“The city has asked the Rogue Retreat Board to conduct a full and objective investigation of these allegations,” Medford officials said in a press release.Ĭity officials said Set Free Ministry shares some personnel with Rogue Retreat, but the two organizations are separate organizations legally and functionally.
The city gave the church a grant in 2021 for services such as showers for homeless people and a food pantry. The allegations made this week prompted the city of Medford to announce Friday it has paused city grant funding to Set Free Ministry. Oregon law protects youths from conversion therapy. Research shows people who undergo the discredited “treatment” are at greater risk of suicide. Set Free Ministry helped found Rogue Retreat in the 1990s.Ī wide range of medical and psychological organizations have denounced gay conversion therapy as harmful. Rogue Retreat, a major provider of services to homeless people, is denying accusations from activist groups that it has ties to gay conversion therapy.Īs recently as 2018, the groups say, Set Free Ministry in Medford was distributing pamphlets for people with same-sex attraction to join support groups to get “God’s help for victory over our compulsive desires while examining and admitting our part in our sinful past.”Ĭhad McComas is both the executive director of Rogue Retreat and pastor of Set Free Ministry. City of Medford pauses funding for church that helped launch Rogue Retreat
