Coming out to come Home: Ex-top banker turned bible school teacher and pastor
By
Janice Tai
, 27 March 2022
Tou Chen is now a bible school instructor at Rhema Bible Training Center and an assistant pastor at 3:16 Church. All photos courtesy of Chang Tou Chen.
Chang Tou Chen had a high-flying job in banking and finance. He also lived the high life of clubbing and wild sex – with three or four men a night.
The pleasure was seductive. Yet, the more encounters he had, the emptier he felt. The emptier he felt, the more encounters he sought.
“It wasn’t a lack of meaning or purpose. I just felt something was missing in my life,” Tou Chen, now 52, shared.
In 2015, Tou Chen left his role leading the Southeast Asian arm of a big bank.
Leaving church
He was aware he was attracted to men when he was as young as seven years old. At 13, he saw a picture of a shirtless man and could not help noticing that he was sexually aroused.
A church-goer at the time, he was too ashamed to ask for help. “I didn’t want to be a social outcast,” he said. “Back then, the stigma was more pronounced.”
He started to date girls, thinking that might help. It did not.
Tou Chen in his younger days.
As he became more curious about guys, he started to buy gay magazines and porn videos.
Meanwhile, he was serving as a leader in cell group and church camps. But disillusioned, he left church when in his early 20s.
Stark contrasts
He plunged into a different world and began having the “time of his life” at gay bars and saunas.
“As I was new to the scene, there were lots of guys who wanted me.
“And there were also lots of guys that I myself wanted,” Tou Chen said candidly.
“I was like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes, one treat a day wasn’t enough.”
He began having multiple one-night stands, experimenting with new acquaintances night after night. He had a boyfriend, but cheated on him because he simply wanted more sex.
“I was like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes, one treat a day wasn’t enough.”
The years progressed into three decades. Tou Chen found he could not break free from the vicious cycle of seeking out more and more sex.
“I grew more disgusted with myself because I knew my appetite and indulgences were not healthy for any normal human being.”
Starving himself
One day in 2014, a friend told him that he was going to church that Sunday.
“I am too dirty to go to church,” Tou Chen declared.
His friend replied that with Jesus, “you are righteous before God”.
Tou Chen said mockingly: “That’s nonsense! How could I be righteous before God? Look at all the things that I’m doing.”
Tou Chen (front left) with his family. He has two brothers and a sister.
His friend insisted he was still righteous before God – something his pastor had reiterated. Out of sheer disbelief, Tou Chen went with him.
At that very service, something filled him like never before. “I realised it was the Word of God that I had starved myself of in all those decades.”
He would return every week for a year to listen to the Word. But he did not abandon his way of life.
Twilight zone
He would rush to the first service every Sunday morning and rush off right afterward to a gay sauna for the rest of the day.
“I didn’t know at that time that this emptiness inside me was my spirit panting for God. I existed in a weird twilight zone and still wanted to feed my flesh. It was surreal.”
The only people – apart from two pastors – who knew of Tou Chen’s same-sex attraction in the early days were his gay friends and his younger brother (right).
A year later, when the pastor was preaching on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), Tou Chen’s spirit suddenly opened up to recognise the depth of the Father’s love.
“The father (of the prodigal son) must have been personally looking out for the son all the time and yearning for him to come home. Why?” Tou Chen wondered.
“It was as if God was saying to me: ‘Son, come home now, just as you are.’ “
The son had been feeding pigs and was smelly and filthy. Yet, seeing him from afar, the father ran to him, fell on his neck and kissed him, putting the best robe on him.
“It was as if God was saying to me: ‘Son, come home now, just as you are.’ “
This broke his heart.
“I had imbibed the world’s narrative that I was ‘born this way’. I was angry with God because if He wired me this way, then there was nothing else He could say about it that doesn’t seem like hypocrisy.”
He decided to start walking with God again. He stopped having sexual encounters and set out to find out what the Bible said about same-sex attraction: “Did God make me this way? If He did, why? If He didn’t, what am I supposed to do about it?”
Twin realities
His pastor took him through the Scriptures. And the Holy Spirit guided him in his struggles.
“Some people think that because we did not choose to be same-sex attracted, therefore it must be of God. But there are people who are born lame and blind and God did not make them that way.
“We always have a choice on how we respond. We don’t have to be slaves to how we feel.”
“We live in a world that is corrupted by the Fall and so, reality reflects both the hand of God and the fall of Man.
“We are all broken in different ways, whether sexually or have anger management issues or other weaknesses.
“While we cannot choose the form of brokenness we have, we always have a choice on how we respond.
“We don’t have to be slaves to how we feel.”
Tou Chen once felt bitterness towards his mother (right) but has since sought forgiveness and reconciliation.
