Theology in the Raw - The Porn Epidemic and Christian Discipleship: Noah Filipiak

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Noah Filipiak is church planter and pastor of Mosaic Church in Grand Rapids, MI and is the author of Beyond the Battle and Needed Navigation. He hosts The Flip Side Podcast and blogs at noahfilipiak.com.  In this podcast conversation, we talk about pornography and discipleship, focusing specifically on the need for the church (parents, leaders, etc.) to disciple their people better in this conversation, why things are not getting any better in terms of the quantity of porn that people are consuming, the rise in porn use among girls and women, how porn rewires your brain and is incredibly addictive, and how parents and church leaders can go about addressing this issue well. Struggling to quit porn? You're not alone. Don't wait another day Use Promo code: RAW on Covenant Eyes today: covenanteyes.sjv.io/4Wxbn Needed Navigation: A Teen's Guide to His or Her Identity in Christ in a Sex and Porn-Filled World https://amzn.to/3WnoFCo  Beyond Ministries Join a group today! https://www.beyondthebattle.net/ Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hello friends. Welcome back to another episode of theology in the raw. My guest today is my friend Noah Philippiak, who is a pastor and author of two books. His first book is beyond the battle, a man's guide to his identity in Christ in an over sexualized world. And a second book that just came out as needed navigation, a teen's guide to his or her identity in Christ in a sex and porn filled world. I do need to say upfront that this entire conversation is about pornography. And so I think it's an extremely important conversation, but we jump right into it. And we talk pretty frankly about this really important topic that needs to be discussed. So really enjoyed this conversation. I don't know. I'll be honest. It's a bit disturbing to think about what the future holds because

things don't seem to be slowing down in terms of porn use, porn addiction, and so on and so forth. But just want to give you a heads up upfront that we are talking about some pretty explicit things in this conversation. So please welcome back to the show. The one and only Noah Philippiak. No, this is a second or third time on theology in raw. I can't remember second time. Yeah. And I've been on your show at least a couple of times, I think. Well, just recently. So good to see you again. Felt like we just hung out, but for those who don't know you or your work, why don't you give us a little bit of background? And then I

would love to dive into this. Well, the topic of yeah, pornography and teens and are we in an epidemic? And I just have a ton of questions about this. I mean, super important topic and you're, you're kind of my, my resident, a little house to say up by resident porn expert, not porn expert. Wow. That's something I should put on my resume. I'm a pastor and a porn expert. Helping navigate this really important pastoral challenge of poor porn use addiction in the church and so on. So yeah, tell us who you are. No, I really am a pastor. I mean, I, I just start there. I am a pastor and this ministry that has come out of my life and ministry of helping people overcome pornography use, pornography addiction, it just comes out of my pastoral life and

my life. You know, I've been doing pastoral ministry now for 20 years, which is wild. I remember being a youth pastor and they wanted me to share my testimony at this small church that I was a youth pastor at in front of the church, and I did. And I shared about how I overcame pornography use. You know, I was addicted to porn from middle school through high school on into Christian college, and I'm studying to become a pastor, and I'm addicted to porn. And you know, like, I'm just sharing this. Like, this is just my testimony. Like, you want to ask my testimony, here's what God's done in

my life. People, this was, yeah, 20 years ago. And I mean, I had people come up to me, wow, I have never heard anyone be so vulnerable before. I have never heard anyone share, you know, that was such a great testimony, all these sorts of things. And I was kind of, I kind of thought, well, I mean, I'm glad it impacted you, but this shouldn't be the first time you ever heard someone be vulnerable or talk about pornography. Cause trust me, I ain't the only one looking at it. I wasn't, I wasn't the only one looking at it. And it's just, it's just kept continuing to build from there. So I've talked about it a lot to try to give it, to take away some of the stigma. Whenever I talk about it, people come up to me from my church, hey, I need a resource, I need a

book, I need a this. And so I was at a point in my own journey, my own recovery where I was like, I don't even want to look at porn anymore. I got to a point where it wasn't just it's bad, don't look at it. It was, I don't want to look at that. I have lost the desire for it. I should probably write this down. And so, that was the first book, Beyond the Battle, that I wrote for men. And that's really just turned into, I mean, God just really used that as a space, a very vulnerable space, vulnerable community. Now we have groups, we have alumni, we meet together all the time. It's like my deepest relationships are really in that space, but it all just stems from me being a pastor. So the teen thing comes out of talking about porn and sex on the Beyond the Battle kind of platform and people saying, hey, my kid, you know, what do

you have for my teens? And that's where needed navigation came from, which I just want to point out is for teen guys and girls, which I think is really important to mention. And yeah, so God just keeps kind of taking it one step further. How'd you get to the point to where you don't even have the desire anymore? That's a, I think that's pretty rare, right? Or no. I mean, is that Yeah, yeah.

That's significant. And I'll be, and I'm like super transparent because when you're in this space for a long time, you just learn like you just are, you just are really transparent. So that's where the beauty comes from. That's where the grace comes from. That's where you really experience healing is from being really transparent. So granted, I'm on a podcast, not exactly like confidential space. But I'm, I'm,

it's part of my testimony. I share my story, I share my testimony. I'd say there was a stretch there. I don't keep track of years, but years, 10 years, 12, 15 years where like, yeah, I lost the desire for pornography. That's where the book came out of. I mean, how do you do that? I would say read the book, you know, read Beyond the Battle.

But I'm very clear to say too, I got to write an updated edition of it. So self-published the first one. And then the second one was able to publish with Zondervan. And it was really cool opportunity because I had a two-year period of working with a whole bunch of other guys through the book to improve the book,

but also my own journey. And in that two-year period, without getting into all the details, I'm gonna tell you, I experienced a lot of trauma also my own journey. And in that two year period, without getting into all the details, I'm gonna tell you, I experienced a lot of trauma in my own personal life. Like the most trauma that I've ever experienced, really deep places of depression, that I never, I mean,

how do you know that that's gonna happen to you, right? Just really, really hurtful things happening in my life. And what do you know? The desire for pornography came back, right? Because it's this coping mechanism, it's The desire for pornography came back, right? Because it's this coping mechanism. It's this, it's an addiction, right? And your brain solves problems in pain by going to this addiction. And most of us that have looked at porn started when we were children or when we were in middle school, which really is children still. and you're a child trying, you know, who's

found this thing that solves these problems for you. And so, what happened for me, thankfully, I love Jesus, I'm a pastor, I have this book, I already had a really good support system around me, and the Holy Spirit was flashing flashing major yellow lights, red lights, that I did not have the vulnerable community accountability that I needed at that point. I would say I'd let my guard down. So yes, it is possible to lose the desire for pornography. I've experienced that for a long time. Now I will say I'm back at a place where I do not desire pornography and I praise God for that. But I am, I would say dependent on both,

use both Covenant Eyes and Accountable2U, which are great softwares that I recommend and needed navigation. I spell out exactly how to use those for yourself or for your kids, promo codes, that whole thing as well. And I need those and I am okay to say that. I need those. I think a lot of people need those that just need well. And I need those. And I am OK to say that. I need those. I think a lot of people need those that just need to admit

that they need those. But with those in place, with I'd say 98% of the temptation, it's not available to me. Or if I looked at it, my wife would see that I looked at it. I'm back in a place where I don't desire pornography. And that's where I want to be. And I'm pretty comfortable just keeping my guard up and using that software, you know, for the rest of my life, which I don't have any, yeah, I don't have any problem with.

