February 18, 2025 • 45 mins
Join us as we dive into a conversation about the power of remembering in faith and recovery. In this episode, James Craig and Josh Glaser introduce the story of Alan Menninger, the founder of Regeneration Ministries. Alan's journey from sexual brokenness to miraculous transformation showcases the power of God’s intervention. We'll explore how remembering God's miracles in our own lives is vital to our recovery journeys and faith walks. Hear about the unexpected ways God moves, the importance of spiritual disciplines, and how we can hold onto hope and patience through the process.
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Craig (00:00):
There's a lot of reasons that you may listen to
this podcast.
It might be your sexualbrokenness, it might be marriage
difficulties or marriagefalling apart, betrayal, but we
want to unpack something thatmight not come up in your
typical recovery work or yourtypical podcast about sexual
integrity.
We want to talk aboutremembering.
(00:21):
Throughout scripture, there'sthese key moments where God
tells his people to remember.
Whether it's crossing theJordan and building an Ebenezer,
you know, a monument toremember, or whether it's Jesus
saying do this in remembrance ofme, we're called throughout
scripture to remember it.
I don't know about you all.
I struggle to remember.
(00:43):
I struggle to remember God'sgoodness.
I struggle to remember so manyof the good things he's done and
I struggle to remember even,sometimes, the hard things or
the bad things that I grew upwith.
God gave our team this yearthree words, and one of which is
remember.
This is a word that he's givingus to guide our ministry and
(01:04):
actually it's going to be thetheme of our upcoming banquets.
So we want to do a short serieson remembering and we want to
start out the series byremembering the founding of
regeneration.
Many of you do not know thestory of how we were founded.
It's a miracle story.
It's a story full of drama,full of overcoming sexual
(01:27):
brokenness, restoring marriage.
It's a story of Alan Mettinger,who founded our ministry, and
so I'm James Craig, I'm one ofthe coaches here at Regeneration
and I'm on with our executivedirector, josh Glazer.
Josh, so glad that we couldhave this conversation today.
Josh Glaser (01:53):
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here and I'm with you
about remembering.
It's like Josh, so glad that wecould have this conversation
today.
Out this series, we're like, ohmy gosh, like there really is
important, important stuff here.
And then also just on apersonal kind of confessional
groundwork I'm not good atremembering I, over and over
again, I'm asking god for thesame, like assurances, just like
(02:17):
help me not be afraid, help meto trust you.
Like I, I don't hold likememories of what God has done
very well, so this is going tobe.
I mean so everything we'resaying today or what we're doing
this year is like I need tohear it, so I'm eager to get
into it.
James Craig (02:33):
So, josh, why don't you start us out by sharing
some of the origin story of Alanand of how this ministry got
started?
Josh Glaser (02:42):
Yeah, so this is funny because I'm I don't know
if I can show this withoutrevealing my age a little bit
but as the executive director,one of my jobs is to is to have
the whole the origin story.
Like that's part of what you dowhen you run a business or a
nonprofit or a church is part ofyour responsibility is to hold
like where, what, how did thisplace start?
But the story that we're goingto get into started when I was
(03:07):
like two or three years old, soit goes way back but yeah, like.
So.
Alan Mettinger was the guy whofounded our ministry and for
those of you who don't know, ourministry has been around since
I, I, I I should look this upthis is part, I don't remember,
but it's like 81 or 82 or 83.
Like that's when we becameincorporated an official, you
know 501c3 nonprofit, but thestory goes way back before that.
(03:28):
Alan grew up in Baltimore.
He was a, you know, the normalkid in those days but he, around
adolescence, started realizingthat he had attractions to other
guys.
He was particularly drawn tolike masculine men.
He would share stories of like,yeah, I remember like going
down to the firehouse near myhome and just being enthralled
(03:51):
with the firefighters becausethey were like the embodiment of
men, even before he got toadolescence, and those
attractions were kind ofsexualized.
Before that he was just kind of,you know, drawn to that and he
would speculate years later, wasjust kind of you know, drawn to
that and he would speculateyears later.
I remember hearing hear himkind of say that he thinks that
some of that came from hisrelationship with his own dad.
His dad was struggling withdepression and there wasn't a
(04:16):
great connection there for forAlan, and so I think in some
ways he, he, he came to believethat that some of that
attraction towards men, even inthat just kind of enamored with
their masculinity as a young boy, was because he wasn't really
experiencing that much at hishome.
In any case, yeah, he hadsame-sex attractions.
This is before the time.
So some of this is paradigmshifting for us, because in our
(04:38):
day and age if you haveattraction to the same sex,
typically people just go rightto.
If you have attraction to thesame sex, typically like people
just go right to.
Oh so you mean you're gay.
But that was not the paradigmback then.
Like people did not just makethose associations.
James Craig (04:51):
Um, was this pre-sexual revolution actually
when he was an adolescent?
Josh Glaser (04:56):
Gosh, yeah, I mean, it would have been probably
kind of the in the midst of it,right?
So, depending on onhistorically, if you put the
sexual revolution kind of in thethirties and forties, fifties,
when Kinsey's work was comingout, or later, you know, when
the kind of the kind of explodedin the 60s Right.
Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, right.
So I think for Alan it was.
It was confusing.
(05:16):
It was something he kept secret.
There was no one around himtalking about these things and
he would say years later that hehe never even considered the
possibility of of living as aquote, unquote gay man, because
it's just not what people did,and so it what.
It did not seem like an optionfor him.
(05:36):
It wasn't because of some youknow, deep felt religious belief
, it was just, you know, that'she.
He was going to be a normal guybut he had the same sex
direction.
So anyway, I'm taking too longwith the story Fast forward.
He ends up getting married to achildhood friend, willa, and
they start having kids together.
But as the pressures of lifestarted weighing more on Alan,
(05:58):
his homosexual desires increasedand he started acting out
secretly even within marriage.
He was he'd drive down to DCand have anonymous sexual
encounters with other men reallydangerous stuff.
He would share stories ofremembering waking up in a hotel
room, kind of zonked out, afterhe'd been drinking and had just
(06:19):
had sex with some guy and whohe didn't know, and the guy had
left and he was like man, hecould have taken my wallet, he
could have beaten me up.
He could, and all sorts ofstuff could happen.
So he knew these behaviors wererisky.
He knew that things weregetting worse and worse for him,
but he didn't know what to dountil God got ahold of his life.
So let me just pause there fora second.
So I'm not just kind of youknow, this isn't just a you.
(06:40):
What do you hear in there thatmaybe stands out to you, or any
questions about kind of some ofsome of what I've already
started with?
James Craig (06:54):
Really interesting that the danger didn't.
Sometimes the danger doesn'tdeter.
You know the behavior.
Even though there's an inherentdanger to random hookups or
anonymous encounters, the dangerdidn't deter.
There's something driving himthat was so strong that, like it
was overcoming the danger ofdisease or or harm or even being
caught.
Josh Glaser (07:11):
That's why finding out right, that's a great point.
I mean, and I think for so manyof us who have wrestled with
sexual sin or wrestling like thenegative consequences, we
expect that, just the fact thatthere could be negative
consequences, extreme negativeconsequences, we expect that
they, they should be enough toconvince us to stop.
And they're not, and that canjust heap shame upon what we're
(07:33):
experiencing.
And the more shame weexperience, the more powerful
the addictive cycle gets for us.
And that was certainly true forAlan, although he had no idea
about any of that at that point.
James Craig (07:44):
And at this point does he have any sort of faith
background?
At this point, Did he grow upin some sort of Christian home?
Josh Glaser (07:50):
I can't remember if he grew up in a Christian home
or not, but at this point in hislife as an adult guy he and his
wife were a part of a, anEpiscopal church, and he would
have described he was not aChristian in in the sense that
we would understand it he was.
It was kind of more of acultural thing that you know
good people in his community did, and so he was.
(08:14):
I think he was even, like youknow, maybe on the finance
committee or something he was.
He worked at McCormick thespice company.
He was a senior levelaccountant there and so he was
doing well for himself in kindof the vocational world and yeah
, and Sundays they would go tochurch.
Although you know a vibrantlife with Jesus, personal
relationship with him was notsomething that Alan had ever
been introduced to or thoughtwas possible for him.
James Craig (08:34):
Also strikes me that so many who struggle with
sexual sin or unwanted sexualbehavior even you know the
impact of that in a marriagethey look normal, they look like
you know, they're showing up towork, they have maybe good jobs
, they're showing up to church,and so it just reminds me that,
like so many people that arearound us in church I mean, if
(08:56):
the statistics are correct, manypeople in nearly every church
are dealing with stuff and it'sjust not always brought out into
the light.
Josh Glaser (09:04):
It sounds like part of balance story yeah, I think
I think that's that has changedsubstantially in the last 40
some years.
Like I mean, even even when Istarted regeneration in 1999
like confidentialityconfidentiality is always
important to us.
We have a very firmconfidentiality policy here.
But even to be associated withregeneration like was kind of a,
(09:26):
I mean it was a little morecloak and dagger.
You know, like you know, wewere like we would never add
anybody to an email list.
You know, I mean there were noemail lists in 1990, but in any
case, like you know, we want tomake sure we're not sending
somebody to somebody's house,because, man, if that letter
shows up in your house and it'sjust a newsletter, it's not
personal, but then suddenly itmeans you've got a sexual
(09:47):
addiction or you're strugglingwith this or with that.
What does that mean?
But today, I think so manypeople are more open about
sexuality.
For right and for wrong, forgood and for bad, sexuality is
just such a common part of ourlives and I think there are more
and more Christians who reallyare open about the fact that
they struggle sexually in someway or another, although I don't
(10:10):
think that that's diminishedthe shame in all the ways that
are really important and needful, yeah, so let me pick it up
from there.
