R.A. Dickey said the pictures and literature couldn't have prepared him for the young boy who approached him last week on one of the squalid streets of Mumbai's red-light district.

The boy was maybe 3 years old, 4 at best. He had no pants on. His body was covered with open sores.

"He was playing amongst the open sewage and filth with rats as big as dogs. Unsupervised," the Toronto Blue Jays' new knuckleballer told The Canadian Press on a conference call Tuesday from India's most populous city. "You see these images and pictures that just don't seem like they should exist. And you hope that it's the only one ... but that's what's representative, these lives that just don't have a voice."

The 38-year-old was in Mumbai to work with Bombay Teen Challenge, a Christian organization that has rescued women and children from sex trafficking for the past 23 years.

It's a cause that Dickey says speaks to his own narrative. He wrote about being sexually abused as a child in his autobiography "Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball."

"It's authentic to me because of my past experience, also I have a sentimentality to it because the girls that I've seen firsthand in the streets, these 19-, 20-, 21-year-old girls. You have to look beyond that and see at one point they were daughters themselves, and having two daughters ... that just for me was so compelling."

He made the trip with his daughters, 11-year-old Gabriel and 9-year-old Lila.

"I want to give my children a heart for humanity," Dickey said. "The only way to really do that is to get them outside of the bubble that they live in, and expose them in very measured ways to what real life is to a lot of people. They've responded beautifully."

The 2012 NL Cy Young winner said it's been "a roller-coaster" visit, from the visceral red-light images of women in doorways and the cages where they keep them when they're first trafficked.

But he also saw hope.

Dickey and his daughters stayed at Ashagram, a rehabilitation campus outside Mumbai that's home to 300 women and children. They were the "most hopeful days" of the trip. They played cricket and sang songs with the children, many of whom are HIV-positive.

"Those are the miracles, the 300 lives in Ashagram, those are 300 living miracles," Dickey said. "Sure, (my daughters) heard about the wickedness and the darkness, but they got to actually see the redemption, so their response has been really positive. This is a seminal trip for them."

Dickey, who speaks openly with his daughters about his own sexual abuse, helped celebrate the opening of a clinic in the midst of Mumbai's red-light district. He helped pay for the clinic, raising over $100,000 by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro last winter.

"The facility is like a beacon of light in the middle of a swamp," he said.

BTC's Thomason Varghese said the organization was blessed by Dickey's presence.

"But we think we've been even more blessed by his daughters," Varghese said. "Just to see innocent girls loving our girls and playing with them with no inhibitions, it's just been a real joy for us to see and experience. There are friendships that have come through this despite how different their backgrounds are.

"Today the girls were in our feeding truck serving food to those who are coming from the street; just watching that was a sight to see."

While estimates of sex trafficking in India vary, most studies put the number at more than a million children involved in the country's sex trade.

Dickey was asked how can one measure success in the face of such grim statistics.

"If the organization rescues one human life from that hell, then it's done its job in some way," Dickey said. "You're talking over the last 23 years over 1,000 lives being rescued, given a second chance to have a life, rescuing children, people who were left for dead on doorsteps of these brothels.

"The women who had been trafficked into prostitution, dying in hospitals with their children by their bed, here's the Bombay Teen Challenge with a relationship in place to be able to take in and care for these children.

"How do you measure success? I think it's one life at a time."

The original post for this article can be found at:  http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8896558/ra-dickey-toronto-blue-jays-india-help-fight-vs-sex-trafficking

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Where can porn take you?  I met a man who confessed to me that he digs thru the garbage dump to collect his porn.  

This man belongs to a very conservative sect of Christianity where one does not use electricity.   Because he is so separated from modern culture, I asked him how he became addicted to porn.  His answer was astonishing.  "I was dumping some trash out of a garbage bin and I saw a Playboy in the dump with the centerfold laying open."  He had never seen anything like this.  He had heard about "centerfolds" and was always intrigued but was thankful that those "worldly temptations" were something he never had to deal with.  Nevertheless, He quickly grabbed this magazine and tucked it down his pants.  Later that day, when he was alone, he ogled this picture and found himself extremely attracted to the naked woman.  He started to fantasize about her and then masturbated to her seductive image.

To me, the message was clear but lost on him:   Porn is garbage.  It belongs in the garbage.  It should stay in the garbage.  Garbage in, garbage out.  

