271 - Developing A Purity Ministry

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma.

What is up?

I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you're listening to episode 271 of the Pure Desire Podcast. You're joining me, as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Everything is awesome.

Oh, man.

Everything is cool. When you're part of a team, Everything is awesome.

Do you know the last part when.

You'Re living in a dream?

There you go. Something like that. Yeah, something like that. My favorite part of that movie is that that was our. Everyone's introduction to lego Batman and Mr. Will Arnett just gracing us with the beautiful voice of LEGO Batman.

It's impressive what they did with the toy, the Lego, in terms of turning it into a movie series, and really well done. Have you ever been to the Mall of America and seen Legoland there? Man, Some of the stuff they have built, I mean, it's mind blowing. Just like, how long did that take? And they change it, like, at least a while back. Every year they'd have a new feature display that's like two stories tall and you're like, oh, my word. So, yeah, big fan of Legos.

Hey, we are too. LEGO is, like, hot and heavy in our house. We went to Disneyland last Christmas, and we went into the LEGO store in Downtown Disney and we see, like, Aladdin and the magic carpet and the genie and like, it's like a million pieces of lego. It's wild.

And you realize, like, that's someone's job. That's all they did was sit around for probably months. Right. And build that huge display and the.

That perseverance of that person. I'm telling you. Yeah, Legos are amazing forever. Okay, so we had. And I'm. I think I know where you're going with this intro, but we had Rich Moore, our associate director of men's groups, on to really walk through a document that we have that's called Developing Purity Groups. And really the conversation is just around, how do we develop a purity ministry in our church?

Yeah, and that's what we talk about, the steps, the process, that it's kind of a brick at a time. And. And when you're looking at it from the outset, it can feel a little intimidating. Like, man, this is a sexual integrity ministry. We've never done this before. We want to do it right. We want to do it well. And it can be look like looking at some of those LEGO sets that I'm sure you've bought your kids, you're like, oh, My word. How many pieces are there to this? And this is Star Wars X Wing.

The X wing is the one I'm telling you right now.

But you know, then what do you do? You pull out the directions, right? You just look step one and it's like, put this piece together with this piece and it's like, oh, well, I can do that. And then step two, find this piece and put that together. Oh, okay. You know, now they've even put them together in separate bags.

That's right.

I remember when I was a kid, it just all came in one big lump and it's like good luck palm. But when you break it into the steps, you just keep following and pretty soon you've created this really cool structure. And I think that's what we're trying to do with this process of developing purity groups that it can feel complicated, it can feel difficult, but it's like, hey, we've got a step by step process. Just do this and when you're ready, go to the next step. You can do it. And that's our, I think our message today, to say you can do this and we're here to help. It's doable.

And we walked through this document which has six steps in it, and it really is a 30,000 foot view over it. And we're just hoping that it gives you a vision of really how to create that movement or that momentum in your church when it comes to sexual brokenness and betrayal trauma. But before we get to it, a few things. Subscribe to the podcast. We're on all the major platforms. Follow us on social media. We are DesirePDMI. You also can see the full episode of this up on YouTube to search Pure Desire Ministries. And then Nick, if you're anybody is listening to this on the day it releases. We are three days away from the 2022 Pure Desire Summit and people still have the ability to register.

What's the summit? Just kidding. We're so excited.

You better know the summit.

This is summit week and it's a highlight of the year for us.

We're really tired and really excited.

We really want you to come and participate. And even if you're online, I think there's so much that comes out of the summit just in terms of people's connection, their next steps, the ideas, the things they hear about. And if you're a fan of PD and what we do, we've designed this event with you in mind. And so even if you've been hemming and hawing, it's like, hey, it's Friday. Get signed up. It's something you could watch. If you're not coming in person, you've got how long to watch it?

You have until the end of October.

Yeah. So it's not like you got to sit just Friday and Saturday. You've got time to watch it. And so just make this investment in your healing, in your journey. I think you'll be. I know. Well, I can't guarantee. I think you'll be glad that you did it. I'll just say I know what the content is going to be and it's going to be Good.

