259 - Starting Pure Desire Groups At Your Church

You're listening to the Pure Desire Podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing, and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal, and relationship issues. What's up?

What's up?

I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 259 of Pure Desire Podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Oh, yeah. I don't care. If I ever get back, I could keep going.

Yeah, you could.

Or everyone could join in, sing along.

You know, it's funny, I'm pretty sure in the last couple episodes in the intro, I was like, hey, you've been singing a lot more recently. And you're like, nah, it's just the.

Stuff that's been going live. Now I can do it as a streak. We'll keep track. The singing streak.

Okay, so let's just talk about this real quick before we even get into the episode. At this point, we have been doing the podcast for four years, 11 months and three weeks.

That's quite a bit.

It's a long time.

It's quite a lot. Yeah, that's a long time. I mean, we haven't, like, been doing it continuously every moment of the day, but that would be how long since we started.

I feel like that was implied and I didn't feel like you needed to say that. But we're just gonna skip over, I guess this for now. But just know at the end of the episode, we've got a really got a little teaser on what's coming next week. Something new, something fresh. So just be on the lookout for that. But today we had, and this is a conversation we've had before in different variations, but just wanted to circle back to it again. We had Rich Moore, our associate director of men's groups, on to talk about starting Pure Desires groups at your church.

Yeah. You know, the number that comes to mind is 93%. 93%, based on a bar and a survey, and this is a few years old, would say 93% of churches have no specific plan how to help men and women who struggle with unwanted sexual behavior. And we would hope over the last few years that number has gotten better. But actually, I think with COVID and what happened with churches, the number's actually gotten worse. Because for a lot of churches, if they're honest, this is kind of seen as a peripheral ministry. It's not typically run by the lead staff or pastor, which is great. It's not designed to be, but it also makes it easy to kind of let it go dormant or we didn't have a leader. So now we don't have groups anymore. And we just see that when it comes to someone's healing journey, if they don't have a safe group environment to walk through a committed process, the likelihood of long term healing is very, very slim. But on the flip side, if a church has groups and someone goes through a pure desire process, you know, we find in the exit surveys like 85% of people would say that the group made a significant difference in their struggle. And so that's why we're so passionate about this. And maybe that's the connection to the intro. I didn't really have a great connection to, you know, the seventh inning stretch, take me out to the ball game. Other than to say that for some people, they are so passionate about baseball and being at the ballpark in the summer, it's just like, it's just something we have to do. And when it comes to healing, I think churches need to develop that same mindset that says if we want people to get free, we just have to have groups. It's just something we have to do. And it might look different in different churches. You might have leaders come and go, you might organize it differently depending on your denomination or church structure and all of that is fine. But it's really, do you have that passion that says if people are going to walk in freedom, we have to have a safe group environment for them. And we know that's not always easy to do. It's not easy to figure out if you've never had them. And so that's why this podcast and other podcasts like it that we've done in the past is just to try to help you navigate what does this look like. Whether you're the leader or have some buy in because you're on staff or you're just a volunteer, you're just a member of the church, you're just a concerned citizen saying, we need to do something. I think today's episode will equip you with ideas and strategies how to launch groups in your church.

Yeah. But I really do think we've given some practical encouragement. So you're going to definitely enjoy the episode. Couple things, actually. 3. Sorry, Brady, I know you listen, subscribe to the podcast. If you're not, just do it. We're on all the major platforms. You'll get episode into your podcast feed every single Tuesday. You can follow us on social media, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, earedesire, pdmi. And if you like to consume video content, the Full episode will be up on YouTube. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. And Nick, there's something new that we're doing here and which is cool because I get to say that a lot. I feel like we do a lot of new things.

Something new from Pure Desire. That could be our new podcast. Something new from Pure Desire.

I feel like that honestly I would be a fan of it being like something new with Nick Stumbo. I would honestly like. I would listen to the solo podcast of you, which I expect that to show up nicely on my yearly review and my compensation anyways, before it gets. It's already gotten weird. To your point earlier, 93%. That means that only 7% of churches have a plan to deal with this. And we know that because we've also partnered with churches and we have all of that experience training and leading and helping churches to launch it. And because of that, we've developed a heart of wanting to help pastors and churches really have a recovery ministry, almost like a recovery ministry in a box that they can take and start implementing. And because of that, we've developed now for the first time, a church membership program.

Something new. A church membership. Yeah. We're recognizing that for many churches this is something they want to embrace and lean into. And so we've developed the membership so that we can help catalyze the starting of groups in churches by presenting them with a clear path towards launching groups to help people find freedom from unwanted sexual behaviors and betrayal trauma. And so it really, it creates a place where any new leaders or potential leaders, you know, leaders in training could have access to sexual integrity. One on one, the new group leader training video series get discounts on all of our products and coming to events. It's a way that you can equip your church to say we are, we're really training up and supporting our leaders in this ministry. And we've, we've designed it in a way that whether you're a small church with just a couple of leaders or a larger church with a lot of leaders, that you can have a membership plan that really fits you and your church. And hopefully compared to having every leader do these individually will save you and those leaders a lot of money. So we want it to be truly a win win that you're supported and there's some cost savings to you and it really kind of gives you an inside track to so many of our features and resources and ways that we can work with you within the membership program. So I just want to emphasize that like if membership's not for you or your church looks into it, and it doesn't work. Hey, great. We're still here for you. Totally.