But there are principles, core principles answer your question. When I figure out what was the deeper reason I was looking for porn, like what's the desire beneath my desire? And I get that met in Jesus and his love for me, not from my wife, not from sex, not from other women. I get it met in Jesus alone and through community of other people, mostly men in this vulnerable space that are affirming that love for me so that Jesus does love me.

And I have other people that are reminding me that Jesus really does love me. That I have other people that are reminding me that Jesus really does love me, that does a major healing, healing work. And the second piece, I would say it's in our mind, where we're relearning not to objectify women, or if you're a woman, relearning not to objectify men, or the same sex, or you know, whatever it may be. We're learning not to objectify humans. That's really important, Cause the porn mindset will stay with you. Even after you, you're clean from porn, you can still have the porn mindset. You're still objectifying. So we can learn how to not objectify. And when you learn that you go,

Oh, I don't want to do that. I don't actually want to turn someone else into an object that I then throw in the garbage. You know, when I'm finished with them, that's not something Jesus wants from my heart. That's good. That's good. Wow. You mentioned, so your book is subtitled 18th guide to his or her identity in Christ in a sex and porn filled world. I always hear that like porn use among women and even girls are is on the rise. Is that still, is that trajectory still rising? And is it, I'm always curious, is it different? Is it, do girls that struggle with porn? Is it, is there something, is there a difference there than, than when guys struggle with porn? Just, just because male and female sexuality, if we're going to make it a, you know, as a general

statement is, is quite different. So is, is the reason why a girl might look at porn different and is, is there addiction even different? Yeah. Well, let me start by referring. I, Crystal Renaud day wrote the forward to needed navigation. And I really wanted a woman to write the forward because I want a female teen readers to really know that this book is for them. Crystal has a ministry. I'm going to give her a shout out called she recovery.com. And I've interviewed Crystal on my podcast, the flip side. If anybody wants to look into that, she has her own podcast that I believe it's the she recovery podcast.

And she, I think, exclusively interviews women about pornography use and their ministry is phenomenal. I mean, they have one-on-one counseling, they have groups. And so, I don't claim to be an expert on some of the nuances of why women are viewing pornography, but I would highly recommend women to check out SheRecovery.com and Crystal has a couple books out as well. But I will give you a couple stats that I cite in Needed Navigation. And I think stats are stats, we hear them and they're helpful, but they also we can get lost in them.

But let me just give a couple that I think can open up your eyes. If you came out of, let's say, like I'm 41. So when I was in high school, there were definitely girls looking at porn and Crystal's story kind of, kind of, she's a little bit younger than me, but still somewhat close and generationally. She felt really stigmatized because one, we don't even talk about porn in the church. And so if you're struggling with porn, you already feel stigmatized. And when it is talked about, it's only a man issue. And so if you're a woman,

you go, whoa, I'm so, you feel like the voices inside are telling you, I'm so messed up that my sin is like double stigmatized because when it's talked about, it's only talked about as a man issue. And I don't know the stats back then for the percentage of women looking at porn versus men, but I do know that they've been on the rise. And I think smartphones have a lot to do with that. And I think there's somewhat has to do with an age, you know, the younger you go, the more women are looking at porn. So just a couple of quick stats. 93% of boys see porn before they turn 18, 62% of girls first see porn before they turn 18. So we're talking about two out of three girls have seen porn before they turn 18. That could be just a group of friends in high school looking at it and they happen to look

at it. Maybe there's so many ways you can get exposed to it. okay. Yeah, yeah, so that one is that you've seen porn before. So again, are you having conversations with your girls about what happens when they see porn? Cause that's a big thing too, as if you're talking about, now we're talking about teens, we're gonna talk about parents that are listening, and then with their teens, you have to talk to your teens about porn

because they're going to be exposed to it. And if you've never talked to them about it and you've never made it a safe conversation, you've never made yourself a safe person to talk to, then let's say they're with a group of friends, somebody has their phone out and porn is on the phone and they see it and they go, oh, I can't talk to my parents about this because there's just an automatic level of shame and stigma. So that's one whole thing is parents, you need to be preemptive in this because they're gonna find it or it's gonna find them. One other stat, this is from the Journal of Sex Research. It says it shows that 91.5% of men

and 60.2% of women consume pornography. And that seems to me like it's saying actively. Like they were talking about, that's a huge number, um, from a, a very academic, you know, what was it? Wait, tell us that is 60% women, how many men, 90 did it say? 91% of men and 60% of women. Now with all these, it's like, okay, who do they ask? You know, that sort of thing. Uh, but that's it. Those are, those are a lot. All I know is it's there's massive amounts of number. Another for college age students, um, that sort of thing. But that's it. Those are a, those are a lot. All I know is it's there's massive amounts of number. Another for college age students,

87% of men, 31% of women reported using pornography. That was also the Journal of Sex Research. And so, man, it's like, yeah, it's, it's at to a point now where we, and I have to be, when I talk to even the guys on my podcast about, because usually if I'm talking about porn, it's a little more comfortable to talk about another guy about it, you know, just because of the sensitivity of the subject. I try to be really careful to always include women in that conversation. They're like, hey, women, if you're struggling with this, and if you're not women, you need to be a safe person for other women to talk to. Because if a third or two thirds of women are looking at porn or have looked at porn,

they can't have you thinking this is like the worst sin in the world and that they're super dirty. So if they're in your church small group and they come to you for some prayer or accountability, you've got to be a safe person, right? For them to be able to talk to. The reason why I ask about women is because isn't, isn't porn very like misogynistic? And I, I've people I've heard experts say, like it gets, it's getting more and more violent and more and more, just more and more misogynistic. So what does that do to a woman or is she

watching a different kind of, I don't know. I don't know if there's like different genre. I don't know. Yeah. And that's the thing. would add a types like for a guy, I think a lot of shame, but obviously there's a lot of less going on there and just sinful sexual desires, whatever. But for a woman that says, isn't the added layer, like would that compound even internalize misogyny? Would it give them just a horrifically warped view of sex? I guess that's true for both sexes if they watch it. But anyway, that, that, that's, I'm concerned about that added layer there. There's a wide variety of types of porn out there. Right. And, and one type is this. And I have some stats and needed navigate. One thing I did with needed navigation is that I didn't do them beyond the battle beyond the battle. I just assume you're a Christian

dude. You know, you got a problem. You're seeking help. I don't need to convince you that porn's bad. I think that's, that's like a message we've already problem. You're seeking help. I don't need to convince you that porn's bad. I think that's like a message we've already heard. Porn's bad, you know, yeah, we get it. Now how do I stop? But for teens, what's interesting is, and I'll come back to your question if not remind me of it. For teens, there's this huge stat that about, this is a covenantized stat, 90% of teens are either encouraging, accepting, or neutral when they talk about porn with their friends. So nine out of 10 teens that are in this research are either positive or neutral about porn. It's like, oh, porn, whatever.

So it's becoming such a normal part of a teens, you know, right? Like their upbringing. So I took extra time and needed navigation, which is just to teens. And I took a chapter, chapter two, and the title of the chapter is, what's the problem with porn? And I laid it out, I laid out, I want them to know the dangers of porn.

