Ruth Graham & Friends Minister To The Faithful
In Houston Area Conference

        Taking their cues from the Bible, speakers and workshop leaders helped people tackle a wide variety of modern-day life challenges at the first Ruth Graham & Friends Houston conference, held March 23-24, 2007 at The Woodlands United Methodist Church in The Woodlands, TX.

        The conference was supported by many area churches. Dr. Ed Robb of The Woodlands United Methodist Church welcomed all to the conference at the Friday night event, which featured musical performances by Damaris Carbaugh, Jason Catron and Huntley Brown at the opening plenary session. Ruth Graham introduced the weekend’s speakers and also delivered her emotionally powerful personal testimony.

        Speaking about eating disorders and body image issues, Dr. Linda Mintle – known to many as “Dr. Linda” of the “Living the Life” show on the ABC Family Network – said people today often feel pressured to look a certain way because of the influence of the media and the celebrity- and youth-obsessed culture. As a result, “We have a very narrow prescription of what we should look like,” she said.

        People are exposed to more than 3,000 advertising messages a day, she said, “and the impact of all this exposure is that we fell inadequate and unsure about ourselves and our bodies.”

        It’s not just a “woman’s problem” either, she added. Surveys show that 45 percent of men are also dissatisfied with their body images.

        “The message from advertisers is that we can always improve, that we are broken and need repair,” she said.

        It is our spiritual brokenness that people need to address, not their alleged physical imperfections. “We aren’t what we appear to be,” she said. “The Bible says God doesn’t care what the outer appearance. God cares about the heart. We need to be emulating Christ, not celebrities.”

        People need to consciously practice daily mindfulness of the things of God, to renew their minds with the Word, as part of their strategy to counter the daily exposure to harmful cultural images, she said.

        “It is the voice of Christ that heals us,” she said.

Understanding Anger’s Role

        “Road rage” and “going postal.” These are modern terms not specifically found in the Bible, and yet the Scriptures have plenty to say about dealing with issues of blind anger as well, according to Steve Wiese.

        Anger can exercise a destructive grip on our personalities if we allow it to, said Steve, an ordained Lutheran pastor who led a workshop on “Understanding Anger.”

        It’s not that anger itself is bad, but by giving into angry feelings people can harm themselves and others, he said. People who let their anger control them are working at cross-purposes with the teachings of the Bible, he said.

“In your anger, do not sin,” Steve said, quoting Ephesians 4:25-27.

        How people express their anger is always a personal choice, he said. “We give ourselves permission to get angry,” he said. People who anger easily and who express it without much thought of consequences can begin to get the upper hand over their emotions by paying close attention to their self-talk, he said. “What we tell ourselves long enough will become what we believe and what we believe will become what we do,” he said.

        Relaxation techniques are another way to control anger, he added. And “look at how to let the Holy Spirit work into that anger pattern,” he said.

See Pornography For What It Really Is

        Clay and Renee Crosse dealt very openly with the challenges of pornography and its impact on both individuals and their families in their session on “A Testimony of Deliverance & Healing: Sexual Sin and Pornography.”

An addiction to pornography not only nearly cost him his career as a popular Christian singer and musician, said Clay. It also nearly cost him his marriage as well.

        When a married partner is involved with pornography, it is a form of adultery, said Clay, even if there is no physical act of adultery.

        “Pornography and sexual sin are symptoms of a life not fully committed to God,” said Clay.

        Difficult as it may be, the need for the partner with the pornography problem to come clean with her/her spouse is paramount, said Renee. There’s no sugar-coating the fact that it’s a very hard thing to deal with in a marriage, she said, but there can be light at the end of the tunnel. There is the hope of redemption, once the sin is acknowledged. Prayer for the fallen one is a big positive as well, she said. “It goes against the grain of the world to pray for someone who hurts you,” she said. And daily prayer and meditation together is an important part of the ongoing recovery process as well, she said.

        “We started praying on everything together,” she said. “We pray and ask God to walk with us today.

        “God is in the business of turning things around,” she added.

        Getting someone on the outside involved as an accountability partner with whom he could honestly and openly discuss his issues was also “huge” for Clay as well.

Fall From Baseball Grace Leads To New Understanding Of Self

        For Dave Dravecky, the defining moment in his life came not when he was selected for the National League team for the 1983 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Nor when he pitched in the 1984 World Series for the San Diego Padres. No, it came on the afternoon of August 15, 1989, when he was making his second start with the San Francisco Giants in an effort to come back from having been treated for cancer in his pitching arm. That day, he let loose with a pitch that was literally seen by TV viewers around the world. Upon delivering this particular pitch, his left (pitching) arm audibly fractured into pieces and Dave fell to the ground writhing in pain. So horrific was the incident that no one who ever saw it on television was likely to forget it. But as he rolled in agony on the infield grass, the thought going through Dave’s mind was “what was God doing now?”

        Two years later, doctors removed most of Dave’s left arm as a result of the injury. As he told the people in attendance for his Woodlands plenary session on “The Worth of a Man,” he had suddenly no career, no reliable roadmap to his future, and no real identity as a man any longer. All of his self-worth was tied up in his being a major league baseball pitcher, a dream that he – like so many youths – had nurtured since his early boyhood years.

        “I wanted to be the pitcher,” he said. “I wanted to be in control, and without the pitcher, there is no game.”

        Now pitched out of his profession, Dave came to realize he needed to trust his life over to God. It was not an easy road to travel, but after much bitterness, anger, doubt and frustration he and his wife, Jan, decided that to stay together and move forward with their lives, they needed to make some changes. They decided to commit their lives together to follow Jesus.

        “When God wants you to do an impossible thing, he crushes you,” Dave said. “I had to ask myself if I still had worth.”

        What he discovered was that “a man’s worth is not in what he does but who he is in the eyes of God, as a child of God.”

        Other speakers at the conference, which was attended by about 400 people, offered presentations that addressed issues of Addiction (Sara Dormon), Unplanned Pregnancy (Sara Dormon), Depression (Jan Dravecky), Divorce and Singleness (Ruth Graham), Domestic Abuse (Jacqueline Skog) and Homosexuality (Nancy Heche).

Forgiveness Not For Cowards

        Ruth Graham closed the conference with a very strong message on the need for forgiveness. “Forgiveness is misunderstood by many, even within the church,” said Ruth. “Forgiveness is unconditional. Reconciliation is not.”

        She added that “forgiveness is realistic and honest. It looks the sin straight in the eye and calls it for what it is. Forgiveness is confrontation.”

        If forgiveness under those terms is difficult, it’s even more oppressive to withhold forgiveness. “Unforgiveness is hard to give up, it becomes a part of your identity,” she said – and in so doing, poisons your own life.

        “Forgiveness is not the coward’s way,” she said. “It is the Savior’s way.”

        There was much about the conference that attendees found worthwhile – worth taking home and putting to use in their own lives. As Brenda Blackwood said, “I absolutely love it here. It is so much needed in the church body. Churches need to affect the real life of the people in the church and the body of Christ like this.

        “People pretend these subjects don’t exist,” she added…”if the church leadership would acknowledge their imperfections, that’s how the body gets well. When we get the church to the point where they allow people’s talents to flourish, that’s when the body gets well.”

        Attendees Debbie and Bill also were impressed: “We enjoyed it…so many times in churches people are judged. It’s refreshing to go to a Christian service where the topics we deal with are spoken of.”

        “I don’t care what the cost would have been, I would have been here,” said Bebe. “It was uplifting and validating, and ties back into the Bible.”