Stand Up For Yourself, Not Your Desires Whilst Recalling The Desire of Your GodMan, Jesus Christ

The summer prior to my sixth-grade year, I was ushered into my inaugural First Baptist Church Jackson "youth group" summer camp experience.  The year was 1985 (I was just turning 13 years-old) and the location was Mt. Lebanon, Texas.  Overall, it was an absolute blast!  Our youth pastor, Rick Ball, was well loved by every student (all ages), therefore the robust attendance therein served as a reflection of his popularity.  Of note is the fact that this particular (weeklong + weekend) summer youth camp experience represented / served Protestant churches from all across the country in light of Mr. Dawson McCallister being our loudmouthed ("STILLBORN!!!") evangelist / camp pastor.  

I vividly recall responding wholeheartedly to an altar call during this summer camp.  My dear friend, Riley Brown, kindly accompanied me down front where Rick was stationed.  From there, we made our way up onto an adjacent berm to chat / pray.  Though I'd been baptized prior, this was my first genuine, comprehensible (of the gospel as it pertained specifically to Rob) profession of faith.

So why was that?  What was it about this setting / timing that was so unique?

Because I knew my depravity to a much greater degree than I did prior (I was baptized as a 4th / 5th grader).

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During that same summer camp, earlier in the week, I was tangibly faced - head on - with my same-sex attraction.  In light of all the (young) men (7th-12th) bunking together within one open air bunkhouse / barrack, my only child self experienced some impossible to ignore eye candy (strut-worthy, older, athletically-built teen boys).  Hence, I felt ashamed and alone for these feelings seamlessly synchronized with budding sexual fantasies I'd been harboring deep within.  Fantasies with men that fit specific masculine archetypes / builds (older, more mature physically, athletically built).  All of which had been blown tremendously out of proportion within my boyhood head as protectors / guardians / fans (of a deeply insecure child Rob). 

Why did I do this?  What made me susceptible therein?   

Two things:

1.  The terrifying physical changes coming / underway tied to adolescence.  Changes which I desperately wanted to reverse / stave off.

2.  Not having family (father, brother, mother) I could emotionally trust / lean into.  Specifically, both of my parents were still attempting to muddle through the marital rubble resulting from their relatively recent (when I was 10) relational falling out.

3.  Having a supercharged imagination that had been primed via all manner of '80s entertainment + action figures.  In essence, boyRob co-existed within the real world and his own highly captivating fantasy world (whether or not it was sexually explicit).

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The other big component of my newfound faith in Jesus Christ as a boy, for such a time as that, was aimed squarely at Jesus as my lead.  Becoming a disciple, following his teachings, all of this appealed mightily to boyRob.  All the while choosing to deny myself (which, in theory, felt not at all hard to do).  For I had seen firsthand how deceptively mislead / distorted my heart truly was.

From there, I began praying and listening much more intently to older Christians.  But, my homosexual fantasy life, I chose to never divulge nor attempt to flaunt / personify / celebrate as a teenager.  Keep in mind that it was a different time / place back in 1985.  Especially in Mississippi.  

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But, due to the scale of our youth group, statistically, it was obvious to me that I wasn't the only boy struggling with homosexual desires.  And, as is often the case, that one other boy, from early on, would orbit Rob annoyingly (particularly during out-of-town / overnight treks - camps, retreats, etc.).  

We'll call him Overachiever Jim.  And Overachiever Jim was about as gay-acting as they come.

Until he wasn't...

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The reason I'm bringing this guy up is how upfront he was regarding his personality / preferences.  And again, this being 1985, there was no (especially within a church setting) normalized homosexual references to speak of.  Jim was simply Jim.  Original and annoying.  Desperate for attention in tandem with being decidedly mediocre (physical looks, talents) overall with the only exception being his work ethic (Jim was a star student, constantly vying for top of his class).  

But, if there was one thing Jim was not, it was uncomfortable in his skin.

I can remember spending the night with Jim on one occasion.  The following Saturday, when my mother came to retrieve me, before we had even left their driveway (Jim was an only child as well, living with his divorced mother), she forbade me from returning.  All because I'd "picked up his girlish accent / dialect" via that short-lived exposure to my new friend.

