of all, Steve, it's really nice to be with you
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and to be in this new building.
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You know, when I worked with you so many years,
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we were in a different place,
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so it's been great to visit here.
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And all those years that you and I worked together,
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we had to cover some scandals.
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There was quite a few back in the 90s, in the 2000s.
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And I hear people today sometimes wondering,
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why are there so many scandals in the church?
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But really, that's not anything new.
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We know that there's been scandals
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for as long as I can remember,
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and you go back even further and you remember it.
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But now we are facing this really, really tragic situation
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in Dallas with Pastor Robert Morris and Gateway Church.
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And of course, that's just come on the heels
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of what has happened with International House of Prayer
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and Mike Bickel.
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And so, you know, we feel very close to these situations,
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because I know you know these people more than I,
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better than I do, and it's sad.
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And the church right now is reeling over this.
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And I know people who go to Gateway Church in Dallas,
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who are hurting bad.
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I mean, this is sad, you know,
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when you look up to a minister,
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Robert Morris is a very gifted Bible teacher.
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People all over the world have been listening
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to his sermons.
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And then we found out that, you know, he had this moral
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failure years ago that he had talked about,
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and he actually went through a two year period
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of rehabilitation for.
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But then we found out that that person, that woman
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that he was with was actually only 12 years old
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when that relationship started.
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So that is a game changer.
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It makes this situation so much worse.
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And I think we are all, you know, trying to figure out
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how we're supposed to process this.
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It's hard, because we don't, you know, Christians,
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we don't like to deal with these kinds of things.
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It's difficult, but we're gonna have to face it.
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And I feel like the Lord's been showing me
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some of the things that we are gonna have to face
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as we maybe step back, look at it,
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and maybe make some policy changes,
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some heart changes as we go forward.
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Well, this is awkward and difficult for me
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because I've known Robert Morris for 20 years fairly well.
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I've been blessed by the ministry of Gateway.
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I would have never suspected this.
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I did know that part of his testimony was that he had
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a period of restoration from some immorality.
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Of course, he wasn't specific that it was pedophilia.
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And of course, that's illegal.
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We don't approve of that at all.
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Our heart goes out to the victim,
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even though I obviously don't know who she is.
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At the same time, I don't want to be judgemental of Robert.
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It did happen an awful long time ago.
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I just don't understand sometimes why God uses someone.
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All this happened before Gateway was started.
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And God knew it, yet somehow he blessed the ministry.
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It could have come out.
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And we're not really here to speculate on all those things.
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But there are an awful lot of good people
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who live good Christian lives and pass away.
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I think of Jack Hayford recently.
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We don't say goody goody, there was no scandal.
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I mean, we just thank God for their life in ministry.
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There's really relatively few scandals.
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It is a big deal when there is one.
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And in an odd kind of way, that's good,
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because when something becomes too common,
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it's not news anymore.
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Sure.
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You know, at one time, car wrecks were big news.
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But now, there's so many car wrecks
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that unless it's extremely bad, it doesn't even make the news.
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And when scandals are so common
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that nobody pays any attention,
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I mean, that's bad in a different kind of way.
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But I think what we want to talk about today
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is how the church deals with this.
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And I know in your role as editor of Charisma
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and the role I've had over the years,
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we've had to deal with this.
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And we've always tried to deal with it
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in a redemptive kind of way,
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and help people understand.
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And also, I think there's a certain aspect
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of holding up a standard,
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that we don't want to be accused
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of sweeping these things under the rug.
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And I'm concerned that as a church,
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we don't really know how to deal with this.
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Within the Protestant church,
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and certainly within Pentecostalism
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or the Charismatic movement, it's very fragmented.
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There's not like one organization.
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I know that like with the Southern Baptists,
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there's been some scandals
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that they've had to deal with in recent years.
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And of course, the Roman Catholic Church.
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But in our circles, everyone's just kind of fragmented.
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This ministry, that ministry.
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I mean, even Gateway is a independent ministry.
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It's a huge one, but it's independent ministry.
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So how do you think we deal with the victims
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and the discipline of those who,
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of course, in Robert's case,
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that his church elders asked him to step down, which he did.
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But how do we deal with this as a church?
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Well, I think we're gonna have to step back, Steve,
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and look at sexual abuse, look at that issue.
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And I think we have to realize that a few years ago,
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even in our circles,
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we wouldn't say that sexual abuse was right.
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We know it was a sin.
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But the way people treated it, even 25 years ago,
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is different than maybe we view it today.
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And the situation with Robert Morris, very tragic,
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that back in the late 80s,
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he began this relationship with a minor.
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And then when it came out, and I don't know,
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we don't really know who knew the specifics,
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because we know that Robert Morris
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went through a two-year rehabilitation process.
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But if other leaders were involved in that process,
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that should have been turned over to the police.
