The reason for this letter is to inform you of the dissolution of Running Light Ministries.
Thank you for the many years of support, encouragement and love! It has been an amazing and beneficial time.
We read in the Word of God that there is a season for everything. When Running Light Ministries began in 2006 it was a different season. Talking about pornography or self gratification in a Church environment was difficult to say the least. It seemed taboo to even bring up the topic. It still is this way in many Churches, yet we are grateful that in our area, we have made a small impact. Today there are more and more churches talking about sexual issues in constructive ways. There is always more to do, but we never thought that R.L.M. was to replace the Church. Our hope was that at some point there would no longer be a need for ministries like R.L.M. because the Church would be operating in a healthy, biblical way.
It was always the thought that Running Light would be for a time, a season. It has been such an exciting one to say the least! We have many memories!
All the board members are very much involved in their local fellowships Calvary Christian Fellowship & Calvary Marana)! We are reaching out and sharing the good news. We believe in the work of the Holy Spirit within the body of believers. We are taking everything we have done at Running Light into our fellowships and will continue to do so. Over the next couple months we will be making changes to the website and social media platforms. We hope they were a blessing to you and that you will be able to share the things learned with others.
In the future we hope to make available our many resources, but at this time we are unsure how that will look. In the meantime you can contact Beau at, beau@ccftucson.org, for any questions. ***For those in our groups…we will continue to meet up! Same time and place!
Sex can be all passion or all duty. Both are dangerous. What happens when a human seeks only passionate pleasure in sex? Porn? Like animals, we enjoy the pleasure we can get from sex. But could this go to far? What if all we did was have sex with people? What if that was our primary motivation?
Before we get off answering questions, let’s consider the blessings of passionate pleasure! Yes, it’s a blessing. In general, I found it awesome that our more modest part of the body can be enjoyable. If it would not so, we might not really value the construction of such a part. To use it to go to the bathroom seems pretty dutiful and not very passionate. Unless you really have to go! Then you are thankful, but still not very passionate about the part. But having an area of the body that is so sensitive to touch is really quite extraordinary. Remarkable really. And most likely is why we continue procreating. There is nothing quite like passionate sex! The God of the Bible is said to be passionate. He has a passionate love for His people. There are so many Bible passages to quote, but the overall theme of the Bible is God’s passionate pursuing of a people. So, we should expect the pinnacle of God’s creation to be able to have passion as well. Some more than others no doubt.
When Eve was fashioned from Adam, Adam looked at her and said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh…” He was excited to say the least. The first command of the Bible is to be fruitful and multiply. Bestiality was not the way to go, Eve was fashioned, and they together were able to fulfill the command given. I am grateful that we can find great joy in following God’s commands. There is a passionate pleasure in them, a goodness, an excitement! Our sex lives should reflect the excitement. God also is a passionate God within His own nature. Father, Son and Holy Spirit! “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” The Father has great pleasure in the Son, and the Son has such a passion to obey the Father. It’s very awesome to read the Gospel accounts and see this kind of relationship with God. Our sex lives should also reflect this kind of unified passion that we see between the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
You might be thinking that passionate sex had nothing to do with God. Your wrong. To remove the deity from the discussion moves us into mere animalism. Yet we are quite capable of so much more! We can not only have passion, but we can think about what sex means through our intellect. This really is remarkable and brings great balance to our sex lives. Understanding and studying theology can bring great depth to our attitude towards sex. We understand through our study of theology that God is a complex unity within the Godhead. That within this Godhead there are three distinct persons. Each person together makes up the one God. There are not three gods but one, of a unity. God creates this unity in humans and they are to bear the image of the complex unity of the Godhead by being joined together sexually. This physical union creates a family. This family is a complex unity composed of males and females. The Godheads diversity is seen in the diversity in the family. The family lives under one home, not many homes, but one.
I think you get the idea. Theology gives us an insight into the ‘why,’ of sex relations. Without theology, we simply make up our own reasons as to why we are doing sexual relations the way we are doing them. And each individual on the planet can have their own ideas and takes on that! Theology unifies humans under an objective truth regarding the ‘why.’ I for one am grateful the Christian doctrine on God is a passionate one! I am equally glad that it is a deeply intellectual too.
