This is Christopher Yuan’s second book. His first book (“Out of a Far Country”) was a memoir of his own personal journey, whereas here he helps his readers to deal with the challenge of their own sexuality, as well as issues such as anxiety about long-term singleness. In fact, a major topic of the book is marriage and singleness...

I have the privilege to work as a Youth and Children’s Minister for a small church. I influence many young lives (and families!) through my work. It’s a joy when I see children, teenagers and whole families get the gospel and live out a personal faith in the Lord Jesus. However, I do realise that, as a same-sex attracted person, It is likely I will never have the experience of parenting my own biological children...

I was grumbling at my heavenly Father about the anticipated lack of touch, instead of expectantly asking for his generous provision of companionship. But here were friends from church, at the end of a phone line, asking if I would like to join them, several times a week, till… whenever. It has been God’s gracious provision for me, even when I was too moody to ask for it.

Our lives are signposts with signs on. Are we sending people down the wrong road or the right road? In this article, Chris explores the dangers of flirting and using others to meet our physical and emotional needs.

Matt Fuller, with humour, biblical faithfulness and pastoral care, delves deep into the issue. He shows that to “be true to yourself” is not just a phrase, but a worldview (a values system). He places it under the microscope and, in the book, firstly shows how it is lacking. If we follow our society’s understanding of being “true to yourself” then you will end up empty.

One of the criticisms sometimes aimed at True Freedom Trust is that it brings together people who are all same-sex tempted and places them into a pressure cooker of mutual temptation! Maybe a glib response would be to say that the world is full of attractive people, so there’s plenty of same-sex temptation out there already! Same-sex attracted people are arguably exposed to greater temptation than ‘straight’ people in everyday life – one example is when they have to use single-sex changing rooms.

Rachel interweaves each chapter with the expounding of different Scriptures, including the relevant subject matter, life stories and experiences. The unexpectedness of each chapter is refreshing to read, and there seems to be something new around each corner.

I could see that people were different at church compared to primary school. My church friends were true, loyal and kind. However, school friends liked you one week and not the next, or a fellow classmate would call you names if you beat them in PE.

I began using my red flag system back in the late 1980s. I converted to Christ in 1985 and, in response to the Bible’s teaching that all sexual activity was to be within the boundaries of marriage between a man and a woman, I walked away from the active gay life that I had been living. However, although I stopped the activity, this decision had no bearing on my emotional response towards various women.