Boston Exodus Training and the Protestors

Earlier this week, Alive in Christ (the ministry I direct), Park Street Church (the church that hosts the ministry) and Exodus International (the organization of which Alive in Christ is a member) hosted a Boston training event for pastors, ministry leaders, seminary students, educators, and counselors on how to respond to the issue of homosexuality with biblical truth and compassion.

We knew there was a protest scheduled during the day, with well-known speakers and gay activists attending, such as Wayne Besen and Arlene Isaacson. We had several protesters come to the meeting and stand up in the middle of speaking sessions to “demonstrate”; I’ll spare you the details

One side of the room we were meeting in is completely covered in windows. Outside the windows is a historic cemetery that tourists walk through. A group of probably 20-30 protesters came up to the windows to scream loudly at us through a bullhorn and try and take pictures of the attendees. They shouted some mantras, such as “Exodus, Exodus, Quack, Quack, Quack! You can’t change gays; that’s a fact!” and “Ex-gay, no way! Don’t believe a word they say!” It’s fairly clear from those two statements that they really have no idea what we were talking about in the training or the even the mission of Exodus. That is even more clear if you watch some of the footage of the continued protest and the words of the speakers.

As I was thinking about the anti-Exodus protesters leading up to the conference, I realized they are sort of missing the point. The problem in their minds is Exodus; if they could shut Exodus down somehow, the problem is solved. But Exodus didn’t form for the sake of Exodus; Exodus was created because people all over the United States were seeking out this type of ministry. People were not satisfied with the label of “born gay” that was slapped on them.

The protesters need to realize that shutting down Exodus will not change the need – the need in people’s heart for a different answer, for a different life. They may not experience that need, but that will not change the fact that thousands of others, like myself, desired to be obedient to what we saw in God’s Word and what we felt He was calling us to do. And when we were willing to surrender that area of our lives to God, when we were willing to do whatever it would take to walk in obedience to Him, what He gave us in return was far better than anything we could ever have imagined.

The 5 Blogs I Read the Most

I wanted to take a moment to share with you all the blogs I read the most.

These are in no particular order

Kristen’s Raw – raw, vegan, and healthy living talk
Green Smoothie Girl – green smoothie talk

Confessions of a CF Husband – the blog of a man whose wife has cystic fibrosis

The Simple Dollar – a financial blog by an everyday guy

Everyday Thoughts Collected – the blog of my friend and ministry colleague Randy Thomas

One of the reasons I generally check these blogs daily is because they all basically blog daily, if not at least on a regular basis. So to all the bloggers out there – if you want people to frequent your blog, make sure to write regularly.

In fact, here’s a good article on blogging: 12 Traits of Successful Bloggers

Final Day Conference Update

I want to make sure to write my final conference update while it is semi-fresh in my mind. A Baptist pastor named Bob Perdue shared a very encouraging testimony. After the testimony, we sang some awesome worship songs, and the worship leader, Marianne Adams, encouraged us to come down front & dance. Guess who was one of the first ones down there? Me!

The enemy has been defeated
Death couldn’t hold you down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
Gonna make your praises loud

Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
Shout unto God with a voice of praise
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph
We lift your name up, we lift your name up

Amen!! I love that song! I danced so hard my calves hurt the next day

Then Randy Thomas talked about his journey of healing as it related to singleness & celibacy. He quoted Revelation 3:5, 12-13:

5He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.

12Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name. 13He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

I could write a bunch about what Randy said. He’s quite knowledgeable & wise & funny & I always enjoy hearing him speak. But he mainly just shared his journey I have to admit also that I had to leave early because we had to drive to Charlotte to catch our flight, but I ordered the DVD

Over all, I personally walked away from the conference encouraged, as well as challenged & convicted about the importance of the work that we do. I attended the International Conference in the summers of 2004 & 2005, but had not been able to attend a national conference since January of 2006. With all the changes in my life & the challenges of trying to balance motherhood & ministry, I was feeling rather disconnected. There isn’t really a model that I have seen within the Exodus network of how to be a mom & a ministry director. Most ministry directors who have children are either men or women whose children are grown. I don’t know of any other directors who are trying to balance having a small child at home with working part-time, directing a ministry, while their husband works a full-time job in another field (as many couples do ministry together). So I definitely needed the encouragement of reconnecting with my ministry colleagues.

I was also encouraged because we brought the baby & worked it out so that I could attend the conference, and Roy could enjoy parts of it as well. Most of the other moms with small children who were attending left their kids at home, which isn’t possible for me as Bear is still breastfeeding. Plus, that’s a long time to be away from your kids! So I’ve wondered how, as we keep having more children (God-willing), will I be able to continue to do ministry. How will traveling work? Will the kids come? And I see that it can work – we just might want to bring a nanny as they get older so we can both attend the conference together Thankfully, the Bear had fallen asleep in the Bjorn, so Roy was able to hear me share my testimony.

I did order the DVD of the testimonies, as well as a copy of my workshop on CD. The final DVD’s will be mailed to me, so I’ll let you know how I feel it all turned out when I get a chance to watch & listen to them!

And now, Roy’s back to work & it’s back to the daily grind for me

Coming Out

I’m taking a short break from our preparations to share something that has been on my heart for a few days.

Some of you know me as friend, cousin, family member, singer, songwriter, worship leader, random blogger, crunchy treehugger, spinach-chugging cook, gentle hippie mom, food enthusiast, minister, encourager, pray-er.

What you may not know is that I am what some people refer to as “ex-gay”.

You may have figured this out long ago if you clicked on some of the links on my blog. Or maybe my recent posts about the upcoming conference gave it away.

The reason I’ve been hesitant to bring this up is – well, there are quite a few. But there are 2 main reasons.

1. This is not an “ex-gay” blog. My purpose for starting this blog was to talk about my life, which of course involves the ministry that I do & am very passionate about, but that’s not the only thing, or even the main thing, that I wanted to talk about.

2. I don’t like putting that out there as the 1st thing people know about me.

That may sound as if I’m ashamed of my past or my present. No, I’m not ashamed, though I wish sometimes that I had made different choices. The problem with sharing with people what I do for ministry is that they jump to conclusions based on it. I won’t dive too deep into that, but I am many things, and the fact that I was gay-identified for a decade is just one of many things that has shaped on some level who I am today.

I’m bringing this up now because I may be live-blogging from the conference. And I figured it was as good a time as any

Really, I just want people to know me as Brenna Kate Simonds, not based on some label and the baggage it carries. I tell people when they ask about the ministry that I’m really just an average person. I don’t have an agenda; I just help people who want my help.

End of story

If you didn’t know this about me and it bothers you on some level, I hope you will give me a chance. I really am just an ordinary person who serves an extraordinary God.