Sex without passion is simply dutiful and can be an utter drag. Sex with just passion can be dangerous in its selfish ambition. Both extremes are not biblical, but having both will bring maturity. This is the Biblical way.
Beau & Peter take a moment to discuss the spectrum of sinful behavior. Are all sins equal? Our sexual behavior says something about ourselves! Do you know what it says about you? It can be challenging for many to discuss their sex lives, but why, since it is common to human beings? Enjoy the discussion!
No doubt today’s culture is challenging for many youths! It seems the more “liberated” we become, the more depressed we get! Why? Katy Collins joins Beau on this edition of the Better Pleasure Podcast to discuss Church culture and its effects on women and challenges with our youth. This is just the beginning of many good Podcasts with Katy!
Beau mentions a book by Mary Eberstadt titled, “Adam & Eve after the Pill.” Paradoxes of the sexual revolution. Mary points out the great paradox; Sexual liberation has brought about a most un-happy culture. Be sure to pick up the book for a very interesting read!
In writing about our current entertainment culture, “All reveal a wildly contradictory mix of chatter about how wonderful it is that women are now al liberated for sexual fun – and how mysteriously impossible it has become to find a good, steady, committed boyfriend at the same time.”
“Numerous authors have also shown that widespread divorce and unwed motherhood – two more offspring of the sexual revolution – are not only detrimental for many individuals but also costly for society.”
Who is Mary Wollstonecraft and how did she influence our culture? Could one of the most influential feminist be a Christian?
She was a British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights in the 1700’s! Today Wollstonecraft is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers, and feminists often cite both her life and her works as important influences.
Peter and Beau take a look into her writing and how it relates to the Biblical teaching of male/female roles. Also they discuss how many of today’s feminist forget to mention Mary’s foundational worldview in Biblical truth. Is the consequence to neglecting such a foundation seen in today’s gender/sex wars?
An idea that I cannot seem to shake, concerns itself with equating attraction with sexual identity, or even gender identity. It’s common more today, so it seems, that if we find a person attractive, we potentially might be a certain kind of sexual person. And with that comes a sexual label. I’m this, that, or that other thing! Go online and find the “How to know you’re really hetero or gay,” videos out there. There are many of them! What if we actually believed the hype on these sites? If I equated my sexual identity with those I am attracted to or those I can picture myself having sex with, my life would be insane.
We are forever creatures that are looking to seek peace within ourselves aren’t we? And we accomplish this peace by doing things that make us feel good, creating in us an identity through the things we do to, and for ourselves. Identity is important to many of us. The Christian is concerned with identity too. But we realize that identity is one of faith. We can never do enough that will bring us the peace we need. Jesus alone has done what we could never do and in being what we could never be. We trust that our identity is found in what He says about us, not from what we think about ourselves.
I was in the sixth grade when I pierced my left ear. I think the next year I did my right. Why? I wanted to be something I was not at the time. I was insecure and discontented with myself. But in my mind, I saw myself as a heavy metal guitar player! It’s what I looked up to, it’s what I liked, it’s what I wanted to be. I pondered how cool it would be to be thin, thin enough to fit into tight leather pants! I desired my hair to be long like a lady. The earring too was an important part of the act. Many of us young boys saw that looking like a girl could give us an identity that seemed so cool. As with most Southern California kids, identity was everything. So, as we grew up, we became part of groups and sub cultures. Piercings were a part of creating an identity when I was a kid. Later tattoos became a way for others to develop an identity. Of course, these are still in full force today. Why do people get tattoos, or piercings anyway? It’s because we want to. We see ourselves with it, and like it on us. It is a part of our self-seeking.
Today I would like to propose that sex identity and gender identity are similar in today’s culture. When I hear people talk about their sexual or gender identities it sounds so familiar to me, as trying to find ourselves. Things were always done because of my feelings. We forever are looking to feel better. Is there something in us that compels us to do so? Why are we so incomplete? One of the reasons I enjoy old people is that there is no pretense with them. No gel in their hair (if they have any). Their eye for fashion is mostly gone and I don’t see many concerned about getting tattoos or piercings. Do you?
Could the choosing of our sexual or gender identity be simply a graduation from tattoos and piercings? It’s interesting to chat with Jr. High students about life. They come out with some interesting things. In today’s world of Youtuber’s and pop culture, they see sexual identity as important. So important that they too are willing to go out on a limb and share their own sexual identity and gender online. They’re much more comfortable revealing what they see as important just as their teen idols do. “I’m bisexual, I’m homosexual, I’m heterosexual, I’m pan-sexual,” yet they do not fully know what those terms mean yet! They just see themselves as fitting into a subculture to which they can be comforted and feel a part of something. Isn’t this why we did what we did when growing up? We think to ourselves, “this is who we are,” and in turn do things to conform.
With my fascination with metal music, it influenced me to conform to what it looked like at the time. Can that work for sexual issues too? In our world, sensuality is everywhere. Not just sensuality, but sex too. When we discuss porn today, it is hard not to see that porn is everywhere. So many things in our world are invented to cause sexual arousal. With the amount of pornography available on the web, many grow up watching hard core porn of many kinds and genres. I would imagine within this sex saturated culture there would be a subculture within it as well. And in turn, it would be another avenue to find an identity that makes us feel good. Is this only a construction in an economic prospering place such as the United States of America? I tend to wonder if in the remote parts of the world… “do they have people who make the identity claims that we see here?” Is this sexual and gender identity universal? Or is sexual identity and gender identity just a product of a bored culture that needs to find other ways to be satisfied and happy?
I sometimes think about what it would be like to take away all the technological amenities that we have today. What would that be like? Sometimes, on the TV I will watch a channel that shows a family that says, “the heck with it, we’re moving to the sticks of Idaho,” and go back to living like it was in the 1700’s! Amazing and fascinating! But what if we all did that? Would the same issues that we see today be present? It makes me seriously think that today we have issues that are constructed due to many cultural and economic factors, which if removed, we might not have.
Without technology, then it would be vital to have children the old fashion way. Homosexuality might not be seen as a growing accepted way. Or monogamy might be looked down upon too. As the more babies the better work crew you’ll have working the land! Many things might be different in a different social cultural context. Without TV or the internet, then we would not be inundated and influenced by a narcissistic philosophy that says, be like me and find yourself! Instead, we might be focused more on our kids and their kids and their kids… We would be interested in creating a life for our future descendants. This today is quite lost. I imagine we are living in a time that is like no other. We are more selfish, so selfish, that we do not realize it. Everything is concerned with us at the present moment. And we actually are glad about it!
Does this intense looking through the narrow lens at ourselves result in a constant feeling of inadequacy and incompleteness, which moves us to try and find something else that will help us feel right?
Jesus offers us a path off of this roller-coaster of self-diagnosis by giving us a new identity which is in Him! I love how the New Living Translation puts it in Colossians 2:10, “So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”
Isn’t that just beautiful! You and I can have a union with Jesus! Instead of trying to fit in, Jesus offers you and I friendship like no other! We can be complete (fulfilled) in Him!
“But as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).
This passage tells us that when we receive Jesus as our LORD, we receive a new identity! We are now children of God! What an awesome joy to know that I don’t have to find my identity in my feelings, or by what the latest pop culture trends. Jesus gives us a new identity as a part of His forever family!
We can be made new because we are now children of God. “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2nd Corinthians 5:17).
I hope you think about Jesus today and choose to find your identity in Him instead of your culture.
Beau Ouellette
Founder of Running Light Ministries, Associate Pastor at Calvary Christian Fellowship of Tucson, AZ – beau@runninglight.org
Glad to be back on the Better Pleasure Podcast! In this episode Peter and Beau talk about Trans Age Identity and Artificial Intelligence Intimacy! How does this relate to the Bible you might ask! We get into it on this edition!
What is the real you? Is it the way you see yourself, or is it your physical body?
The Bible says that we are made in the image of God. Would Satan desire to distort this image of God in humans and in turn create a image that bears him? What would this look like?
You might think we are in the Twilight Zone but we are really in today’s world!
Instead of finding our identify, are we loosing it?
Lisa and Katy flew this past week to gather some great resources and education at a Biblical counselors conference! Here is a wonderful picture of the two! Both are board members of Running Light Ministries and involved in counseling and group meetings for ladies.
Beau & Peter take some time as guests of A Reason For Hope on December 21st 2022 to discuss what Running Light Ministries is all about from a scriptural perspective. Why did we start this ministry and what do we believe?