Slice of Laodicea

A couple of years ago I reported on former stripper Heather Veitch who claims that she preaches to her former colleagues by going into the strip joints. A pastor has embraced the idea whole hog and claims a biblical basis for sending his church people in to do the same. Now someone’s made a documentary about it. Pastor Matt Brown says that Jesus would approve of Heather’s sultry method of evangelizing because, after all, he hung out with prostitutes, etc. Well-known megachurch pastor Greg Laurie does not agree. He called Heather’s methods “dangerous” and discouraged Matt Brown from continuing his support for Heather. Read the story here.

Before the shrieks of indignation begin from my congenital opponents, I would like to examine more closely what the problem is with Ms. Veitch and her ministry to those in the industry that markets human flesh. First off, Heather says that she was once a stripper and now lives for Jesus Christ. We are told in Scripture that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new”. That’s II Corinthians 5:17. All things are become new, it says. I will not encourage men in particular to visit Heather’s website, JC’s Girls, and I will not link to it. (JC supposedly stands for Jesus Christ.) I can tell you that for most men, make that all men, the photos would be a stumbling block. The opposition to Heather’s ministry is not based on the idea that prostitutes and strippers don’t need the Gospel. I will spell it out for you in the plainest possible terms. Opposition is coming from those as influential as Greg Laurie because Heather still looks and behaves in the photographs as though she never left the lifestyle. I will say this in even plainer terms: come-hither poses, midriff bearing slut outfits, big hair and seductive poses in her publicity shots are more worthy of calendars at truck stops than a website for a Christian ministry.

When Jesus comes into a woman’s life, her entire outlook changes, her behavior changes, her way of presenting herself to the world in clothes and appearance changes. Those who are caught in a lifestyle of seduction and who possess a spirit of sensuality are forever changed in light of the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. The Lord told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” He forgave her, but she was a changed woman. Jesus did not “hang” with prostitutes. Those who met the living Christ were either transformed or hardened and went their way.

Any pastor that cannot see by the photos on Heather’s website just exactly what spirit is prevalent in her work is not wanting to see it. I am all for working with women who have been caught in the bondage of sexual immorality. My husband and I helped a woman for several years who was struggling to get out of a lifestyle of promiscuity that was destroying her. I believe wholeheartedly in standing at the doors of these places and presenting the Gospel. My preacher grandfather used to set up a small pulpit outside on the sidewalk and share the Gospel with those going into the town’s sleaze joint. He did not need to go in and neither should he have.

If Heather Veitch wants to have an impact on these sad women of our culture, she needs to show the difference that Jesus Christ makes. If she has been changed by Christ, why is she still wearing slutty clothes, hooker make-up and posing for nasty pictures? Who needs that when you can have it all inside the strip joint? Nobody has apparently taught Heather of God’s holiness, and how the angels fall prostrate before their maker night and day crying, “Holy, Holy Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” When I think of God’s righteousness and holiness it makes me realize my sinfulness and my desperate need of a Savior. I want to be clothed and in my right mind, living a life that is pleasing to the Lord and serving him with holy fear and due reverence as a Christian woman. True witnessing needs to take place from a position of knowing how God can transform a woman and turn her from a lost woman of Babylon into a handmaid of the Lord.

Heather’s intentions may be good. I’m going to put the best construction on her intentions. But the lack of solid biblical teaching today is resulting in “ministries” that are bringing only more shame on the name of Christ. Many of these men and women in ministries today have gone straight from conversion into leadership with some disastrous results. These are infants in Christ who need teaching and grounding. Instead, they get a website up and dive into evangelism before they even know what the Scriptures have to say. Sometimes, they aren’t converted at all because they have never been taught about repentance and turning from sin. Jesus is presented as an add-on to a life, someone who can make you a better person, more fulfilled, etc. etc. We see that kind of perverted gospel more and more in America today.

Lastly, Pastor Matt Brown sneers that the church is more interested in being “respectable” than ministering to these women. Well, yes, Matt, we do care about being respectable because we represent our King Jesus Christ. There are ways to evangelize and there are ways not to evangelize that can bring a stumbling block to others and harm on the name of our Savior. Wise pastors and leaders know the difference.