PORN: “I’m just assuming you struggle.”

I love the xxxchurch tools. I have had students use those in the past after we have talked about porn. And at my last church, we had no accountability software on our computers so I downloaded it and had it sent to someone who kept me accountable.

A book that I found helpful in the past was “13 Ways to Ruin Your Life” by Jarrod Jones. I’m not sure that it is for students to read, but it has great thoughts.

Thanks for writing and sharing, Doug!

I have used the every young man’s battle with my small groups too. I also have suggested the X3 program to many people, adults and students and I have it on my own computer. My wife gets my report because I want her to always know that I choose her and only her.

One thing that needs to be mentioned is this is not just a “guy” problem anymore, several girls in our ministry have struggled too. There is a girls version of the book, Every young women’s battle, and one of our girls groups went through it. Porn can be just as destructive for girls, but more in the self image direction than it is with guys.

Doug,
I pretty much did the exact opposite as you, and let’s say it didn’t go great. My first year in full time Youth Ministry (23-24 years old) I decided to broach this topic, but briefly. This is basically what I said to a small group of 9th & 10th grade boys, “I’ve never struggled with it. It’s gross. You shouldn’t struggle with it either.” You can imagine that those statements didn’t help their feelings or their belief that they could openly discuss the struggle with me. Like you already knew, they were all struggling. Thankfully, they were patient with me and stayed with the group for several more years. When they were seniors we started talking about porn again, but by that point I had found the resources and messages of XXXchurch and had my eyes opened. I was coming into the conversation much more open and they could tell. But they brought up that small group from 2 years before when I shut the door on the conversation. It was scary, b/c each of them remembered it vividly! We talked about things openly and they worked together to really conquer their struggles. Thought you would think this is funny.

As an aside, I became very comfortable talking about the topic and would speak to other groups. One time in a staff meeting, our middle school pastor was just announcing what they were doing in that ministry in the near future. Our Adult Education pastor had just started (he later became our senior pastor), and the MS Pastor said, “And Casey, our resident Porn King, is going to come address the middle school boys.” Such a great way to be introduced to new staff members!

I think if you’re a guy, you’re going to struggle. We’re designed to find girls attractive. But what works for me is to simply think of the cost…not the temporary pleasure of what meets the eye. This may not be the greatest spiritual answer, but those sites are loaded with malware, viruses, spyware etc. Designed to crash your system and wreck your computer to say nothing of twisting your perception of the amazing gift of love that God gave us. The costs are much greater than what meets the eye.