What the garbage collector didn't know is that porn is insidious.  Porn never gives up.  It keeps taking and taking, offering false feelings of comfort until you end up doing things that you never imagined.

It didn't take long before centerfolds were no longer satisfying to him.  He started noticing, at the dump while looking for more centerfolds, other pictures.  In these pictures, there were women posing seductively with animals.  These pictures sparked further prurient interests for him.  He started attempting to have sex with his goat.  Over time, he moved on to other animals.  His addiction finally caught up with him when he found himself naked in the pig pen on all fours.  That's when he came to his senses and realized that he really, really, really had a problem.  

He was fortunate, because if he had been caught during these activities, he would have been charged with a crime.  Zoophilia is illegal in many U.S. states.  The medical issues that can occur are numerous.  However, the legal charges and the medical issues are not as severe as the toll that such behavior takes on a man's soul.  

More than zoophilia is the duplicity that this man lived.   He would go to church regularly and then engage in these detestable behaviors at other times.  That's what the sin of porn does.  It causes a man to pretend to be holy.  His energy ends up being consumed by things that weaken him rather than strengthen him. 

You may be thinking, "Porn will never do that to me.   I can control it."  However, let me assure you, porn will win.  It always does.  

Porn is garbage.  It belongs in the garbage.  It should stay in the garbage.  Garbage in, garbage out.  

If you are looking  at porn, stop.  Get rid of your stash.  Tell your pastor about your decision.  Become accountable to a counselor and a men's support group. 

With God's help, you can stop.  


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

"I got up in the middle of the nite and he was just sitting there on the couch, watching a scrambled TV channel" is what this single mother told me of her teenage son.    This was the first indication that she had that her son may have had sexual compulsion issues.    

Now, he was sitting in juvenile detention and she was trying to find a counselor to get help for her son.  He had been picked up for entering his neighbors apartment without permission.  

The neighbor had set a trap for him.  She had been noticing that some of her underwear was missing.  At first, the neighbor thought that her underwear disappeared in the dryer.  However, some times, when she would come home from work, her underwear drawer was in disarray, different from what it was when she left for work in the morning.  The police were notified and a hidden camera was in place.  Upon reviewing the recording with the police, she identified this young man as the suspect.  When the police picked him up, the young man seemed relieved that he was caught.  He broke down and told his story.  

His upbringing did not reflect anything out of the ordinary, just a father who was absent.  After his parents divorced, his mother worked two jobs and his father came around for special occasions but otherwise did not have much contact with him.  He wanted manly affection and wasn't getting it from his father.  He wanted a mother's affection and she gave him love as she could but was so busy with work and raising him and his older sister.  

The young man stated that he was viewing porn with some of his friends and there was one movie about a man who wore women's panties because he liked the way it felt against his genitals.  This young man was looking to soothe himself because of the lack of affection he was getting from his family, so he started to get his sisters underwear and found it very sexually stimulating.  Next, he was getting up late at nite to watch the Playboy channel on TV.  Mom didn't pay for that channel but it still came in scrambled and sometimes he could make out pictures and could hear the sound.  While sitting there watching  this channel he would masturbate into his sister's panties.  

Eventually, this got to be less stimulating so he started fantasizing about a sexual liaison with the neighbor.  He found that there was a broken window that the landlord had not fixed that he could easily get into.  So, on occasion, he would get into his neighbors apartment and take some underwear.  Later, that nite, in front of the TV he would fantasize and masturbate.  

You can imagine where this young man's sexual urges may have taken him had he not been stopped by the police.  Nevertheless, he entered treatment for his sexual behavior which led to him committing crimes and it appears that a future life of crime was averted.  This young man heavily invested himself in treatment.

There were a few things missing from this young man's life that could have helped him not get involved in criminal activity:

1.  If his father had taken more of interest in him and spent time with him he may not have craved the affection he so desired
2.  If his mother did not have to work two jobs to pay the bills she could have spent more time with him and also had a better handle on his activity
3.  This young man was very introverted and did not participate in the social life of his school.  If he could have joined sports, the arts, band, journalism, etc that could have helped develop his social skills and also given him interests that weren't so purient.  
4.  This young man was not involved in a church youth group.  The parents of other teens could have served as pseudo-surrogate parents, or the youth pastor could have spent time with him.  

These could have helped him develop in a healthy manner.

Ultimately, this young man's behavior is his responsibility.  It is easy to blame parents, school, church or society and he came to realize that he was responsible for his own feelings, attitudes and actions.  Nevertheless, if these four things had not been missing from his life, he would have had more opportunity to challenge some of his assumptions without having to be forced into treatment.