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Jim went (far away) to an out of state college, and it was there where he left his uniquely effeminate persona (along with the baby fat bod) behind.  Today, he's an accomplished author, collegiate leader, father, husband.

I encouraged him once to compile / author a book (he's a trained sociologist) featuring stories of men like us.  He politely declined.  

I have to believe he was deeply offended by including him therein.  For if you were to encounter him today, there's no trace of his flamboyantly adolescent self left.

I'm willing to bet a dollar that he's personally destroyed every photo, memento that even hints at that loathed history of his true self.

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Samson Society keeps me focused on this part of myself that frankly I spent the majority of my life emotionally disabled by.  Hence, I'm the antithesis of Overachiever Jim as I do no work towards hiding / disassembling / reconstituting myself.  And that's been especially true over the last week as this middle-aged version of Rob has had his ass kicked via workload on top of personal obligations on top of my wife's vocational woes (which have angered / confused / frustrated her husband).  

Week after week, I host two meetings (they begin & end my weekends).  I also talk to my Silas (& vice versa) regularly throughout the week.  You might argue that Samson Society is my albatross.

Perhaps.  But so long as I'm drawn towards Christ, why not attempt, truly attempt to see what he sees?

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I believe being a little Christ requires faith in a GodMan that desires a relationship with you as a flawed, sinful human being, and that the depth of that relationship is tied directly to how deeply you know yourself.  For GodMan knows you 100% since he created you from scratch.  

The only real surefire way to know myself - better & better - has been via intentional / organizable recovery work.

It's often imperfect, sometimes repetitive, but it's the most effective means I know of.  

Lagniappe

Can’t Make It to Michigan? Join the 2026 Samson Summit Online

 

