Why Jesus loves porn shows.

Travelling into the unknown takes guts. It takes someone who has an idea what they want to happen and also knows that it could go completely and disasterly wrong...but still goes ahead.

Which is how I am sure Craig Gross felt when 10 years ago, armed with only a bunny outfit and some t shirts he went into a porn show as a Pastor, to tell people working in the Adult Industry that Jesus loves them. Maybe little did he know but 10 years later xxxchurch.com would grow into being the one place where people could get help for porn addiction and where porn stars could feel loved and not judged.

Where the religious and 'sinner's' live on an even playing field.

That's church.

I love that. I love that you can have many people tell you what you are doing is wrong and will end in tears, but still know that you have to follow what God is asking you to do. Jesus never asked His disciples to do things that were the norm. Jesus never had dinner with the people that everyone else wanted to be around. He dined with prostitutes and He told the religious they were wrong.

He threw the rulebook out the window.

But when the rules are gone, all that is left is God.

I've been helped by xxxchurch more than most of you will ever know and I have been excited and honoured to have worked with them by writing blogs for the last few years. So when my friend Shaun and I both had the idea indepentley to bring xxxchurch to a porn show in the UK, God was obviously going to make something happen.

That's why we are going to a porn show. That's right. A porn show. We are bringing xxxchurch to the UK and we want to launch it by telling porn stars that Jesus loves them. How else would you start it?!

And we would love for you to help.

Here's how.

We need Bibles to give out to porn stars. And that costs money. So I am asking you for money. Straight up.

If you help us every £ you give us will go straight to getting Bibles that will be given out for free to people in the Adult industry.

People who have been hurt by the Church. People who probably think God hates them. People who need to know that Jesus loves them unconditionally and has so much more for them.

We will have a booth and a team of volunteers who will share that Jesus loves them at the Erotica Porn Convention in London this November.We will listen to their stories.

And we need prayer.

Prayer for the team to come together, prayer for the logisitics and most importantly for God to change the lives of people caught in the world of porn.

Why should you help us out? Because Porn Shows are exactly the type of place that God likes to show up and surprise us. Because Porn Stars deserve to be loved too.

And you can help make that happen. £5, £10, £100?! Whatever you can give could be the difference between a girl in the industry feeling hopeless or lost and from knowing that she is special and loved by God.

There are a few ways you can donate. You can go here and donate online. Or you can go here and here and donate to our marathon fundraising pages.

And if you want to get more practical you can run with us for porn stars in the Belfast Marathon this May or have me come and speak in your Church about our vision and plan for the show.

Thanks for your support!!

paul@xxxchurch.com
@xxxchurchuk
http://www.xxxchurch.com/

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The most depressing blog post on New Year's ever.

It's pretty hard to come up with something unique for the obligatory New Year blog post. What could I write about the New Year that hasn't been written on a thousand blogs already?

You are supposed to write about new year resolutions or about how you have grown so much in the last year. But if I am honest with myself I don't want to make myself feel bad and think over all the things I said I would do last year but never did. We are supposed to look forward. Put the past behind us and be positive about tomorrow. A new start. A fresh page.

But what if you can't see a way to start again and you already feel, just two days into the New Year that you are already cruising down the same path you took last year. What if the things or the issues that you are dealing with, still exist and that midnight on January 1^st 2012 didn't bring the magic turnaround in circumstances or feelings that we are made to believe it is supposed to.

In fact a lot of people find themselves in this position. They are still dealing with depression, or addiction, financial worries or any number of things that is making their life a misery. This blog is for them. It's for the people who find themselves stuck. The people for whom it could just as easily be the 2^nd January 2011 as it is 2012.

In 2011 I did something that I had wanted to do for a long time and finally got off my ass doing. When I went for my first meeting with a counsellor in September I was scared, excited and slightly relieved. But ultimately having someone who I could talk to about things in my past and help me deal with them in a way that would bring me freedom and some hope, was an amazing experience for me.

And that is why this year I will be looking back more. Because if I learned nothing else from counselling it was this.

Sometimes looking back is the only way you can look forward.

Sometimes dealing with our past is the only way we can have a fulfilling and hope filled future.

Maybe you need to do this to get out from the stone you find yourself. Maybe you need to remember a time when you were happy and free and remind yourself that person is still in you somewhere. No matter how muffled their voice has become. Are there things from yesterday that are preventing you from creating tomorrow?

Because there has to be hope. Sometimes we need to fight for it and if a fight is what is needed, fight. Find people who can fight for and along with you if you can't. Maybe they are the ones who will help you look back.

Because this year your past might just be your new future.

And we need you.

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For The Freaks

 One of the questions I ask myself before I write anything is ‘what will other people think of this?’ ‘Will they like it?’ ‘Will they think it is stupid?’ ‘Will I come across in a bad light?’

These are all the wrong questions to ask.

These won’t help me be honest and they certainly won’t help me become a better writer.

Should anyone?

During the last few weeks when I was in counseling a lot of things came up that I realized were affecting the way I lived. An incident from my childhood was triggered in my memory that I am still peeling away the layers of.

To cut a long story short, I discovered that this memory had affected me in so many ways but mainly it had helped me create a filter for most of my life where I was scared of what people would think of me.

This is apparent in the way I am sometimes afraid of giving my opinion. It’s obvious in how I don’t stand up for something that is wrong in case the person who has committed the wrong thinks poorly of me. It’s clear in how I won’t initiate conversations because I think people would rather not talk to me.

One of the breakthroughs for me in this has been realizing that I can’t control what people think. I can’t determine their response to me. And slowly I am starting to believe it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter what they think because they are flawed like me. I have believe the lie that I don’t have worth compared to other people. But that is wrong and if I have as much worth as anyone then I am entitled to be part of things. I am entitled to be included.

Which all begs another question.

Where do we find our worth?

For years I thought I got it from Jesus. 

But I didn’t. 

I got it from being a Christian. This if you know some Christians, probably isn’t a great way of gaining self worth. 

But one of the things that following Jesus is supposed to elicit in our lives is openness to forgiveness. A freedom to be real with God and others. I’m scared to be myself because I have possibly not truly grasped that His love for me is enough. I’m afraid because I don’t really believe that His sacrifice for me is sufficient for me to show who I really am and for during those times when I screw up (which I will), it be alright. 

I have put my faith in myself. In other people.

And where has that got me? Where has that got any of us?

When I put my faith in making sure I look good to others I will naturally fall short because they are imperfect too.

Being a follower of Jesus means having the freedom to live. That’s what he really came for. So we can truly live now. If I don’t do that then I don’t really understand that when Jesus died he died so I could be free from the fear of screwing up. He died so that I could really understand how genuine freedom is in not being afraid of being a freak or wrong or looking stupid.

But that real freedom is knowing we are a freak and wrong and sometimes look stupid….and that, that is good. Because our trust is in something much better.

You and I were created in God’s image. Not someone else’s or the false one we have come to believe about ourselves. 

Join me in starting to believe that today. 

Join me in being a freak.

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Showing Up

I have been staring at a blank page for a couple of hours now trying to muster up some words, any words, they don't even have to be that coherent.

But alas I have failed in my task. My masterpiece has alluded me today. My Pulitzer winning piece did not materialise.

But... I DID show up. I came prepared to do the work.

And tomorrow morning I will show up again. And maybe no words will appear again. But I have to believe they will.

But even if not, I will show up the next day, and then the next, and then the next....

So show up today. Then tomorrow.

Be prepared to work for your art.

But don't worry if you fail.

It will come.

As long as you show keep showing up....

Your art will show up.

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PISSED OFF!

I read some advice at the weekend about not writing while you are angry.

This doesn’t sound like good advice to me. If one doesn’t write while they are angry should we resist from writing when we are sad, depressed, melancholic or joyous? It seems to me the best art comes from a myriad of emotions.

I haven’t written on my blog for a long while. Very sporadically actually but recently when I have sat down to write I seem to be always drawn back to creativity or thoughts on why we sit and muster up images, words or semitones in our head and I have come to the simple conclusion on why millions of us do this on a daily basis.

Because you need to.

You don’t really have a choice.

You need to create new things. You need to continue to explore the endless possibilities that art holds. 

You wake up and if you don’t sing at some point during the day you feel like you will explode.

Or if you don’t write you will continue to suppress the thoughts that could change the world.

Not creating is killing you.

When you feel like that, you are creative and you should do something about it. Namely create.

That’s why some bands struggle with the difficult second album syndrome. They have created something successful the first time around and so they try to recreate it. While they should really be focusing on creating something new and fresh. They aren’t really creating at all.

That’s why some pastors leave their churches to make tv shows in Hollywood. It’s not that they don’t care about or regret their previous existence. They just need to explore the side that, and let’s not forget this, God handed them.

And that’s why I sit here slightly pissed off at myself. Pissed off that I haven’t been doing that. Not moving to Hollywood. 

But creating. 

If being pissed off means that I, and all of us, let go and come out with our voice and our song and change the world and help someone, then I say better to be angry and create than happy and not follow who you are. 

Because ultimately, even if it is painful, creating will satisfy you.

Isn’t that something we should get angry about?

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