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That should have been reported, because that is a crime.
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And it wasn't.
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So then this victim was left, you know,
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she was just kind of there,
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and it looked like the church was rehabilitating Robert,
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getting him back into the ministry in two years.
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But then what did we do for her?
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And I think today, what's different
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is that we realize how serious sexual abuse is.
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We realize how traumatizing it is to the victim,
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and that the church has got to wake up
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and face the fact that this requires major, major healing.
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It requires attention, it requires prayer,
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and we have to have compassion for the victim.
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It's not just about getting the perpetrator restored,
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it's about the victim.
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And we tend to forget them in the past.
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I think now there's more of an emphasis on that.
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And so this situation, even though it's horrible,
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I think it's helping us wake up to the need that's out there
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because there are a lot of Christians in our churches
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who have been abused.
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Some of them maybe have never had any ministry
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whatsoever for it.
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And I think that this is a wake-up call for us.
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Well, let's talk about that
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because you have an interesting perspective about abuse.
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Tell me about it.
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Yeah, so I've written about this in Charisma
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in my weekly column a couple of times,
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and I've been more open about it publicly
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in the last few years.
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And that was that I have my own abuse story.
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I wouldn't compare it to anything
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like what this woman went through
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because the abuse that I experienced was,
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I would call it a one-time incident,
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but I was abused when I was seven years old
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by an older boy at a Boy Scout camp.
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And when that happened, of course I was seven,
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so I mean, I didn't really even know what was going on.
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I was very naive, I was very innocent.
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And so my response to abuse is actually very similar
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to what a lot of abuse victims do.
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I just pushed all of that pain and that confusion
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and that trauma, I just pushed it down as far as I could.
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I didn't wanna think about it.
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I didn't wanna talk about it to anybody.
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A seven-year-old, how does a seven-year-old process that?
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So I didn't tell my parents,
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I didn't tell any religious leader,
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I didn't tell the family of the guy who did this to me.
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I just totally put on very thick body armor
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and pretended like it never happened, which doesn't work.
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I mean, when you do that,
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you're gonna feel a lot of insecurity,
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you're going to feel confusion,
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you're going to deal with a lot of shame.
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And so, I mean, if I had not later in life dealt with that,
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I don't know what would have happened to me.
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But thankfully, when I was 18 years old,
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right before I went to college,
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I had a profound experience with the Holy Spirit.
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I got baptized in the Holy Spirit
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in sort of the tail end of the Charismatic Movement.
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And after that, it was like the Holy Spirit
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was working inside of me,
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because when the Spirit fills you,
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he starts changing you,
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he starts healing your heart.
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And so, I eventually went to one of my mentors,
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and I just said, I've got to talk to you
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about something that happened to me when I was a child,
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because it's bothering me.
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So I told him, he had nothing but compassion for me.
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There was no judgment, there was no blaming me,
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because a victim of abuse usually thinks it was their fault.
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That's one of the things that goes on in your mind.
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You think that it was, you caused it.
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So this man ministered to me, prayed for me,
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and seriously, it felt like 150 pounds came off of me
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that day, and my life was changed as a result.
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So, you know, I went to college, I got married,
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I had my family, I started my career.
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Those things were not, I wasn't dragging that around
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with a ball and chain anymore.
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But that is how it is for a lot of victims.
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Then-
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Haven't you been able to help other people
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who are dealing with some of the same things?
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Yes, that's what I was going to say is that,
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thankfully, God can turn your pain into something good.
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I mean, he can use your worst nightmare,
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he can use your experiences, bad experiences,
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to help other people who have the same thing.
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And so when I came to work for you in 1992,
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and I started working at Charisma Magazine,
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and eventually became the editor,
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and you know, after several years here,
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God called me into the ministry,
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and after I wrote my first book,
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Ten Lies the Church Tells Women,
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I started going overseas.
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I was primarily there to minister to women
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who felt called to ministry,
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and didn't have that opportunity.
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But when I went in those environments,
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those countries, developing countries,
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I found that there's so much abuse that has happened.
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Women who are physically abused,
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emotionally abused, and sexually abused.
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And my message, you know, was really aimed at them.
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And I was able to have compassion for those women,
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and I was able to understand their pain and bring healing.
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So the doors flew wide open.
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I've been to 39 countries now, taking that message,
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started a ministry where we do a lot of practical things
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to help women who are abused.
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And then the door even began to open for me to minister
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to men who have had this kind of experience.
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And it's amazing how many men deal
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with the shame of sexual abuse,
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but men are much less inclined to be open about it,
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because there's such a stigma, especially Christian men,
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because in our culture, it's like,
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we don't talk about that, it's too embarrassing.
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Some men just hide their pain.
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And then I've had the amazing opportunities
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to just tell my story, and then boom,
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you start seeing the healing take place.