I want them to understand the chance of, the increased chance of divorce, the mental health, anxiety and depression that research shows a cause, the suicide rates. One of those things in there I write about is how it trains you to be sexually abusive. We actually see the stats of rape are skyrocketing. Then when you interview teens about porn, and there's stats in the book about the percentage of like, I'm not doing this research,

trust me, there's people out there doing this research where they're actually like, here's the most popular porn websites, like here's the top hundred or whatever, top 10, top 50. And then they percentage out, how many of those include violence? How many of those include violent rape, violent acts against women?

And then in there, what percentage of those women in that act are acting like they enjoy it or acting like they're neutral towards it. And the stats are really, really high. There's a lot of violent porn and in the violent porn, the woman's acting like she enjoys it. And then you interview teens. So there's research done on teens

and like the huge percentage of teens, again, it's all in needed navigation, but it's like half of teens or something, they're going to porn to learn about sex. And if you ask them on these interviews, they tell you they believe what's happening in porn is real, is a real depiction of sex and what they can expect in their own real life sexual encounters, right? So you see this huge problem of what's happening, right, with that type of porn. Now, is that the type of porn women are looking at?

I just don't know. That could be a good question for Crystal and the women she's looking at. I'd assume probably yes for some and probably no for some. And there probably are different reasons. And man, the negative impact that that's going to have on both sexes is, is significant. There's, did you read Louise Perry's book? The something about the sexual revolution with the end of the sexual revolution. I have not read it. The case against the sexual revolution,

a new guide to sex in the 21st century, it would be really it's so she's not a, she's not writing from a religious perspective. She's writing from kind of a more liberal feminist. She's, I don't, I don't want to put categories on her. Just, just that you're, you know, she's a secular journalist from the UK. But she, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a disturbing and eye-opening book. Basically she argues that the sexual revolution and, and, you know, tearing off boundaries around sexual relationships has harm. Basically it's harmed women and children. Like this has not gone well. And she shared stats in there. There was some of the most

disturbing things. And I think she linked it to porn, maybe even specifically more violent porn, but she even, there's a stat. I, I, I fact check me on this step, but it was something like 50% of women experience being strangled during sex. Like strangling is like a normal sex act. Obviously a man toward the woman in almost every case it's not, it's not, it's not the other direction, but that was what it just jumped up. But she shared lots of stuff about how now people are engaging and just stuff that's like, again, it's harmful towards women. It's demeaning. It's damaging. It's I just, I don't know. So I, that again, that's why it just like, when I hear about girls

increasingly watching porn, that's just, there's so many layers of, of why that's I I'm just looking at this. What's the, what's going to be the byproduct of that? Yeah, it's, it's huge. I mean, it's one of these things where if you can't buy it, it's scary, right? It's scary to camp out on. You're like, Whoa, what's happening? What's going to happen to our culture? I have three daughters. I don't remember how many kids you have, but I know you have daughters as well. Yeah. Three daughters of a son. You just like, first of all, what kind of guys are they going to be meeting? Right.

And I don't say this from a shame based place. I say like these poor guys. I mean, we're giving our kids phones. So, okay, my kids are 12, 10, and 6. And so, my 12 year old, she's in 6th grade, which is middle school here in Michigan. And she's got what's called like a gab phone and it doesn't, it just does like texting and talking. And that's pretty much it. And a really, really bad camera. And the phone doesn't even work half the time. So this is not an endorsement for Gab because the phone's like a piece of junk. She really wants an iPhone. She really wants a phone like her friends, you know?

And I asked my 10 year old, I said, how many of your friends have phones? My 10 year old, and she said, oh, a lot of them. My six year old who's in the room, she's in kindergarten. She said, some of my friends have phones. Oh my goodness. My kindergartners have real phones, iPhones, Samsung phones with no...

These parents aren't putting accountable to you and covenant eyes on these phones, right? There's zero... And so the thing that gets me is how do we know that this is an epidemic happening with our kids? Back in the day, like when I was a teenager, and the internet really just came out, that's part of my story. I'm in seventh grade. We got a desktop computer.

I'm looking at porn. Nobody's talking about porn. Why would they? Nobody knew that we'd all be getting hooked on internet porn on these computers. But now we should know better. And yet still, I feel like the church talks about it very infrequently, and the level of equipping is just not satisfactory for our kids. If we're just talking about protecting our kids and our teens, let alone the fact that half the adults in the

church are still looking at porn, you know, and struggling with it. And it's just, like, I think that's one of the reasons I talk about it as much as I do is because this is really significant and it's not just something naughty that you do. This changes the way you view sex. It changes the way you view men and women. It totally gives you an objectification mindset. It doesn't just turn off when you get married.

It gets worse when you get married. We got guys in our groups haven't looked at porn in years, yet the damage porn has done to our brains and it changes your brain. Man, it's like you got to unpack this stuff the rest of your life. And yet we're just like, oh, it's a part of, it's a rite of passage. It's a part of our upbringing. Or as Christians, I think we just pretend like it's not a thing. It's a thing. It bucks a month.

In doing so, you get access to all kinds of different premium content. Most of all, you just get access to the theology in the raw community. We have all kinds of awesome chats and messages back and forth. It means the world to us that you support the show. As the show has grown, so have all the expenses and all the work that goes into pulling it off. So again, if you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology raw. And I just want to thank my, uh, the people that are already supporting the show. Thank you so much for keeping this show, not only going, but also thriving.

So patreon.com forward slash theology and rock. Is this an epidemic? I'm not, the terminology, I guess isn't as important, but this is, it's, this is a huge issue, man. I mean, we will know it like, I mean, no one debates that. Right. So I mean, it's you add it all up and you don't need to make an argument why it's bad, why it's not, not just bad. That is like morally wrong, but why it's like destructive to your humanity, to your relationships and everything, how widespread it is. Well, in the secular, secular is such a kind of corny word, right? But in the secular world,

in the non-Christian world, there are a lot of people that are totally fine with porn and, and, and there I've posted stuff on Facebook and I'll get mocked, you know, and just people like are totally, totally okay with porn. And so what about what about the de dehumanization of women though? This is what doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get it. Yeah. It doesn't make any, like it's how can we like be a feminist, be have liberal values, whatever value women, me too movement. Yeah. I've been, and then say porn's fine. Like that just does, it seems like an absolute contradiction. I agree. And it shows the fallenness of our culture. I know like during the Me Too movement when it was really kind of the headline news

trending everywhere, I wrote a couple of blog articles about that where I think this idea that objectifying women is bad and that porn objectifies women, that fits right in with the Me Too movement. It fits right in with all types of sexual abuse, all types of sexual harm are wrong. And yet, you still didn't see from the non-Christian world or maybe it's the left, I don't know. I don't know the labels that are out there, but the people that are saying porn is okay or even will kind of make fun of

make fun of someone who's trying to like speak out against it, they seem like they're speaking out of both sides of their mouth. And I think just yeah for me I'm like, I'm a pastor. I'm a Christian. I believe the Bible like God knows what's true. And I mean we just we just know that like this this is all, all this stuff is tied together. So what I like is, is more stuff coming out actually in the secular world, the non-Christian world. You mentioned the book that you mentioned. Yeah. A really nice resource is Fight the New Drug. I read, we're both baseball fans. I read a

couple years ago, it made headline news and ESPN because Fight the New Drug did a presentation at the Kansas City Royals like spring training about the dangers of pornography. And this is a secular book. Fight the New Drug is a website. So yeah, I encourage anyone to go there. Some of my stats from needed navigation I got from Fight the New Drug. And there's, it's all, there's nothing faith-based about it. And it is the dangers of porn on our society.

