Defender Ministries is committed to helping churches, families, schools, and students to fight the damaging effects of internet, media, and pornography – as well as sexual issues. There is absolutely no denying that Satan has used sexually related sins to derail many Christians. Sex has become commonplace. It is everywhere. Just a trip from home to the mall and back will bring a person into contact with dozens of sexually-charged images. The media and entertainment industries have long projected a worldview where sex is “just another activity” that people do. It holds no special status – it has been relegated to recreation or a release of energy.
With the introduction of the internet, this problem has gotten far worse. Instead of having to go to a bookstore or seedy movie theatre to find pornography, a person can find it 24/7 in the privacy of their own home. And – contrary to what the porn industry says – it is entirely possible to find a whole world of sex online without ever having to enter a credit card number or provide age verification. Teenagers and students are bombarded with sexuality. It is estimated that NINETY PERCENT of all teens have visited a pornographic website. Men are more visual, and they are falling victim at a faster rate – nearly two-thirds of Christian conference attendees admitted struggling with viewing pornography online. Of course, women are also being draw at an alarming rate. Nearly twenty percent of Christian women have developed an addiction to porn. Even pastors have been lured into the trap. Over fifty percent of pastors confess to viewing porn within the last year.
Is this a problem in your church? The answer is yes. It does not matter where your church is located, how wonderful of a congregation it is, what a superlative staff you have compiled. The fact is that sexual sin IS a problem in your church. If the statistics are right – or even CLOSE to being right – there is no way that you can believe that it is someone else’s problem. Pornography does not become a $14 BILLION industry by being someone else’s problem. The questions that you should be asking regarding this issue are 1) How much does this issue affect my church? and 2) What am I going to do about this issue?
To answer the first question, take a look at what happens to a believer who is caught up in sexual sin:
1. Loses intimacy with family – Spouses are pulled apart, children hide their behaviors and feelings from parents, parents become distant from children. Why are the divorce statistics for the Church just as bad as for the world? A huge reason is that the pornography statistics for the Church are just as bad as for the world.
2. Loses intimacy with God – Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the shame caused by sin will lead a believer to pull away from God. They do not want to feel guilty, so they stop praying, reading the Bible, going to church.
3. Forfeits church commitment – If a person is caught up in any sin, let alone one as crippling as sexual sin, the last place they want to be is somewhere that constantly convicts them. These believers start to miss services, stop serving, stop tithing. Eventually, it is easier to not go at all than to go and “not get anything out of the service.”
4. Forms improper relationships – A man who is caught up in pornography views every woman as a sexual object. He judges her based on her physical attributes. The worse the addiction gets, the more stimulation is needed. Viewing is not enough. Both men and women with a strong porn addiction are vastly more likely to have affairs, practice spouse swapping, or make inappropriate advances.
So how does this affect your church? You begin to see that your congregation is made up of immature believers with a stunted understanding of God and His Word. It gets harder to get people to fill service positions. Financially, the church always seems to struggle – with a very small portion of members supporting the entire congregation. These members are easily offended by sermons and teachings. They want to focus on “feel good” topics – so they will flock to events and studies that do not convict them. And your church will have a severe shortage of male leadership. Think about it: a person involved in sexual sin is going to be more selfish because it is a selfish sin. It is all about self-gratification. And that becomes a way of life. It affects everything they do and believe. The longer a person is in this lifestyle, the worse they are. That is a terrifying thought when coupled with the stats on how many students are involved in pornography and sexual experimentation. What kind of church members will those students be when they grow up?
So what are you going to do about it? Many pastors are tempted to bury their heads in the sand. They do not want to admit the problem is real, that it exists at their church, that it is killing their congregation. They want to say that it is too lurid of a topic to discuss within the walls of the church. They want to come up with a quick and easy fix. They have heard horror stories – tales of churches who addressed the issue and actually hurt their attendance. They say that by addressing the problem it will actually give their members ideas. PLEASE, for the sake of your church, do NOT be one of those pastors.