You may not be able to make it to Michigan this year—but you don’t have to miss the Summit. The 2026 Samson Summit, Written in Grace, will be available virtually, bringing together voices from across the recovery community to explore what happens when we begin to see our stories through the lens of grace rather than shame. We’re especially excited to welcome John Lynch as this year’s keynote speaker. John is an author, speaker, former pastor, and longtime voice on grace, identity, trust, and the freedom that comes when we no longer have to hide or perform to earn God’s love. Throughout the virtual Summit, we’ll also explore some of the deeper questions that emerge as recovery becomes more than simply stopping unwanted behaviors: Why are we so deeply wired to matter, belong, and be known—and what happens when we learn to hide those needs? How do rationalization, minimization, denial, and other forms of self-protection keep us trapped in the very patterns we're trying to escape? What does it look like to remain emotionally present with a grieving partner instead of defending, explaining, fixing, or withdrawing when things get uncomfortable? And what if recovery isn't another heroic project we have to succeed at, but an invitation into a more embodied, relational, and faithful way of living? These conversations move beyond simply asking, “How do I stop?” and toward a much larger question: “Who am I becoming?” If travel, schedules, finances, or life make joining us in Michigan impossible this year, join us virtually. You can still hear these conversations, wrestle with these questions, and be part of a community of men discovering what it means to have our stories Written in Grace. We’d love to have you with us. Learn More Register today and receive 5 FREE BONUS SESSIONS to help you continue growing in your faith and online integrity, long after the conference is over. Meet Your Speakers John Lynch is a nationally-recognized speaker, author, and former pastor whose work embodies radical grace, honest storytelling, and genuine transformation. After serving 27 years as the teaching pastor at Open Door Fellowship in Phoenix, Arizona, he joined Trueface in 1997 and began speaking and writing on a national level. John is the author of On My Worst Day, a collection of forty fresh stories about vulnerability, shame, and the liberating power of Christ-like love. He also co-authored works such as The Cure and TrueFaced, and co-founded Sharkey Productions, a theater troupe that staged gospel-anchored productions for people still seeking Jesus. At his core, John’s message is simple yet profound: you’re loved on your worst day, and that love can change you. As he says on his website: “My name is John Lynch. I am completely undone by what Jesus has done in me. And I continue to be overwhelmed at the wild, unbridled love He has for you and me.” VIRTUAL WORKSHOP CONTRIBUTORS JIM CRESS Jim Cress is a counselor who has spent years helping men and couples work through sexual addiction, betrayal, shame, trauma, and the deeper wounds beneath destructive behavior. His approach goes beyond simply trying to stop a behavior and helps people understand the story underneath it so they can move toward healing, connection, and freedom. "Rebuilding from Ground Zero: 16 Steps and 4 Key Questions for Ongoing Recovery from Nehemiah" Drawing from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, Jim explores what it means to walk honestly within our stories as an essential part of ongoing recovery. Using Nehemiah’s journey of confronting what has been broken and undertaking the work of rebuilding, Jim identifies 16 steps and four key questions that help us examine our own stories—from ground zero to the “red dot.” Along the way, he invites us to consider where we have been, where we are now, and what it looks like to continue moving forward with honesty, intention, and grace.   NICK STUMBO Nick Stumbo leads Pure Desire Ministries and brings both professional training and personal experience to the recovery conversation. After years in pastoral ministry, Nick became a trusted voice helping men move out of secrecy and shame and into honesty, grace, healthy relationships, and lasting change. He is also the author of Setting Us Free and Safe. "Lies and Excuses We Make in Early Recovery: Moving from Self-Protection to Grace, Acceptance, and Healing" Most of us enter recovery after years of rationalizing, minimizing, denying, or explaining away our behavior. Even after recovery begins, those patterns do not simply disappear. Our brains are wired for self-preservation—to move away from what feels threatening, uncomfortable, or painful—and many of the lies and excuses we tell ourselves began as attempts to protect us from something we did not know how to face. But what begins as self-protection can eventually become self-destruction. When we continually avoid pain, shame, fear, vulnerability, or uncomfortable truths, the very strategies meant to protect us can keep us trapped in the patterns from which we are trying to recover. In this presentation, Nick explores what lies beneath the rationalizations and excuses common in early recovery and how understanding these behaviors can change the way we approach them. Rather than continuing to run from the things we have spent a lifetime avoiding, recovery invites us to turn toward them with honesty, curiosity, and courage. In doing so, we create space to experience a level of God’s grace we may never have allowed ourselves to receive, acceptance from other men we did not know was possible, and the deeper healing that avoidance has kept just beyond our reach.   EDDIE CAPPARUCCI Eddie Capparucci is a counselor, author, and recovery specialist known for helping men look beneath unwanted sexual behavior to the emotional wounds and unresolved parts of their story that may be driving it. His work challenges men to move beyond simply managing behavior and become curious about what is happening underneath the surface. "The Stay Engaged Method: 8 Essential Steps for Supporting Your Partner Through the Pain of Betrayal" Recovery is about more than achieving sobriety or changing destructive behaviors. It also requires learning how to remain emotionally present with those who have been hurt by our actions—especially when their grief, anger, or pain is difficult to face. When a partner is hurting, the instinct to explain intentions, correct details, defend progress, or prove what “really happened” may feel protective, but these responses can leave a grieving partner feeling even more alone. Staying engaged requires a different kind of emotional maturity: the ability to remain grounded, attentive, curious, and emotionally available without becoming defensive or withdrawing when things get uncomfortable. In this presentation, participants will learn the Stay Engaged Method, eight essential steps for remaining emotionally connected with a grieving partner during difficult moments. Rather than relying on “I don’t know what to do,” participants will leave with a practical framework for responding to pain in ways that foster safety, connection, accountability, and healing.   MATT WENGER Matt Wenger is the Executive Clinical Director of Begin Again Institute and has worked with more than 1,000 men dealing with pornography, sexual addiction, trauma, and relationship struggles. His work focuses on attachment, honesty, relationships, and understanding the deeper why behind behavior so men can build something healthier instead of simply trying harder. "Failure, Embodiment, and the Manageable Life of Faithful Recovery: A Framework for Spiritual Direction in Pornography Addiction Recovery" What if recovery is not a separate set of practices we perform, but a way of learning to live more fully and faithfully as human beings? Drawing from the novels Gilead and Jayber Crow, Matt Wenger invites participants to expand their understanding of recovery beyond the pursuit of success or the avoidance of failure and toward a more embodied, relational, and sustainable way of life. Through literature and the contemplative traditions of the Church, Matt offers another framework: a manageable life of faithful recovery. Rather than striving to become the hero of our recovery story, we can learn to inhabit the ordinary limits of our lives, make room for failure, and become more attentive to our embodied needs and desires. The contemplative tradition shifts the emphasis from simply knowing about God to experiencing relationship with God, offering ancient practices that closely parallel the slow, relational work of recovery. In doing so, recovery becomes less about achieving an ideal and more about learning to live faithfully, honestly, and fully within the life we have been given.   JEFF SCHULTE Jeff Schulte is the founder of Tin Man and has spent decades walking alongside leaders, athletes, pastors, executives, and everyday men who have become disconnected from their own hearts. His work helps people understand their emotions, face shame and isolation, and learn how to live more honestly and relationally with God and the people around them. "Hard Wired for Connection: Why Our Need to Matter, Belong, and Be Loved Is Part of God’s Design" We were created for connection. The need to matter, belong, and experience secure attachment is not a weakness to overcome but a profound reflection of being made in the image of a relational God. Yet many of us have learned to distrust our neediness, minimize our longings, or believe that changing how we think should be enough to change how we live. This presentation invites participants to reconsider their needs and longings not as liabilities, but as pathways to intimacy and transformation. Love is expressed through needs and the meeting of needs, and our willingness to be known—including allowing others to see what we need—determines how deeply we can experience being loved. By understanding how we are hard wired for connection, we can begin moving away from performance and self-protection and toward the authentic relationships through which we learn to love, be loved, and grow.   Register Today