And so, yeah, they did a presentation for the Kansas City Royals on the dangers of this drug, you know, this addiction. And it was just really fascinating, kind of like this collision of worlds where they're ESPN didn't know what to do with it, cause they're kind of making fun of it. They're like, really? You're making fun of, or you're, you think't know what to do with it cause they're kind of making fun of it. They're like, really?

You're making fun of, or you're, you think porn is a problem, you know? But you can't say that too loud because come on, like you're publicly admitting that what you're, anyway, just, so I like to see that cause it shows not that we need the legitimacy of that, but it does, it just shows that like, this is a cultural problem.

And I hope that our culture will at least listen to those voices if they're not going to listen to the Christian voices about this. I think there is a growing number of secular voices like, like Louise Perry. And I think there was another book that's very similar to hers kind of saying largely the same thing. I can't remember what it is. I mean, I'm gonna find it, but that contradict, I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it just seems like such a blatant contradiction, but I guess we all have

those kinds of like, I love Jesus, but I don't care about the poor kind of, you know, like everybody has her, our, our blind spots. I guess. And I want to be clear with porn. I mean, it is an addiction, right? And, and you might be like, I'm not addicted. I just dabble in it. And, but, you know, but there's research and this is in my chapter two to the teens of like, why is porn bad? Tons of research on what porn does to your brain where I'm not a scientist, I just kind of am citing other people's research,

but it does a similar thing to your brain as heroin does, it does a similar thing to your brain as narcotics do, where you're training your brain to have the dopamine, serotonin, all this kind of stuff that's going on in your brain, your brain gets hooked on that. And that's something unique that like, if I don't love the poor, that's a sin issue and it needs to be dealt with. And there's an element of porn that is just a sin issue and it needs to be dealt with. But we have to realize in the church, we still have to go to the next layer of that to go,

okay, this is also an addiction issue. And I think one of the reasons maybe culture at large has just accepted it is because the way I write about it is we've just normalized the addiction. So if everybody was addicted to heroin, at some point we would just have to say, heroin's good. Like, it's great. Let's put it in kids' cereal. Let's put it on Froot Loops and Lucky Charms because like, it's great. It's great. Let's put it in kids' cereal. Let's put it on Frootloops and Lucky Charms because it's great. It's just fun. Look at all the benefits of it in

our lives. We almost would have to because it's so widespread. It's so common. I kind of think that's what's happened with porn, but not just porn. Man, this is connected to the sexual, cultural values of our culture, the casual sex culture, this idea of saving sex until marriage is way outdated now in like general cultures. So, you know, it's just totally normal to start sleeping around in high school, you're sleeping around in college, you're sleeping around in, and those are all the same addictive impulses going on in your brain. And so I think our culture just kind of given up and went, well, we might as well celebrate this. Cause what's the point of saying it's bad. Cause we're all doing

it. What's can you, can you, can you, you said it's, it is a dick in addiction, but isn't there a difference between periodic use, habitual use and addiction or for somebody to kind of make those distinctions or what would constitute not just I I'm struggling with porn versus I'm addicted to porn. How, like do we put a number like if it's more than once a week or something, I'm not spreading. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. And I don't always use the word addiction because there's just a stigma behind that. And I would, so I'll come back to your question again, but I would say if the word addiction bugs you or you just go, like even in our circles and the recovery circles will be like

some, some recovery leaders, they're, they're big into like the alcoholics anonymous sort of thing. Like, Hey, I'm a sex addict, that, that, that, that, that. And for other people, it's like, I'm not going to label myself as that. I'm a child of God. You know, that's my identity, right? I'm not going to say I, I'm not gonna label myself as that, I'm a child of God. That's my identity, right? I'm not gonna say I'm an addict. No, I'm a child of God.

I understand both from where both are coming from. I think you're asking it more from like a clinical definition thing. I think what's interesting is in the research, they'll take two brains, and they have some of this in needed navigation where they'll take two brains and they put them under, again, I'm no doctor, I'm no scientist, but is it an MRI? You know, the thing, like a brain scan where you can

see all the colors of your brain. And on this brain over here, it's doing heroin and the brain lights up. Baboom, baboom, you know, it's colorful and all these things. And then this brain over here is looking at porn and the brain is lighting up in similar ways. So even for that person that would say, I'm not an addict, you know, maybe they dabble in it here and there, what's happening in their brain, and perhaps you can do that with heroin too, I don't know, I've never tried it,

but you could potentially be that type of person too. It doesn't mean that it's not creating those pathways in your brain for like, hey, when I'm stressed, I go to this, when I'm, look at like, look at our phones, like how many times you look at your phone in a day or you scroll, why? There's a brain pattern that's been baked into your brain, you know, to do that when you're stressed,

when you have relational conflict with your spouse, or if you're single, you feel lonely. So these are like the deeper needs beneath it. And so I would say as a Christian, if it's like, if you're looking at porn at all, it's a problem, right? We need to talk about, and I broaden my definition of porn. I mean, if you're watching Game of Thrones and there is, I've never seen Game of Thrones for a reason and I've read about-

I haven't either, but I've heard- I've read about those scenes on IMDB, which is like reading pornography. I don't recommend even reading that because you're like, wow, this is like worse than any porn I've ever watched. It's like, this is we're talking about full nudity, full sex, like all this stuff, right? That's in Game of Thrones. So, and that wouldn't show up on these surveys. Do you look at porn? You're like, I don't look at porn. I watch it again. So as a Christian, we need to first say what is God's command when it comes to lust, when it comes to how I'm still training my mind, right, to objectify. So, that's one whole

thing. When it comes to addiction, yeah, I think my answer to your question would be twofold. One, it's like you shouldn't be doing it at all as a Christian, period. But if you have a pattern or a habit, I've kind of like this with just an app on my phone. Like I'll be playing a video game that I really like on my phone. And then I realized like, I'm playing this video game a lot and I'm, I'm shouldn't be playing this this much. And I'm going to stop playing it. I'm just going to stop playing it. And then I'm playing it again. Then I know I got to delete it. Like I know it's actually taken a hold of me. It's an addictive. It's an addiction. It's something that is beyond my just plain willpower not to do. If you can just cold turkey, willpower, I'm not going to look at porn anymore, great. Do it.

Fantastic. Most of the time, that's not possible. Most of the time, you need support around you. You need to get to the deeper levels. You need software that's going to help prevent you from looking at this stuff. I'm just thinking like, I've heard of people like I couldn't get through the, maybe then maybe this is your story. Like it was every single day. Like there was just, it was like eating food.

It was just like, I couldn't get through the day without looking at porn versus somebody who, you know, maybe once a month, you know, you're like, oh, I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this.