Absolutely.

We're here to coach you. And there's a lot of services that we've provided for free and always will, but this is just a way we can kind of take it up a level and then give you access to these video courses now without having to buy them, you know, one at a time for every leader.

Yep. So if you're interested in the group membership program, you can look@puredesire.org membership. You can see benefits, you can see details, you can see pricing and all of that. So, again, if your church is interested in becoming a member with Pure Desire, just go to PureDesire.org membership. All right, here's our time with Rich Moore on starting Pure Desire groups at your church. Rich Moore, you're back. Welcome, sir.

Yeah, it's a short turn this time. Yeah.

How long was it? You'd remember. Probably quicker than I.

Maybe a couple weeks, seems like.

How about that?

Yeah.

Nice. Well, we're glad that you're back.

Yeah.

And as we're now into the summer months, one of the things that. And I mean, I say that, and it's funny because it's probably going to snow, you know, you know, in June in Oregon, but whatever. But as we're into the summer months, we have a lot of men and women who are looking toward the fall and potential launch of Pure Desire groups. And, you know, cause summer can be a time at churches where that sort of stuff dies down. People go on vacations and whatever. But we've covered this a lot on the podcast in different pockets, on different episodes. We even had episodes specifically on starting groups. But we wanted to circle back again just to maybe give. Have a fresh perspective on it for how to best start Pure Desire groups. So the first question really is just when is the best time? Like, is it the fall? Is it January? Like, when? And think, like season, but then also like days, times, that sort of stuff. What would you say is the best time to start Pure Desire Group?

You know, a few years ago, it seems like most of the groups started in the fall.

That was just like a September launch.

It was like a fall kickoff. That was kind of the church calendar. That's when everything started. But now I wouldn't say there's, like, the best time to start these groups because they start literally throughout the whole year. We even have churches that are launching groups running Sexual Integrity 101 in the summertime. But our big months are usually September, October and then January, February and then churches are still registering with us and signing up and starting groups throughout the year. But those September, October, January, February seem to be the bigger, the bigger ones. And then there's even a push in kind of late spring.

Yeah, you know, I was thinking of a saying that says, when's the best time to plant a tree? And the answer is 20 years ago. When's the second best time to plant a tree today? So there is kind of this sense of this topic of sexual brokenness, people struggling with pornography, women and men who have feel betrayed and in a marriage that is maybe really fractured because this issue is driving a wedge between them. I mean, if the best time to start a group would have been 20 years ago, because people need it then and they need it now, and the second best time would be today. And so that would be my encouragement. I think. Obviously you want to look at what are the rhythms of your church, when does it make sense? But these kind of groups tend to be so need driven that when someone is ready, when a marriage is in crisis, when that person hits kind of a rock bottom moment of finally saying, okay, I need help, knowing there's a group available is absolutely critical. And so, you know, don't wait. The other thing I might say, while a fall launch can be good, it also can have a tendency in some churches to kind of bury the lead. Like people don't hear about it, or there's so many groups launching that, let's be honest, it's a lot easier to join another group. And for someone who's struggling, that doesn't. They're not, you know, remember up front, they're not really convinced they need a group. They don't really want to have to go to group. And so if there's all these other groups, there's men's groups, there's a, you know, a men's barbecue and book study, and there's the, you know, couple, small group, they're going to choose one of those, quite frankly. And so if you've had a rhythm in your church, where these groups are part of your normal group launch, I think that works. But especially when you're trying to get something started, it can actually help to do these at a time when nothing else is starting, because you can take a little bit of time, talk about the value of them, cast a vision, you know, invite people to come and explore, to say, even if this isn't your struggle, if you just want to help start the ministry, come to this informational meeting and things like that, where people hear, oh, our church is doing something about sexual brokenness, pornography, betrayal, and especially if you announce it in a way that's very inviting and not just, okay, all you who struggle, here's your group. Because no one will show up for that. I think it gives you a better chance of people hearing about it, thinking through whether or not they should join, and then launching. Well, so kind of the two sides there. Yeah, you need to consider your church rhythm and how you might launch a group with the rhythm. But on the other hand, consider how not to let this get lost in the shuffle because it's the easiest group for people not to join.

Well, and that my story is I went to a Pure Desire event because I was looking to help students and look for resources, realized I needed to jump into recovery. And it felt like within maybe three or four weeks, I had just asked committed people who I knew would go through. At that point. It was the six week Conquer series. Like, would you just go through this with me? And what I found out was like the 12 of the 12 that did that, I don't know, maybe it was some spiritual reason that God gave me 12, but like, the 12 of us who went through it all needed it and we didn't even realize it. And so it's one of those things where for me, I've realized that there are people who need it and are ready, even if it doesn't seem like there are. If you present that opportunity, there may be people who want to jump in and start. And there is. I've heard you say this too, Nick. There's something to like the idea of starting a ministry that seems so inviting to people. They want to be a part of it. The ground floor, they want to help build and develop something. So using that too. Just don't be discouraged if you don't have people like standing in the back of the service, jumping up and down like, hey, I want to start a recovery ministry. It's like, you don't need that. There are going to be people interested though, for sure.