Guarantees. Yes. September 16 and 17, you can join us in person in Troutdale, Oregon, or you can join us online watch parties or at our host site. You can see all of that information@puredesire.org summit. And with that, here is our conversation with our associate Men's groups director, Rich Moore on how to develop a purity ministry. Rich, you're back again. This time a lot. There's just been less time. I feel like there was a rhythm where we had you on, took a little break. Had you on. It wasn't anything personal, but we've had you on now more recently. So, yeah, man, we're welcome back. Glad to have you.

Glad to be here. Always glad to come in.

So today we're going to walk through a document we've created. And Nick, you want to hold it up for the people who are watching. There it is. We have created this document called Developing a Purity Ministry. Well, is that actually the title? What does it say on it? Yes, Developing Purity Groups. Okay.

But this episode is less intimidating than developing a whole ministry. You can just develop some group that's fair. Trying to make it doable.

We'll get to the episode eventually. Okay, so this document lists out really a six step process. And it's not like a simple six step process. It's pretty hefty. But it really does get you going in that direction of developing groups, but then building a ministry over time. So we're gonna walk through each step and unpack it. And this episode may seem like stuff we've talked about before, but this document really is a 30,000 foot view. It's a way for us to kind of be up in the air, look down and see the plan kind of at a glance. Where we've been in the weeds a lot with some of these stuff. So we may not go into tons of detail with every single step. Like we may reference types of groups or resources that we have, but we want to at least Give you an idea that this is going to map it out for us. And Rich, because you're our associate director of men's groups, it makes tons of sense for you to be here and walk us through it. I think you were actually a part of creating this document as well. So you've got a little bit of authorship there. Okay, so step one is foundation. What is included in this step? And really what kind of steps are we encouraging churches to take before they actually launch groups?

Yeah, great question. We answer it all the time. And I think the biggest thing right out the gate is just to get familiar with us, which is great. Go to the website, look at the tools, look at the material we offer, podcasts, blog, I mean, everything that we have, counseling just kind of to see what pure desire is all about and they get the flavor of. Okay, this is, you know, you talked about what types of groups we offer, so. And then they could go in and kind of look at the material and they see specifically what each one's about. And then from there, you know, we talk about. The next step would be if they're, if they, if they're interested and they want to go that next step, you know, start by showing their leadership, the sexual integrity 101. And then you kind of get buy in from staff and leaders that are in the church that are maybe have been in an online group and they've taken it back to their church. And then the next one would be to connect with Ashley or I and setting that up. And then once, once you're at the point where you're ready to launch or getting close to launch, connect with Ashley and I, we can have a meeting with the pastors and then group leaders and really just kind of answer any of those last minute questions and then help them launch successfully. And then through that, we will help them, give them ideas on how to train their leaders, you know, and then, and then. So they can start with a small group of men or a small group of women, almost kind of a pilot group where while they're going through it, they're getting some training and then say they launch in the spring or the next year. So now they've been able to go through one on one, the groups.

Yeah.

And then now they're ready to launch for the church of the body. So. And then determining where those groups fit in within the church structure.

Totally.

Do you start men's and women's groups all together? Do you have the teen groups? When do you launch them all together? So those are just a few things. That you could do to start. And then there's obviously some more outlined in the, in the document.

Yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot of different ways that churches can start groups, and a lot of it depends on the size of church and how ready you are and who in your church is maybe already equipped and ready to lead because they've been in a group previously or somewhere else or they've done it online. But the two big areas we're looking at in this area is really you want to educate staff and equip leaders because you want your staff team to have just a basic understanding of who is this group pure desire and what do they believe and what's their approach. Because if staff or some of your leadership can be on board in supporting the groups beyond just saying, oh, go check these out, like, hey, we really believe in what they're doing. That's super powerful. And then equipping your leaders, that's, I think, the primary feedback we get from churches. As man, we want groups, but who can lead them. And now that we have the group leader training available online, that's really what you can direct some people towards that are ready to help lead. And with both of those happening, you know, then groups are going to start with a firm foundation. And you know, at the same time, a lot of churches, you know, this structure is maybe created a little bit more for the idea that leadership is on board. And if you're in a church where that's not really happening, that you're a volunteer and maybe you've just got some. Some open doors to begin a group, but not necessarily having whole church buy in. It might look a little different for you that you still connect with Rich or Ashley and our groups team, that you personally go through the group leader training and kind of create that foundation. It can still work because like I said, there's a thousand different ways to start the groups depending on the context you're in. And the last point that Rich made, I think is really important, deciding where the groups fit. We have seen a lot of groups kind of wither on the vine when they don't have some kind of structure to report back to. And again, we've seen churches put these under their men's and women's groups, respectively. We've seen other churches put them under their small group system. Others have put it under discipleship, others have put it under a separate recovery ministry. Others will appoint it to a discipleship pastor. Like, it doesn't really matter where you put it, but it's that you do have a plan primarily so that your group leaders know if I have a question, if I need help, if I need to report something or get input from the church staff, who do I go to? Because if they don't know that lack of support will really make it difficult for groups to be viable long term. So just figure out what makes sense for your church and again, Rich and the team here can advise you on best practices. What we've seen that works, but just trying to create a healthy leadership structure so that those men and women that end up leading groups who these are volunteers in your church but making they feel like they do have support if there's someone on staff they need to turn to.

