Love & Truth Summit 2026 Session 1

Based on the Love and Truth Summit Session with Gary Ingram

Overview

This session addressed the breadth of sexual brokenness in the church, the importance of personal accountability and confession, the biblical foundation of identity as male and female made in God's image, and the critical need for genuine community as the context for healing. Gary Ingram drew from his own story of coming out of the LGBT world to follow Christ, and challenged believers to examine their own hearts before seeking to minister to others.

Key Takeaways

1. Personal Evaluation Comes First Before we can effectively minister to others, we must honestly assess what is going on in our own hearts and lives. Serving God while hiding unaddressed sin is a pattern the enemy exploits.

2. Sexual Brokenness Is Broader Than We Often Acknowledge Heterosexual brokenness in the church is statistically far larger than LGBT-related issues. The church cannot focus only on the most culturally visible issues while ignoring what is happening under its own roof.

3. Identity Is Rooted in God's Design Genesis 1:26-27 establishes that God made humanity male and female, both equally bearing his image but expressing it differently. Who we are is not determined by how we feel. Feelings of confusion or same-sex attraction point to wounds and sin, not to a separate identity category.

4. Same Root, Different Fruit The underlying root issues driving sexual sin and identity confusion, such as abandonment, rejection, abuse, and broken attachment, are largely the same across very different expressions of brokenness. This truth removes grounds for shame-based comparison and builds genuine empathy.

5. Confession in Community Is God's Prescription for Healing James 5:16 calls believers to confess their sins to one another and pray for each other. This is not optional. Healing from deep wounds cannot happen in isolation. The church must become a place where this kind of vulnerability is safe and practiced.

6. Two Belief Systems Must Be Integrated Many Christians hold an intellectual belief system that agrees with Scripture and an experiential belief system shaped by wounds, shame, and past pain. When triggers come, the experiential system often overrides the intellectual one. Real transformation requires integrating these two systems over time, in community, and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

7. The Three-Legged Stool of Healing Lasting freedom tends to require all three legs: discipleship and the gospel, spiritual warfare and deliverance, and the healing of emotional wounds. Neglecting any one leg leaves people vulnerable to returning to old patterns.

Discussion Questions

Opening Question

Take a few minutes to reflect quietly before sharing. When you hear the phrase "sexual brokenness in the church," what is your first instinct? Do you think of others, or do you think of yourself?

Section 1: Personal Evaluation

Gary said, "The best we will ever become are wounded healers." What does that phrase mean to you personally? Does it encourage you or make you uncomfortable, and why?

He described a pattern where people pour themselves into serving as a way of covering or avoiding something unaddressed in their own lives. Have you ever experienced or observed that pattern? What does it look like in practice?

Gary referenced James 5:16, which calls believers to confess their sins to one another so that healing may come. He noted that there is no asterisk that excuses people with trust issues from this command. How would you honestly describe your practice of this kind of confession? What gets in the way?

Nick Stumbo observed that being able to preach and teach Scripture can produce a great professional Christian without producing genuine health in the area of sexuality. Where else in the Christian life do you think information without vulnerability creates a false sense of spiritual health?

Section 2: Identity and Sexuality

Gary described two belief systems, one intellectual and one experiential, and said that many Christians live in a painful gap between them. Can you identify an area of your own life where what you believe in your head has not yet reached your heart or your daily choices?

The "same root, different fruit" concept suggests that the underlying wounds driving LGBT struggles are largely the same as those driving heterosexual brokenness. How does that reframe the way you think about people whose struggles look very different from your own?

Gary said, "As soon as you take truth out of love, it is no longer love." At the same time, he described throwing a lifeline to someone when the rope is not moored to anything because the person throwing it does not have a stable walk with Jesus. What does it look like to hold both genuine truth and genuine love together in a relationship with someone who is struggling?

Christy Cole described how hiding something small, in her case money her husband did not know about, created a foothold that the enemy could use and that would grow over time. She said, "You did not land in adultery. You need to go five, six, ten, twelve, thirteen decisions back." What does that principle mean for how we think about our own patterns of compromise?

Section 3: Community and Healing

Gary said it is impossible for a wound to be healed in isolation. What are the specific fears or past experiences that make genuine community feel risky for you? How have those fears shaped the depth of relationships you allow yourself to have?

He described how the church has often become one of the last places people would go to bare their souls, because of gossip and fear of rejection. What would need to change in your own relational habits, or in the culture of your group, for that to be different?

Gary referenced Rosaria Butterfield's book on radical, ordinary hospitality, and described how opening his own home to people in need has been a form of ministry. What would it look like for you to practice that kind of hospitality in a tangible way in the next month?

Practical Applications

Choose one or two of the following to commit to before your group meets again.

For Personal Accountability Identify one person in your life with whom you can begin practicing regular, honest confession. This does not need to be a formal group. It can be one trusted person. Take the first step of reaching out to them this week.

For Examining Your Own Heart Spend time in prayer asking God to search your heart, as David did in Psalm 139:23-24, which asks God to search the heart and reveal any painful or offensive way within. Write down what surfaces and bring it to a trusted person or counselor.

For Building Deeper Community If you are in a small group or men's or women's group that tends to stay at the surface level, initiate a conversation with a leader or fellow member about going deeper. Consider whether a smaller sub-group of three or four people might provide the safety needed for real vulnerability.

For Those with a Loved One in the LGBT World Take an honest inventory of where your response to that person falls on the spectrum between truth and love. Ask yourself whether you are more anchored to what the Scripture says than to the desire to make that person comfortable with you. Pray for wisdom about how to hold both truth and love without sacrificing either.

For Addressing a Long-Hidden Struggle If there is something you have been sitting on, something you have worked hard to keep no one from knowing about, consider whether the cost of continued hiding is greater than the cost of confession. Gary's story, and the stories of others shared in this session, testify that freedom is not keeping people from knowing the truth. Freedom is receiving God's forgiveness and no longer needing to hide.

Closing Reflection

Gary closed by describing how God took the most broken and shameful parts of his story and turned them into a ministry that has helped hundreds of people. He said:

"God wants to take all of the crap of your brokenness that looks so dirty, so filthy, that you're so ashamed of, that you have worked so hard to shove into a barrel and clamp a lid on that thing. Freedom is not keeping people from knowing the truth. Freedom is receiving God's forgiveness and his cleansing and then not caring who knows."

Close your group time by giving members a moment of silence to bring one specific thing before the Lord, something they have been carrying alone. Then close in prayer, asking God to make your group a place where that kind of freedom becomes normal.

Resources mentioned in this session, including Gary Ingram's book "Am I Gay?" and the Love and Truth Network e-course, are available at the resource table or through the Love and Truth Network website.