So what are some steps, Rich, that a church may need to take before they start their first groups? Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, the biggest one would be your leaders making sure that they are. Well, they've been through the material, they've been through their own healing process. You know, the group leader training, that would be key. So they're just up to speed on anything and everything. Pure Desire.

You're talking about our new video course, correct? Group leader training. Yeah.

And they're connected with Us, maybe through events. They just have a long history with us. And so when they do launch, when they are ready, they can go to their pastor and say, hey, these are the steps I've taken and we're ready to lead a group. Because that's the big drawback sometimes is just not having somebody who's available to lead a group because of their experience. But those are just some of the basic steps of going through your own healing. Because the last thing you want to do is jump into a group. Now we know this happens.

That's my story.

Yeah, you just jump into a group because there's nobody to lead it because you need it. And next thing you know, a lot of times we'll have the group kind of fall apart because everybody's a mess. But I think that's why the tools that we have now are really helpful, because we encourage them to go through these steps before they start leading. So we're starting to see more and more leaders actually do that. And not having as many groups fall.

Apart, I think it's important to ask for church support, and we'll get to that. Is that necessary for doing this later? But asking for church support, I think is good because it's a humble posture. You're not being territorial about it. You're really looking out for the benefit of the church by bringing it to your pastor or leader. And then one of the things that was so great when I went to this event, and I remember that's where I first met you guys, I bought a bunch of material and can I just say, church budgets, when you have a card that you can put it on the church budget, like, praise God for those moments, because I was able to just buy a grip of stuff and take it with me, and I was able to put it on the table of the elders and the leaders of our church and was like, here's what they have. Here's what we can do. And I think that that went a long way because they can review and flip through the material. And it's not like, oh, this is just some, like, weird, progressive, like, science and clinical thing. Like, someone flips through it, they're going to see how biblically based we really are and what we do. And so, especially if a pastor or leader has never heard of pure desire or is unfamiliar with the recovery and healing process, that's going to be helpful, too, if they can have the physical material or if they can view it online somewhere, just for them to become more comfortable with what's going to be taking place in the group.

Yeah. I was thinking of this on the two levels, that if it's an individual who's trying to get some group started, has a heart for it, a passion for this ministry. I think for you as the individual, it's important that you spend some time creating trust, building rapport with your pastor or the staff member that you're going to approach about this. Because if you go in guns blazing and like, hey, we want to start a group next Tuesday, and I've already invited eight guys and could we use this wing in the church? Okay. You know, that can just really create a defensive posture for a staff member. Because, you know, good or bad, I think staff like to be in the know. They like to give permission. They like to feel like it's something that's happening with their permission, not that they're being kind of hijacked by someone else's plan. And so even if you have a plan in mind, just start with sharing your story, directing your pastor or that staff member towards the Pure Desire website or this podcast, and to say, hey, like you did Trevor, here's some of the resources that they have. And could we talk more about what it would look like to have a group here that's inviting your church into the process with you not telling them what you're going to do on a staff level? I think it's helpful. Two things. One, to be educated yourself. If you're a pastor or leader, just learn about this area. There's documentaries you can watch from Fight the New Drug. There's Our Sexual Integrity 101. If you haven't been through that, just if you feel educated on this, you will feel more equipped to talk about it. The second thing I would encourage for you as a leader is really to begin making this a part of the culture of your church, to establish that culture of grace. Pure Desire carries this great book called Creating a Culture of Grace in a Climate of Shame. Really would encourage people.

Sounds really familiar.

Who wrote that, Rich?

Do you know?

I don't remember some Rick Stumbo. Anyway. No, seriously though, the idea being if in a sermon or announcement, people hear something like, you know, if you've been battling with pornography or unwanted sexual behavior, you probably feel like you're the only person and there's probably a voice of shame telling you how bad you are, and we just want to recognize you're not alone. And if you asked for help with this, we would be here for you. You wouldn't be kicked out. You know, speaking directly to those topics in a way that Says, this is a safe place to get help, it's okay not to be okay. Because then if you bring in this idea of, and hey, we're going to launch groups, we'd love to talk more about that. You're bringing it into a culture where you've already answered some of these questions about is it actually safe to talk about. Because I, I think when some churches launch groups for the very first time, people are suspicious. Like, man, if I show up to that group, what list do I go on? And am I going to be kind of marginalized in the church? And will they remove me from any kind of service position I've been in? Will I be disqualified from helping out at the men's breakfast or whatever you've been doing? So people have those questions because fear and shame create them. So whatever we can do in leadership to just help create that safe, grace based environment that will really make the groups a lot more successful.

I think a great way I've seen that done is one of our pastors at our church when they were starting Sexual Integrity 101, was like, here's the group, here's what it is, here's what this video course is. And I'm the first one to sign up. And like, it was just like, all right, like he has now opened the, he's kicked the door open for us to all go.

And he said there was gonna be donuts if I'm, I think I'm remembering the same because I was there too.

Yeah. And honestly, don't undermine or don't under, I don't know, like, just understand that.

Food goes a long way for people, especially with men.

And childcare. Childcare and food. Okay, so let's keep going. If we're not a pastor, because some of our listeners are pastors. You know, as Nick, you're speaking to in the last question, you have a role in this too, if you're interested in bringing it to your church. But if we're not a pastor is getting the leadership buy in required for starting groups. And I mean, if we don't get that, what do we do?