And this is a type of ministry that you can't just go into just like flippantly. I mean there is a lot of brokenness that's happening. There are marriages that are being wrecked. There are people carrying so much shame. So you can't just go in and just jump in with both feet without having any information or anything like that. And so that's why this is such an important piece and why we call it foundation. Because you're getting the necessary information to know what we're getting into. And if you walk through this process, you're going to see that it unfolds in a way that is very doable and but again it's something that you can't just jump in and expect. You're just going to help people if you have no information or education on what we do. And another piece that's just, and it's just because it's brand new. I want to make sure people are aware of it. This is a part where you might consider membership, especially if your church is involved and your leadership is invested in this is looking into our church membership or even individual membership because that really does give you a prepackaged sort of approach in this where you can start groups and have all the resources available to get going.

Yeah. The second step is about launching the recovery groups. And so what are we looking for in this step when we launch groups?

Yeah, really the two primary groups that we're looking for here are getting men into seven pillars of freedom groups and then women into unraveled groups. And the best way that we do that is we have a sexual integrity 101 video course. And this is an eight week video course that is intended for both men and women. And it really is our on ramp. It's people getting going. That's why we called it the 101. It's really getting you up to speed, giving you the information. And even in the course we're talking about really what is involved in our groups, the process of healing, what that looks like, restoring relationships for both the addict and the betrayed. But recovery groups, this Sexual Integrity 101, you can start with showing the trailer. We have like a minute and a half trailer. We have a three minute trailer available online. You can just show that to get people in and really use it as an educational piece that invites people in. And then you have. We've talked about this where we have more of an informational meeting as we get going. So we go through sexual integrity 101 and after that it is a clean handoff to seven pillars and unraveled. And that's really what we're hoping for, is that men and women can get into these groups with people who are also on the same journey and then start their healing process. And then there are other things, Rich, you could probably speak to, maybe more of the details. But another piece then becomes registering your group and making it something that people in your area are aware that your church. And I remember, Rich, you and I had this conversation very early on when I first started groups. You said this is an evangelistic tool in so many ways. It's something where if you open it up and people search for groups around the area and they find, oh, Trevor's leading groups at Countryside Christian Church in Kaiser. Great, let's go there. It really opens the door. And because there are a lot of people who don't realize that there's help. And so this opens the door and makes it more available for people even outside the doors of your church.

Yeah, and I agree. And I think that's the biggest thing is it's not so much about numbers at a church, but what it does is it lets people know, okay, that's a safe church to go to because they're willing to talk about this. So registering your group is very key because what that does too is once a church registers with us, we're able to assign a church group advisor. So there's support. And along with what you're talking about is, is to encourage the leadership or if there's a go to person at the church that kind of oversees the groups to meet quarterly, monthly, whatever that is with the group leaders and just offer support and training. And then we have, like you mentioned, the membership, the individual membership, just the tools available so that those leaders at the church are getting what they need. So. And those group advisors are real key support in A lot of those areas.