I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. is your story. Like it was every single day. Like there was just, it was like eating food. It was just like, I couldn't get through the day without looking at porn versus somebody who, you know, maybe once a month, twice a month, that's where I guess that's, they're different. That, that, that seems quite, that seems quite different. But what you're saying is even that once a month, twice a month, even once every six months, that event it's, it is fighting to get you like your brain is it's, it's, it's pushing toward an addictive behavior. Even if, even if you, for whatever reason are able to resist it for a long period of time and then you fall it. Yeah. And I would say for those two situations, those are great

examples. They're two different discipleship pathways, right? The one who's looking at it every day to get through the day, looking at it five times a day to get through the day, you know, and often coupled with masturbation, you know, along with it, you know, five times a day, you know? That's not my story, but I mean, that's a story that's out there. I mean, that's a different pathway of discipleship. There's going to be different layers of breaking, you know, that addiction versus the person that's maybe once a month, I think then we have to reframe, again, what is sin? Let's look at scripture.

So if you're not addicted, praise God, you could actually just stop. You have control over this. So you really don't have this, you don't really have much of an excuse. You may not need clinical help or something if it's like once a month. Yeah, clinical help, maybe more of the deeper sort of therapy stuff.

But you might just need to be talked to and say, how is that different than cheating on your spouse if you're married? Like Jesus says, I'm not saying it's the exact same thing. I don't think Jesus says it's the exact same thing, but he says it's the same sin. It's the same type of sin. So you're like, ah, Preston,

I'm not addicted to sleeping around on my wife. I just do it like once a month. I just cheated on my wife once a month. That's not a big deal. Well, that's a problem. This is a, you do that at all. That should be zero. Should never do that. Do you get Christians that try to justify periodic use? It's only, you know, or are they like in our groups, like in recovery settings? No, you won't get anyone overtly saying that much, but I will say, yeah, let me just say this. I'm not going to name anybody, but like, I got friends that are pastors, you know, and I think

they have just given up where they'll say, and I got all the tools, man. I'm like, dude, do one of our groups. Let's read the book together. Let's do the software. And they've just resigned themselves. They've just resigned themselves that this is going to happen every once in a while. And that really saddens me. So, yes is the answer. Yes, Christians, even pastors have resigned themselves that this is going to happen every once in a while. And I think that's because we need to be tenacious in our recovery. Use whatever words you want. I just want to be tenacious in following Jesus. I want to be tenacious in obeying Jesus. I want to be tenacious in trusting Jesus that He knows what's best for my heart. And He's provided me with the

tools I need to get free from this. So, I'm going to do it. In our recovery circles, it's more like someone, maybe they have an iPad in their house that isn't, we call it like lockdown. You know, it's not locked down, but they're good They're not gonna tell anybody about that iPad and they feel like they've they've overcome it or they're not or they confess it You know, they're like, hey looked at porn and we'd be like, how'd you access it? I got this iPad in the house and and we say like well, why don't you lock it down? Well, I can't because of work. I need it for this thing and it prevents me from this app that I need. And we're like, okay. And then like the next week, you know,

we did it again, right? And some of those guys fade away, sadly, I think where they make a choice and they're like, I'm not doing this recovery thing anymore. But we've had guys where we just push them on it and we're like, look, man, we love you. And you need to get rid of that stupid iPad, right? Like, and so, you know, they do and they do, and they, they

respond to that. So it's, is it getting worse in terms of like percentage of use and addiction, like compared to five years ago? And is that, if it keeps getting worse and worse, meaning like more and more people are consuming more and more porn, and especially if porn is getting more and more violent, more and more dehumanizing, and more porn. And especially if porn is getting more and more violent, more and more dehumanizing, like where does that trajectory lead us? I mean, in 40 years.

Yeah, I think it's gonna lead us to more divorces. It's gonna lead us to more sexual abuse. It's not pretty, man. It's not pretty. And I think it's getting worse because of it's the generational thing. So you have kids getting these phones at younger ages. And talk about this too, like if you're a six-year-old, think about being, I have a six-year-old.

A six-year-old and their concept of reality. A six-year-old gets a phone and then is exposed somehow or another. And this happens all the time. And by the way, this happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Most of the guy's stories in our groups, how'd you first start looking at porn?

I had an older cousin who showed it to me. I found my uncle's stash, my dad's stash, but often it's like an older cousin, an older somebody who's exposing them to it. Like some 10, 11, 12, 13 year old that's like, hey, six year old, come look at this. And then they do, right? So what is a six year old brain gonna do

with really just any type of nudity? Like it doesn't have to be hardcore pornography, let alone a hardcore pornographic scene. That is sexual abuse. I mean, that is, maybe I won't say it's not. It's a traumatic, it's a traumatic event. It is very similar if they were actually molested. It's gonna do very similar things to their brains,

to their view of sex. It's gonna trigger things in their body that's not meant to be triggered when you're six years old and your brain just does not have the development yet to process this thing, you know, this thing that you're seeing. And I'm saying as a 41 year old, my brain is not meant to process, you know,

hundreds of sexual scenes or any type of violent sex. You know, it's not meant for any of us, but especially for a six year old. And so yeah, man, that six year old is growing up and now they have this thing, they're probably not gonna tell anybody about it. They're trying to work it out themselves. It goes sideways and I'm not gonna prescribe, they're probably not going to tell anybody about it, they're trying to work it out themselves. It goes sideways, and I'm not going to prescribe, because that's somebody's

story listening, and I want you to know if that's your story that you're loved. You didn't do anything wrong, and Jesus has healing for you, and He just wants to come alongside of you, and for you to know you don't have to do it alone. There's community, there's men and women that wanna walk with you to help you heal from that and to rewire the thing that you saw when you were six. But for those that don't get help, I mean, it's gonna come out. It's gonna come out and let alone man, look, I was in high school, I'm on the baseball team.

Preston, I tried out for the baseball team three times and got cut every year. So then I eventually ran track cause I didn't get cut and I ended up running track in college. So I guess that was good. But I tried out for the baseball team three times. I need to preface that.

I'm not bragging. I don't have a professional baseball career like you. But I'm on the baseball team, tryouts. I mean, it's weeks long and they melt it for all it's worth. We're doing fundraisers, we're raising all this money before they do the cuts, right? So the baseball guys, and it was the same on the football team, they're talking about porn all the time.

I mean, this was in the late 90s, I graduated high school in 2001. So this was normal, this was like suburban. These are the, like just the kids you look at, they're going off to college, they're getting married. Their normal conversation when the coaches weren't around was this is the best porn movie I've seen, which is the best porn movie you've seen?

Oh, what'd you think of that scene in the porn movie? Dude, this is, this is like, this has been going on for a long time, man. This is, you know, so Speaker 0 4.50 baseball players are the worst, dude. I mean, I, I didn't, I only played baseball, so I can't compare it to other sports. But I saw, I mean, I grew up before the internet, but even I think back at the conversations that would regularly happen in the dugout and how normal it was. And even I, as a Christian, at least I as a Christian, you know, family and everything. And with the church, like how I didn't even, it was just so normalized that I didn't even think about it. And now looking back, I still

recall things that guy would, guys would say what they were doing with their girlfriends are doing with each other's girlfriend. I mean, just to stuff it like parties and stuff. Like it was like, Oh my word, throw in the internet. I'm like, I can't even imagine what that would be like today. And you think about that. I remember an eighth grade football locker room, eighth grade. And I won't be too graphic with it, but like one of our star players, most popular guy in his school, all this kind of stuff, gets up on a bench, he's in his underwear and he starts talking about a certain girl who is in seventh grade and XYZ, you know, doing an act on him and you're like, these are children. You know, now that we're adults, we look back and go,