Now that's a great question. And we get it a lot. And unfortunately we have a lot of churches that the staff, the pastors just don't buy in. And I would say it's not necessarily. They're not buying in and they're saying no, it might just be a not yet, you know, And I think. And that kind of goes back to the previous question about just educating and having, building that relationship with the pastor. And explaining the need, because we already know that there's men and women in the church that are going to the pastor already. And along with that, I think Nick, you mentioned it too, all these other ministries are going to the pastor and wanting to start groups. So now you have 10 different groups that all these people want to start. And the pastor is like, well, I don't have the bandwidth. Because their initial reaction is like, well, how am I going to oversee that? You know, a bigger, especially with a smaller church.

Totally.

You know, if you have a bigger church, you have more staff than you can designate staff. But, you know, and then you just have those churches that are like, yeah, we're just not there yet. And I wouldn't. For those leaders that are in that situation, you know, I'll work with them. It's not because we don't want them not to lead just because the church isn't ready for them.

Right.

We have a lot of group leaders around the country that are leading in a coffee shop.

Right.

Or at their house or an online group with us. And they, they've been through the program. They so want to bring it to their church.

Yeah.

But they're just. The church just isn't ready for it yet, unfortunately. And they call us, say, well, what do I do? So we'll get them set up in our system. And, you know, we don't put them on the map per se, but we support them, we help train them, we invite them to those leader meetings and we work with them. And especially now kind of coming out of COVID or wherever we're at with COVID or going back in or who knows? A lot of groups that were meeting in the church haven't even gone back to the church. They're still quote church groups, but they're meeting off campus now.

Yeah, it kind of depends what we mean when we say buy in. If by buy in, we think we need to have the pastor totally on board saying, I'll announce it from the front. It'll be in the bulletin. We'll put signs up everywhere. I mean, that'd be great if you get that. But no, you don't need that level of buy in. I've told a lot of people you're looking initially for a room and a blessing. Is there a place we could meet and would we have your blessing to start this group? It's just going to be five, six guys. And that might mean a lot of your promotion to the group will be word of mouth. Kind of what you did, Trevor, just identifying 10 guys that you think would benefit going through a group because they're dads or you just feel some connection to them and they've maybe shared. Yeah, I struggle with lust. And you've got enough connection to say, why don't you do this group with me? We've seen so many groups group start that way. Or maybe the staff would say, well, you know, we're not going to announce it from up front, but, you know, we could put a little short blurb on the website under the men's ministry. Or, you know, we don't mind having some flyers in the men's bathroom. I've actually seen that at the urinals in some churches. Like, that's where their men's peer desire group is promoted. It's pretty captive audience. You know, not a. Not a bad idea at all. Kind of like that one. So they, you know, your church might say, well, here's a couple of places we could get the word out. Or another thing I've seen be really effective is just having the conversation with staff to say, if someone calls the church office looking for help in this area, would you be willing to direct them to our group? I'd be willing to meet with them, have coffee with them. One of our staff members, he loves that if he gets a call where he gets to meet a guy for coffee for the first time to tell his story, to talk about the group. And that's how a lot of men at that church end up in group, is they meet Mike for coffee and then they end up in group. And so even if you're not getting, you know, buy in from up front or the stage, there are a lot of ways that you can still begin a group or two and get momentum with the, with the support that you have. And if for some reason you do have a church that just says, no, we're not having those groups here, then you have to get creative. Like Rich said, the coffee shop. I know groups that meet at a guy's office, a gal's office. I just heard of a group ministry that's happening at a barn. I mean, it sounds like it's a really nice barn, but it's neutral territory. And they said, we think it's actually better than being in a church because we don't have to invite guys to come to a church to deal with this very sensitive topic. They're actually going out of town five miles to this barn and having this men's night. And they said, it's awesome. So if you don't have your church's support. I think be creative and look for other churches around you that might be doing something and just figure out how you could partner with that.

I think in this, this part of the conversation, and this is something I've been thinking about quite a bit actually and had some multiple conversations recently about if this were to happen where you don't get church support. I think it's really easy and actually a very natural reaction to villainize the church. To like blame and get bitter and upset and listen, it's okay to get upset and be disappointed. But I think that it's easy to think that if a church isn't running and this is something I have to tell myself, like this is stuff I'm having to work through from time to time too, that if a church doesn't have pure desire groups, it doesn't mean it sucks as a church. It doesn't mean it's not helping the kingdom, it doesn't mean people aren't getting saved or healthy. That doesn't mean that we stop pushing to have pure desire groups in that church. But I just, I think it's really important to say at this point in the conversation to work toward not villainizing the church and making it this like evil thing, that if they don't do this, then somehow it's wrong or bad. I know people, I've had conversations with people who have left churches because of that. And I don't even think that was a wrong decision. They tried and they tried and they tried and they never got bought, you know, buy in from the leadership or the support anyway. And so they decided to go somewhere else where they could do that. And I don't think that again, that that's maybe sinful or wrong, but I just think it's very easy for us to. We have this desire to help people and if our church doesn't see the need right now, then somehow the church is wrong and we're right. There's just, it's a dynamic back and forth kind of conversation. So just make sure that we're, make sure we're giving the church credit for what it's already doing in the world and not just villainize it.