And I just want to remind everyone how important it is, the way you speak about these initial groups and the way that people can join them, because a lot of churches still make the mistake. I mean, I just talked to a pastor the other week who said, yeah, we had a couple who wanted to run Sexual Integrity 101. And so they said, it's at our house, and if you're struggling in this area, come and join us. And no one came. It's like, well, surprise, surprise. Because if they showed up, there's a couple that they don't know well, that just by showing up, they're acknowledging we've got significant issues with sexual brokenness. We need this series, and that's a very, very uncomfortable step, particularly for a couple to take together. Most couples aren't ready to start together. So you can definitely run Sexual Integrity 101 and invite couples, but if you're doing that, it needs to be clear, like, hey, this is an equipping event for everyone in the church to understand the factors that contribute to sexual addiction. And if you want to help in this area and then, you know, just come and join us. If you're a parent, you're a leader, you're concerned about our society and what's happening with sexual addict, come and be equipped. And if that's crystal clear that this is not for those who struggle, this is for anyone who wants to help, you'll get a better turnout. And even then, you want to make sure that you have men and women at separate tables so that they can have appropriate levels of discussion and not feel like they're disclosing anything in a mixed crowd that's really helpful. So the other thing I would say, if you do want to promote them as, hey, if this is an area of struggle, the next step that you give them has to be absolutely confidential and to people of the same gender. So I have seen churches do that with success, if they say so, Guys, if you've been battling with pornography and you're ready to get freedom, you can text Joe at this number, and Joe is the only one that will know you're looking for help. And when you reach out to Joe, he will get you the information you need about starting in group. That gives someone the ability to go later, after church, after a public gathering, and reach out to Joe. And because if the way they reach out is through filling out a card in your bulletin or something in the back of the church, in all likelihood, the people they're sitting next to, like their spouse don't know the level to which they need that group, and they're simply not going to respond. So you need to give them a way that. That on their own later on, they can follow up and reach out to that person. And then over time, you know, once the groups have been established and are more familiar in your church, there will just become some reputation of, oh, that's the person you talk to if you're interest and group, and you can seek them out at a time that's. That's more convenient for you, because that first step, launching that first group and doing it well, is really, really key. And that's why we've done a number of episodes on it. So when you're at that point, reach out to Rich and Ashley for help. Go back and listen to some of those episodes on launching groups, because doing it right the first time can pave the way for all the groups that come after it.

Absolutely.

Yep. All right, well, let's move on to. To step three, support groups. So let's just talk through that a little bit. Can a church start both at the same time and then. Or should it be sequential recovery groups first, followed by the betrayal groups?

Yeah, and those are the two terms that we've used a lot. If you look on our website, you'll see we've got recovery groups, which indicates I need recovery for something I'm struggling with. And as Trevor said, recovery groups for men and women are seven pillars of freedom. For men unraveled. For women, a support group is that indication. I need support because of the issues that are happening in my relationship. And so for women that are feeling betrayed and experiencing the trauma that comes with that, we have our workbook called Betrayal and Beyond and groups for them. And then for men, a situation that is still a little less common, but probably more common than we think, is when men are betrayed by something happening in their relationship. So we have a workbook called Hope for Men, and that could be launched as well. And it's really what's great about it for these pure desire groups is the group structure is very, very similar. So the timing of it, the length of groups, the time the group meets, and yet the content will obviously be very specialized to that group. And we have seen churches that will start both simultaneously. It really just depends on the readiness of your leaders. Because if you have betrayed spouses who've walked through some healing or that have an understanding of man, I'd help facilitate a group if I could launch one. There's no reason you can't start Both simultaneously. We just have seen that for most churches, sequentially, more often than not, the ones who are struggling are looking for help more readily. Where the betrayed spouses are a little more on that side of, well, why do I need group? This is his problem and I don't want to talk about it. And they're maybe a little more hesitant to just jump into a group. But once you get the recovery groups going, then those betrayed spouses see change happening. And there can be kind of this groundswell of interest where they say, hey, we need group two. But we've actually seen it happen the other way as well. Where groups will begin with the betrayed groups, because there's a group of women that have started to confide in one another and saying, what do I do? And I'm so hurt and I don't know if I can stay around and will you help me? And they share that. And then another woman says, man, me too, and what do we do? And so they might be the ones that approach a church or leadership to say, hey, we need to start a group. And sometimes the betrayal groups start first for support, which kicks into gear. The spouses who also need to work on their recovery. So the order of how it starts isn't as important as that. You just look at who's ready for group, who's asking for group, where do we see the need? And then start there with the vision that the other one will probably come along as an outcome of that other group beginning to meet.

