Today was a good day. Jill and I picked up the house in preparation for tomorrow's Super Bowl party. Then I was off to an introductory meeting for people interested in Pure Desire ministries. This ministry was started by Ted Roberts, formally senior pastor of East Hill church, which is a mega church in the Portland, OR area. The ministry is aimed at rescuing people from bondage to sexual addiction.
The statistics about the pervasiveness of this problem are staggering. According to Dr. Roberts, 70-90% of men in the U.S. have viewed pornography in the past 30 days. At least 50 percent of pastors are included in that number. I was suprised to learn that 24% of women are also involved in this behavior. The advent of the internet, for all its marvelous gifts, has provided a free, private, easily accessible source of pornography. Coupled with a cultural bias against God as the moral authority of our country, this availability of pornography has ensnared millions of people in patterns of additive behavior that are more powerful than addiction to alcohol or drugs.
This orientation meeting gave us (about 75 participants) an overview of the Pure Desire approach to helping people to get free from this scourge. The ministry claims a success rate of 85%, far better than any secular approach to the problems of sex addiction.
I am excited to be availed of the opportunity to get training in dealing with this problem, because until the church can heal its own, it will be unable to bring healing to others. There is nothing in our culture to deal with this problem, except the grace of God through Jesus Christ. It is not merely an American problem. The problem is world wide, but Dr. Roberts has found that Americans are less open to talk about it or deal with it than most of the other countries where he has taken his message of hope. Pray for our nation and for our churches.
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