Well, and there's so many options for those leaders. And the biggest thing is, is like I said earlier, it's, it's not necessarily a no, it's just maybe a not right now.

Yeah.

And to keep the open lines of communication. So if the, if the pastor is not ready to quote, buy in or, and support it fully, don't stop meeting with Them, you know, check in with them every once in a while, say, hey, this is where I'm at my recovery. I just want to tell you, this is what the. What my wife and I have been walking through lately. And so then you start sharing that with him and eventually, hopefully that'll come around to say, hey, we're ready to go.

I think of even in personal relationships, if I knew someone kept wanting to meet with me just for their own agenda, I'd stop meeting with them after a while. So just like, be a normal person.

Be sensitive to that. Yeah. So Rich Pure Desire offers groups for men and women and groups for men who struggle, men who've been betrayed, women who struggle. Because that's a fact factor too. Women who've been betrayed. So young adult single men's groups. So should a church start just one of those groups and then grow from there, or could they launch multiple groups at the same time?

Yeah, it could be multiple. It really. It just depends on. On the need. Back in the day, Seven Pillars was the one that just launched because that was the majority of, you know, the guys were coming forward and then the Betrayal and Beyond would start up. But now we have a lot of churches that are starting obviously with Sexual Integrity 101. We have churches that are only showing that to women or only showing it to men. So now we're starting Betrayal Beyond Groups Unraveled. It really doesn't matter which group. It's just which one's needed at that particular time. I look at the last. Through the last month of church registrations that we get in on the website for the groups that are being registered, and I'd say half of those are all women's groups. They're not even. And these are all brand new churches Starting Unraveled or the Betrayal and Beyond even some of the teen groups are starting to pick up. We have a couple churches don't even run the men's and women's groups. They're running like a living free for their high school kids or behind the mask. So it really. Depending on the need. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it's a question of what you're ready for, what leaders you have available. But it is good to have a plan for both sides of this equation. I mean, we've said it on the podcast before that for every man in a Seven Pillars group who's struggling or every woman in an unraveled group who's struggling, there is a spouse who's been betrayed. And that doesn't mean they feel it deeply enough. That they also want to do group. But many of them do. I mean, I remember when Michelle and I shared our story at our church for the first time. We had a plan for women's groups, but it was more of a delayed, like, okay, let's get the men's group running and then several months down the road. But because we had, I think, created a culture of grace and safety and really talked about how important this issue was, there were women seeking out my wife saying, when does our group start? When does our group start? And so because like you said, Rich, the need was there. We started it right away. But I think if you don't have a female leader ready, it is good to kind of have a game plan to say, okay, we're going to, we're going to launch this group first and then hopefully six months down the road we'll have raised up a female who can launch the women's group or the betrayal side. So that if someone comes to you, and here's what I would say, if you're the leader or pastor and someone comes to you and says, hey, what about me? My husband's struggling and I feel betrayed, I need help, what are you going to do for me? And you're like, well, sorry, we don't really do that. What that communicates to them is your issue. We don't care about or we're not here to help. But if you can say, man, we know how important that is and we have a plan, probably in a few more months as this group gets some traction, we need to develop someone as a leader. And then maybe even saying to that person, like, would you be interested in maybe helping facilitate or lead groups? Because that's part of the need. And it can have kind of a multiplying effect of the one group as you start to talk about it and launch, it will spur conversations about the other groups and then you can invite people in to say, yes, that's our long range plan. Could you help us make it a reality?

I think too, if you don't have something right now, having a plan in place is good. But even if you had just a list of external resources they could reach out to, I know we don't have betrayal and beyond groups or an unraveled group or we don't even have a betrayal group for men right now. But here are some counselors or therapists who have training in this area. Or I know that this church actually across the street does run groups. Why don't you. And that's, you're not like saying, go somewhere else. You're not like, releasing this person as a part of your congregation or flock. Like, at that point, you are just. At that point, you're just telling people that it's okay to pursue your healing, even if it's not going to be here for the time being. So this is an interesting question because I feel like there is a number that I have in my head of what I'd prefer, right, if I was starting groups at my church. But how many leaders do we actually need in place in order to get pure desire groups going?

Well, the first answer is you just got to have one to start it in general. But the way I usually will coach a church or help them get started is I'll say, hey, why don't you gather kind of a core group, like a soft launch? We've mentioned that many times over podcasts. And you're grabbing four or five guys or four or five women, and you're going to go through Sexual Integrity 101. You're going to go through the material together with the expectation of coming out of that. That. That will be your quote, kind of leadership core team. So if you can have, you know, for at least say, four guys to start, then you can have two groups. You know, then you'd be. You'd have a leader and a co leader. At the bare minimum small church, you might have one guy, you know, but if you have the ability to work with a team, because a pastor will come up to us and say, hey, I've got five guys that have been coming to me. How are we going to help them? And I'm like, hey, we could do this group and I'll train them. We'll go through and if they want to be leaders and then kind of go that way before we launch it to the whole church and the community. So they'll register with us, we'll support and work, work with them, but we won't put them on the map until they've gone through the whole cycle and then they build their leadership. So I think the soft launch approaches is more effective because now you have stronger leaders when you actually do a full launch.