Well, we've talked about it too, that if you're at a place where you don't have maybe as much buy in for support groups, it is a great chance or opportunity to run a pilot group. Maybe say you have two or three men or women who are in this situation where they're experiencing betrayal, betrayal, trauma, and they want to go through the resource. It's okay to start with a smaller group because then at that point you'll have people who have experienced the content, experienced the resource for what it is, have some experience in how it runs and what the weekly rhythms look like, and then those people can become your leaders in that next round. Or those people can be the ones who are sharing, maybe you know, in a testimony on stage or sharing, you know, a snippet of their story in an email, whatever it may be. You're using their story to then help launch those groups as well. Because to what Nick is saying, it's really important to understand that there's going to be pushback. Like, this is not my problem. I Didn't cause this. I don't. And that is true. 100%. That is true. But we see that it's a family systems thing where we need both spouses to heal in order for a marriage to be fully restored and for a family to be healthy. And so regardless of timing or where you're at or even where your church may be at in this topic, understand that that pilot group can really be a good resource, a good use of the time.

Yeah. And I think a lot of times we kind of underestimate how important that pilot group is. A lot of churches, which I get it because they have so many people that need help and they have leaders available. But a lot of times churches will start and they'll just go all in right off the bat and they get these groups going, but they haven't had the time to develop any maybe potential other leaders. So now you have a leader that's going nonstop with no support. The pilot groups are great for maybe working with a few guys or women, getting them ready and then launching like we talked about a little bit ago.

Well, and you have to consider too that men and women who are in these groups, both recovery and support groups, if they don't have some level of healing and they, you know, go off, like, let's say someone goes off the rails back into relapse or someone's experiencing so much trauma going through this group that they cannot lead it, you don't want that to happen. That's not best case.

Yeah.

And so these pilot groups where there's some safety net there that someone has gone through some of their stuff, at least one round.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And keep in mind that your future leaders are in your current groups. And so you want to keep an eye out. If you're in church leadership, if you've got a role to play that you're helping kind of facilitate the growth of new groups, it's looking at who's currently in a group that is starting to. They're getting momentum that you're seeing excitement. So that is something. We've seen some churches that will Launch Sexual Integrity 101 and they'll have 100 people go through it together, or 200. It's like, oh my goodness, if this large group of people all want to funnel into the follow up groups, who's going to lead them? Because you can kind of navigate Sexual Integrity 101 because the video series kind of is the teacher or the leader and then the table is just discussion at tables. But when you're launching into Seven Pillars of Freedom, Betrayal and Beyond Unraveled. You need a dedicated leader that says, I will facilitate the group. It's like, well, where do we find those? You find them in the group that's meeting just by paying attention to who's commenting. Man, this, this is so good. We've needed this. That willingness to follow up and say, man, it seems like you're really connecting with the material. Would you be interested in helping lead a future group? Because that pressure for leadership is real and it's something a lot of churches face. But like I said, I think if you're really watching and if you're not personally leading a group, if you're working with your leader to say, hey, who in your group is getting traction and could we talk to them about possibly helping lead the next group, then that can really build a powerful system that over time is self sustaining. You don't really have to look for new leaders because as you're getting into that pattern, the new leaders just emerge from future groups when that's become your pattern.

Yep. So step number four is events. And over the last couple of years, depending on which part of the world, maybe even the United States that you live in, this word just be like, excuse me, you want to do what? So events are another thing that we offer and it's this next step in the process. So how do events fit in the process of developing a purity ministry? And what kind of events are available through Pure Desire?

And one of the great things about what's happened in our world over the last few years is that there are a lot of events that Pure Desire does that you could attend virtually that you wouldn't have to travel here or have us travel there, that there's streaming content we've made available and we can put you in touch with that. But the way I view events for a church is to really ask the question, where could an event strategically catalyze Pure Desire groups becoming a major component of your church's discipleship ministry? Where are you ready to launch this large scale? And so for a lot of churches up front may not be the time up front though there may be opportunities where you have someone come in from Pure Desire and preach at weekend services just to bring in some perspective on godly sexuality and what does the Bible have to say about it? And, and to try to increase the awareness for people and the comfort level of, hey, our church actually talks about this. But what I've seen more often than not is when a church has had that pilot group or they've had maybe a couple of groups that have been a little more under the radar, but it's starting to connect with people. It's starting to create some buzz and momentum. And they're like, okay, we want to run Sexual Integrity 101 for our whole church, or we want to promote this to all the men. We want to get as many men and women into our groups as possible. Then bringing in pure desire for an event can make a ton of sense because we can really catalyze the importance of that. I think about if your church was going to run Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, and how cool would it be if a couple of months ahead of time you could bring Dave Ramsey in? It'd be like, man, that'd be amazing. We would hear from the guy why we need to do this. And I think we'd get so many people to show up for Financial Peace. Well, we don't have the national recognition of Dave Ramsey, but that also means we don't have the financial cost of Dave Ramsey. You know, to bring him in would be a lot.