The first issue God pressed Tou Chen to make a choice about was his relationship with his mother. “I had bitterness towards her and I knew God wanted me to repent and release forgiveness,” said Tou Chen.
“This is not about dealing with the ‘root cause’ of same-sex attraction, because even after addressing that area of my life, my same-sex attraction did not go away.
“Rather, it is about not giving the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:27)
Turning the large ship
As he continued to feast on God’s word, Galatians 5:16 became personal for him: “This same-sex design was the desire of my flesh and I was addicted to it.
“But my spirit is born of God and has the same desire for God. Yet because the flesh and the spirit are contrary to each other. There is a war, and it was God who helped me to overcome the desire for sex every night,” said Tou Chen.
“Do we fill our mind with things that are not of God? If so, those things will displace the things that are of Him.”
He took further reference from Romans 8:5. Specifically, that meant guarding his mindset and mindshare.
“Mindset is about setting your mind on having a 100% biblical perspective as your truth and authority, instead of mixing and matching God’s narrative with what we encounter in the world.
“Mindshare is about what we think about in our free time. Do we fill our mind with things that are not of God? If so, those things will displace the things that are of Him.”
Despite his best efforts, however, there were nights when Tou Chen still found the lust of the flesh overwhelming.
In decisive moments he trashed everything that reminded him of his previous self. But there were also times when he clicked on the same gay porn sites and reactivated his cancelled subscriptions.
“Why, God? Why?” he asked in desperation.
Choices was Tou Chen’s (far right) first church group. He later volunteered to be part of the community who journeyed with others with same-sex attraction.
Having come out, Tou Chen appreciates how he has been embraced by 3:16’s Pastor Ian Toh (far left) and his family, as well as other leaders from the church.
God revealed that his journey was akin to that of the large ship described in James 3:4.
Tou Chen explained: “For some of us, breaking free from this condition is the experience of a horse. When you turn, the horse will turn immediately and completely. (James 3:3)
“My ship is still turning and, one day, my ship will completely turn.”
“For the very large ship that is driven by fierce winds, when you turn the rudder, it is turning and it will turn completely, but it won’t turn immediately.
“As long as I kept confessing the truth of the Word of God over me that I have been delivered from the power of darkness, my ship is still turning. And one day, my ship will completely turn.”
The last remnant
On June 6, 2018, God showed Tou Chen the final obstacle holding him back from complete freedom: If you do not drive out the last remnants of the inhabitants of this land, they will remain a scourge to your eyes, a thorn in your side. (Numbers 33:55)
Tou Chen knew that if he was not prepared to let go of the last remnant of his fleshly desires, it would remain a scourge and a thorn to him for the rest of his life.
“That night, I told God, I don’t want any of this anymore, I want it all out.”
“That night, I told God, I don’t want any of this anymore, I want it all out.”
At that moment, he felt a force rushing into his heart, reminiscent of the experience described in Acts 2:2. He did not know what it was all about, but he knew something special had happened and that things would never be the same again.
“In the past there was a sense that it was only a matter of time before I fell again. But now God has given me the strength and grace to be victorious against these temptations.”
Nonetheless, he cautioned against expectations of dramatic “deliverance”.
“Not having such experiences certainly does not mean He is not working in your life,” he said.
“We all encounter the Holy Spirit in different ways.”
A new season
Tou Chen left banking in 2015 after two decades in the industry. In 2016, he enrolled in a diploma programme at Rhema Bible Training College.
Tou Chen teaching Rhema Bible Training Center students via Zoom during the Covid-19 pandemic.
There he discovered his gift of teaching and God’s call on his life. In 2018 he was invited to be an instructor in the school, and accepted.
Tou Chen works with TrueLove.Is, a ministry of 3:16 Church that provides resources for Christians who want to know more about LGBT issues.
Tou Chen with his loved ones after the service where he was appointed an ordained minister at 3:16 Church.
For the last two years, he has been in a steady relationship with a woman. Though he emphasised that dating or marriage should not be viewed as a desired “end goal”.
“Because Jesus came, we now have the choice and grace to be free to overcome.”
“The solution is not to date a girl and everything will be okay, but to follow God’s way for you.
“I took that step because I sensed God directing me to this relationship,” said Tou Chen, who still experiences same-sex attraction but no longer acts on it.
He urges all who are struggling to find hope in Jesus, who has come into this world to make a way for us to come home to God.
“You may not see the light at the end of the tunnel but don’t give up. We are not slaves to the fall of mankind and the law of sin and death but have been redeemed into freedom. (Romans 8:2)
“Because Jesus came, we now have the choice and grace to be free to overcome.”
This is an excerpt of a story that was first published in Salt&Light.
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