And, by the way, let me justthrow this in there this is not
going to fit anywhere else inthe podcast, but if you want a
mnemonic device, a way toremember to pray for
regeneration and we could reallyuse your prayers, because this
(10:31):
work is certainly opposedspiritually and there's a lot
that we believe God wants us tobe doing or you want to pray for
those who come here because man, like to walk in sexual
integrity today is opposed.
If you want something to remindyou to pray, think McCormick
Spice Company.
Like, yes, the McCormick SpiceCompany.
So when you reach for a spicesalt, pepper, basil, garlic,
(10:51):
whatever it is, whether it'sMcCormick or not like, let that
remind you.
Like, hey, regeneration.
Like they started by this guythat had once worked at
McCormick and, by the way, thispodcast is not endorsed by
McCormick nor is anything that'ssaid here endorsed.
So it actually comes into thestory a little bit later.
So Alan's working there andhe's got his buddy at work and I
(11:11):
can't remember the friend'sname, but he's also kind of a
nominal Christian.
At some point in the earlyseventies there's a Catholic
charismatic renewal sweepingthrough Baltimore and this
friend from work gets invited toa prayer meeting at this I
think it was St Peter's orsomething church.
He goes to it and encountersJesus and he comes back and he's
(11:33):
like Alan, you got to come withme to this prayer meeting.
And Alan his initial thought islike no, he couldn't explain
why, but he knew that if he hadsome kind of real religious
experience, real encounter withGod, that it would mean
something about his same-sexattraction and same-sex behavior
.
And he wasn't sure what itwould mean.
(11:54):
But it scared him.
So he was like, I thinkpolitely, was like no thanks or
can't make it or whatever.
But the guy wouldn't relent andasked him a few times and so
finally Alan decides, okay, I'llgo through this meeting,
wouldn't relent and asked him afew times and so finally Alan
decides, okay, I'll go throughthis meeting.
So he goes to this meetingunlike anything he's ever been
to before.
It's not like a Sunday morningEpiscopal church service.
There are people sharingtestimonies about God moving in
(12:15):
power in their lives.
There's worship, there's prayer, it's vibrant.
And so, in the basement of thischurch, alan's sitting in this
metal, this metal chair, and heprays a what he would call a
surrender prayer, something tothe effect of not getting this
perfectly right, but somethingto the effect of Jesus, my life
is a mess and I don't know ifyou want me, but if you would
(12:37):
have me and you can help me,then my life is yours.
And there were no powerful,there was no lightning, there
was no certain electricity.
He didn't fall over.
He didn't fall over.
He didn't speak in tongues,there was no, and I'm not
throwing shade on any of thosethings, but he didn't know that
(12:57):
anything happened more than justthat.
He goes home that night and goesto bed, wakes up the next
morning, gets up, lights acigarette, like he always did.
He'd been smoking since age 12,which is about the same time
that he started exploring stuffhomosexually Smokes a cigarette,
and the story goes he smokes acigarette and, as he's putting
(13:20):
it out, he's tamping down theashes and he says to himself and
he didn't know why he said itor why he believed it.
He said to himself that's thelast cigarette I'm ever going to
smoke.
And it was.
And it wasn't like he wasdetermined like I'm going to
quit now.
It was almost matter of fact,like it was an observation, like
that's the last cigarette, andhe never smoked again.
(13:42):
And then over the next couple ofdays he started recognizing
that there are some othermiracles that had happened for
him.
He actually, over the years,came to define it as three
miracles, kind of all bundledinto one.
He didn't realize they were allbundled, but the first miracle
was that he truly believed thathe was a new creature.
Something shifted in him, hisperspective of the world, his
idea of God.
He'd opened the scriptures andhe was like and before it just
(14:04):
been boring to read and didn'tmake sense.
And now he's like this is theword of God.
He loved his quiet times, so herecognized he was a new
creature in Christ and heexperienced life differently
from that vantage point.
The second thing is that hebegan to he had I guess this was
in the first miracle, as thatwas the case, he felt some sense
(14:25):
of this wall of protection camedown, this protective wall he'd
had since he was a kid thatreally kept him from being able
to love people and be loved, andhe describes feeling for the
first time like he actually hadlove to give someone else.
So he started feeling moretenderness towards his wife and
towards his kids and towards thefoster kid they had and other
(14:48):
people in his life and he wantedto love.
And, most especially, he feltthis love for God and he wanted
to love God.
He started feeling sexualdesire for his wife that he had
(15:10):
never experienced before and itwas a part of the love that he
was feeling for her.
It wasn't lust, it wasn't likethis insatiable sexual addiction
that he'd had in the same waybefore towards other men.
It was a part of his love.
He felt this sexual desire forher.
He wanted to be close with her.
And the third one actually Imessed this up, because the
third one is the part aboutscripture Like scripture came
(15:30):
alive to him in a way it neverhad before.
And if you knew Alan like andyou were ever to ask him like
what's the most?
Like I'm struggling with sexualintegrity, like what's the most
important thing I can do tohelp you know he would say, the
most important thing you do isspend daily time with Jesus.
And for Alan that was a miraclethat God did and he recognized
that other people struggled withthat more than he did.
But, like in the in the yearsthat followed I think he missed
(15:52):
like one or two mornings umspend time with Jesus and
because he was in the hospital.
But aside from that, like heloved spending time with Jesus
and that was the third part ofthat miracle.
James Craig (16:01):
So, wow, yeah man, there's so much there.
One thing that strikes me asyou talk about the quiet time
piece, my lead pastor, john Lowe.
He calls it FaceTime and hecreated that before Apple
created FaceTime on our phones.
Josh Glaser (16:17):
I was going to say he riffed on that.
He was like kind of using it tosay like okay.
James Craig (16:21):
No, apple stole it.
I think our churches owed money.
But he talks about how, ifwe've spent all these years
under these lies, all theseyears under a broken connection
with fathers or father figures,how much are we going to need to
have that kind of time, likethat face time, face to face
with the father who loves us?
(16:42):
So that strikes me.
But it also strikes me thatAlan wanted to.
There was something about God'slove.
I don't know so many of myclients, so that strikes me.
But it also strikes me thatAlan wanted to, like there was
something about God's love.
Like I don't know so many of myclients.
They're like man, I reallystruggle with my quiet time.
I don't really want to read theBible, this and that, but I
feel like I should.
I remind them sometimes thatthis is a spiritual discipline.
(17:04):
This is not like a I don't know, a makes you righteous kind of
thing.
It's a great spiritualdiscipline and Dallas Willard
would say probably one of theabsolute core ones is spending
time in scripture and in prayer.
But there's it's not driven bydelight for for many of us.
And so there's something aboutAlan being filled with the love
of God that he actually wantedto spend time with his heavenly
(17:27):
father.
Josh Glaser (17:28):
James, I love that you picked up on that.
That actually is vitallyimportant for anybody who's
wanting to practice spiritualdisciplines as a part of their
recovery journey, and we highlyrecommend it.
There's something reallyimportant about how we picture
God and how we experience Godwhen we practice the disciplines
(17:50):
.
And so if you have over yourhead like, hey, God expects me
to have daily quiet times withhim and he gets upset with me or
irritated at me or whateverwhen I struggle to, or whatever
it is, I mean, one of the thingsI would encourage people, if
you're wrestling with spendingdaily time with the Lord, I
would suggest to you that what'simportant for you to get after
(18:10):
is what is your impression ofhow God approaches those times
or how he feels about you inthose times?
So it's one thing to sit downwith a father who loves you and
who's been waiting all nightlong for you to wake up so he
can see your face as your pastorsays, like FaceTime, like and
who can delight in you, and whenyou lift your your eyes to him,
(18:32):
it's like you know a lovingfather seeing his, his toddler,
and he's like, oh, it's so goodthat you're here, Like what's on
your mind?
Let's talk.
I want to tell truth to you.
Like basking this, cause this isfor you Like what, versus like
the, the dour father who's likea little bit pissed off that
you're bugging them and thisbetter be good Cause I'm in, I'm
really busy, you know like oror whatever it might be, I think
(18:53):
.
And then when you find thatyou've got these kind of because
we all do, we all have thesethese faulty views of God, like
when you find you've got a viewof God that is not consistent
with the person of Jesus whogave himself for you, then that
becomes a part of theconversation, not something to
like just muscle you rightthrough, but like Lord, I really
(19:15):
want to be with you thismorning but, man, like, I get
this picture in my head of youlike this and I don't want to
practice that Like.
So, in other words, all I'd say,like if you sit down for a
quiet time and that's the Godyou're praying to, you're
praying to a dour faced, pissedoff, doesn't have time for you
God like it's probably betterfor you not to practice the
spiritual discipline of quiettimes, like you know, without
(19:37):
working that out, becausebecause now you're spending time
basking in something that's notgoing to do your heart good and
it's not glorifying God,because it's not who he is and I
think you, picking up on thatin Alan's story, james is so
right.
Cause he, he and this is maybeanother miracle for him Like he
never got over in all the yearsI knew him, he never got over
the miracle of what God did inhis life and he always just it
(19:59):
for him.
It sat on him as this God oflove who saved him as an, as a
man who didn't deserve it, anddidn't save him to work hard for
him or to whatever, but like,saved him just because he loved
him.
And Helen never got over that.
It was, I think, one of thethings I loved the most about
him.
James Craig (20:18):
I want to come back to the wall in just a moment,
cause that really, that alsoreally stuck out.
But one other thing about quiettimes that strikes me.
First of all, I'm in thistheology of the body training
right now.
Our ministry loves beingsteeped in theology of the body,
how our bodies point to thegospel, but Christopher West,
who teaches it, says that we'reall born heretics, and part of
the Christian life is becomingless of a heretic, having more
(20:40):
and more true thoughts about God, less and less false thoughts.
But this idea of quiet time,though, is time.
It's actually central to myrecovery journey.
I'm remembering this as wespeak.
That's why it's so good toremember.
But when I first came to Regen,I was part of Awaken360, our
year-round men's group.
I was in a season of trying tofigure out what God was like,
(21:01):
and I had a lot, a lot, a lot oftrouble getting in scripture,
like I would just read passages.
I'd feel often undercondemnation.
It was not a delight.
It was not a delight to getinto the word of God, with God.
But one Sunday I was at a churchand my pastor preached on the
grace of quiet time, the graceof spending time with God,
(21:23):
something about the grace andgraciousness of God's character
and something clicked.
And from that day on for thelast I don't know if it's been
seven years or more I haven'tstruggled to at least want to
get into scripture each day.
So what's notable about thatfor me is like it's not that I
always have this profound timein scripture or you know time
(21:44):
where I feel really connected toGod, but there's some sort of
barrier was taken away, becausethere was grace deposited in my
heart that God actually wouldmeet me here in a gracious way.
And that brings me back to thisidea of the wall.
So something in Alan's heartwas like a wall erected, a mask,
a protection, and God brokethat down and it sounds like
(22:09):
that wall was stopping both himfrom loving life, loving even
the men he was tempted to lustafter, which is an interesting
thought loving, maybe, hischildren, others, but also
receiving love, also receivingthe love of God, receiving the
love of others.
Do you have any more insightson that wall or anything you
want to riff on with that?
Josh Glaser (22:30):
Yeah, you know, I mean I think, interestingly so,
full disclosure to thoselistening, or James and I were
talking about this a little bitbeforehand that we do believe
that God has.
I mean, as we've been prayingover the last year and a half
like Lord, what are you leadingus into right now and what do
you have for us?
This word remember has been akey part of it and we're still
trying to discern why.
(22:52):
And so, even as we do, thisseries we believe that we're
talking about today is helpfulfor those in recovery and we'll
unpack that a little bit more ina minute and we believe the
other parts of the series willbe helpful for you too.
And we're also trying toexplore, like, wait, why?
So?
But I do think, like like partof what, what happened for Alan?
He, he did remember what Jesushad done, and I think, like some
(23:18):
people and this doesn't happenfor all of us, but those among
us who have had a very radicalconversion experience where life
was headed one way and they'repretty sure they could follow
the trail and go like, yep, Iwould have been dead or I would
have been in prison, or I meanand Alan would say that I mean,
like he he came to Christ rightat the beginning of the AIDS
(23:39):
epidemic and he's like, yep, Iwould have been dead.
He's like I was doingeverything that would lead to
the death of my marriage, thedestruction of reputation, the
loss of my job and my physicaldeath.
And I think that because he hadsuch a radical conversion and
things shifted for him so much,it was easier for him to
remember what God had done.
And something remarkable and Ithink even as you were kind of
(24:01):
reflecting in the beginning,these multiplates in scripture
where God calls us to remembermaybe two lenses, we could see
that through one kind of thefaulty lens of like you know,
like I've already given you somuch, like you know I'm not
going to give you more, justremember what I've already done,
like, which is not the tone ofthe gospel.
I mean, paul even writes in thenew Testament that since God
has given us his only son somuch, how much would he give us
(24:25):
anything else?
He's always given, he's alreadygiven us as much as he can.
He's going to give us moreBecause the more has cost him so
much less, right, I think, forAlan he'd received so much.
I think it was that remembrancefor him, gave him life and, I
think, helped kind of fuel whathe did.
(24:46):
Let me share about that for aminute, because the Genesis of
Regen actually starts about 10years later.
Alan had early on really feltthe Holy Spirit's prompting to
confess to his wife, to tell herthe truth about what had been
going on, and he did not want tobecause things were so good
finally between them.
But he knew that God wastelling him and so he did.
(25:07):
He told her what was up, whichwas obviously like brutally
painful for her.
We didn't know it back then,they didn't know it, but I'm
certain there was a level oftrauma for her in discovering
that the life that she thoughtshe was living was different
than what she'd been living.
But over time their marriagehealed and she could see the
fruit and the evidence in hislife that God really had done a
(25:28):
miracle and he was a differentman.
About nine or 10 years laterAlan was in his living room and
had read in the Baltimore Sun,the local paper here, an article
about five men who'd beenarrested in a public park for
homosexual activity.
They'd been acting out publiclyas men did then and it was
officially illegal then.
So today that would be so on PCto say and and to be the
(25:51):
reality.
But that was the case back then.
Alan knew that, that he couldhave easily been one of those
men and.
But when those men, when themen's names were printed in the
paper, one of the men was aBaptist pastor who was married
and had two kids Interestingly,alan had been married with two
kids prior to his conversionwhen that pastor's name was
(26:11):
printed in the paper, he killedhimself out of just disgrace and
shame and he was hopeless.
And that prompted Alan to say Ican't keep this to myself, I
can't let this just be my story.
If, if God can save me, he cansave others too.
And so he reached out to theother four men in the article, I
(26:32):
think one of the men was likeokay, I'll meet with you.
And then there was another manthat the Mettinger's knew and
they gathered in the Mettingerbasement in 1980, whatever it
was 81 or 82, 83 maybe and thatwas the first unofficial meeting
of regeneration and things grewfrom there.
So I want to park there for amoment and say, if you haven't
(26:53):
heard it already, I'm going tosay it Alan Menninger, the
founder of our ministry, wasrescued because God miraculously
shifted his sexual attractions,miraculously gave him new life,
love and desire for his wifeand his family.
That doesn't always happen likethat or as quickly as that, but
(27:15):
it is possible and that is notPC, but it's the reality that
miracles happen and it happenedin Alan's life and that was the
seed that germinated andeventually started this ministry
, and now it's been what's themath, james?
From 2025, back to 1983.
We've been around for a longtime, and not because we're so
(27:38):
great like the fact that thefact that we're in this ministry
and leading it now, like isanother testament to god's grace
, but yeah, so is anothertestament to God's grace, but
yeah, so what do you do withthat?
James Craig (27:48):
That brings up a lot of.
It can bring up a lot of painfor, whether it's same-sex
attraction or opposite sex, youknow, sexual behavior or
whatever.
I would guess that if you'relistening to this, every single
one of you has prayed, maybethousands of times, like I had,
and he didn't seem to answerthose prayers.
So what do we make of that,josh?
(28:11):
Yeah, how do we reckon withthat?
God met him in this very subtleway, at this, in this church
basement, and I love how, by theway, a few years later, it's in
his basement that he's pouringout the waters that he received
or the spear that he received.
But, oh, great connection, yeah, yeah, like, what do we make of
it when god doesn't answer that?
And what's sorry?
(28:32):
One more thing about that it'sironic that alan wasn't even
necessarily praying for that,like he wasn't doing what I had
done for 10 years, which is praytime and time again.
Take this desire for porn away.
Take this away, like god justmet him without all that seeming
groundwork of prayer yeah, yeah.
Josh Glaser (28:50):
So two parts that to to my response to that three
parts.
The first is I don't.
I don't entirely know.
There is mystery here that godonly knows.
Secondly, while alan was notpraying you're correct, I don't
know of any I don't remember himever talking about like, yep,
he was praying that God wouldtake this away.
His wife actually had, yearsbefore, gotten connected to a
(29:11):
very powerful prayer warrior.
This woman who she met at, Ithink.
The woman came and spoke attheir church, maybe to a women's
thing at their church, butWillow was like man, her face
was just bright, she was freeand I knew that I wasn't and I
wanted what she had.
And so she went up to the womanand talked to her and the woman
was like you know, come to myprayer group.
(29:32):
And the and Willow was kind oflike like Ruth, you know, like
hey, wherever you go, I'm goingto go, cause I I need something
that you've got.
Willow wasn't.
She didn't know what was goingon with Alan, and there's
there's some stories that evensuggest that she was just in
denial, like she had somesuspicions but didn't want to
admit it because it just felthopeless.
But she was at least openenough with people in that
(29:52):
prayer group to say my marriageneeds prayer, my husband needs
prayer.
I don't know why, but we needprayer.
So there were people prayingfor Alan and for Miracle before
that, and people who were alivein prayer and who believed the
power of the Holy spirit to todo miracles, so what they prayed
(30:14):
, how they prayed, how long theyprayed, I don't know.
Um, but yeah, man.
And then the next answer isbecause it's true in our, in our
, in our ministry, like and Alanactually dealt with this as
somebody who ministered to otherpeople who struggled as he did
that sometimes people were justlike you don't understand,
because you haven't been throughwhat I've been through I prayed
and these attractions are stillhere.
(30:35):
I prayed and I'm still actingout Like and that was something
he had to contend with in hisown testimony because he
couldn't deny his testimony buthe also recognized that it
didn't happen that way foreverybody.
I mean my own story, you know,struggling with voyeurism and
making illicit phone calls topeople and looking at
pornography and masturbation andfantasy and all sorts of stuff
(30:56):
that I was so embarrassed by asa Christian young man, and I
remember, like just shaking myfist at God in college, being
like what is going on here, likeI love you, you love me.
Why don't you take this awayfrom me?
I know you can, why won't you?
And I've certainly experiencedmiracles in this journey, but
not the snap your fingers, likeyou know, surrender, prayer and
(31:19):
all has changed, kind of miraclethat Alan did and I and I and
you and I have both worked withso many and walk with so many
men and women who, who cantestify like that's hard, it is
hard.
I think it's also one of thereasons that that Alan.
It was really important forAlan to recognize that it wasn't
just one miracle.
The sexual desire shift for himwas, and the sexual behavior
(31:40):
shift for him was was amiraculous part of it.
But his love of the Lord wasanother miracle that took place
and that was really important,that the wall that came down.
A lot of us have walls that wedon't realize are a part of
these problems.
Alan, I don't even know thatAlan could explain what that was
for him and I think that thatthat matters for for a lot of us
(32:02):
.
And then and then his time withthe Lord was another miracle.
So so what are the miraclesthat God's doing that we can
remember, like for me, one ofthe things that I remember that
helps me is is my own conversionstory.
Like it didn't eradicate thesexual behavior in my life but
it did change me in some otherways.
And and it does my heart goodto remember that, and it did my
(32:24):
heart good in the midst ofrecovery, when I was still
botching it and falling on myface with sexual integrity, to
remember like, even so, like Godcalled me, god saved me, god's
with me.
James Craig (32:34):
Yeah, my own story, when I experienced God's love
in a really personal way incollege.
Love in a really personal wayin college.
It did take away my strugglesfor a month and then I yeah.
So his love was so overwhelming.
But the way I've processed inmy own journey is that God had a
longer term plan.
He was answering my prayer in amuch longer way than I would
(32:57):
have ever wanted.
But because of that, not only doI get to serve other men now
and walk them through thatjourney which a lot of it, by
the way, is maturity, whichdoesn't typically maybe ever
happen overnight.
That's not how God's designedmaturity to work but also, yeah,
there's just a grace in havinghad to go through hard things
(33:18):
like this, because there's somany other parts of my faith
that have been refined andstrengthened.
And had I never gone throughthis kind of addiction and
recovery, I wouldn't have grownin spiritual formation, I
wouldn't have fallen in lovewith the authors who point me to
Jesus so thoroughly, I wouldn'thave yeah, I wouldn't have
grown just in so many differentways, which is actually grow is
(33:38):
another one of our words forthis year.
So that's fun that that'scoming in there, but.
I would not have grown if Godhad kept me in that place of,
okay, you had the conversionyou're set.
It actually happened againlater that year for another
month.
It's crazy, there's a wholestory to that, but but if God
had kept me there I wouldn'thave actually at least you know,
not in the way I did gonethrough the maturity journey
(34:00):
that I've had to go through.
So it's actually been ablessing, and I say that with
honor for the fact that it didnot feel like a blessing and it
does not feel like a blessing inthe moment, and that's where
patience, maybe, is so calledfor.
But, josh, one thing I'm curiousabout is you said that Alan
didn't assume everyone wouldhave that miracle, but, if I
(34:22):
also understand correctly, hedid still struggle with
attraction at time for other men.
And can you expand on that alittle bit?
And whether it's same-sex oropposite-sex or just wherever,
our desires are a little bit,you know, warped or twisted up?
Like what do we do if, even ifwe have maybe had a miracle of
growing in love for God and ourspouse, but we're still
(34:43):
wrestling?
And does that mean that youknow a more thorough thing can't
happen?
I don't know.
Can you explore?
Josh Glaser (34:49):
that a little bit.
Yeah, that's really good.
I appreciate what you're sayingtoo, because I think Alan
learned over time to be to tryto be really articulate about
where he experienced change,where he didn't, what still
needed to grow he used that wordgrowth too Um, especially
around his own masculinity, hisown sense of manhood, like he
was very clear.
(35:09):
Like I was an immature man.
He's like I was kind of stuntedand I never really learned to
be a man.
So, whatever age that was forhim 30, 40, like he's, like I
had to start growing up as a man, learning to love others,
learning to give.
The following year, within thenext year and a half, he and
Willie became pregnant, hadtheir son, and Alan would talk
(35:31):
about how I'm raising a son nowand in some ways, as I'm raising
him, I'm teaching him thingsthat I'm having to learn, and so
I have to be a step ahead ofhim.
Incidentally, his son has saidto me on more than one occasion
he's like man if you wantevidence that God can change
people he's like I'm here, Iexist.
I wouldn't exist if not for themiracle that God did in my
(35:52):
dad's life.
But yeah, alan did from time totime experience some temptations
towards lust and, like a lot ofus, his conversion for you.
As a month, I think.
He had multiple, multiple yearsof not experiencing any
temptation and then, I don'tknow what it was, 15 years in he
gave in to masturbation orsomething and fantasy and then
(36:14):
kind of walked on from there.
But his desire to be sexuallyactive with other men was gone.
He didn't feel temptation.
From what I understand, henever felt temptation again to
go out with another man.
But sometimes he did experiencesome same-sex attraction and
some temptation towards lust.
He'd also talk about how he wasvery careful to say my desire
(36:36):
for my wife, my sexual desirefor my wife, was ignited and
real and true and consistent.
That was new.
But he didn't experience just atemptation to lust after women
and he would say you know theidea that we that like, that
we'd shift from having a lustfulattraction to men to having a
lustful attraction for women.
(36:56):
He's like God's not in thebusiness of like, doing a
miracle and shifting our, oursin proclivities Like so good,
yeah, he's like.
And it makes me wonder even if,if, in the beginning, before
sin came in, if if part of theway that God wired us was not
sexual attraction to the othersex in general.
But there might've even beenwhen when humankind had full
(37:19):
mastery over the desire, asexual attraction, romantic
attraction, that would have beenignited just for one person,
your spouse.
I don't know, that's conjecture, but that was more Alan's
experience.
Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'manswering your question there.
James Craig (37:32):
Yeah, well, no, it makes me think of, I mean, just
the tension, even people who arewalking this out, and this is
one of the hardest things towalk out in our culture walking
out, and if you fall back in, or, and if you fall, if you feel
tempted, it doesn't define whoyou are.
I mean there's a now and a notyet to the kingdom.
Jesus came and he will comeagain, and we're in that in
(37:54):
between where we're still proneto sin, we're still prone to
wander, as that great hymn saysit.
Prone to wander, lord, I feelit.
And so I just say theencouragement, because so often
what we do with our desires iswe allow them to be our identity
.
And one of the unique blessingsof Alan's time as hard as it was
and there were great injusticesdone to those with same-sex
(38:17):
attraction and same-sex behavior, but was that there wasn't as
much of that identity placed ondesire, even for him to just be
like, yeah, I'm acting out withthem, but of course I'm going to
, you know, get married and havekids.
I mean, obviously there's adeep incongruity, there's that
wall there, but like he didn'thave the same temptation or even
(38:39):
the same world, like the blast,the, you know the the airwaves
just being filled with you arewhat you desire.
Yeah thing, yeah, we have today.
Josh Glaser (38:50):
We should probably do a series on that sometime
because, like, especially if you, if you grew up kind of 2000s
or later, maybe even 90s orlater, it's such a it's so thick
in our culture to believe thatif you have same-sex attraction
it means something about youridentity, specifically that
you're bisexual or gay or queeror something like that, that we
(39:13):
don't remember that that'sactually a social construct that
has been added in recent years.
I think it goes back to Freudand Freud's kind of view of what
sexuality means about a personand what a person is, the role
of sexual desire in the identityof personhood.
But prior to that it wasn'tthought that way.
(39:34):
Anyway, there's a lot more wecould say about that.
That's really important.
But I do think that some ofAlan's ability to walk in
freedom came from not holdinghis experiences and even the
slight lingering of experienceof temptation that he had.
He did not let that define him.
(39:55):
It didn't define him.
James Craig (39:57):
You know, scripture says that it's not about us
first loving God, it's about Godfirst loving us.
And we just want to say, aswe're inviting you in this
series, to remember the miraclesof your life, to remember
things that have been forgotten,that are good and are from God.
Most of all, we want you toknow that he remembers you, he
hasn't forgotten you.
(40:18):
Our theme a few years ago forour banquets was about Hagar and
how, basically, the Lord sawHagar.
He didn't forget her.
He didn't forget her, eventhough she was kind of forgotten
or, you know, cast out byAbraham's family.
The Lord remembered Alan.
He didn't forget about him.
He knew that he'd meet with himin that place, with that
(40:40):
persistent colleague who saidyou know, you've got to come to
this church basement with me.
The Lord remembered Alan and theLord remembers you.
God remembers you, our listener, he hasn't forgotten you and
God is not slow in the way wethink of slowness.
Scripture says so actually,josh, if you're willing to pray
(41:02):
for both miracles.
But also, I feel like there'sthis idea of patience that's
coming to my mind that so manyof us, in our limited,
time-oriented, time-boundviewpoint of the world, it feels
like God's doing nothing, when,in fact, he's been doing so
much in the background, and somaybe we can pray for some of
(41:22):
that patience as well yeah, ifgod calls us to remember, I mean
the word remember itself is.
Josh Glaser (41:28):
It is a time, a time focused word.
And there there's a.
I get the picture almost like alife preserver or a, a tether
of some kind we are thatremembering is a tethering of
ourselves to the truth about whoGod is and what he's done, and
what he's in our life and otherpeople's life, and Alan's life,
(41:49):
because of what he has in store,because the hope he has in
store.
So, yeah, I'd love to pray,father, thank you for Alan's
life and the miracle you did inhis life.
And, lord, for those listening,whether they're listening with,
with unbelief or desire, ortears of gratitude or or
whatever else.
Lord, what's most important iswhat james said, that you, you
(42:10):
remember them, you've not leftthem behind.
You're not unaware of theirstruggles, their pain.
Lord, you're fully aware of themiles and miles and miles
they've walked.
You're aware of the desert andthe dry, parched ground that
(42:32):
they're on.
Lord, you're aware of thedangers and toils around them.
And, lord, there's not oneutterance of prayer, whether an
hour-sprinted prayer with faithor a desperate prayer or an
angry prayer.
Lord, you remember every wordwe've spoken.
Lord, thank you for rememberingus.
Thank you that when we forgetyou, you remember us, and I pray
(42:59):
, even right now, that that sametrue love that has you
remembering us would pour out ina special way on everybody
listening right now.
God, your personal remembranceof this one and that one.
God, we need you, we need yourremembering of us to have more
(43:23):
power than our capacity toremember what you've done and
who you are.
And, lord, we need you to shareyour memory with us that we too
would remember.
Lord, thank you.
We pray all these things in thename of the Father, son and
Holy Spirit.
Amen.
James Craig (43:42):
Amen.
There's a lot of reasons that you may listen to
this podcast.
It might be your sexualbrokenness, it might be marriage
difficulties or marriagefalling apart, betrayal, but we
want to unpack something thatmight not come up in your
typical recovery work or yourtypical podcast about sexual
integrity.
We want to talk aboutremembering.
(00:21):
Throughout scripture, there'sthese key moments where God
tells his people to remember.
Whether it's crossing theJordan and building an Ebenezer,
you know, a monument toremember, or whether it's Jesus
saying do this in remembrance ofme, we're called throughout
scripture to remember it.
I don't know about you all.
I struggle to remember.
(00:43):
I struggle to remember God'sgoodness.
I struggle to remember so manyof the good things he's done and
I struggle to remember even,sometimes, the hard things or
the bad things that I grew upwith.
God gave our team this yearthree words, and one of which is
remember.
This is a word that he's givingus to guide our ministry and
(01:04):
actually it's going to be thetheme of our upcoming banquets.
So we want to do a short serieson remembering and we want to
start out the series byremembering the founding of
regeneration.
Many of you do not know thestory of how we were founded.
It's a miracle story.
It's a story full of drama,full of overcoming sexual
(01:27):
brokenness, restoring marriage.
It's a story of Alan Mettinger,who founded our ministry, and
so I'm James Craig, I'm one ofthe coaches here at Regeneration
and I'm on with our executivedirector, josh Glazer.
Josh, so glad that we couldhave this conversation today.
Josh Glaser (01:53):
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad to be here and I'm with you
about remembering.
It's like Josh, so glad that wecould have this conversation
today.
Out this series, we're like, ohmy gosh, like there really is
important, important stuff here.
And then also just on apersonal kind of confessional
groundwork I'm not good atremembering I, over and over
again, I'm asking god for thesame, like assurances, just like
(02:17):
help me not be afraid, help meto trust you.
Like I, I don't hold likememories of what God has done
very well, so this is going tobe.
I mean so everything we'resaying today or what we're doing
this year is like I need tohear it, so I'm eager to get
into it.
James Craig (02:33):
So, josh, why don't you start us out by sharing
some of the origin story of Alanand of how this ministry got
started?
Josh Glaser (02:42):
Yeah, so this is funny because I'm I don't know
if I can show this withoutrevealing my age a little bit
but as the executive director,one of my jobs is to is to have
the whole the origin story.
Like that's part of what you dowhen you run a business or a
nonprofit or a church is part ofyour responsibility is to hold
like where, what, how did thisplace start?
But the story that we're goingto get into started when I was
(03:07):
like two or three years old, soit goes way back but yeah, like.
So.
Alan Mettinger was the guy whofounded our ministry and for
those of you who don't know, ourministry has been around since
I, I, I I should look this upthis is part, I don't remember,
but it's like 81 or 82 or 83.
Like that's when we becameincorporated an official, you
know 501c3 nonprofit, but thestory goes way back before that.
(03:28):
Alan grew up in Baltimore.
He was a, you know, the normalkid in those days but he, around
adolescence, started realizingthat he had attractions to other
guys.
He was particularly drawn tolike masculine men.
He would share stories of like,yeah, I remember like going
down to the firehouse near myhome and just being enthralled
(03:51):
with the firefighters becausethey were like the embodiment of
men, even before he got toadolescence, and those
attractions were kind ofsexualized.
Before that he was just kind of,you know, drawn to that and he
would speculate years later, wasjust kind of you know, drawn to
that and he would speculateyears later.
I remember hearing hear himkind of say that he thinks that
some of that came from hisrelationship with his own dad.
His dad was struggling withdepression and there wasn't a
(04:16):
great connection there for forAlan, and so I think in some
ways he, he, he came to believethat that some of that
attraction towards men, even inthat just kind of enamored with
their masculinity as a young boy, was because he wasn't really
experiencing that much at hishome.
In any case, yeah, he hadsame-sex attractions.
This is before the time.
So some of this is paradigmshifting for us, because in our
(04:38):
day and age if you haveattraction to the same sex,
typically people just go rightto.
If you have attraction to thesame sex, typically like people
just go right to.
Oh so you mean you're gay.
But that was not the paradigmback then.
Like people did not just makethose associations.
James Craig (04:51):
Um, was this pre-sexual revolution actually
when he was an adolescent?
Josh Glaser (04:56):
Gosh, yeah, I mean, it would have been probably
kind of the in the midst of it,right?
So, depending on onhistorically, if you put the
sexual revolution kind of in thethirties and forties, fifties,
when Kinsey's work was comingout, or later, you know, when
the kind of the kind of explodedin the 60s Right.
Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, right.
So I think for Alan it was.
It was confusing.
(05:16):
It was something he kept secret.
There was no one around himtalking about these things and
he would say years later that hehe never even considered the
possibility of of living as aquote, unquote gay man, because
it's just not what people did,and so it what.
It did not seem like an optionfor him.
(05:36):
It wasn't because of some youknow, deep felt religious belief
, it was just, you know, that'she.
He was going to be a normal guybut he had the same sex
direction.
So anyway, I'm taking too longwith the story Fast forward.
He ends up getting married to achildhood friend, willa, and
they start having kids together.
But as the pressures of lifestarted weighing more on Alan,
(05:58):
his homosexual desires increasedand he started acting out
secretly even within marriage.
He was he'd drive down to DCand have anonymous sexual
encounters with other men reallydangerous stuff.
He would share stories ofremembering waking up in a hotel
room, kind of zonked out, afterhe'd been drinking and had just
(06:19):
had sex with some guy and whohe didn't know, and the guy had
left and he was like man, hecould have taken my wallet, he
could have beaten me up.
He could, and all sorts ofstuff could happen.
So he knew these behaviors wererisky.
He knew that things weregetting worse and worse for him,
but he didn't know what to dountil God got ahold of his life.
So let me just pause there fora second.
So I'm not just kind of youknow, this isn't just a you.
(06:40):
What do you hear in there thatmaybe stands out to you, or any
questions about kind of some ofsome of what I've already
started with?
James Craig (06:54):
Really interesting that the danger didn't.
Sometimes the danger doesn'tdeter.
You know the behavior.
Even though there's an inherentdanger to random hookups or
anonymous encounters, the dangerdidn't deter.
There's something driving himthat was so strong that, like it
was overcoming the danger ofdisease or or harm or even being
caught.
Josh Glaser (07:11):
That's why finding out right, that's a great point.
I mean, and I think for so manyof us who have wrestled with
sexual sin or wrestling like thenegative consequences, we
expect that, just the fact thatthere could be negative
consequences, extreme negativeconsequences, we expect that
they, they should be enough toconvince us to stop.
And they're not, and that canjust heap shame upon what we're
(07:33):
experiencing.
And the more shame weexperience, the more powerful
the addictive cycle gets for us.
And that was certainly true forAlan, although he had no idea
about any of that at that point.
James Craig (07:44):
And at this point does he have any sort of faith
background?
At this point, Did he grow upin some sort of Christian home?
Josh Glaser (07:50):
I can't remember if he grew up in a Christian home
or not, but at this point in hislife as an adult guy he and his
wife were a part of a, anEpiscopal church, and he would
have described he was not aChristian in in the sense that
we would understand it he was.
It was kind of more of acultural thing that you know
good people in his community did, and so he was.
(08:14):
I think he was even, like youknow, maybe on the finance
committee or something he was.
He worked at McCormick thespice company.
He was a senior levelaccountant there and so he was
doing well for himself in kindof the vocational world and yeah
, and Sundays they would go tochurch.
Although you know a vibrantlife with Jesus, personal
relationship with him was notsomething that Alan had ever
been introduced to or thoughtwas possible for him.
James Craig (08:34):
Also strikes me that so many who struggle with
sexual sin or unwanted sexualbehavior even you know the
impact of that in a marriagethey look normal, they look like
you know, they're showing up towork, they have maybe good jobs
, they're showing up to church,and so it just reminds me that,
like so many people that arearound us in church I mean, if
(08:56):
the statistics are correct, manypeople in nearly every church
are dealing with stuff and it'sjust not always brought out into
the light.
Josh Glaser (09:04):
It sounds like part of balance story yeah, I think
I think that's that has changedsubstantially in the last 40
some years.
Like I mean, even even when Istarted regeneration in 1999
like confidentialityconfidentiality is always
important to us.
We have a very firmconfidentiality policy here.
But even to be associated withregeneration like was kind of a,
(09:26):
I mean it was a little morecloak and dagger.
You know, like you know, wewere like we would never add
anybody to an email list.
You know, I mean there were noemail lists in 1990, but in any
case, like you know, we want tomake sure we're not sending
somebody to somebody's house,because, man, if that letter
shows up in your house and it'sjust a newsletter, it's not
personal, but then suddenly itmeans you've got a sexual
(09:47):
addiction or you're strugglingwith this or with that.
What does that mean?
But today, I think so manypeople are more open about
sexuality.
For right and for wrong, forgood and for bad, sexuality is
just such a common part of ourlives and I think there are more
and more Christians who reallyare open about the fact that
they struggle sexually in someway or another, although I don't
(10:10):
think that that's diminishedthe shame in all the ways that
are really important and needful, yeah, so let me pick it up
from there.
And, by the way, let me justthrow this in there this is not
going to fit anywhere else inthe podcast, but if you want a
mnemonic device, a way toremember to pray for
regeneration and we could reallyuse your prayers, because this
(10:31):
work is certainly opposedspiritually and there's a lot
that we believe God wants us tobe doing or you want to pray for
those who come here because man, like to walk in sexual
integrity today is opposed.
If you want something to remindyou to pray, think McCormick
Spice Company.
Like, yes, the McCormick SpiceCompany.
So when you reach for a spicesalt, pepper, basil, garlic,
(10:51):
whatever it is, whether it'sMcCormick or not like, let that
remind you.
Like, hey, regeneration.
Like they started by this guythat had once worked at
McCormick and, by the way, thispodcast is not endorsed by
McCormick nor is anything that'ssaid here endorsed.
So it actually comes into thestory a little bit later.
So Alan's working there andhe's got his buddy at work and I
(11:11):
can't remember the friend'sname, but he's also kind of a
nominal Christian.
At some point in the earlyseventies there's a Catholic
charismatic renewal sweepingthrough Baltimore and this
friend from work gets invited toa prayer meeting at this I
think it was St Peter's orsomething church.
He goes to it and encountersJesus and he comes back and he's
(11:33):
like Alan, you got to come withme to this prayer meeting.
And Alan his initial thought islike no, he couldn't explain
why, but he knew that if he hadsome kind of real religious
experience, real encounter withGod, that it would mean
something about his same-sexattraction and same-sex behavior
.
And he wasn't sure what itwould mean.
(11:54):
But it scared him.
So he was like, I thinkpolitely, was like no thanks or
can't make it or whatever.
But the guy wouldn't relent andasked him a few times and so
finally Alan decides, okay, I'llgo through this meeting,
wouldn't relent and asked him afew times and so finally Alan
decides, okay, I'll go throughthis meeting.
So he goes to this meetingunlike anything he's ever been
to before.
It's not like a Sunday morningEpiscopal church service.
There are people sharingtestimonies about God moving in
(12:15):
power in their lives.
There's worship, there's prayer, it's vibrant.
And so, in the basement of thischurch, alan's sitting in this
metal, this metal chair, and heprays a what he would call a
surrender prayer, something tothe effect of not getting this
perfectly right, but somethingto the effect of Jesus, my life
is a mess and I don't know ifyou want me, but if you would
(12:37):
have me and you can help me,then my life is yours.
And there were no powerful,there was no lightning, there
was no certain electricity.
He didn't fall over.
He didn't fall over.
He didn't speak in tongues,there was no, and I'm not
throwing shade on any of thosethings, but he didn't know that
(12:57):
anything happened more than justthat.
He goes home that night and goesto bed, wakes up the next
morning, gets up, lights acigarette, like he always did.
He'd been smoking since age 12,which is about the same time
that he started exploring stuffhomosexually Smokes a cigarette,
and the story goes he smokes acigarette and, as he's putting
(13:20):
it out, he's tamping down theashes and he says to himself and
he didn't know why he said itor why he believed it.
He said to himself that's thelast cigarette I'm ever going to
smoke.
And it was.
And it wasn't like he wasdetermined like I'm going to
quit now.
It was almost matter of fact,like it was an observation, like
that's the last cigarette, andhe never smoked again.
(13:42):
And then over the next couple ofdays he started recognizing
that there are some othermiracles that had happened for
him.
He actually, over the years,came to define it as three
miracles, kind of all bundledinto one.
He didn't realize they were allbundled, but the first miracle
was that he truly believed thathe was a new creature.
Something shifted in him, hisperspective of the world, his
idea of God.
He'd opened the scriptures andhe was like and before it just
(14:04):
been boring to read and didn'tmake sense.
And now he's like this is theword of God.
He loved his quiet times, so herecognized he was a new
creature in Christ and heexperienced life differently
from that vantage point.
The second thing is that hebegan to he had I guess this was
in the first miracle, as thatwas the case, he felt some sense
(14:25):
of this wall of protection camedown, this protective wall he'd
had since he was a kid thatreally kept him from being able
to love people and be loved, andhe describes feeling for the
first time like he actually hadlove to give someone else.
So he started feeling moretenderness towards his wife and
towards his kids and towards thefoster kid they had and other
(14:48):
people in his life and he wantedto love.
And, most especially, he feltthis love for God and he wanted
to love God.
He started feeling sexualdesire for his wife that he had
(15:10):
never experienced before and itwas a part of the love that he
was feeling for her.
It wasn't lust, it wasn't likethis insatiable sexual addiction
that he'd had in the same waybefore towards other men.
It was a part of his love.
He felt this sexual desire forher.
He wanted to be close with her.
And the third one actually Imessed this up, because the
third one is the part aboutscripture Like scripture came
(15:30):
alive to him in a way it neverhad before.
And if you knew Alan like andyou were ever to ask him like
what's the most?
Like I'm struggling with sexualintegrity, like what's the most
important thing I can do tohelp you know he would say, the
most important thing you do isspend daily time with Jesus.
And for Alan that was a miraclethat God did and he recognized
that other people struggled withthat more than he did.
But, like in the in the yearsthat followed I think he missed
(15:52):
like one or two mornings umspend time with Jesus and
because he was in the hospital.
But aside from that, like heloved spending time with Jesus
and that was the third part ofthat miracle.
James Craig (16:01):
So, wow, yeah man, there's so much there.
One thing that strikes me asyou talk about the quiet time
piece, my lead pastor, john Lowe.
He calls it FaceTime and hecreated that before Apple
created FaceTime on our phones.
Josh Glaser (16:17):
I was going to say he riffed on that.
He was like kind of using it tosay like okay.
James Craig (16:21):
No, apple stole it.
I think our churches owed money.
But he talks about how, ifwe've spent all these years
under these lies, all theseyears under a broken connection
with fathers or father figures,how much are we going to need to
have that kind of time, likethat face time, face to face
with the father who loves us?
(16:42):
So that strikes me.
But it also strikes me thatAlan wanted to.
There was something about God'slove.
I don't know so many of myclients, so that strikes me.
But it also strikes me thatAlan wanted to, like there was
something about God's love.
Like I don't know so many of myclients.
They're like man, I reallystruggle with my quiet time.
I don't really want to read theBible, this and that, but I
feel like I should.
I remind them sometimes thatthis is a spiritual discipline.
(17:04):
This is not like a I don't know, a makes you righteous kind of
thing.
It's a great spiritualdiscipline and Dallas Willard
would say probably one of theabsolute core ones is spending
time in scripture and in prayer.
But there's it's not driven bydelight for for many of us.
And so there's something aboutAlan being filled with the love
of God that he actually wantedto spend time with his heavenly
(17:27):
father.
Josh Glaser (17:28):
James, I love that you picked up on that.
That actually is vitallyimportant for anybody who's
wanting to practice spiritualdisciplines as a part of their
recovery journey, and we highlyrecommend it.
There's something reallyimportant about how we picture
God and how we experience Godwhen we practice the disciplines
(17:50):
.
And so if you have over yourhead like, hey, God expects me
to have daily quiet times withhim and he gets upset with me or
irritated at me or whateverwhen I struggle to, or whatever
it is, I mean, one of the thingsI would encourage people, if
you're wrestling with spendingdaily time with the Lord, I
would suggest to you that what'simportant for you to get after
(18:10):
is what is your impression ofhow God approaches those times
or how he feels about you inthose times?
So it's one thing to sit downwith a father who loves you and
who's been waiting all nightlong for you to wake up so he
can see your face as your pastorsays, like FaceTime, like and
who can delight in you, and whenyou lift your your eyes to him,
(18:32):
it's like you know a lovingfather seeing his, his toddler,
and he's like, oh, it's so goodthat you're here, Like what's on
your mind?
Let's talk.
I want to tell truth to you.
Like basking this, cause this isfor you Like what, versus like
the, the dour father who's likea little bit pissed off that
you're bugging them and thisbetter be good Cause I'm in, I'm
really busy, you know like oror whatever it might be, I think
(18:53):
.
And then when you find thatyou've got these kind of because
we all do, we all have thesethese faulty views of God, like
when you find you've got a viewof God that is not consistent
with the person of Jesus whogave himself for you, then that
becomes a part of theconversation, not something to
like just muscle you rightthrough, but like Lord, I really
(19:15):
want to be with you thismorning but, man, like, I get
this picture in my head of youlike this and I don't want to
practice that Like.
So, in other words, all I'd say,like if you sit down for a
quiet time and that's the Godyou're praying to, you're
praying to a dour faced, pissedoff, doesn't have time for you
God like it's probably betterfor you not to practice the
spiritual discipline of quiettimes, like you know, without
(19:37):
working that out, becausebecause now you're spending time
basking in something that's notgoing to do your heart good and
it's not glorifying God,because it's not who he is and I
think you, picking up on thatin Alan's story, james is so
right.
Cause he, he and this is maybeanother miracle for him Like he
never got over in all the yearsI knew him, he never got over
the miracle of what God did inhis life and he always just it
(19:59):
for him.
It sat on him as this God oflove who saved him as an, as a
man who didn't deserve it, anddidn't save him to work hard for
him or to whatever, but like,saved him just because he loved
him.
And Helen never got over that.
It was, I think, one of thethings I loved the most about
him.
James Craig (20:18):
I want to come back to the wall in just a moment,
cause that really, that alsoreally stuck out.
But one other thing about quiettimes that strikes me.
First of all, I'm in thistheology of the body training
right now.
Our ministry loves beingsteeped in theology of the body,
how our bodies point to thegospel, but Christopher West,
who teaches it, says that we'reall born heretics, and part of
the Christian life is becomingless of a heretic, having more
(20:40):
and more true thoughts about God, less and less false thoughts.
But this idea of quiet time,though, is time.
It's actually central to myrecovery journey.
I'm remembering this as wespeak.
That's why it's so good toremember.
But when I first came to Regen,I was part of Awaken360, our
year-round men's group.
I was in a season of trying tofigure out what God was like,
(21:01):
and I had a lot, a lot, a lot oftrouble getting in scripture,
like I would just read passages.
I'd feel often undercondemnation.
It was not a delight.
It was not a delight to getinto the word of God, with God.
But one Sunday I was at a churchand my pastor preached on the
grace of quiet time, the graceof spending time with God,
(21:23):
something about the grace andgraciousness of God's character
and something clicked.
And from that day on for thelast I don't know if it's been
seven years or more I haven'tstruggled to at least want to
get into scripture each day.
So what's notable about thatfor me is like it's not that I
always have this profound timein scripture or you know time
(21:44):
where I feel really connected toGod, but there's some sort of
barrier was taken away, becausethere was grace deposited in my
heart that God actually wouldmeet me here in a gracious way.
And that brings me back to thisidea of the wall.
So something in Alan's heartwas like a wall erected, a mask,
a protection, and God brokethat down and it sounds like
(22:09):
that wall was stopping both himfrom loving life, loving even
the men he was tempted to lustafter, which is an interesting
thought loving, maybe, hischildren, others, but also
receiving love, also receivingthe love of God, receiving the
love of others.
Do you have any more insightson that wall or anything you
want to riff on with that?
Josh Glaser (22:30):
Yeah, you know, I mean I think, interestingly so,
full disclosure to thoselistening, or James and I were
talking about this a little bitbeforehand that we do believe
that God has.
I mean, as we've been prayingover the last year and a half
like Lord, what are you leadingus into right now and what do
you have for us?
This word remember has been akey part of it and we're still
trying to discern why.
(22:52):
And so, even as we do, thisseries we believe that we're
talking about today is helpfulfor those in recovery and we'll
unpack that a little bit more ina minute and we believe the
other parts of the series willbe helpful for you too.
And we're also trying toexplore, like, wait, why?
So?
But I do think, like like partof what, what happened for Alan?
He, he did remember what Jesushad done, and I think, like some
(23:18):
people and this doesn't happenfor all of us, but those among
us who have had a very radicalconversion experience where life
was headed one way and they'repretty sure they could follow
the trail and go like, yep, Iwould have been dead or I would
have been in prison, or I meanand Alan would say that I mean,
like he he came to Christ rightat the beginning of the AIDS
(23:39):
epidemic and he's like, yep, Iwould have been dead.
He's like I was doingeverything that would lead to
the death of my marriage, thedestruction of reputation, the
loss of my job and my physicaldeath.
And I think that because he hadsuch a radical conversion and
things shifted for him so much,it was easier for him to
remember what God had done.
And something remarkable and Ithink even as you were kind of
(24:01):
reflecting in the beginning,these multiplates in scripture
where God calls us to remembermaybe two lenses, we could see
that through one kind of thefaulty lens of like you know,
like I've already given you somuch, like you know I'm not
going to give you more, justremember what I've already done,
like, which is not the tone ofthe gospel.
I mean, paul even writes in thenew Testament that since God
has given us his only son somuch, how much would he give us
(24:25):
anything else?
He's always given, he's alreadygiven us as much as he can.
He's going to give us moreBecause the more has cost him so
much less, right, I think, forAlan he'd received so much.
I think it was that remembrancefor him, gave him life and, I
think, helped kind of fuel whathe did.
(24:46):
Let me share about that for aminute, because the Genesis of
Regen actually starts about 10years later.
Alan had early on really feltthe Holy Spirit's prompting to
confess to his wife, to tell herthe truth about what had been
going on, and he did not want tobecause things were so good
finally between them.
But he knew that God wastelling him and so he did.
(25:07):
He told her what was up, whichwas obviously like brutally
painful for her.
We didn't know it back then,they didn't know it, but I'm
certain there was a level oftrauma for her in discovering
that the life that she thoughtshe was living was different
than what she'd been living.
But over time their marriagehealed and she could see the
fruit and the evidence in hislife that God really had done a
(25:28):
miracle and he was a differentman.
About nine or 10 years laterAlan was in his living room and
had read in the Baltimore Sun,the local paper here, an article
about five men who'd beenarrested in a public park for
homosexual activity.
They'd been acting out publiclyas men did then and it was
officially illegal then.
So today that would be so on PCto say and and to be the
(25:51):
reality.
But that was the case back then.
Alan knew that, that he couldhave easily been one of those
men and.
But when those men, when themen's names were printed in the
paper, one of the men was aBaptist pastor who was married
and had two kids Interestingly,alan had been married with two
kids prior to his conversionwhen that pastor's name was
(26:11):
printed in the paper, he killedhimself out of just disgrace and
shame and he was hopeless.
And that prompted Alan to say Ican't keep this to myself, I
can't let this just be my story.
If, if God can save me, he cansave others too.
And so he reached out to theother four men in the article, I
(26:32):
think one of the men was likeokay, I'll meet with you.
And then there was another manthat the Mettinger's knew and
they gathered in the Mettingerbasement in 1980, whatever it
was 81 or 82, 83 maybe and thatwas the first unofficial meeting
of regeneration and things grewfrom there.
So I want to park there for amoment and say, if you haven't
(26:53):
heard it already, I'm going tosay it Alan Menninger, the
founder of our ministry, wasrescued because God miraculously
shifted his sexual attractions,miraculously gave him new life,
love and desire for his wifeand his family.
That doesn't always happen likethat or as quickly as that, but
(27:15):
it is possible and that is notPC, but it's the reality that
miracles happen and it happenedin Alan's life and that was the
seed that germinated andeventually started this ministry
, and now it's been what's themath, james?
From 2025, back to 1983.
We've been around for a longtime, and not because we're so
(27:38):
great like the fact that thefact that we're in this ministry
and leading it now, like isanother testament to god's grace
, but yeah, so is anothertestament to God's grace, but
yeah, so what do you do withthat?
James Craig (27:48):
That brings up a lot of.
It can bring up a lot of painfor, whether it's same-sex
attraction or opposite sex, youknow, sexual behavior or
whatever.
I would guess that if you'relistening to this, every single
one of you has prayed, maybethousands of times, like I had,
and he didn't seem to answerthose prayers.
So what do we make of that,josh?
(28:11):
Yeah, how do we reckon withthat?
God met him in this very subtleway, at this, in this church
basement, and I love how, by theway, a few years later, it's in
his basement that he's pouringout the waters that he received
or the spear that he received.
But, oh, great connection, yeah, yeah, like, what do we make of
it when god doesn't answer that?
And what's sorry?
(28:32):
One more thing about that it'sironic that alan wasn't even
necessarily praying for that,like he wasn't doing what I had
done for 10 years, which is praytime and time again.
Take this desire for porn away.
Take this away, like god justmet him without all that seeming
groundwork of prayer yeah, yeah.
Josh Glaser (28:50):
So two parts that to to my response to that three
parts.
The first is I don't.
I don't entirely know.
There is mystery here that godonly knows.
Secondly, while alan was notpraying you're correct, I don't
know of any I don't remember himever talking about like, yep,
he was praying that God wouldtake this away.
His wife actually had, yearsbefore, gotten connected to a
(29:11):
very powerful prayer warrior.
This woman who she met at, Ithink.
The woman came and spoke attheir church, maybe to a women's
thing at their church, butWillow was like man, her face
was just bright, she was freeand I knew that I wasn't and I
wanted what she had.
And so she went up to the womanand talked to her and the woman
was like you know, come to myprayer group.
(29:32):
And the and Willow was kind oflike like Ruth, you know, like
hey, wherever you go, I'm goingto go, cause I I need something
that you've got.
Willow wasn't.
She didn't know what was goingon with Alan, and there's
there's some stories that evensuggest that she was just in
denial, like she had somesuspicions but didn't want to
admit it because it just felthopeless.
But she was at least openenough with people in that
(29:52):
prayer group to say my marriageneeds prayer, my husband needs
prayer.
I don't know why, but we needprayer.
So there were people prayingfor Alan and for Miracle before
that, and people who were alivein prayer and who believed the
power of the Holy spirit to todo miracles, so what they prayed
(30:14):
, how they prayed, how long theyprayed, I don't know.
Um, but yeah, man.
And then the next answer isbecause it's true in our, in our
, in our ministry, like and Alanactually dealt with this as
somebody who ministered to otherpeople who struggled as he did
that sometimes people were justlike you don't understand,
because you haven't been throughwhat I've been through I prayed
and these attractions are stillhere.
(30:35):
I prayed and I'm still actingout Like and that was something
he had to contend with in hisown testimony because he
couldn't deny his testimony buthe also recognized that it
didn't happen that way foreverybody.
I mean my own story, you know,struggling with voyeurism and
making illicit phone calls topeople and looking at
pornography and masturbation andfantasy and all sorts of stuff
(30:56):
that I was so embarrassed by asa Christian young man, and I
remember, like just shaking myfist at God in college, being
like what is going on here, likeI love you, you love me.
Why don't you take this awayfrom me?
I know you can, why won't you?
And I've certainly experiencedmiracles in this journey, but
not the snap your fingers, likeyou know, surrender, prayer and
(31:19):
all has changed, kind of miraclethat Alan did and I and I and
you and I have both worked withso many and walk with so many
men and women who, who cantestify like that's hard, it is
hard.
I think it's also one of thereasons that that Alan.
It was really important forAlan to recognize that it wasn't
just one miracle.
The sexual desire shift for himwas, and the sexual behavior
(31:40):
shift for him was was amiraculous part of it.
But his love of the Lord wasanother miracle that took place
and that was really important,that the wall that came down.
A lot of us have walls that wedon't realize are a part of
these problems.
Alan, I don't even know thatAlan could explain what that was
for him and I think that thatthat matters for for a lot of us
(32:02):
.
And then and then his time withthe Lord was another miracle.
So so what are the miraclesthat God's doing that we can
remember, like for me, one ofthe things that I remember that
helps me is is my own conversionstory.