Seventy percent of porn users keep their usage a secret. Secrecy and denial keep addictions going. Satan uses this all the time to his advantage. “If you tell anyone, it will destroy you. Keep it secret to stay safe.” The reality is that keeping it secret destroys you. According to the Bible, if we CONFESS our sins, it brings forgiveness. We are told to confess our sins to each other. That is a far cry from our current habit of putting on a mask, acting like we do not have problems, and dying on the inside. Honestly, though, most churches are not a place that would let people do that without repercussions and humiliation.
Here are some ideas for what your church can do to address this problem:
1. Train your staff to deal with it. Church members need to know that they can come to a minister and not have them be shocked or confused by this issue. They need to learn what the problem looks like today, how people get caught up into it, and some steps to begin fighting it.
2. Get connected to a good, biblically-sound counseling ministry. If you consider than your average college student may have been dealing with this problem for seven-ten years, think about how long some of the adults at your church has been fighting this battle. When it crosses into severe addiction or aberrant behavior, you need to be able to refer them to someone in good conscience.
3. Open dialogue. Have a special event, weekend, sermon series, well-promoted Bible study to highlight this issue. Make sure it is open to adults and students. Do not water it down. Let there be honest discussions about the issue and how to deal with it.
4. Begin support groups. One tool that has to be in place for someone to effectively fight this issue is accountability. Set up a variety of support groups for your members: men with addictions, wives of men with addictions, women with addictions – along with student versions. Help your members fight this war together.
Know that whatever efforts you make, you are not alone. Defender Ministries wants to be a tool at your disposal. We would love to be a part of your church efforts – and can help you on any of the four suggestion listed above. We can train your staff, leadership, parents, and teachers about pornography and sexual issues – and some of the new ways students and adults alike are finding porn. We can help connect your church to a good counseling ministry in your area. If you decide to plan a church event, we can provide curriculum, speakers, and advice – we will even organize the event for you if you desire. And we can help set up accountability and support groups with you. Our calling is to help people fight this battle – let us help you.
Dear Pastors,
In this day and age, the challenges of leading a church are many – and seem to be growing daily. One of the largest problems that we have seen in churches across the nation is a lack of holiness in God’s people. They have lost their intimacy with Him, they don’t take His Word seriously, and they are worried about their own rights and preferences rather than God’s. At the root of this problem is sin. When a person is caught up in sin, they don’t want to be confronted with the Light of God’s Word. They don’t want to be in His presence. And they don’t want to be told they are doing something wrong. For a great percentage of these people, their sin is of a sexual nature.
Satan is a clever foe. He knows how mankind is built. He knows the sexual drive that resides within them. And the flawed counterfeit versions he has presented appeals to that drive. His version carries the promise of immediate pleasure with no long term consequences. However, this is just another one of his lies. People are being destroyed by sexual sin of all kinds – affairs, premarial sex, pornography, homosexuality, rampant lust. With the growth of the internet, this is only getting worse. And it is not limited to church members. How many of us know a fellow minister who has fallen due to this area of sin? It may be easier to identify those who do NOT know someone.
Defender Ministries wants to help you release your church from the captivity of sin – especially the extremely debilitating trap of sexual sin. We are all began as ministers in a local church. And we have all seen the destruction that this particular sin has caused: the families broken up by it, the college students crippled by guilt, the parents of teens who are dumbstruck by their child’s addiction, the middle schoolers getting involved in “sexploration” parties. Our approach is based on the Word of God – challenging people to restore their intimate relationship with God and with their families. We include technical training to help create “speedbumps” for people using a computer, seminars to build awareness of the scope of the problem, accountability for people to develop a desire for holiness, and large group worship times to allow God’s Spirit to do its work. We want to work with you and your church to establish support groups, accountability networks, and community outreach. Our involvement with your church can be as small as teaching a one-day session to parents of teens to as large as running a full weekend conference for the entire church. We want to be a resource to you. Please contact us if you have any questions, or if you just want us to be praying for you and/or your church.
for HIS glory,
Defender Ministries