Yeah, I think it's really effective if you can use that turbo group kind of concept that maybe a pastor or a lay leader in the church that has some traction in this area intentionally gathers a few others to say, hey, I'm going to walk through Sexual Integrity 101 with you. And at the end, the four of you, the five of you, the eight of you, however many you have you are all going to be ready to launch groups. And that's part of their involvement in the group is knowing like, yeah, I'm being trained and developed so that I can help in this area. And I've seen pastors do that even with something like seven Pillars for Men, where the male staff member will lead a number of guys through it, casting that vision from the beginning to say, I'm doing this with you so that you can then launch the ministry in our church. So if you're a pastor who's there, you know, you might say, I'm going to invest the next nine, 10 months to get it running. But then I can step back because I've trained up these other men to get running with the groups. And same for women. If you're the female pastor, you could gather a few gals and do that. But like you said, Rich, it kind of is a question of what are you ready for and what do you have? Because if you have one leader who's you trust and is ready to go start, you know, start today and trust that along the way you will raise up more leaders. Because that is, that is absolutely crucial. But I think we can kind of get into this perpetual, you know, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready. And we never fire because we feel like, well, we've got to have more leaders and more. Meanwhile, a group could have been running for six months had you just let one get going while you kept figuring out some of your leadership strategy.

And there's some truth there that like, this is. Recovery is not like a clean process. And I don't mean that people can't heal quickly and get sobriety and really see restoration happen at a, at a fast pace. That can happen and does happen. But like any ministry, it's not this, like, once we start it, everything gets better and is gonna be clean and perfect and it's gonna be awesome. Like, have you ever started a ministry before that you're gonna fall on your face a couple of times and just be like, oh, okay, we're not gonna do that again. Let's do something different. Like, let's improve. But the nice thing is that you've already mentioned, Rich, like, we have the group leader training, which literally walks you through every major aspect of leading pure desire groups, starting them, getting people to come, going through all of the issues and navigating all of the actual group experience. But we're a resource on top of that. You and the groups team here are here to answer those questions and to, like, you already said you talked to this Guy like, hey, let me train your leaders. Like, I'll walk them through what to do. So you're not alone in that. And I often feel like. And sometimes I think it's pride, like, well, I'm gonna start this ministry, so I'm gonna do it. So me, I'm gonna do it. And it's like, that's great, but, like, this is kind of scary, and it's not going to be a clean process. And recovery is kind of weird and difficult and new. And so it's okay to ask for help. And so just know that we're here to help.

Yeah, it's those leaders that kind of take that approach where it's like, I oversee it and I'm the one that does this, and I'm in control. Those are the groups that tend to fall apart because they're not asking questions, they're not asking for help. Because I'm the leader, I have to have it all together. So I paint this picture like I really have it together when I really don't. And then that group ends up dissolving.

Leaders have to be in the group for themselves, for their own healing, for their own story. We've actually heard people say, well, we don't want to do this because we're afraid if we do, too many people will come that will open the floodgates. And so they choose to do nothing. And I know that sounds funny, but it's true that fear holds people back. And I would just say, if that's a fear that you're feeling, we understand, we get where that comes from. But at the same time, I would say I have yet to hear a single church say, we opened the door and too many people came and it ruined everything. What I have heard a lot of is we opened the door and we were shocked by how many people came. And God provided leaders. God provided a method we hadn't thought of to get people in a larger room and put them at tables. And we've had churches running hundreds of guys through, like, the Conquer Series or sexual integrity 101. And so just because you're concerned there might be so many people that need it, there are ways, there are strategies to make that work. And if that's the fear that's holding you back, reach out to us, reach out to Rich, reach out to Ashley, our team, because we've walked that road with a lot of churches. And the other thing, I might say, that fear in many cases also turns out to be unfounded. Right. They think, boy, we're going to Announce this and it's just going to be people beating down the doors to come and they announce it and like three people show up. Yeah. Like oh, and if that happens, I would say that's fine. It's okay to start small. And that doesn't mean. Because I've then heard some people conclude like, oh, it must not be that big of a problem here. When actually I would suggest typically we find out the opposite is true. It's such a large problem. There's so much fear around coming forward. There's so much shame about what will be done to me if people knew that. People just have a hard time crossing that line. And so if you get a really small response, it's actually a good opportunity to ask like, is there a way we promoted this that made people feel exposed? Is there something we said that made them feel judged or unsafe? Is there a better method we could have used here to let people know? So don't gauge the need for the program in groups based on the response because we've seen both happen and for a lot of different reasons. So with that in mind, how can churches promote these groups? Well, because it's like we've been talking about it can be difficult there. It's very personal for someone to show up at group feels like an admission of guilt. So what are strategies and methods to do promotion of these kind of groups? Really?

Well, yeah, I mean one is obviously word of mouth. I mean that's, you know, that's going to get out there. But if you have a church that has totally bought in to put it in, and we've talked about this many times too, is to wrap it into a message and speak about.

Yeah.