if you're in seventh and eighth grade, you are a child still. Like, and so, yeah, we just, so that's why like the subtitle of Beyond the Battle is In an Oversexualized World, a man's guide who has identity in Christ in an over-sexualized world. Subtitle of Needed Navigation is a teen guy or girl's guide

to their identity in Christ, and I said in a sex and porn-filled world. What I'm trying to get readers to relate with is we are all in this world. What we need to get away from is porn is a stigma, sin, or if you struggle with any type of sexual brokenness, any type of sexual temptations, you aren't a stigma. You aren't a minority. The world, like, look at the conversations we're having. Every listener on here will admit that the world is extremely over-sexualized. So we need to get rid of the stigma and then say, be on the battles for every guy. Every guy should read that book, whether you've never looked at porn or not, and you probably

have. But it's about your identity in Christ. It's about how do we live in this world not to get sucked into it and to still have the heart that God wants me to have in the middle of it. But if we're not honest that we're living in the world we're living in, we just are going to get totally blindsided by all this stuff. And I think that's what's happening. I think that's where Satan is winning. It's happening with our kids now because parents aren't, churches still aren't talking to teens about it. Parents aren't talking to teens about it. And so, man, yeah, this has been the world for a long time and it's not getting better.

It's getting way worse. Technology, every time a new advancement in technology comes out, it's like, porn is right there with it. I've even seen, I can't remember the quote, but there's quotes of that by like people that produce porn. You know, they'll say, uh, porn is always there with whatever the next, you know, video games.

Now I'm not a gamer. I used to grow up playing video games, but now you can, um, get online, these online games and even on your, on your Xbox, your PS, whatever your PlayStation, and you can find these games that you download and it's porn. You're like playing porn on the game. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. Don't I'm not, I don't, don't go look for that if that's you out there, but like parents need to know this, right? Parents need to know this because for me,

we would like look at stuff online and then delete the history of our browser. And now like kids are just, you could put you give your kid a video game in their room or something. I mean, I'm not saying your kids doing that, you could give your kid a video game in their room or something. I mean, I'm not saying your kid's doing that, but man, and I'm like, yeah. You need to be aware that that, that, that access is there. Yeah. That that, that that's the access is there.

Open window. Then you have the marina. Are you, are you at least having the conversation and maybe the kid is going to lie to you and they're going to keep doing this thing, but you had the conversation. You're it's loving to have the conversation. You're making yourself a safe person, and we hope someday the Holy Spirit convicts them of what is a sin and is really damaging to them, and they say, hey, hopefully they feel comfortable coming to you, not in a punitive way.

And I always say to parents, like, don't punish your kids for looking at porn. They won't come talk to you about it. This is about a discipleship issue. This is about being grace-based, relate to your kids, be vulnerable with your own kids. Let me tell you, there is very few adults out there listening that haven't struggled in some way with sexual temptation, some kind of fantasy life, let alone porn use.

It's okay to talk to your kids about what your own discipleship journey has been like and to say, hey, can we do this together? You know, can we? And maybe they're not comfortable talking to you about it, but man, trying to get them with safe youth leaders, youth pastors. Even with needed navigation, what I did is I added small group questions in between each chapter and they're meant to be able to done in like a youth group setting or they're meant to be able to be done with a group of friends that wants to read the book together. They're not hard-hitting questions. They're not meant to be hard-hitting questions. They're not asking you if you

looked at porn this week. They're meant to get you discussing the the content of the book but then it asks you like what's your next step going to be like what's your you know and we have to be having those conversations and being safe people, parents included, where at least there's an opportunity for those safe conversations to be able to happen. Hey friends, my book, Exiles, The Church in the Shadow of Empire is out now. I am so excited and a bit nervous about the release of this book. This is a topic I've been thinking about for many, many years and finally put pen to paper to write out all my thoughts. Specifically, I'm addressing the question, what is a Christian political identity? As members of Christ's global, multi-ethnic, upside down kingdom scattered across the nations,

how should we as members of that kingdom think through and interact with the various nations that we are living under? So the book is basically a biblical theology of a Christian political identity. We look at the nation of Israel, we look at the exile of Israel, we look at several parts of the New Testament, the life and teaching of Jesus, several passages in the book of Acts, the letters of Paul, do a deep dive into 1 Peter and the book of Revelation, and then explore some contemporary points of application. So I would highly encourage you to check out my book, Exiles, and would love to hear what you think. Whether you hate the book, love it, or still thinking through it, I would love to hear

what you think by dropping a review on Amazon or, I don't know, post a blog, just, you know, rip it to shreds. I don't really care post a blog, just, you know, ripping it to shreds. I don't really care. I would love for you to just wrestle with this really important topic in this really volatile political season that we're living in. Is you mentioned video games is has Spotify figured out it's porn problem yet? I haven't dude, let me tell you every app out there. So like one thing I'll tell you this too. I switched. This is just for me as someone like I'm aware of my triggers, the trauma stuff that I went through, like it just triggered all this addictive cycling back into me. And I didn't, I really didn't

use any software on any of my stuff. And I ended up actually, you can, you can protect your stuff if you have an iPhone or iPad, I have a whole page on that, I needed navigation of how to do that. But all that software works way better on androids. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I use Apple stuff. Apple products are, I'll tell you right now, they're better. My iPhone worked better than my Samsung does. But what I love about my Samsung is that covered in eyes and accountable to you, they work 100% on it. So every app, Spotify, every social media app, Instagram, let alone TikTok, which I don't use, but goodness, the stuff that's on there and every kid is using TikTok. There's lots

of really sensual sexual stuff on there. It's all protected. So I don't know what Spotify is doing with porn. I think every one of these apps has porn problems. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I mean, I'll get somebody on Twitter, like some naked chicks, like adding me as a friend and messaging me. I'm like, get the heck off my page. Like, I don't want this. I didn't ask for this, you know? And I got to block them and, you know, but I got my systems in place where then I, you know, block them. If I were to click on their page, it would show up on my results, right? Of my things. I'm like, I'm not clicking on their page. I don't want to look, look on their page.

I'll message a couple of my, uh, beyond the battle guys. Like, Hey, I just got hit with this thing. Just put it out in the open. I don't want to, I don't want my brain going down that path. You know, we got to be able to do that stuff, dude. It is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And the software doesn't, well, you're saying that. So the software does catch it on an Android, but not on an iPhone. Yeah. I can break that down real quick. Yeah. So on iPhones and iPad, so iOS, because

it's the way Apple sets up their security, the company and eyes and accountable to you, they can only monitor you and your browser. So if you're on Safari or coming out as their own app, if you're on one of those browsers, you can be monitored. So you could be on Instagram on iPhone, but I'd have to go to Instagram.com on my browser and I use Instagram that way. If I'm on the app, they cannot monitor the app. They can't monitor the photos,

like Kubernetes will check the photos on your page. It's like naked chick or whatever. I'm sorry, I thought I should say that, but like nudity, skin, they're detecting these things, bikinis, all this stuff, they're detecting it, and then it's gonna go onto your report. It doesn't block it, but it just goes onto your report, and then on your report, it's blurred out,

but like my wife would see, well, this is what you've been doing on Instagram, right? So if I'm on the app on iPhone, yeah, it's not covered. So if I have an iPhone, what I have to do is delete the app, and we have like a family iPad, so we just do this on there. We delete the app, we delete all those apps iPad, so we just do this on there. We delete the app.

