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Resources for Helping Pastors Address Pornography
(Updated August 2023) As we wrap up the Porn in Church series, I wanted to round up some resources for pastors. Before I do that, though, I wanted to offer this quick word of encouragement and “advice” if I may. It is very important for you to realize when you’re in over your head. Pastors and ministry leaders have a unique position of being the “go to” person for the people in their care. Rebellious teenager? Go to the pastor. Struggling with an eating disorder? Ask the leader for help. Some leaders get drunk off that power trip and love pretending to be the source of answers for everything and…
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Resource Review: We Too by Mary DeMuth
The purpose of this blog isn’t just to address women struggling with pornography, but really to change the conversation about women and sexuality in the church. How does grace impact our struggles and intersect with our wounds? How can the church immitate the love and grace of God while addressing things like sexual addiction, sexual identity, and sexual abuse? Since I just finished up the series addressing porn in the church, I wanted to highlight a resource that addresses another issue in the church: Sexual abuse. As a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of someone in my church, this is something I hold dear. I’ve written about it…
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Pastors, How You Preach About Sex Matters.
Pastor, let me ask you a question. How do you talk about sex in church? Better yet, do you talk about sex in church? The longer I am at this, the more I am convinced that how we, as Christians, talk about sex matters. We idolize virginity. For decades, the church at large has adopted a mindset solely focused on purity. When I was a teenager, purity pledges and purity rings were all the rage. But purity was really just a Christian way to say “abstinence.” Our message about sex was “don’t you dare do it before you’re married. If you do, you are forever marked. Your spouse will be…
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What the Modest is Hottest Message Gets Wrong
Most of the time, when we talk about modesty and lust in the summertime, we’re telling the women what to wear. We want them to dress modestly so that men won’t lust. We forget that women can struggle with lust too. So I struggled to come up with some metric. Some balance when writing a post on swimsuits. What should you wear? What shouldn’t you wear? Then I realized, modesty isn’t really about what you wear. I grew up in a conservative Christian environment that had a dress code for swimming. Women had to wear one piece swimsuits, even when swimming with just the girls (because the lifeguards might be…
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Setting Up Recovery Groups For Women Who Struggle with Porn
This post is part of our Porn in Church series- a series designed especially for pastors. If you are not a pastor, please share this post with your pastor. (This post is also part of my book, Quenched.) Women in your church struggle with pornography. That’s just a fact. Men in your church struggle with pornography. That’s also a fact. Still, churches today are relatively ill-equipped to help either gender effectively. When it comes to addressing pornography use and helping people find freedom and healing, too often the message is short and limited to “stop it.” “Stop it” isn’t helpful. People who are looking for help breaking free from pornography…
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Creating a Safe Space for Grace
In this series, where we’re tackling how to address porn in church, I would be remiss if I didn’t address this fundamental reality: our churches need to be safe spaces for grace. In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about how to change the conversation and help women find healing, but the fact is that if the culture of your church chokes out grace, you can talk until you’re blue in the face and it isn’t going to matter. There’s a parable in the Bible (Matthew 13:1–23, Mark 4:1–20, Luke 8:4–15) that is commonly referred to as the parable of the sower. The short version is this: a sower went out…
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Porn in Church: The Five Most Unhelpful Things Pastors Said About Pornography
As a Christian teenage girl struggling with pornography, I heard a lot of messages about getting help and breaking free from sin. Many of them were unhelpful. In the years since, I have heard several more, either in church or at Christian conferences, or even from magazine editors and other authors. For the next post in the Porn in Church series, I want to address some of them, explain why they aren’t helpful and how we can change them. Let me preface this by saying, this is not an attack on pastors. If you or someone you know has said one of these things, I’m not coming for you with…
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What Every Pastor Needs to Know About Women and Porn
We’re kicking off our Porn in Church series with a guest post from my friend, Sam Black. He’s sharing a bit of his heart on what pastors need to know about women and pornography. In the weeks to come, posts will address more practical nuts and bolts of how to address this issue in churches and help women find healing. Please, share this series with your pastors! Editor’s note: Sam Black, a vice president at Covenant Eyes, is writing a book to pastors on how some churches are successfully addressing pornography among Christians. The following is a condensed chapter excerpt. Want to be the first to hear about the book’s…
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Resource Review: Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher
My last post addressed the question, “Does God Really Want Me to Save Sex for Marriage?” In it, I mentioned this book Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher. I read this book through in January and, now that I’ve finished it, felt it was worth writing a quick review. I do this on occasion and hope to increase the frequency this year. On that note, I recently redid the resource page! Check it out for a more streamlined collection of books, videos, courses, and groups specifically for women who struggle with pornography. I’m also going to link up all of the book reviews I’ve done over the…