About it from the pulpit and inviting guys to, you know, sexual integrity 101 or inviting the women to a one on one meeting, which when that happens it creates this safe environment. It's like, oh, the church is willing to talk about this. So as a guy that's sitting in church, it's like, if they're not talking about it, then why do I want to go forward? Because then I'm going to feel like I'm going to be ashamed. But if they're talking, if it's being talked about openly, say, hey, these are what we offer. And then there's other ways to promote too. It's just like you said, Nick, it's like flyers all over. Or you're talking about it at a men's breakfast or a women's breakfast or a Bible study or an event at the church. And We've done all of those at our church where we've taught. We've had speakers come in to the men's breakfast, stuff like that. And then having the leaders at your church talking to men in the church is another way of just kind of promoting it, too. So I think that's big. And then a lot of times what I'll have is guys will say, well, how do I promote it without it feeling like it's a group for addicts? You know, they kind of use that word because addiction is like, the scary, big, scary word. So a lot of churches will like. Like what we do. At our church now. We used to call it Pure Desire groups and fmo. I mean, it's been everything. And now we kind of settled on Fight Club. And then. So a lot of churches will. It'll be like Fight Club, you know, for sexual purity, stuff like that. And they'll just. They'll. They'll put a name on it that's a little bit more inviting.

Yeah.

With a description of kind of what it's about, but not so much, hey, this group is for guys that struggle with sexual addiction and look at porn.

Yeah.

You know, they. It's just kind of a soft.

Right.

Commercial.

Even though it's Fight Club, we still are allowed to talk about Fight Club.

Yes.

And, like, invite people to it. I think that's an important distinction. I think. I mean, we talk about this in our group leader training heavily. That language matters, inclusive language. Instead of you and them and those people, it's us and we and our. I think that's huge. I think there are simple ways, like sharing content, too. Just making it available, whether it's the material we produce, whether it's, like, videos or content we have online. Even these podcasts can be a great way to diminish shame for people. But there's, you know, and I've heard you say this, too, rich stories, like sharing stories from the front is also so helpful. You can just see it in someone else's life. But there's also this kind of, like, feel the dreams principle. Like, over time, if you build it, they will come. Like, if you keep doing this and you're consistent, even the people who maybe don't show up for the first year or two, they might come in year three, because life has finally gotten to a point where this is really difficult. It's impacting my marriage. My spouse might leave me, my kids don't like me, whatever. Might lose my job. There's all these things that could happen, but I just Think that there's this kind of. Almost back to the last question. We don't have to have it all perfect in order to launch it. If we just start to build it, people are going to come to it. Especially if we keep talking about it, we keep using inclusive language, we keep making resources available, people are going to see, okay, I know where I need to go, which is what you want. You want people to know when I get to the point where I need help, do I have a place to go? Do I know where I should go? And if your church has set it up this way, they're going to know. Pure desire groups at my church, this is what I go for.

That's great. I love that analogy of if you build it, they'll come. I mean, you look at what Ted did, we built it with or he built it. I was part of one of those original ones, but it was like small and not knowing. And he had a lot of pushback from churches and people, oh, we're not going to talk about that. But you just keep on pushing. And then now look where we're at with thousands and thousands of men and women around the world because one person took a risk and saying, this is what we're going to talk about. And when a church can do that, then it just impacts that even more.

Yeah. Another way you could promote the groups is trying to use the power of story sharing your own testimony or someone else's about how God is at work in your life in this area and creating some healing and freedom and some traction there. And then if you share that story or testimony at the end, what you don't want to say is, so if you're struggling with porn, like I was come to this group because again, it's, it's calling people out who feel like in going, I'm admitting it's a problem, which maybe they're ready to admit, but the spouse sitting next to them has no idea. And if they say, I'm going to that group, it's like, wait, you are? Why? So if you share your story or there's a testimony shared at the end saying, so if you would like to help start this ministry, if you're willing to help me explore how we could start this ministry at our church, come to this meeting, we'd like to talk more. Because maybe you don't struggle, you know, giving people that out. Like, maybe you don't struggle, but you have sons or brothers or friends or co workers who do. And we all need to be equipped to help in this area. So would you come and learn how we could do that? You know, and you'll get a group who come. And the majority of them are coming because it is their struggle. That's why they care about it. But they're not able to say yet it's their struggle. But from that altruistic feeling of, oh, I'm here to help others, I show up at the meeting and. And then that gives me the open door to start considering group. And also, I mean, we're not encouraging being deceptive with our spouses, but this is a really hard area that if there's something going on in your life and they don't know about, you're already kind of living in this duality of what they don't know. But if that gives you some freedom to go, it's like, oh, well, I'm going for our boys. I need to know how to help them. It's just an easier step. And so if you're the leader trying to think through this, you want to make that step as easy as possible for people because you don't realize you. How many voices in their head are telling them, you don't need that, don't go there, they'll reject you. It's not safe. You know, all the fear and trauma and wounds we've ever had are holding us back. And that first step is the biggest. So whatever you can do to like, address that pull down the walls, pull down the shame, make it an easy entry point, offer donuts, whatever it takes to get people in the room and help them see what the group is about and be able to consider joining it is. It's worth it. So go for it.

So once you've invited people and because we talked about this, that an introductory meeting is really important that we want to have. And this isn't like the first night of groups. This is like the informational, introductory, come and learn more type of meeting. What should that meeting look like and how does this meeting really help? I mean, I think we can understand practically, but with Pure Desire group, specifically, how does having this type of meeting help create longevity and health for Pure Desire groups?