We delete all those apps. There's no Facebook on there. There's nothing. And then you put a parental passcode on the iPad. So my wife has that. And then it's a screen time passcode. Within the screen time passcode, you just disable the App Store. So you can't add new apps. And that's just a very basic functioning iPad. And that's how you

got to do it. If you, if you want to lock your devices down, uh, to that degree. And I would say you do need to, if those are access points for you. So go like from a parental standpoint, it would be better. I mean, delay getting, giving your kid a smart phone. Number one, number two, I would say delay even further allowing social media. That's a, not just related to the porn thing, but just for many other reasons. And then third, when you do give them a smartphone, you're saying if you, if they do have an Android and then they put software on there, that's going to be way much better protection. Whereas an iPhone, they're going to be able to get around, they'll be able to get around it. And there's just certain things it's not going to cover. Like

I told my daughter who's 12, um, we're going to get her an Android. We're going to get her a smartphone in the fall when she goes into seventh grade. And partially that's cause the gap phone just doesn't work. It's annoying. Like she can't, it doesn't always call and text when it's supposed to. And I told her it's going to be an Android and she said, why? Because all her friends have iPhones. And I just said, I said, I use Android and it's because of this software. I want to watch what you're doing on there. My daughter is a 12 year old girl. Like she's super innocent. I don't think she's going to jump into porn. I don't have any sons. If you have a son, I mean, yeah, I think it is different. Men and women, and I'm not trying to stereotype. I think there's always exceptions

to every rule for sure. And every kid is different. Every kid is unique. I just know my daughter. But I think a lot of parents think that my kid would never do this. But I just said to her, it's gonna find their stuff on the internet that it'll find you. And I didn't even talk about like sexting like the stats about sexting. You can go to covenant eyes website and they've got their stat pack and they've got stacks stats about sexting, like the stats about sexting. You can go to Covenant Eye's website and they've got their stat pack and they've got stats about sexting. Sexting is when a teen usually,

it could be an adult, takes a photo of their own sexual body parts or of someone else's and then texts that to friends. That is a huge, huge, huge thing. I don't remember the stat but it's high. The amount of kids that have received a sext and the amount of kids that have sent a sext. And so, yeah, if you have an Android phone, covered in eyes is gonna monitor all that, even on texting, it'll see like this photo came through,

your kid just got sexted by somebody and now you can go talk to them about it. They're not in trouble. Again, I wouldn't emphasize that, but you're like, hey, I just saw this thing came through. You gotta expose that. Can we talk about that? And now you know who sent it to, right?

And that's a whole nother thing. This is, yeah, this is huge. So that's what I like about the Android is you get coverage on every app that's on the screen and you just kind of don't have to worry about it at that point. Well, one thing we told our kids too. So we, we, we did do smartphones around 13. I, I, I kind of wish we pushed that back. It was, it's weird because it's actually cheaper.

I should, I was like, I should have done a flip phone, but it was actually cheaper to have a smartphone given our plan. Like to add something was cheaper, but to be looking back, I'm like, whatever, even if it was more expensive, I mean, obviously a flip phone super inconvenient for sort of, you know, there's a camera, the music app, all my kids love music and you know, so, so we did, we did a smart phone, but we said no social media until you're 18. And we also said, okay, we will buy you this smartphone, but it's, it's in a sense, it's our phone. You didn't pay for it. We're buying for it. We had the plan. You can afford it.

So we will have the right to check it whenever we want. And we have our kids when they were younger and plug in the phone in our room at night so they don't have access to it. And then they just know that at any time we can just scroll through their phone and check it, you know, and just add in that account a bit. But even then it's just like there's kids, it will find them. And if they really want to find it, they can wiggle around. Think about what you're giving them. The access you're giving them. Just think about it. We'll find them. Think about like, I don't know, every strip club, every massage parlor, every prostitution street that's out there. And you just put all that in like your kid's closet

or something and you're in their bedroom. And you're just like, that's- That's very accurate. Yeah, and then you're just like, well, you know, as long as you don't open that door, you're fine. It's like, you just put it all in this, just right behind the door of their room. They're like, they're either gonna open open it or some friends are going to come over

and be like, what's in your closet? Boom, and it all just flies out. Right? So we just have to be really let alone, dude, we haven't even talked about like, yeah, there's sexual predators out there for preying on children and these chat rooms and these social media pages. I mean, this is like, this is real, real stuff. How porn ties into sex trafficking. That's a whole nother thing. Let me, before I forget, let me give a shout out to a friend of mine, Chris McKenna,

his, I guess I'm in a ministry, it's an organization called Protect Young Eyes. And they work with Christian schools and stuff, but also public schools. But like their whole full-time gig is, if you're a parent, you're wanting to like, you wanna know about these video games I'm talking about,

you wanna know about, there's all sorts of stuff out there. This their whole thing. Like Protect Young Eyes is a really solid Christian based ministry. That's really, you can send them your questions. And I'm not a super expert when it comes to all the nuances of what's out there with technology,

but that's what they do. So I, I, I, I checked them out. I'm kind of depressed. No, like I just, I keep thinking, I keep thinking like, just if this isn't being addressed for sure in this secular world, like it should be, let alone in the church, if, if access is getting more and more and more usage is getting more and more and more age, age use is's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a,

it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it, what, what do we do? What can the church do? What can parents do? And we've kind of talked a bit about parents, parenting, but like, if, if, if you had a church that said, all right, Noah, tell us what to do. You free reign and whatever you say we'll do, what would you, we need to stop stigmatizing it. So you need to get people up there sharing testimonies about this stuff. We need to stop stigmatizing it. We need to treat it like it's a normal part of the site, Men and women. We need women sharing testimony. Men and women and talking about sexual brokenness broadly speaking, so we're not alienating

sexual minorities, but like, look, we're all sexually broken. Sexual brokenness is the world we live in. We're all just sexually broken in different ways. And so taking away the stigma of sexual brokenness, taking away the stigma of pornography as a topic, right, to talk about. And I think one of the greatest ways to do that is through testimonies.

If you don't have a testimony, you can find one online. You can play, honestly, play videos of testimonies and start, it's like watering dry ground. We have to start softening up the ground to say, this is a part of normal discipleship. Why do we talk about other things in normal discipleship, whatever it might be like anger or money or whatever, but are you talking about sex? Are you talking about various forms of sexual brokenness? Are you talking about, and not only is, and here's where my hope really is, like the Beyond the Battle book and the Needed Navigation book, these books are meant to draw you into the heart of Jesus.