So, men, we have an important place in our society and our churches.  Take the time to note those young men who are struggling and pray for opportunities to influence them.  

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Even though this is Canadian research, there is much here that applies to the American church.

Why are there so few men in the average Canadian congregation? Early in 2009, the women elders at Strathcona Baptist Church in Edmonton suggested that the congregation adopt as a key objective over the next few months “That 50 percent of our church attendees should be men.”

Bob Goethe, also serving as an elder, took the opportunity to purchase David Murrow’s book, Why Men Hate Going to Church (Thomas Nelson, 2004; related website www.churchformen.com). He gave each elder a copy of this book.

Goethe asked them to read 42 pages in the book and answer three broad questions. On the evening they met for discussion, they went over their general responses to the book, and then looked at a worksheet and evaluated several songs by their lyrics.

They used a scale to rate songs as to whether they appealed primarily to men or women. The theory here is that on any given Sunday, if you add up the numbers of the “F” (feminine) songs and the numbers of the “M” (masculine) songs, they should come out roughly even.

Here are some of the results  of the Strathcona Baptist experiment:

One song (author unknown), based on Psalm 125:1-2, got an average rank of M2. The elders chose that because of the imagery of Mt. Zion, of bigness, of power. Some lyrics: “Those who trust, those who trust / Those who trust in the Lord / Those who trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion / which cannot be moved but remains established forever.”

The song “Lord, you are more precious than silver” (by Lynn DeShazo, 1982, a setting of Proverbs 3:14-15) rated an F8, which the elders decided is too feminized to be sung in a worship setting. The women elders were actually harder on this song than the men. Calling Jesus “precious” and “beautiful” made it a feminine song. And the line “nothing I desire compares with you” made it strongly feminine, since such language is so associated with romantic love. Some lyrics: “Lord, you are more precious than silver / Lord, you are more costly than gold / Lord you are more beautiful than diamonds / And nothing I desire compares with you.”

The elders came to agree that feminine worship songs tend towards celebrating a passionate love affair with Jesus, while masculine worship songs are more about strength, power, commitment and loyalty.

Participants decided to implement a balance of songs based on their scale to see if there would be any effects. Goethe reports that they have been very positive, even striking.

Before opening the issue, Goethe counted about 40 percent men in Sunday morning services. Whenever the worship team used to invite worshippers to “take a few moments to speak out our praises to God,” the voices one heard were almost all women’s voices. The men had nothing to say during these times of corporate worship.

They began discussing Murrow’s book and analyzing worship songs in March 2009, and started making immediate, small changes in the mix of worship songs, eliminating songs that were F6 to F10s, and trying to make sure there was a balance of masculine- and feminine-flavoured worship every week.

After they got into this process, one of Goethe’s male friends said to him: “This is great. It helps me to understand perhaps why I have often found it hard to ‘enter into worship’ – something I usually attributed to be just being ‘less spiritual’ than those around me.”

Only six weeks after they began making intentional changes, when a worship leader called on people to speak out their praises to God, half of the voices were male. It seems men are finding it a bit easier to track with the worship times and engage with the Holy Spirit.

After six months, overall attendance had grown, and fully half of those who attended were men. The elders have taken the “50 percent men” goal off the To-Do list and put it on the Done list.

Admittedly this subject and this method are controversial and easily misunderstood. No one should think that leading worship at church is an easy task for anyone, male or female. But let’s not be afraid to open up a conversation that will allow us all to begin to think seriously about the words of the songs that we are trying to get men to sing on Sundays. If that can help deal with one of the issues that keep men out of church, we might be able to attack some of the others.

This research is taken from:  http://www.christianity.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=7243

It’s really important that you understand what I’m NOT talking about here. What I’m NOT talking about is having “the sex talk” with your son. You absolutely need to do that, too. But that’s a totally different conversation, a much earlier conversation. 

No, what I’m talking about is a much more advanced course, a frank discussion where you explain the mechanics of how sex actually works to a young man who’s psychologically, mentally, and most important, spiritually prepared to hear about it. You not only have to allow plenty of time to get into all the nitty-gritty details, but you also want to be sure you give your son space to ask lots of questions. (And besides, let’s face it, Dads: When you’re super-expert Casanovas like we are, there are going to be lots of things that he’ll need explained.) 