You’re Invited to the 2026 Samson Summit

 

Brothers, You’re invited to join us for the 2026 Samson Summit, October 23–25, at Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Michigan. The Summit is more than a weekend of speakers. It’s an opportunity to step away from everyday noise, spend time face to face with other men who understand the journey, and experience the truth, grace, and brotherhood at the heart of Samson Society. The weekend will include: - Teaching from keynote speaker John Lynch - Small groups and honest conversations - Worship and a Saturday-night concert with Josh Bales - Walks, activities, shared meals, and campfires - Time with Nate Larkin, Aaron Porter, Sam Black, Landon White, and other Samson brothers The official Summit begins Friday afternoon, but you can arrive Thursday, October 22, for an optional Bonus Day with additional fellowship, teaching, and time around the fire. Registration options include meals, activities, and lodging when selected. Most lodging and commuter options offer a five-payment installment plan, and partial scholarships are available for men who need financial assistance. Register here: https://samsonswag.squarespace.com/events/p/2026-samson-summit Can’t travel to Michigan? Virtual participation is also available: https://www.covenanteyes.com/2026-samson-summit-livestream/?utm_source=samsonsociety&utm_medium=samsonsociety&utm_campaign=2026_samson_summit_livestream Event location: Faholo Conference Center 3000 Mt. Hope Road Grass Lake, MI 49240 We would love to have you with us. If you have questions about registration, lodging, scholarships, or the weekend, please reach out to samsonhouseoffice@gmail.com. We hope to see you at Faholo! The Samson Society Team

FULLY AUTHORIZED: Introducing The "Samson Society Council"

 

The No Bull Briefing: The Monthly Newsletter of the Samson Society

 