Like, I talk about your identity in Christ because what you're looking for from porn, what you're looking for from sex, men, women, romance, is a sense of value, a sense of acceptance, a sense of approval. Man, I feel high when I'm with this simulated person. Or if you're sleeping around, it's because you feel high when you're accepted. You're accepted by this person, and in porn, you're accepted in a fake way, but it's the same feeling of acceptance. Well, guess who accepts you and loves you and validates you more than anyone ever could? It's Jesus. That is the basis of the gospel, is that He accepts us and He loves us, and we are His beloved children. And what's cool is like the discipleship research that's out there. If you look up like Jim Wilder's stuff and the other side of church and just like

the brain science behind discipleship, when you're with people that are affirming the love of Jesus in you, it actually changes your brain and it heals you from trauma. And that's what we're seeing happen in our Beyond the Battle groups. And again, I reference Crystal's groups, sherecovery.com for women. When you're in groups like that, that's what starts happening to your brain

and to your heart where you go, I am really loved. I'm already loved by Jesus, and I'm learning I'm loved more than I ever could. And so, my hope in this, I don't know, this is like Satan is a schemer. I just preached on 2 Corinthians 2 last week, and Paul's talking about Satan's trying to outwit you, and he has these schemes. And I like it when his schemes, when Jesus like turns his schemes back on their head, and it just brings people into a deeper, way deeper connection to Jesus than they may have ever had otherwise. We're seeing in our groups guys who came to the group because they're separated from their wife or because they're

looking at porn every day. And many have found a lot of freedom from that. And the behaviors have stopped. And what they and we are all finding is deeper and deeper intimacy with Jesus in ways that we never ... That's affecting all of our lives. We're like, man, what if we could just think about Jesus all the time? Wouldn't that be cool? All the time we're just thinking about Jesus. And then if the temptation came, you're just like, I'm good. I got Jesus already. Rather than getting like blindsided by temptation. That's a pretty cool conversation to have with a group of men, you know,

that otherwise would probably never be talking about, what if we just could think about Jesus all the time? Like, we would just want that intimacy with Him, because we know He's the solution. We know that the answers to the deeper questions, right? And it's not that we got them down, we're broken, we need each other, you always need to

do this in community. But to me, that's where my hope is. I think is the church waking up to—I mean, conversations like this. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for being willing to talk about it. It's just waking churches up that we need to get rid of this stigma. It's why I'm writing these books. I encourage people to read them. There's a lot of other good books out there as well. There's some good ministries out there. But I think my hope is that the guys I'm doing recovery work with are the most vulnerable guys I know. They're seeking Jesus deeper, I think, than more than anyone else I know as far as a category of people. Perhaps the Christian friends of mine from my church and elsewhere are as well,

but I'm just not having those types of deep, deep, deep conversations with them. And I don't think Satan likes that. I think in some ways there's an irony to that, where he won in the sense of, yeah, he got you or me to look at something or to have this addiction. Well, now that this chains are being broken, I mean, we're, we're like richer in Christ than we may have

ever been otherwise. Do you think churches should like preach on it from the pulpit? Like when, when we obviously churches we need to address it, we need to talk about it. Is this like Sunday morning art or doing a series, starting a series on maybe sexuality, sex, sexuality, marriage, but have the whole thing on porn and it would need to be how frequent. I mean, if it's just a one-off sermon, even if it's once a year, that is better than nothing. But I think again, keeping the dirt metaphor, keeping the dirt wet, you know, so that stuff can grow at least once a year doing a series on sex. And that's easier said than done, man. We did a series on sex last And that's easier said than done, man.

We did a series on sex last spring and it was like, whoo, we did LGBTQ, we called it grace and discipleship, we did pornography, we talked about singleness, divorce, we did the whole thing. Man, it was hard, it takes a lot of work. But when you do that, you're creating some culture and then you're allowing the conversations to happen. So then people come up after and talk to you. I think at least once a year having a series on sexuality that is a very

grace-based series, that's a series that points towards identity in Christ as the solution. If you aren't resources for that, I mean, that's what both my two books do. But then what you can do throughout the year, you know, you might do your sermons in different ways. You might go through a book of the Bible, you might do a topic, but whenever possible, let's say sometimes I will list, oh, here's, like, man, Jesus is where we get our acceptance from. Like, Jesus is where we get our value from. That's the gospel. You can put that in almost any sermon about the gospel that you want. Like, the love of Jesus is what fills us up. Rather than—and then you can give some examples as a pastor—rather than being filled up with the next promotion at work, rather than being filled up with how many

followers you have on social media or what's your status, you know, whatever, like, what's on your resume. These are things that everyone can relate to. That's not, and then say, rather than finding that approval from pornography or from, you know, a romantic relationship. So, you can say that throughout the year in your sermons. And what you're doing is you're just creating a culture where at the very minimum, the person hears that and they go, oh, maybe I could talk to somebody at this church about this. Like normalizing the topic. Obviously normalize and porn use as if, you know, to make it okay. But like normalizing a topic to where it's just, it lessens the stigma behind it. This is just, if you have men's groups and women's groups, please try to incorporate pornography

as a topic within those groups without... Sometimes you need like, the Beyond the Battle groups, they're powerful because we're getting together to talk about sexual sin recovery stuff. But in a church setting, when you do that from the pulpit, hey, sign up for this group, it really stigmatizes it. And you're just not getting a lot of traction. You may not get a lot of traction. So if you were like at a men's ministry, I would rather every guy in your men's ministry does Beyond the Battle as like, we're gonna read this book as a men's ministry, not, hey, we're gonna start a group

for guys that struggle with porn and they're gonna read this book Beyond the Battle. I think those are strategic ways we have to start going about this issue is getting all the guys to read this book or all the women to read like one of crystal's books as part of their discipleship. And then to have those, those conversations because it's really easy for it to get stigmatized in the church. Well, Noah, thank you so much, man, for your work in this area. This is not an easy topic.

I mean, it's a, I've, yeah. I mean, I just so admire your vulnerability, which is so necessary to, you know, be, be the re what are the, the all resident experts in I mean, that's in my porn expert. No, but even, I mean, I know we got a joke about it at the beginning. I might've been startling for people for me to say it, but I mean, just even that, like just being able to say it out loud and just like, not, not, not joke around and just a flip it way, but make it to where it look percentages are really high. You're not alone. Like this is, yeah, I do think, I mean, shame prevents on so many issues. Shame presents prevents people from getting the Christ centered healing

they need. So yeah, thank you so much, man. So yeah. Your first book, beyond the battle of man's guide to his identity in Christ in an over-sexized world. And then your recently released book for teens needed navigation that teens guide to his or her identity in Christ and the sex important field world would highly encourage people to pick that up. Thanks again, Noah. I really appreciate you. Thanks for being a guest on the algebra again. or her identity in Christ in the sex important field world, we would highly encourage people to pick that up. Thanks again, Noah, I really appreciate you. Thanks for being a guest on The Al Jara again. Hey, I know you're wrapping up

and you don't want me to do this, but let me just say one quick thing about grace, what you just said. If I believe in grace, if we believe in grace, I think it's okay to talk about the reasons we need grace. And so that's how I lead with vulnerability, is to say, I love grace, I need it. So do you. So guess what? We can talk about like the reasons we need it because we all need it. So let's talk about that. Cause then we really get to experience

it and that's where the healing really, really happens. So just, I think that just goes hand in hand with these conversations. Let me give a quick shout out to, if you're a guy listening 18 or over, I would love to invite you to one of our groups. Man, the groups is where we see their transformation happen. So just beyondthebattle.net. Those are our seven week groups. And then you jump into our alumni, which is free. And we got all kinds of crazy alumni stuff going on.

And then the teen book I didn't mention is super short, super short. I wrote it out short on purpose. It's like 70 pages or so of actual reading, and it's thin, like when you see it, it's not really daunting. I wrote it, so hopefully a teen actually reads it. So thanks, Preston. Man, I appreciate you having me on

and let me share about this stuff. Yeah, thanks, Noah, I appreciate you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.