Community > Pornography - Draft

Dear Leadership of Calvary Bible Church,Ok, so it’s finally time to talk about pornography. We have all heard that it is a problem and want to address it, but how? And is it really that big of a deal in my congregation? Yes. Pornography is no longer the monster under the bed, but now the 600-pound gorilla in the room that we are just now seeing as a threat. How can we as a church address something so big? And would it even be worth it? Don’t those who watching porn in the congregation just need to have bigger faith? Try harder? Memorize more verses?What if we had the answer all along? What if what addiction researcher Johann Hari said in his famous TED talk was true, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”What if Calvary became a community that was transparent enough to be real and talk about these issues in love?

Community is the missing piece to conquer pornography at Calvary Bible Church.

This is my story of finding freedomAs Pastor Dan’s son I grew up in our great church body. Being loved in a close family and cared for in the larger community that is Calvary Bible. I grew up playing music on the worship team, and being asked if I was going to be a pastor like my father. Things were always great in our church. I heard testimonies of what God had done in others, and how they were converted and God freed them from whatever vice they had. I never really saw others having bad days, so maybe Christians just don’t have them. That’s what church seemed to me, a place to come to God, and have our good lives a made a little better. Everything was clean, and neat, but I was dying on the inside. You see, like most young boys my age I had been exposed to some type of pornography, and it was eating me alive. How Big is pornography?Like me boys and girls are discovering pornography whether by accident or on purpose between the ages of 8 and 11 on average. With the average age kids are being given their first smartphone now at  10.3 years old, it is no surprise that they are then stumbling across explicit material and 80% of the time it is in their own home. The sad fact is that these facts hardly change when we look at the church. At least 63% of practicing Christian males, and 20% of practicing Christian females, ages 13 and up, use pornography at least twice a month. I know it exists as this was the case for me at Calvary Bible Church, and my bold friends that were willing to confess their struggles at a camp or retreat. Even growing up in a great loving, close knit family with little access to internet, I still found a way until I was addicted, and the church was not ready to address my problem.Is Porn really that bad?Secret sins don’t just affect those actively participating in pornography, but are actually changing the way the church body is functioning. We are a body of believers and when an arm or leg suffers we all do. In this case there are more than a body part or two that are suffering but many. Pornography leaves the the user lonely, disconnected from the body, and ashamed. Leaders of Calvary Bible Church, family, no one can compartmentalize pornography, no matter how hard we try.The Bible tells what we do in private will come to the light. I thought that it was just my private vice, but it turned out it was affecting others. Shame sets in, porn isolates and drives wedges between you and real relationships. I found myself, a full blown extrovert, avoiding people out of shame after watching pornography. Or having to be extra funny to validate to myself that people still liked me… because I had stopped liking myself. Often finding myself serving in the church, volunteering, or helping someone just to prove to myself that I wasn’t as gross as what I was doing and thinking in private. My mind was actually being warped,I was completely unaware that I was more and more objectifying my sisters in Christ with every thought or click

Where the Gospel says, “This is my body given for you”; Pornography says, “This is her body taken by me.”

