I debated with myself whether I should use the above video to start off this entry.  Is it too graphic?  Is it watchable?  Is it powerful without making the viewer uncomfortable?  But what I realized is that this blog is about sin, which is much, much more disgusting.  So now we have our priorities straight.

I started getting into porn after high school.  I was in a dark place for a lot of reasons, the most relevant being that I was heartbroken over a girl.  I think that was a foothold for the devil to make me upset with women, with the lot that God had given me, etc.  So I set out on my own to experience women selfishly.

This was working for me for a while (I thought) and then when I met Jess I wanted to give it up.  I did, but eventually I broke down and secretly went back to it, and it built up and built up until I had to lead two lives, trying to come home to Jess without betraying my emotions on my face.  I couldn’t look Jess in the eye anymore.  I couldn’t enter my own home and be in my own family without feeling so, so unworthy and awful.  I admitted to Jess that I’d been doing it, and her crying really broke my heart, and I quit.  The “quitting” lasted for a while, and then I started again, then admitted again, more crying, more stopping for a while.  Looking back now, I think I was mostly concerned with how I felt when I did it, how I felt when Jess caught me, etc.  Guilt and shame were appropriate emotions I think, but they were focused on me, and so I never fully stopped.  Part of me just hoped I could keep doing it and stop feeling so guilty about it.

I remember about a year ago I was waiting somewhere to be picked up, and I was pacing back and forth in a parking lot and I was so upset with my weakness and I was praying and in the course of it, I decided to just be honest with myself.  I knew I should quit, but it was too hard, maybe even impossible, and I thought if I really wanted it deep down in my soul, all I’d have to do is stop doing it.  So I must not truly want to stop.  I admitted defeat before God, that I’d given up on even trying to resist temptation, but I prayed and asked God to “break my heart for what breaks Yours”.   A dangerous prayer!  I prayed that I would want to want to stop, but I knew that prayer was part fake too, so I prayed to want to want that… and so on, feeling like an idiot, until I decided that “holy crap, I am frustrated and I just need you” was the best I had.

In the next months I still felt powerless.  I tried some “tricks” like pinching myself, or praying, every time I had a lustful thought.  Nothing worked.  So I asked the pastors to pray for me, and I think that’s why my day eventually came.

October 16, 2011.  The band was playing “You Won’t Relent” and I was singing along when the line “come be the fire inside of me” came and something inside me just broke.  All of a sudden I realized that I had no fire at all.  I’d hardened my heart and felt so empty, so ashamed of myself that how could I be on fire for anything?  I was more like… a shell… a complete fake.  Here I was singing this song, and yet for years I’d been pushing God away!  I couldn’t believe I was one of those hypocrites I had always laughed at.  I just cried and knelt down and prayed and told God all this, and I felt His presence with me, like a shiver in my whole body.  And even then I wondered to myself how long would it be before I’d return to my sins, how long could this fire, no, this tiny little spark, last?  How miserable!  And I thought that dog licking his vomit was bad.  I don’t even have the excuse of being an animal.  All my dignity was gone and I was lower than that dog.

When the sermon came, Jess was watching kids in the nursery and I was sitting in the back row under a light and it just made me feel isolated, like God was focusing on me and had me under the interrogation lamp, and I was hearing Chris’s words as though he was talking right to me.  At one point Chris asked anybody who needed healing, possibly from something emotional, to stand up.  After all this I still almost didn’t… but I did… with my head hung.

Later on, I heard the first message in tongues I’d ever heard, and it was “Do you want God enough?”  I thought that perhaps I did, as I was trembling from everything that was going on.  And then someone from the congregation felt led to share the Biblical story of the woman with a bleeding disorder who had tried everything, gone to every doctor, and had never received healing.  Like me, she was frustrated and desperate.  She was determined to get healed even if she had to expose herself to the public and they’d all know of her disease.   With all she had left in her, she touched just the hem of Jesus’s cloak, and she was healed.  That story made me weep and I asked God, “I want this… what can I do, what is like touching Your cloak?” and He answered me.  He told me to get out my guitar and play worship music to Him, which I hadn’t done in a long time.  My first chance, I did it, and I have kept doing it, and I keep doing it, and I haven’t looked at porn since.  Just being within sight of Jesus, by the intimacy I feel when I’m praising, has been a touch of His cloak for me.  I am healed.