And if you’re thinking you just might try to dodge this session because you know it’s going to be weird and uncomfortable, let me tell you a little story that I hope changes your mind. 

I have this buddy who was the king when it came to having the “sex talk.” Not only was this guy fearless, but he had a fantastic relationship with his son that he had been building up over years. When he was sure his son was ready, over the course of several different sessions, he would told him where babies really came from, how Dad and Mom had met, how they had gotten to know each other, how they fell in love, and how they were continuing to pursue God with their lives together. But apparently, he never really talked through the “how” of sex. Because one day, when he was routinely checking the Internet history on their computer, he found some porn videos. He checked the date and time when they had been downloaded, so he knew exactly who to go to to talk about it. When he confronted his boy with what he had discovered, his son responded with, “I just wanted to see how people actually have sex. I kind of got how sperm and eggs and all that stuff works from what you had told me, but I didn’t really get how they get together, and what goes where and stuff.” 

This is just one reason why I encourage all dads to step into the pain. When your son is ready—which is NOT at six years old, by the way—talk them through the “how to’s” of sex. Explain the urges, what erections are and what causes them, foreplay, and orgasm, and come.  You want my advice? Tell them as much as you can think of, including both the proper terms and the “vulgar” synonyms they might hear other people use. 

Your relationship overall will ultimately benefit from your honesty during this series of conversations. And if you’re still not sure, or maybe you’re kind of second-guessing whether you should give them all this information, let me ask you to seriously consider these questions: 

Where do you want them to learn this stuff? From a friend at school? From porn videos? From some girl they just met at a party? 

Or would you rather be in control of the honesty and truthfulness of where they get their information? 

This post was taken from the booklet Sex, Lust and XXX:  Fighting for your kids' purity in a sex saturated world. 

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

In my conversations with  non-Christians, and many Christians, I get the response that masturbation is not harmful.  Interestingly, I came upon some secular research that discusses the potential harm masturbation brings.  


Myth #1 - Frequent masturbation prevents prostate cancer

This is simply untrue.  Research from Dr. Brody in the Journal of Sexual Medicine reports that heterosexual (penile-vaginal) intercourse (PVI) brings health benefits.  The myth of frequent masturbation as healthy was incorrectly reported by a study of poor design, with the assumption that ejaculation, rather than how the ejaculation was produced, was the important finding.  A meta-analysis of nine studies that supported this myth concluded that ejaculation frequency was related to a decrease in prostate cancer. However, a more recent study that was designed better and distinguished between the different ways an ejaculation was produced, found that PVI was actually protective of prostate health in older men and neutral in younger men.  Other forms of ejaculation were not protective.

Myth #2 - Frequent masturbation benefits your sex life

A recent (2012) report from the Archives of  Sexual Behavior demonstrate that greater masturbation frequency is associated with impaired sexual function, greater dissatisfaction with relationships and love for one's spouse.  Greater masturbation frequency is also associated with more depressive symptoms and several other indicators of poorer physical and mental health, including greater blood pressure reactivity to stress, anxious attachment and immature psychological defense mechanisms.   Dr Costa concludes, "The only sexual behavior that is consistently related to better psychological and physical health is PVI (p.539)."  More research has also shown that masturbating to porn makes for less than satisfying relationships.

Myth #3 - Orgasm is orgasm 

PVI releases four times the prolactin that masturbation produces.  This study (2006) demonstrates PVI is more physiologically satisfying than masturbation and produces more physiological and psychological benefits than any other sexual activity.  Masturbating to porn has also be found to decrease sexual satisfaction.

#4  There is no such thing as too much masturbation

Research is indicating that with the accessibility of high speed online pornography, excessive masturbation is causing problems:

• Dry ejaculation and painful climaxes
• Sores, blisters, swelling, bruising of the penis from excessive friction
• Inability to feel intercourse and/or derive pleasure from intercourse
• Loss of interest in sex and/or increase in uncharacteristic sexual activity
• Edging for hours to defer climax often because it is less pleasurable
• Addiction related symptoms:  depression, social anxiety, brain fog, withdrawal symptoms, etc.

The problem today is easy access to ever-novel sexual stimuli that can override our innate sexual behavior and throw our brains into addiction.  This is such a new area of research that there is a dearth of information about porn and masturbation addiction.

#5 You can't cut back on masturbation without hurting yourself

Anecdotal accounts of men slowing down their masturbation actually has had surprisingly positive effects:  more awareness, more social, more optimism and feelings of more stability.  Reports of an increase in seeing humor in situations, as well as feelings of calm and creativity.  The ability to see women as friends instead of sexual objects also increased.  

So there you have it.  
Information from secular sources.  
No interjection of "religion."  

It certainly is apparent that God does know what is best for us.  

This post is an adaptation from an article found in  Psychology Today.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

When Paul writes, “keep in step with the Spirit,” the word he uses is the same as that of an army marching in line, a platoon following their marching orders. Lest we think keeping in step with the Spirit is a purely mystical experience, Paul says it is very practical. Keeping in step with the Spirit means obeying His clearly revealed orders. 

During anti-porn week, we identified from secular research what viewing porn does to a person.  

This week presents practical advice of how to stay away from the influence of porn.

We cannot claim to keep in step with God’s Spirit if we ignore or disobey the writings He inspired—the Scriptures. Through the Bible, the Holy Spirit speaks clear words to the church. Growing up in a Jewish context, Paul understood this. He knew all the writings of the prophets were “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). No less than 32 times in Paul’s letters he uses the phrase “it is written,” pointing to the writings of the prophets who came before him. Paul also knew the Spirit was inspiring him and his fellow apostles (Eph. 3:5). “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction,” Paul says, “that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). 

To keep in step with the Spirit we must know and obey the Book He inspired. We must explore the Bible and learn what God thinks. We must renew our minds with His thoughts. 

Take, for instance, the five main ways pornography warps the mind. Exploring the Bible, we can “reverse engineer” the bad training pornography has given us and replace it with God’s thoughts. 

1. God is the creator of sexual satisfaction and has designed marriage, not pornographic fantasy, for its enjoyment (Song of Sg. 4:9-16; 1 Thess. 4:1-8). 

2. God has defined good sex as an expression of “oneness,” not emotional detachment (Gen. 2:24). 

3. God has created women in His image. They are not sexual commodities but are worthy of great honor (Gen. 1:27; 1 Pet. 3:7). 

4. God has designed sex as an expression of affection, not aggression (Deut. 22:25; Eph. 5:28-30). 

5. God redeems our fallen sex drive so sex is an act of love and giving, not selfishness (1 Cor. 13:4-7; Gal. 5:22-23). 

Each of these ideas is only a seed, but the more the mind engages with the Bible around these truths, the more our thoughts are renovated. Over time our minds will be rewired to see things God’s way. As we do this we are “sowing to the Spirit” and in time will reap a harvest of eternal life (Gal. 6:8). 

Tomorrow, we discuss the power of community.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

For those who have been entrenched in pornography, how do we reverse these mind-warping effects? How do we renew our minds (Rom. 12:1-2)? 

During anti-porn week, we identified from secular research what viewing porn does to a person.  

This week presents practical advice of how to stay away from the influence of porn.

The Bible does not describe us merely as wayward, broken, and needing a “moral boost” but as those who are dead in sin (Eph. 2:1). Dead men and women do not need reform: they need resurrection. 

For the follower of Christ, the ultimate goal is not merely “quitting pornography,” but is something far richer and more comprehensive. If merely modifying behavior was the most important thing, there are any number of psychological tips and tricks one can use. But for the Christian, as it should be for all people, the goal is not merely recovering from pornography, but being remade by God Himself into the image of the perfect Man, Jesus Christ. 

This is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Just as sure as pornography stirs up lustful cravings in us, the Holy Spirit is a source of new, holy cravings. Romans 8 tells us all true Christians have the Spirit of Christ within them (v.9). Galatians 5 says we are given the “desires of the Spirit” (v.17), and when we keep in step with these desires (v.16) the lusts of the flesh (leading to sexual immorality, impurity, and sensuality) will not have their way in us. 

This is what the old Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” Laws, rules, and regulations can only tell us what is bad and why it is bad, but they do not change our desire for sinful things. These sinful longings can only be conquered by implanting new “affections,” new cravings, that counter our sinful cravings. This is what the Spirit does in us: He shares His own desires with us, changing us from the inside out. 

Paul tells us we must “keep in step” with the desires of the Spirit with us (Galatians 5:16). 

How do we do this?   Come back tomorrow for hope.

This post is taken from the booklet, YOUR BRAIN ON PORN by Luke Gilkerson.  The booklet can be found at:  http://www.covenanteyes.com/brain-ebook/


BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.