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One time I was in South Africa,
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this has been probably eight years ago,
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and I was gonna be speaking at a men's conference,
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and the Holy Spirit told me,
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I want you to share the story of your sexual abuse.
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And I did not wanna do that.
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I had never done it publicly before.
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And I hadn't written about it either by that point.
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But I knew that the Lord was telling me to do that.
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So I told the story,
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and then when we had altar ministry that night,
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many men came to the altar for prayer,
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and I went down as one of the prayer counselors,
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there were many other men helping.
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But every man that I prayed for that night,
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they said to me, I was sexually abused when I was young
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or when I was a teenager,
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and I have never told anybody before until tonight.
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And so I thought, well, see, my testimony
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and just being open about that gave them permission
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to reach out for help.
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They need to know that it's okay.
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It's that it's safe to do that.
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And so I have seen that happen multiple times now since,
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and of course I wrote about it.
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I'm much more open about it than I ever thought I would be
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because it doesn't bother me anymore.
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It does, you know, I don't care about anybody judging me
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because I'm free from that shame and all that came with it.
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So, but I'm very burdened, of course,
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for men or women who were victims of sexual abuse.
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So now when I hear about someone like this woman
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in doubt that was with Robert Morris,
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I have more compassion for that.
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And, you know, I've heard people even, you know,
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say very mean things about that woman,
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like is she trying to cash in on this,
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or, you know, does she have some bad motive?
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I don't think that should be our first response
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when we hear about a victim of sexual abuse.
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I think we need to have compassion.
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When Jesus looked out over the multitude,
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it says he saw the people and they were,
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they were like sheep without a shepherd.
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And it says that they were distressed.
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And one of the words in that verse can also mean abused.
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He saw them that they were abused.
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And he had, it says he was moved with compassion.
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And I think that's what God's actually asking us to do now,
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that the church will start having real compassion
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for victims of this, that we're not just judging,
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we're not just trying to protect the person who did it.
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Of course, we want to minister to them as well.
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I don't wish anything ill on Robert Morris
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or anybody else who had that experience.
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But we have to minister to the victims.
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And of course, out of your own pain
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and out of your compassion has grown a ministry,
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the Mordecai Project.
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And I've had the privilege to have kind of ringside seat
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because I've known you since the days
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when you were an editor, a journalist.
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I remember when that book first came out
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and saw the doors that began to open in terms of ministry.
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And one thing led to another,
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and you started the Mordecai Project.
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Why don't you tell us why you picked that name
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instead of calling it the J. Lee Grady Ministry.
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Yeah, and there was somebody who asked me
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to call it Lee Grady Ministries, and I said,
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no way, that's just not going to work for me.
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It is so special, Steve, and I'm so grateful to be here today
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in this building with you because Charisma gave me
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the launching pad for that ministry.
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I was here for years working at Charisma,
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and then when I wrote the first book
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and I started traveling and taking that message out,
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at the beginning it was really primarily about empowering women
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to step up and discover who they are
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and to get healed of those things that held them back
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and also to overcome the religious restrictions
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that had been put on women.
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And the Mordecai name, that came from the story of Mordecai and Esther
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because Mordecai, he pushed Esther into her position.
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He kept encouraging her to respond to the call of God,
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and even when she was afraid, he was encouraging her to do that.
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So that's how I view myself in terms of,
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I've just been a Mordecai in the background
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pushing these women into their places.
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But right here in the Charisma building,
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I wrote that book, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women,
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and then I started getting the invitations to speak,
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and you were very gracious to let me go and speak
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and still work for Charisma.
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So I did both for a while until the ministry part of it just grew so much
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that I couldn't continue to do both.
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And now you've got ministries in a number of countries
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on several continents, in Africa, South America, Asia.
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We have women's shelters or vocational training centers
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or women's empowerment centers or girls' homes.
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We have in 11 countries now.
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There's 19 projects currently in 11 countries in Africa,
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Latin America, and Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and India.
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And I don't know where that's going to end up,
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but it all started here.
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So thank you, Steve, for believing in me.
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Thank you for letting me have that freedom to do that.
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And thank you for what you do,
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because you've ministered to so many people.
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And I know that some of the people who are watching
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probably are feeling something right now and maybe want to help.
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So I would encourage them to Google Mordecai Project or LeeGrady.com.
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They can go to LeeGrady.com, themordecaiproject.org.
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It's the same address.
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I mean, both addresses go to the same place,
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and they can learn about what we're doing overseas.
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And over the years, Christian Life Missions, which is our nonprofit,
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has worked with you a number of years ago,
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and the Readers of Charisma and other donors
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helped you build a place in India.
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And if anything comes in through Christian Life Missions,
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there's some information on our website.
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Of course, we'll pass that along.
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But my wife and I have been privileged to be partners
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and will continue to be.
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And as we wrap up this short podcast, I want to pray.