THE SLOW WORK I used to think my drug of choice was pornography. Turns out my real addiction was speed — the desperate need to make bad feelings go away right now. Impatience, impulsiveness, a rock-bottom tolerance for discomfort: these weren’t side effects of my addiction, they were the engine of it. Twenty-eight years into recovery, I’m still in remedial class on this one. Allie and I are older now, and aging and cancer have ways of putting a bullhorn to a lesson I thought I’d learned. Like it or not, there’s no hack for a body that heals on its own schedule and not one minute sooner, no matter how many YouTube videos I watch at 2 a.m. convinced I’ve found the one weird trick doctors don’t want you to know. The same was true, on a much deeper level, for Allie’s healing from my betrayal. I wanted it finished. I wanted her to feel safe again by Tuesday. Every time I tried to hurry that process along — with the right words, the right gesture, the right grand romantic overture — I only slowed it down. Real trust doesn’t arrive faster because you knock on the door harder. What recovery actually gave me wasn’t a cure for impatience. It gave me a practice: one day at a time, trusting that whatever I feel — dread, grief, even joy — will pass, and that healing that comes slowly is still healing. Some things simply cannot be rushed. Least of all, apparently, me. — Nate Larkin Hey guys, I am getting amped up about our summit in October. I’ve had some great conversations with John Lynch, our main speaker, and he is putting some great effort into our time. John has always been so good at articulating how the gospel gives us the opportunity to discover a transformative identity in Christ. But at the summit this year we are going to tie that importance into the recovery walk and story work. In other words, we are going to be building bridges between what we believe in the pews and Bible studies and what we believe when guilt, shame, and condemnation come gnawing at our souls in the darkest hours of the night. Basically, we’ve all got a narrative running in our heads about who we are and what we are worth. Those stories are generally rooted in and anchored to our past experiences. It may be in childhood experiences, wounds, betrayals, loneliness, perceived failure, or struggles with sin and utter failures. All of those voices are so loud, demanding our attention and capturing our identities. How we tie our faith into our recovery and community walks is not just important; it’s vital. That’s what we are going to be working through in Michigan this fall. I can’t wait. If you haven’t signed up yet, the details are below. Do the planning team a solid and make your arrangements today so we know who all is coming and how to get ready for you. And remember, if you want to come a day early for some time with your brothers and a little heart preparation, that is available to you as well. Hoping to get to hang with you all in the fall (yes, I know, it rhymed, and was awesome). Aaron COME TO THE SAMSON SUMMIT What if you gave yourself a weekend to step away from the noise and remember what matters most? The 2026 Samson Summit is October 23–25 at Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Michigan. It’s a weekend of truth, grace, and brotherhood—a place to drop the masks, tell the truth, laugh with other men, and experience the freedom that comes from not having to do this alone. This year, we’re honored to welcome John Lynch as our keynote speaker, along with teaching, small groups, conversations, walks, fun activities, and plenty of time gathered around the campfire. Come for the teaching. Come for the brotherhood. Come because sometimes you need to get out of your normal environment to see your story—and yourself—differently. And if you can’t make it to Michigan, you can JOIN US VIRTUALLY for the Summit from wherever you are. Come as you are. Bring the parts of your story you’ve learned to hide. See them through the lens of grace. Register Today!   Want to help a brother attend? Click here to donate to our Summit scholarship fund! NO BULL ABOUT THE MONEY A few guys have told us recently that they’d like more transparency about Samson House finances. I think they’re right. Samson House exists to serve the Samson Society, and the guys who support this work deserve to know where the money comes from and where it goes. So here are the numbers: Through September 2, Samson House has received about $212,000 and spent about $226,000. That puts us roughly $14,000 in the red for the year so far. Our biggest expense is people: about $118,600 in salaries and wages, a little over half of everything we spent. After that, about $21,000 on the Harbor, $15,000 on office, technology and website costs, and $9,600 on travel. Samson House also handles Sarah Society funds, and those run through our books on both sides. Counted as a whole program rather than a calendar year, that retreat is running about $13,700 short of its registrations. As of August 31, we had about $56,000 in the bank. Of that sum, $35,000 is held in reserve to pay for the Summit and $21,000 to cover upcoming fees for the website and app. We also own the Harbor, carried on our books at $690,000 with about $343,000 remaining on the loan. It brought in $28,000 in rent this year. There’s considerably more detail behind those numbers, and we’ve put it on the app for anybody who wants to look under the hood. But we’re also going to make this kind of report a regular feature. You shouldn’t need a finance degree — or an invitation to a board meeting — to have a reasonable idea of how Samson House is doing. --Nate Donate View this email in your browser.

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