That’s a great way to look at it, hereiam. Thanks for that piece of advice. 🙂 I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the weekend once it’s finished.

Ok, So how was the weekend?

I must say, his message and testimony were presented well. And while he shared that he is now attracted to women he never said that he is no longer attracted to men. As I mentioned above, it would seem that most of the message he shared was actually about sexual morality and healing rather than an ex-gay message. he did use parts of his own experiences as examples of how god can do great things in peoples lives. I actually think his messages are quite limited though. he shared friday, saturday and sunday but he recapped so much each time virtually word for word that you could be forgiven to think it was a recording of the previous message.

Overall, I think its a great message that he shares. there are people hurting in our world due to sexually driven emotions and feelings. His message seems to be one of only a few that aim to reach this area of peoples lives. The one problem I have with it isnt really against Sy but about the local churches. The local churches seem to get Sy to come and teach on these issues, bringing it all up to the surface. Sy then leaves and the church is left to deal with the issues as they come to the boil in peoples lives. But the churches arent equiped enough to handle them due to a lack of experience. the result is they deal with the peoblems in a negative way which leads to even more hurt and problems with the people involved.

So thats my thoughts…… I’m interested in hearing your comments.

Thanks hereiam for your summary. Good points for churches to be considering in terms of follow-up supports. Also it sounds as if Sy has softened his message or made it more about sexual morality than ex gay.. Is that right?

Meg, I couldn’t agree more. I’ve also been in churches where the pastoral team and counsellors are untrained which is completely irresponsible and potentially damaging. Meanwhile it makes my blood boil when some Christians have asked me if my counselling qualification is a ‘christian’ one! Their insinuation has been that it can’t possibly be good enough without the Christian endorsement. What they don’t realise is that the sacred is everywhere and the church does not have ownership over the truth. They might be surprised if they really ‘saw’ the content of most counselling courses and how spiritual and Godly they are.

Sy Rogers came to speak at Hillsong’s Healing Seminar and at church this week.

He has gone back to his old ways and on Sunday morning 26th September 2010 at the Hillsong CITY Campus he certainly promoted the ex-gay message. He wasn’t shy about talking about leaving the gay “lifestyle” and his previous role as president in Exodus (International ex-gay ministry). This is very disappointing news. I think he has moved backwards and is once again doing more harm than good.

Another speaker at the Seminar was straight preacher Dr Robi Sonderegger who I have seen preach before. He also appears very questionable to me, even though he has a wife and kids. He is yet another promoter of anti-gay messages in Sydney and around Australia.

As a Hillsong member, it breaks my heart to see things like this still happening in 2010, knowing full well the harm it caused me and many others.

this is sad new Ben……..we will discuss a way forward with this when I return.