You know porn is rancid. You know its destructive tendencies. You’ve preached messages on sexual purity and morality. You probably even know the stats that porn increases the marital infidelity rate by over 300% . You’ve tried praying about it, asking God to take it from you, and tried to white knuckle or scripture soak it out. But you still find yourself struggling with this thing you hate.
We get it. There are no stones in hand here.
You’re not alone and this is not uncommon.
We’re not granting permission, but we are realizing there’s something bigger going on.
First, I’m sorry. You’ve tried to cultivate the church to be a safe space for someone to struggle and be healed in. I’m sorry that it’s not the same safe space for you to struggle. Often the “hospital for the sick” is open for all except the Physician’s assistant. It’s unfair that those same resources aren’t accessible to you.
Kris Vallotton put it this way, a CEO of any major company can deal with porn or oftentimes have moral failures and it not change anything in his job capacity. But if you as a pastor confess your struggle or start to mention thoughts or temptations, you feel your job, livelihood, the trust you live on, and your whole community could be stripped from you.
It could feel like you’re not allowed to struggle. You may even be ashamed and secretly reading this article hoping no one looks. Or pretending you’re doing research to help someone else out when you really know you need help. It’s okay to need help.
You’re often expected to carry the weight of everyone else’s problem and situation, to have all of the answers, to have the right emotional and facial response to each piece of information as it hits you, and to always be on. You’re expected to be the perfect husband, father, boss, hospitable host, financial strategist, parenting expert, and prophetic voice, and do it all without much help or showing signs of weakness, exhaustion, or uncertainty. That’s just not fair to any human.
It’s easy to reframe the gospel, in day-to-day life, around our leadership. While we are held to a higher standard (1 Timothy 3:2), Jesus is the savior. He’s the one with all the answers, who always has it together, with all the right words to say in the right moments, with the understanding and freedom for every situation. We, from the new convert to the senior pastor, are all in desperate need of His grace and are moving forward because of it. I’m not trying to belittle you, I’m relieving you of the pressure to be God for your church.
While you have been entrusted with much, you’re still first a follower before you’re a leader. In fact, you’re the one who sets the standard for what it looks like in our church. “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” – Hebrews 13:7 You model what accountability looks like and what humility, vulnerability, and pursuing God in freedom looks like.
We really are sorry if you haven’t been given the space to not be okay. We’re sorry if you’ve felt the need to fight temptations alone. We’re sorry if your gift has been valued more than you have. We’re sorry if you’ve been taught to neglect your soul under the premise of discipline. We’re sorry that often the Church’s response modeled to you in this process hasn’t been one of grace and support.
We want to help change that now. While we can’t change your church’s subculture all at once, we can provide safe, secure, and confidential help and resources for you to take your first step.
Please be courageous enough to step out and get help. Your family, your congregation, and your group will thank you for the vulnerability and pursuit of God’s freedom in your life after this. We would rather help you here before it destroys your world and hurts those you’ve been working so hard to love and protect. Being honest, like cleaning your room, going to the gym, or working through pain, is probably going to get messier before it gets better, but greater levels of freedom and wholeness are on the other side of this for you and for them.
Your goal is not to be free from porn, it’s to be sexually whole and healed so that porn, cheating, affairs, sexting has no draw to you anymore. Freedom in wholeness is possible.
You can do it. It’s time.