In 2010, after having served for years as a deacon, teacher, and leader in several churches I had attended, I became an ordained pastor. I simply desired to minister to others and help people have a relationship with God.
Though I didn’t know it then, I did not have an intimate relationship with God. For many years of my life, I had dark secrets that I hid from everyone—including God. Much of this stemmed from my early childhood, during which I suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I learned then that I needed a coping tool to get through life and, sadly, I found that in sex and pornography. I hid this “coping method” from everyone until 2015.
Thankfully, in 2015, I began healing. For the first time in my life, I became known. I got the professional help I needed from trained counselors who helped me understand that I had an “intimacy disorder.” I didn’t know what real intimacy was and couldn’t comprehend how much, like everyone, I needed intimacy with both God and others. Thus began my quest to learn about intimacy.
Through several books I read, significant counseling that my wife and I took part in, small-group ministry with organizations designed to help broken people like me, and close intimate relationships with others, I learned what intimacy is. I also learned that I wasn’t alone in my misunderstandings about intimacy. In fact, many people have serious misconceptions of what intimacy is, what prevents many from ever developing intimate relationships, and what steps we need to take to improve intimacy with God and others. Helping people in this way became my new focus in the pastoral ministry I believe I’m called to.
Today, I help others in three significant ways:
- What Is Intimacy? – “What Is Intimacy?” is a ministry that I started several years ago with the express purpose of helping answer that question. Through the ministry, I lead workshops for men, preach and teach at churches, and help pastors assist congregants in their churches. If you’d like to learn more about the ministry, please click here.
- FirstLight Ministries – FirstLight is a wonderful organization that initially was instrumental in helping me during my greatest time of need. The mission of FirstLight is “to help followers of Jesus Christ, particularly those who have struggled deeply in their sexuality, to glorify God with their body by living out the orthodox understanding of Christian sexual ethics grounded in the Bible.” Tammy and I support FirstLight. We’ve worked as small-group facilitators, and have served and continue to serve as “point people” to those working through their own brokenness or the brokenness of others. If you’d like to learn more about FirstLight, please click here.
- Redefining Intimacy – Besides the work I do with What Is Intimacy? and FirstLight, I’ve written a book that will be published in August 2024 titled Redefining Intimacy: Developing Intimate Relationships with God and Others. This has led to exciting new ways for me to minister to others, including additional speaking/teaching engagements, free biweekly encouragement emails to “Intimacy Fans” (a.k.a. email subscribers), and intimacy coaching. If you’d like to learn more about getting a free copy of the first chapter of Redefining Intimacy, joining our subscriber list, or purchasing your own copy of the book, please visit the Redefining Intimacy website by clicking here: www.RedefiningIntimacy.org.
Thank you for your interest in learning more about me and my ministry endeavors. I exist to help people, and it’s in helping others understand how to have an intimate relationship with God and others that today I find my greatest joy. I pray God’s richest blessings on you and your family!
Rob Gion, Jr.
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