Like it didn't eradicate thesexual behavior in my life but
it did change me in some otherways.
And and it does my heart goodto remember that, and it did my
(32:24):
heart good in the midst ofrecovery, when I was still
botching it and falling on myface with sexual integrity, to
remember like, even so, like Godcalled me, god saved me, god's
with me.
James Craig (32:34):
Yeah, my own story, when I experienced God's love
in a really personal way incollege.
Love in a really personal wayin college.
It did take away my strugglesfor a month and then I yeah.
So his love was so overwhelming.
But the way I've processed inmy own journey is that God had a
longer term plan.
He was answering my prayer in amuch longer way than I would
(32:57):
have ever wanted.
But because of that, not only doI get to serve other men now
and walk them through thatjourney which a lot of it, by
the way, is maturity, whichdoesn't typically maybe ever
happen overnight.
That's not how God's designedmaturity to work but also, yeah,
there's just a grace in havinghad to go through hard things
(33:18):
like this, because there's somany other parts of my faith
that have been refined andstrengthened.
And had I never gone throughthis kind of addiction and
recovery, I wouldn't have grownin spiritual formation, I
wouldn't have fallen in lovewith the authors who point me to
Jesus so thoroughly, I wouldn'thave yeah, I wouldn't have
grown just in so many differentways, which is actually grow is
(33:38):
another one of our words forthis year.
So that's fun that that'scoming in there, but.
I would not have grown if Godhad kept me in that place of,
okay, you had the conversionyou're set.
It actually happened againlater that year for another
month.
It's crazy, there's a wholestory to that, but but if God
had kept me there I wouldn'thave actually at least you know,
not in the way I did gonethrough the maturity journey
(34:00):
that I've had to go through.
So it's actually been ablessing, and I say that with
honor for the fact that it didnot feel like a blessing and it
does not feel like a blessing inthe moment, and that's where
patience, maybe, is so calledfor.
But, josh, one thing I'm curiousabout is you said that Alan
didn't assume everyone wouldhave that miracle, but, if I
(34:22):
also understand correctly, hedid still struggle with
attraction at time for other men.
And can you expand on that alittle bit?
And whether it's same-sex oropposite-sex or just wherever,
our desires are a little bit,you know, warped or twisted up?
Like what do we do if, even ifwe have maybe had a miracle of
growing in love for God and ourspouse, but we're still
(34:43):
wrestling?
And does that mean that youknow a more thorough thing can't
happen?
I don't know.
Can you explore?
Josh Glaser (34:49):
that a little bit.
Yeah, that's really good.
I appreciate what you're sayingtoo, because I think Alan
learned over time to be to tryto be really articulate about
where he experienced change,where he didn't, what still
needed to grow he used that wordgrowth too Um, especially
around his own masculinity, hisown sense of manhood, like he
was very clear.
(35:09):
Like I was an immature man.
He's like I was kind of stuntedand I never really learned to
be a man.
So, whatever age that was forhim 30, 40, like he's, like I
had to start growing up as a man, learning to love others,
learning to give.
The following year, within thenext year and a half, he and
Willie became pregnant, hadtheir son, and Alan would talk
(35:31):
about how I'm raising a son nowand in some ways, as I'm raising
him, I'm teaching him thingsthat I'm having to learn, and so
I have to be a step ahead ofhim.
Incidentally, his son has saidto me on more than one occasion
he's like man if you wantevidence that God can change
people he's like I'm here, Iexist.
I wouldn't exist if not for themiracle that God did in my
(35:52):
dad's life.
But yeah, alan did from time totime experience some temptations
towards lust and, like a lot ofus, his conversion for you.
As a month, I think.
He had multiple, multiple yearsof not experiencing any
temptation and then, I don'tknow what it was, 15 years in he
gave in to masturbation orsomething and fantasy and then
(36:14):
kind of walked on from there.
But his desire to be sexuallyactive with other men was gone.
He didn't feel temptation.
From what I understand, henever felt temptation again to
go out with another man.
But sometimes he did experiencesome same-sex attraction and
some temptation towards lust.
He'd also talk about how he wasvery careful to say my desire
(36:36):
for my wife, my sexual desirefor my wife, was ignited and
real and true and consistent.
That was new.
But he didn't experience just atemptation to lust after women
and he would say you know theidea that we that like, that
we'd shift from having a lustfulattraction to men to having a
lustful attraction for women.
(36:56):
He's like God's not in thebusiness of like, doing a
miracle and shifting our, oursin proclivities Like so good,
yeah, he's like.
And it makes me wonder even if,if, in the beginning, before
sin came in, if if part of theway that God wired us was not
sexual attraction to the othersex in general.
But there might've even beenwhen when humankind had full
(37:19):
mastery over the desire, asexual attraction, romantic
attraction, that would have beenignited just for one person,
your spouse.
I don't know, that's conjecture, but that was more Alan's
experience.
Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'manswering your question there.
James Craig (37:32):
Yeah, well, no, it makes me think of, I mean, just
the tension, even people who arewalking this out, and this is
one of the hardest things towalk out in our culture walking
out, and if you fall back in, or, and if you fall, if you feel
tempted, it doesn't define whoyou are.
I mean there's a now and a notyet to the kingdom.
Jesus came and he will comeagain, and we're in that in
(37:54):
between where we're still proneto sin, we're still prone to
wander, as that great hymn saysit.
Prone to wander, lord, I feelit.
And so I just say theencouragement, because so often
what we do with our desires iswe allow them to be our identity
.
And one of the unique blessingsof Alan's time as hard as it was
and there were great injusticesdone to those with same-sex
(38:17):
attraction and same-sex behavior, but was that there wasn't as
much of that identity placed ondesire, even for him to just be
like, yeah, I'm acting out withthem, but of course I'm going to
, you know, get married and havekids.
I mean, obviously there's adeep incongruity, there's that
wall there, but like he didn'thave the same temptation or even
(38:39):
the same world, like the blast,the, you know the the airwaves
just being filled with you arewhat you desire.
Yeah thing, yeah, we have today.
Josh Glaser (38:50):
We should probably do a series on that sometime
because, like, especially if you, if you grew up kind of 2000s
or later, maybe even 90s orlater, it's such a it's so thick
in our culture to believe thatif you have same-sex attraction
it means something about youridentity, specifically that
you're bisexual or gay or queeror something like that, that we
(39:13):
don't remember that that'sactually a social construct that
has been added in recent years.
I think it goes back to Freudand Freud's kind of view of what
sexuality means about a personand what a person is, the role
of sexual desire in the identityof personhood.
But prior to that it wasn'tthought that way.
(39:34):
Anyway, there's a lot more wecould say about that.
That's really important.
But I do think that some ofAlan's ability to walk in
freedom came from not holdinghis experiences and even the
slight lingering of experienceof temptation that he had.
He did not let that define him.
(39:55):
It didn't define him.
James Craig (39:57):
You know, scripture says that it's not about us
first loving God, it's about Godfirst loving us.
And we just want to say, aswe're inviting you in this
series, to remember the miraclesof your life, to remember
things that have been forgotten,that are good and are from God.
Most of all, we want you toknow that he remembers you, he
hasn't forgotten you.
(40:18):
Our theme a few years ago forour banquets was about Hagar and
how, basically, the Lord sawHagar.
He didn't forget her.
He didn't forget her, eventhough she was kind of forgotten
or, you know, cast out byAbraham's family.
The Lord remembered Alan.
He didn't forget about him.
He knew that he'd meet with himin that place, with that
(40:40):
persistent colleague who saidyou know, you've got to come to
this church basement with me.
The Lord remembered Alan and theLord remembers you.
God remembers you, our listener, he hasn't forgotten you and
God is not slow in the way wethink of slowness.
Scripture says so actually,josh, if you're willing to pray
(41:02):
for both miracles.
But also, I feel like there'sthis idea of patience that's
coming to my mind that so manyof us, in our limited,
time-oriented, time-boundviewpoint of the world, it feels
like God's doing nothing, when,in fact, he's been doing so
much in the background, and somaybe we can pray for some of
(41:22):
that patience as well yeah, ifgod calls us to remember, I mean
the word remember itself is.
Josh Glaser (41:28):
It is a time, a time focused word.
And there there's a.
I get the picture almost like alife preserver or a, a tether
of some kind we are thatremembering is a tethering of
ourselves to the truth about whoGod is and what he's done, and
what he's in our life and otherpeople's life, and Alan's life,
(41:49):
because of what he has in store,because the hope he has in
store.
So, yeah, I'd love to pray,father, thank you for Alan's
life and the miracle you did inhis life.
And, lord, for those listening,whether they're listening with,
with unbelief or desire, ortears of gratitude or or
whatever else.
Lord, what's most important iswhat james said, that you, you
(42:10):
remember them, you've not leftthem behind.
You're not unaware of theirstruggles, their pain.
Lord, you're fully aware of themiles and miles and miles
they've walked.
You're aware of the desert andthe dry, parched ground that
(42:32):
they're on.
Lord, you're aware of thedangers and toils around them.
And, lord, there's not oneutterance of prayer, whether an
hour-sprinted prayer with faithor a desperate prayer or an
angry prayer.
Lord, you remember every wordwe've spoken.
Lord, thank you for rememberingus.
Thank you that when we forgetyou, you remember us, and I pray
(42:59):
, even right now, that that sametrue love that has you
remembering us would pour out ina special way on everybody
listening right now.
God, your personal remembranceof this one and that one.
God, we need you, we need yourremembering of us to have more
(43:23):
power than our capacity toremember what you've done and
who you are.
And, lord, we need you to shareyour memory with us that we too
would remember.
Lord, thank you.
We pray all these things in thename of the Father, son and
Holy Spirit.
Amen.
James Craig (43:42):
Amen.
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