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And I want to pray for the victims of abuse.
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And somehow, before we started, we prayed that the Lord would somehow use this podcast.
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I believe there's people that are listening and watching
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who needed to hear this today.
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And so I want to give you a last word to say,
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and then ask that you pray, and I'll join with you in prayer.
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Yeah, I want to mention to all those who are listening
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that it's very important for us to be open and vulnerable about our pain.
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James 5 16 is one of my life verses.
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It says, Confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed.
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You know, a lot of times we talk about confessing our sin to the Lord.
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1 John 1 9 says, Confess your sins to Jesus.
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He will be faithful and righteous to forgive us.
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But confessing our sins to each other is not something that a lot of people like to do.
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Many Christians just sort of live in perpetual guilt over stuff that they did years ago.
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And that's because we haven't practiced this principle.
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And recently I was in a church in North Carolina doing a men's event.
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There's about 150 men there.
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And the Lord gave me a word of knowledge on the first night
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that there was a man in the room who was responsible for a woman having an abortion.
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And I said that this person was dealing with a lot of guilt about that.
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I had a sense that it was a long time ago.
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And I just said, You really need to come up to the altar tonight and confess that.
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Well, then many men came to the altar to get prayer for a lot of things.
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So I didn't know at first who was responding to that word.
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But before the night was over, this older gentleman came up to me.
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He was in his 70s and he was crying.
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And he said to me that he was the person I was addressing in that word of knowledge.
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And he said that more than 50 years ago, he had gotten a girl pregnant when he was 18.
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And that this young woman wanted to have an abortion.
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And he didn't want that, but that's what she wanted.
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And so he had lived with guilt for that because abortion can cause a lot of shame.
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And he had never told anyone ever until that night.
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So the next morning, what really surprised me was he came back to the morning meeting
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and he got up in front of everybody and told these men what had happened.
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He told the testimony.
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He said that he even went home that night before and told his wife because she didn't know.
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And this man was smiling and it was really literally like hundreds of pounds of weight had come off of him.
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So what that teaches me is that a lot of believers carry heavy, heavy burdens.
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And anybody who's listening today who maybe you have a secret like that,
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whether it's sexual abuse that was done to you, and that's not your sin,
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that was a sin that was perpetrated on you, but we still need to open up and get,
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be honest about that and get healed from it.
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Or there may be other things that you're dealing with,
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but I would like to pray that the Holy Spirit will heal those people.
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So, Father, we pray right now for anyone who's listening to this podcast today
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who is dealing with guilt or shame because of something that they did or because of something that was done to them.
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We specifically pray for those who have been sexually abused or emotionally abused or even physically abused.
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And Lord, we pray that they will not just suffer in silence, but that they will open up their hearts,
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that they will come forward, that they will talk to somebody that they trust about this pain.
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And then, Lord, I know that you are going to lift that heavy load off of them.
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And I pray that chains will break.
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I pray that strongholds of shame will be shattered in the name of Jesus
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as we simply bring our pain to you and to someone else who will listen to us and pray for us.
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And we just thank you for the healing that you are releasing to the people tonight.
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And Lord, I also pray that we will, all of us, will be carriers of your healing to others.
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And may you cause the Church of Jesus Christ in this nation to be more concerned about victims of abuse,
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that we will have the message for them, that we will have the freedom for them, that we will have the healing for them.
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And Lord, we pray that you would use the Church to bring healing to all kinds of victims of abuse, Lord, in Jesus' name.
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And Lord, I just pray a prayer of agreement.
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I know that there's power in the prayer of agreement, and I just agree with what Lee has prayed.
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And thank you, Lord, for Lee and his life and his ministry and the Mordecai Project
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and the hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people that are being helped.
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And Lord, I just believe that you are somehow using this podcast.
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Maybe people will share it with others where they know they need to hear this testimony
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and need to hear about recovering from abuse or confessing to one another.
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Lord, we pray this in the name of Jesus and give you all the praise and all the glory. Amen.
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00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:27,840
Amen. Thank you, Steve.
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Thank you for watching to the end. I hope that prayer ministered to you.
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Now, Lee and I, before we started, we just prayed that this podcast would minister if it's just one person.
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It's important, and it was worth it.
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I hope that you share this with others, especially if you know someone who'd be ministered to.
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00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:53,840
I also encourage you to subscribe to the Strang Report podcast if you don't already.
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I'm thankful that our subscriptions are going up every single day.
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00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:07,840
And hit the little bell so you're notified when we're on live Tuesday and Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.
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And also, as I mentioned earlier, support the work of Lee Grady and the Mordecai Project.
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You can find out about it. We told you that you can go directly to his ministry, which is MordecaiProject.org.
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Or you can give through Christian Life Missions, which is the nonprofit that Charisma Media has worked with for more than 40 years.
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Thank you for watching, and until next time, God bless you.