My arousal template was also changing, which means that what once was arousing needed, more or more intense thoughts, or images to reach the same experience. A detailed study on our brain on pornography shows that our brains’ reward system actually grows a tolerance to the over stimulation pornography, and we will search out novel and more extreme sexual material to feel the same rush as before. Leading me and others to believe we are the only Christians that struggle with it, and it would be far to shameful to ever share. The nature of pornography in video format and now Virtual Reality is far different from the pull of porn found in magazines as in past generations. This study shows that there is significant addictive nature in the medium and availability differences between porn now and in the past. To then assume that our young people are dealing with the same level of addiction or drive to pornography as past generations would be to grossly underestimate the the addictive nature of what the internet constantly has to offer. Porn today verses the 60’s is just not the same. Unfortunately, I was never told any of these affects that porn would have upon my soul. Our Lonely GenerationGeneration Z, and in particular our 18-22 year olds in America are being shown by many studies such as this one to be the loneliest generation, even more than the elderly. The constant online call of social media, has promised friends and connection to those we care about, but is leaving us more and more alone. Promising so much only to under deliver in an addictive cycle that looks eerily similar to the addiction cycle of porn users. While we seek an escape from our lonely feelings in things like social media, we are only left feeling lonelier as it doesn’t fulfill our need for real connection. Online communities are the insidious graveyards of dreams and lead us further into loneliness as our feelings only increase. For more information on the diabolical affects social media is having on us as people read works by my fellow classmates Molly, sierra, and Rachel (LINKS). Social media platform giants such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram are full of sexually explicit material and often promote the sexually appealing to be praised. Pornography can easily be accessed on all of these apps easily on purpose and oh so naturally for those who are not even looking for it. Pornography is an isolator, it keeps us away from real vulnerable relationships, and in our shame. Which leads us to desire a new burst of good feelings, which we know we can quickly find in pornography, and the cycle continues as shown in The Vicious Circle via The Porn Circuit. While many may not go on an actual pornography website, all the sexually explicit material you need is right in the palm of your hand via apps that we are already using.So our social media which is built to be addictive is pretending to replace our real embodied relationships, while just leaving us more lonely than ever, and pornography is there to "pick us up". The sexually explicit material provides a huge dopamine boost to our brains to give us a temporary high, only to leave us lower than before. Loneliness doesn’t always look like sitting by the window while it rains, wondering why we exist like in the movies. It is more often a completely internal struggle for real connection and intimacy that seems impossible. We never seem to measure up to the perfect standards of our friends on social media, and we fear being actually seen because we know what we have done. So the Christian singles seek it in marriage, and the married seek it in singleness. Always wanting and never having. Studies have shown that those that are lonely are far more likely to have addictive behavior, as they seek out anything that will fill the gap inside. We are the Body of Christ, and we were never meant to go this life alone. So Close, Yet So Far.There have been solid, and well meaning attempts at confronting the growing problem of Pornography in my experience at Calvary. Here I plan on briefly showing the strengths, but also the inherent limitations of these strategies to solve the problem in and of themselves. I’m not saying that there is a particular technique that if implemented will free Calvary of pornography, but I want to show that these strategies are good but missing aspects, mainly the Biblical community.For starters, Bible verse memorization. While we all should be memorizing the Bible, and Jesus did use Scripture to fight of the temptations of the Devil (Matthew 4), pornography use quickly becomes an addiction. We wouldn’t treat an alcoholic this way, but tell him or her to get the help they need (The Alcoholics Anonymous groups that use our parking lot for example). Instead using Scripture along side the professional help, and intervention that they need. The brain of the user has physically changed (link) and adapted to chose porn even against the will of a user trying to quit, similar to that of a heroin addict (Link). Obviously God can choose to remove our addictions completely as he has done with some, but He respects us as we make our own decisions. More information on Gods boundaries toward us can be found in “Boundaries” by Dr.  Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. He doesn’t reach in and replace our mind with a new one in an abusive sense, but gives us the community and tools used through the Holy Spirit to bring about true life transformation.So memorizing what God has promised us and reciting that is crucial to freedom, but must be viewed as a piece of the freedom puzzle but not something that will be successful if you read enough and memorize enough. Salvation is not by works and neither is our freedom but God does require our best effort.So lets just teach about the harms of porn right?Next strategy that has been tried is awareness, i.e. Books, sermons, men’s retreats, etc. These are very important pieces to freedom, but not the complete puzzle. By themselves they provide the addict with just enough knowledge to feel extremely guilty when they act out again, while without giving him or her a place and people to grow with. Knowledge on what pornography is and how it affects us and those around us is essential, but it must be done within a community by which we can take steps to freedom together. In my case being handed a “Every Young Man’s Battle” was a great resource, but alone all it did was inform me I was wrong and should stop, unfortunately I was already years into my addiction and was unable to “White knuckle it”, and was left with even less hope. The “Transmissional” (one-way informational) nature of this information may impact the thoughts, but will fail to impact the heart or cause real change. Without a community to ritually practice living in purity and freedom (This includes victories and setbacks), we will find ourselves as I did over and over, unable to sustain real freedom alone.Accountability and filtering software are the next to focus on, and while acting as a deterrent, shield, and “catch you read handed” type of accountability, it has its limitations as well. Almost anyone, including kids in todays world can find their way around even the best filtering software, as it is not foolproof, but helpful. Disembodied ministry and accountability should be looked at as a very limited tool, more like a cast than a healing potion. This is another external help but it fails to create the community in which you see your accountability partner in the face and hear their pain and they walk with you in yours. We have even gotten so close as an accountability partner. Although this is a great step, it logistically tends to sputter and fail like an old broken down car. It can be very difficult to maintain a singular relationship, especially if it is one way help. It also tends to be a point of shame in out church as if only the people in “really bad sins” needed an accountability partner, or a meeting with a member of church leadership.What CBC has missedI do feel gracious that Calvary over the years has been a place where to the select people that pursue freedom from sexual sin, the leadership will try to help in any way they can. That being said there are many weaknesses to Calvary that are directly hindering the way the community of Calvary Bible Church fights pornography. The first is that we rarely if not ever talk about sex let alone pornography from the pulpit. Leaders change culture, and I don’t remember hearing anything besides a passing G-rated comment that doesn’t actually mean much. “Cleaned up” G-rated won’t make anyone feel uncomfortable and wont have real meaning either.I believe that what is said is just as powerful and meaningful as what is omitted. By not addressing and showing what the Biblical perspectives on sex then the only teacher left is the world, and they are always teaching. Obviously I don’t mean the constant addressing of the topic, but in our sex obsessed culture we need prophetic spiritual leadership in this area. This strongest point for this is that the pastor will start the conversation which can be continued within the community, there by validating sex as a topic that is allowed to discussed in the Christian community. This moves directly into the discussion of pornography.

If pornography can be addressed from the pulpit then families can stop avoiding the discussion like the plague.

Then we can have healthy discussions, and those struggling with it can feel more loved than shamed when they confess. In our attempt to stay away from things that the world has abused, our church is leaving the adults, young adults, and teens lost and disconnected. We do this every time we fail to speak truth into the issues that the world is screaming at us all day. We need a community that in a wise way can address and discuss humanity in totality, not just that which is comfortable. Jesus talked about uncomfortable topics almost constantly, and it for sure wasn’t always comfortable, but it was real. Humanity is crying out for the authentic, and we have an amazing opportunity. Communication is not just what words we hear, but what we perceive. By not speaking about pornography in the church are implicitly teaching (Especially the youth) that either Christians don't struggle with it, or that we are never to discuss this as it is to ugly for our clean church. Mean while the world continues to teach us what sex, intimacy, love, and pornography is to us, and the youth of our church.Winning is not about the numbersAs a church we have to be ready to put aside numbers as a way to gauge ministry success when we minister to those trying to find freedom from pornography. Numbers at times help us figure out how things are going but ministry to those in addiction recovery know it is not a simple fix. It takes a consistent godly community to be with them as they struggle, act out, confess, and grow.Breaking all the ways that pornography has become the coping mechanism for the various emotions and circumstances takes time and much care. Don’t expect recovery groups to be boasting their numbers. Incarnational, personal, life on life ministry is hard and messy. Uncomfortable ministry and community like this will not be a walk in the park. Clear leadership will be needed. Sacrifice, of being with someone through the ups and downs, and them being there for you is a vulnerable and difficult place to be. The body of Christ together can be that place where victory happens no matter what the score board says.Dear Calvary leadership, I have lived in that guilt for far too many years. I was always telling myself I would be free when the next stage of life or transition happened, only to be disappointed when my efforts failed again and shame stayed. Coming to Moody Bible institute I found a unique experience. Most of my floor went through a program called the “Conquer Series”. This program was backed Biblically and scientifically for men to fight pornography in community. Although I already knew pornography was a huge problem in Christian circles from talking with other brothers throughout the years, my “problem” was somehow legitimized and heard. This community was full of people in all levels of sobriety, but with a focus, to walk together toward Christ. It was a great tool, that pointed us to the community that kept going far beyond the video series. It was no longer about MY VICE, but now it was OUR FIGHT. Change began to happen. The future of a Church free from pornography’s claws starts here.The Good News! The good news is that there is hope! Calvary has tried my things here and there to combat pornography on a small scale and we must not forsake what we have done well. Lets also press in to a future where CBC is a place of refuge, hope, and freedom for those caught in lust, and those who are growing up in a sex saturated world.As quoted in the beginning of this article, addiction researcher Johann Hari argues in his book Chasing the Scream, that social isolation can be one of the primary causes and ongoing fuels of addiction. The more disconnected you are forms meaningful relationships, the more vulnerable you are to addictive behavior of all kinds. We are the Body of Christ. We can make the connections and be the family where we can talk about what is real. Galatians 6:2 tells us to carry each others burdens. James 5:16 says,” Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” The classic Iron sharpens Iron verse is Proverbs 27:17. Romans 12:5 “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” Which I don’t think Paul said this by accident right before verse 2 which talks about the transforming of our minds.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. - Romans 12:2

This life transformation is to happen in community, in our community! So then how?Lets start talkingIn order for pornography in Calvary Bible Church to be fought effectively it must be addressed from the pulpit. It is everywhere in our hyper sexualized world and yet never mentioned in the church, and that has to stop. We need to start conversations that don’t minimalize the monster that has been hiding under the bed. Only referring to pornography as lust in the church only makes Satan smile as we try to put a Band-Aid on a gapping fatal wound. By not addressing it, as a church we are assuming that it is not present in our congregation, while my experience and statistics prove otherwise. Christ is our hope, and must be spoken into the darkness or addiction. Not constantly of course, but there must be times when it is named. If there are kids in the congregation, we must be the place where they hear what healthy sexuality looks like and that what pornography does and is. The world is teaching them whether we choose to admit it or not. Then we must be there for all who seek help in these areas.Location, Location, Location.Our body at Calvary is great, we must give people a space to feel free to talk about such issues. Men’s groups and women’s groups that are directly addressing sexuality must be started. There are many great resources that we can use to help these groups in guided discussion and knowledge as they for small groups, where confession and progress can be made. These groups, following such programs as the aforementioned Conquers Series for men, or Sexuality and Holy Longing, or No Stones for women. All good tools with limitations that can be used to create the space for people be real, and Jesus to work in His Bride. Here we can help guide adults to freedom, and instruct parents on wise ways to create these discussions with their kids. These groups can be a safe haven for parents looking for resources such as Protect Young Eyes, The Novus Project,  This blueprint for teaching sexual discernment in the family, or this how-to guide on how to parent in a sex obsessed culture, or what to do if you find out your child looking at pornography.The conversation should start from the Church leadership to the adults and then naturally, to the teens. After the adults have been finding the freedom, community, support, resources they need, the church can accurately address it specifically for the teens. Love and transparency can flow, as addictions are stopped before they begin. My life was changed, and is being changed in godly community, just as addiction is real, freedom is even more so. Pornography pushes for seclusion, we must Remember who we are called to be as the church, and Re-Member our selves into the community that is the body of Christ.An exemplification of this is a blueprint for our church which you can find here.