Yeah, I think it's a. It's a great opportunity just to have the discussion with people that may not even know what the heck this is about. It's like that, hey, just come like you said, Nick, just come and let's learn about this. And then, well, what I'll do is I'll share my story, say, hey, this is. This is a little bit about my story and what Pure Desire has done for me. And then really kind of outline, hey, this is what it's going to look like we're going to go through. We're going to spend the next eight weeks going through Sexual Integrity 101. And then after that, for those who want to continue on to the next step, we're going to go through roughly 10 months of seven pillars and really just kind of outline and then touch base a little bit on. Okay, what's in. What are the. Some of the topics we're going to talk about in sexual integrity 101 and seven pillars and let them know, hey, these are the key things that we're working on. And just because we invite them, it's really the invitation for knowledge gathering, I guess, and sharing with them. But then hopefully out of that initial meeting and introduction piece, it's like those guys are going to say, hey, I want to be a part of this. And then you can go into your launching, basically your second step of the introduction, which like our church, we use the Sexual Integrity 101 as kind of the intro. A lot of churches will call that first meeting kind of an onboarding process, you know, kind of vetting those guys to see if they're really, if this is really where they need to go or do they go to like a drug and alcohol class or if they need, you know, is this really what they need to do? So it's another way of kind of vetting where guys really need to go with depending on their struggle. So I think it's really key and when that's done right, and then you go through the Sexual Integrity 101. I think just the longevity, the retention rate for the men and women in groups is much higher now because we've kind of vetted those and weeded out the ones that weren't. It wasn't their issue or they're just not even ready. They know it's an issue, but they're not ready to fully commit yet.

We have found that if a church is only running Sexual Integrity 101, if they're starting there, that orientation meeting may not be necessary because you're promoting it as, hey, this is just an eight week video study on sexual integrity. It's for men, women, parents, leaders, like we want to just equip everyone in this area. And it's clear that this is an overview and an educational opportunity. People may just jump in on that. But in particular, if you're inviting people into seven pillars of freedom for men, betrayal and beyond for women, unraveled for women, you are asking them for an 8 to 10 month commitment with a really high level of buy in. And you don't want someone to just kind of stumble into that trying to decide if they're in or not. And that's I think the primary purpose of that orientation meeting. And I know a lot of churches will do it between Sexual Integrity 101 and those groups. So at the end of SI 101 they'll say, hey, this has been a great study, we've learned so much. For some of us this is personal. For some of us we need to keep doing the work. And so at such and such time for men and such and such time for women, we're going to have an orientation meeting for what next steps would look like because there's a follow up group that goes a lot deeper and requires more commitment from us. And so before I ask anyone to make that commitment, I want you to know what you're committing to. And then at the orientation meeting you walk through the group guidelines, the need to do homework and make phone calls and really lay out the group so that someone can say I'm in and do it with confidence. So that's in my mind the purpose of the orientation is give someone a whole picture of what they're committing to, no strings attached and then let them opt in or not. Because if you let people kind of slide in and not really be committed, especially for those long term groups, it will ruin the culture of your groups from the start. You want people in those long term groups to be bought in from the beginning. So that's why the orientation meeting for.

Those groups, I feel like a tip I would just give is that your role running this meeting is not to convince people that they need to be in group, it's to invite them to the opportunity for recovery and healing. And I think that there's this pressure and especially if you've led groups before, you know this where you kind of put the recovery of other people or the healing of other people on your own shoulders. And like, bro, you can't even handle your own. So like leave the other people's story to theirs. Like let's just work on our own stuff. And I think taking that pressure off that this is truly an informational introductory meeting. This is not a I'm going to bash you over the head until you decide you're going to be in this group meeting. Because no one wants to go to those meetings. So just know as you're going into it that you're just inviting people into something and to not take it personally if people aren't ready, because some people aren't. I feel like this is a conversation we truly have to keep circling back to just because there are people maybe who are new to the podcast, new to Pure Desire, but also this is just a good refresher of starting Pure Desire groups at your church is not a clean or easy process. It doesn't always work the way we want it to, but the effort that we put into it is always going to be worth it because we're going to be offering hope and healing for so many people who've needed it for a really long time. And so we hope our conversation gave you some maybe next steps, pointers, tips on what you're going to do as you push more and more into this at your church or maybe a church that you're looking for. This is maybe, you know, start to explore that there. But rich. Either way, man, we really appreciate your time, appreciate the work that you do with churches and offering your expertise today.

Yeah, my pleasure, man. Great.

And before we get to the outro, I just want everyone to know, next week's gonna be new. Next week's gonna be different. Next week just. I'm just gonna say it. We're celebrating an anniversary. I'm not gonna tell you what it is. You probably will figure it out, because if you've been listening for a long time, you know, but next week, we're gonna do it a little different. Okay?

The.

The two words I'll just throw out there are live and stream, and I'm just gonna leave it there. So wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help create a romance for your healing. If you or somebody knows impacted by sexual brokenness or betrayal trauma, go to PureDesire.org and let's start the healing journey today. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Each week we put out new content to help you on the road to healing and freedom. And lastly, never stop being helpful.