I had a dream when I was very young, just starting puberty, that I didn’t fully understand until just recently.  This is graphic but bear with me.  A beautiful woman appeared to me when I was alone, and offered to have sex with me, in the understanding that I’d have to turn my back on God and my plan to wait for marriage.  I considered it and accepted, and as soon as it was spoken, she was revealed to be Satan, in the form of some hellish beast.  Satan raped me and left me before I knew what was going on.  The meaning is so horribly clear now.  Sin appears to be what you want, but it is really a hungry beast that will take everything from you and leave you alone and ashamed, will eat you alive, will leave you for dead.  It is NEVER as promised.

The only way we will ever stop returning to our vomit, the only thing that gives us the dignity of learning from our mistakes and becoming a new creation, is the Holy Spirit.  He transforms us from sad and pitiable animals to a royal priesthood and a holy nation.  We once were not a people, but God does not leave us in depravity.  He called me over and over and over again and He could have gone another year or another 40 years or until the day I died, if I needed Him to.  He loved me that much, that after seeing me destroy myself over and over, for so long, He still never gave up on me.

You can’t fix yourself.  You can’t will it away or try harder this time.  Ask of God.  He is there for you always.

I think we can all agree that the person who is a Christ follower by faith and in action should be allowed and encouraged to serve on Sunday mornings. What about everyone else though?

I’ve thought up a few categories of people who some may feel are questionable:

Group 1 Non-Christians – those who do not trust in Jesus Christ.

Group 2 Sinful “Christians” – self-proclaimed Christians who admit to be living in willful sin and are unwilling to do anything about it.

Group 3 Don’t Feel Like It “Christians” – those whose sin isn’t what they do… but what they do not do.  Actively living for Jesus is a low priority.

There are probably more categories out there, but let me ask, should these three groups of people be allowed to serve during the Sunday morning service? And if so, should there be some things they are allowed to do and some things they are not allowed to do?

Let’s say there are levels of serving. Be careful how you read this though.  I’m not saying people on one level are “better” than people on another. They are of equal importance. So bare with me:

Level 1 Service Projects – fixing someone’s house, feeding the homeless, helping with a car wash

Level 2 Task Oriented Ministries – setting up all audio/visual stuff in morning, helping serve the food

Level 3 The Friendly Face – ushers, greeters, welcome desk

Level 4 Public Figure – band, actors, or anyone who goes on stage on a semi-regular basis

Level 5 Teaching – the sermon on Sunday, D-groups, Youth, Children’s ministry, etc

Ok, so now that I have made three groups of people and five levels of serving I struggle with the idea that I am passing judgment on people. Only God knows a person’s heart and who am I to say you can do “this” for God’s kingdom, but not “that”? If someone wants to help and fill a need shouldn’t they be allowed to? Isn’t serving alongside others one of the best ways to get connected with God?

I’m sure no one would say that all of the three groups can serve at Level 5. If you don’t practice what you preach, don’t preach. And everyone is probably ok with anyone serving at Level 1. In fact, non-Christians working with Christians to feed the homeless is a great way to witness to people. People are probably ok with Level 2 also. After all, people who have sex outside of marriage are welcomed in the church services, and what’s the big deal if they hand me a plate of food to eat at lunch? But what about Levels 3 and 4?

At these levels you need to have people who effectively represent Jesus in some capacity. But there is gray area here.

On one hand, newcomers and others may look up to them as Christian role-models. Someone new in the faith who is wrestling with a porn addiction may go up to a greeter for spiritual advice. Let’s say this greeter is selling drugs illegally. They may now tell the newbie advice that would justify their own behavior thus influencing said new person to continue looking at porn.

On the other hand, what if a drummer (not the lead singer) believes in Jesus, but is only coming to church service on the days he’s scheduled to drum? Should he never be allowed to play in the band until he commits to coming regularly on Sundays regardless if he is playing or not? What if he comes every Sunday, but also believes there are multiple ways to God? Should he be allowed to drum then?

What is the important function of the usher? That they find you a seat or that they are actually reading their Bible? As a disciple, it’s reading their Bible, but I’m asking what’s their role as an usher?

What about a non-Christian actor who would come to church service to act? Is getting them in the building enough of a reason to let them act? Or must they worship Jesus to walk on our stage at 11 AM on Sunday morning?

Is this one of those uncomfortable times where we’re supposed to tell the rich man to sell all his stuff knowing full-well that he won’t and in essence will walk away from Jesus? I’m kind of torn. What are your thoughts?

To contact John Pop regarding these meetings, fill out the form below: