Exodus International Shuts Down and We All Move Onward

This is the third in a three-part blogging series on my four-year return to the Exodus International Freedom Conference. For the first part, “Impressions,” click here. For the second part, “Lessons Learned,” click here. For a video of a ninja cat, click here — and then wander back here for the conclusion to this Exodus International series.

Four years ago, Exodus International changed my life. Without this organization, without that pivotal freedom conference of 2009, my life — my story — would have taken a significantly altered path.

Without Exodus International, I’d have never connected a futile life in Georgia to a fruitful one in southern California. I’d have never found my current church and life group or gotten baptized in Buccaneer Bay.

Without Exodus International, I would have never been introduced to tutoring and a hidden love for youth. I’d have never even thought to work at two life-changing summer camps. I would have never impacted and been impacted by dozens of incredible kids; would have never even met them.

I’d have never written Struggle Central.

Exodus International was the start of something beyond story-altering for me.

And now she’s gone. Gone forever.

I didn’t attend the first night of the Exodus conference, but I received a startling text that night from a friend already at the conference: Did you hear? Alan Chambers just announced Exodus is shutting down. This is the last conference.

Um. What?

Exodus International Shuts Down

A couple years ago, Exodus International’s president, Alan Chambers, publicly renounced the notion of “reparative therapy,” a process by which one can supposedly “convert” from gay to straight. A process that has caused frustration, shame, depression, and even suicide among so many who have earnestly tried and failed to become straight.

A process Exodus International once endorsed.

38 years ago, Exodus International was founded on the mantra, “Change is possible.” Though I suppose it all depends on your definition of “change.” Four years removed from my first Exodus conference, I myself am still just as attracted to Ryan Gosling. Good gosh that man is handsome.

Four years later, I’m learning that “change” is more than attractions.

When Chambers renounced reparative therapy, Exodus International grew significantly less popular among those who endorsed the process. Donors pulled out, the conferences shrunk significantly (as described in Part 1 of this series), and precious people remained scarred because of what Exodus once was.

But Alan Chambers and Exodus International soldiered onward, actively confronting 38 years of confusion and pain. Ultimately, the soldiering stops here.

Here’s the complete video of Alan Chambers’ opening night address, unpacking Exodus International’s momentous decision to shut down. It’s an hour-long doozy of a video; skip ahead to the 29:55 mark for the meat of his message.

Alan Chambers described the last couple years leading up to the shutdown as a “scandal” of sorts. But cue his quote of the night:

I’m convinced the scandal is of God’s making.

People have been hurt by Exodus International. This is fact. Coinciding with this year’s conference theme, these many hurtful stories are just as “true” as mine.

And now it’s time for Exodus to step aside. Let God heal wounds where only He can.

Let the Church step up where an organization has succeeded, yes, but also greatly failed.

Alan Chambers recently appeared on Lisa Ling’s Our America and met with several “ex-gay survivors” who never experienced any orientation change. He apologized on behalf of an organization and its tributaries that failed them and have caused so much pain.

There are several video clips of “God and Gays” from Our America. Alan Chambers also issued a written apology to the gay and “ex-gay” community, “I Am Sorry.”

If the hour-long conference video is too overwhelming a task, I highly endorse this much briefer Alan Chambers interview with Anderson Cooper — a gay journalist who came out just last year. It’s a fantastic interview.

I’m tracking with you, Alan. I’m tracking. Ultimately, it’s time the Church step up where Exodus now lies dead. Alas, I’m still digesting what this looks like for me exactly– both with this blog and with my life in general.

A post for another time.

And so. Thursday morning, I departed for what would indeed be my last Exodus International Freedom Conference.

The Best Part of the Last Exodus International Freedom Conference

After all the celebration services, guest speakers, workshops, and meals, I joined the young adults refuge group at 10pm. I was somewhat tempted to skip the refuge group and drive back home with a 7am wake-up staring me menacingly in the face, but I’m so glad I stayed.

We gathered in a room and sat in a circle, and do you know what the 20-30 of us did for the next couple hours?

We told stories. Our stories.

We went around the room and simply shared our stories, and we cried and clapped and affirmed one another, story after messy/triumphant story.

We weren’t officially “at church,” and yet we were — we were Church. For those two hallowed hours, I witnessed Church in ways painfully absent at countless churches across America. The world.

It was CHURCH the way it was always supposed to be, featuring guys and gals both SSA and OSA — same-sex attracted and opposite-sex attracted alike.

“I’m not SSA,” a 26-year-old guy confessed after five or six teary stories. His teenage brother had come out to him just a few months prior, and the two of them flew across the country together for this final Exodus Conference (a freaking beautiful topic for another blog post altogether).

“I’m not SSA, but I get it,” he said, choking back tears. “I’m starting to get what you guys struggle with now. And yet you’re still following Christ. It’s so beautiful.”

Another OSA attendee commented that our struggles didn’t matter, because she struggled with stuff too, and this is what THE CHURCH is all about:

Struggling people helping other struggling people.

I grew overwhelmed. Too overwhelmed to share my own story that night. I didn’t remember such vivid lavish SSA/OSA interaction four years ago. Was it there? Did I miss it?

For one of the few clear times in my life, I felt something powerful:

God was in that room.

Moving Onward from Exodus International

Exodus International may be over, but you know what?

The Church is forever.

The gates of hell will never overcome my Church, Jesus once told a fisherman named Peter. And gosh, after 2,000 long hard and often ugly years, I have to believe Him.

After all, more people know Jesus Christ today than at any other point in history. And the number of redemption stories grows daily.

It is a story of struggle, yes, but you can’t discover redemption unless you first realize what you’re being redeemed from. And you can’t just see redemption in the distance; you have to pursue it.

So, I’m pursuing it. Chasing it with all I am.

Consider this blog just another chapter in my long winding redemption journey.

In the coming months, I hope to blog more about the Church and homosexuality. As Exodus International shuts down, I pray we rise to Alan Chambers’ charge: that it’s time the Church put down our swords and love.

Let the Spirit do what the Spirit alone can do.

Sure, I’m sad about Exodus International closing its doors. I wouldn’t be who I am without that organization, and I’m not the only one positively impacted by her existence over the last 38 years. From 2009 to 2013, my Exodus story is a true story unique to me though eerily similarly shared by countless brothers and sisters the world over.

As Alan Chambers himself prophesied, though, I fully believe God resides in the midst of this supposed scandal. That Exodus’s ashes will yield to the budding roots of something far more glorious.

And so.

Onward.