I want to say, yet again there.

But I'm sorry, that's in God's hands. But, but that ability that you could bring us in and have that like this is pure desire. Talking to our church about what a group can do for them, that can be a real difference maker. Whether it's at a men's event, a women's event, a couples thing, a parenting thing. We have some options there we could talk about.

Yeah.

And then on the other hand, as, as we mentioned, not every church can do an event. And some it's a financial burden or just the size of church. It's not realistic. So every year we have the PD Summit, which is our annual event both in person and online is in three days. You're listening to this.

It's in three days.

Yeah. You'd have to get on the ball and join us. But. But that could be just an annual rhythm that you encourage all of your current group leaders and group members to go to, because it's going to give them new perspective, new insights. There's going to be breakouts for group leaders. And then we do routine group leader training events around the country. So you could just look at where are we doing an event and bring some people. But I think that's what you want to just look at is where would it be strategic to give some of our leaders or some of the people in groups an in person experience that's just going to take them to the next level and where we can work with you in that. We'd love to be a part of it.

Yeah. The cool thing about events is that it brings in an outside expert, that you're not having to convince your church of something. And I think that that's what we've seen. When we come in, we get pastors and leaders who are pushing this, and maybe even just group leaders who are pushing this at their church. And we come in and we come with the expertise and authority that we carry, because this is what we do for a living. And it opens people's eyes. Like, it's almost like the first time, you know? And it's funny, I always think about this because I was a youth pastor. There were times where I said something to a student that their parent had been saying to them for five years, but they heard it from me for the first time, you know, and parents are like, this is so dumb. Why can't they just listen to me? And it's because I'm an outside voice that doesn't have that role. And sometimes you've heard something over and over from the front or from leaders or people in your church, and sometimes you just kind of gloss over. But when you have an outside expert who comes in and speaks to it, it just. It's a different perspective, different vantage point, different authority and expertise, and it really can open a lot of doors. And so we see events being a catalyst, as you mentioned, that. That type of event that really kicks the doors open, and people are like, yeah, I want to be a part of this ministry. I want to be a part of what is happening here. And events can be. Yeah, a financial burden in some ways, but also can be a huge movement and almost momentum creator in your church.

Yeah. I love events for the one reason, probably the biggest reason, is the relationship piece of it. We've done a lot of events over the years, and the ones that I've been able to go to, you're able to connect with leaders and people from all over, anywhere. So you mentioned Nick, just like, maybe this church can't afford a whole event, and it's at church A, but you're gonna have people from the community, other churches, other states away, that converge on that, because maybe that's the only event in that area for one time. And then what I love about it is because we can only reach so many leaders on any given day or during the month or week or whatever, just because there's so many groups around the country, around the world. But what an event does is it brings those Leaders in that community. So as they start talking, they're like, oh, I didn't know you're doing groups connection. So now you're connected and you have these relationship with these other churches in the community where now those leaders are bouncing stuff off each other because they're just across town.

Yeah, well, and we've seen the same thing happen within a city where if your church has a vision to bring in, you know, let's say pure desire to speak at a men's event, you open it up to all the churches in your community and just say, we want to help men live lives of sexual integrity. And we brought in pure desire. And they're speaking Saturday morning. Here's how you register. That can be a way of helping catalyze groups meeting in other churches that maybe at the current moment aren't even thinking about it. But I think that's really cool when a church has that vision of not only what can God do in our church, but how could God use that to start something in another church as well? And when there's an event, man, it just makes sense like, hey, they're here in person. So let's gather as many as we can.

Yeah, absolutely.

So the fifth step on this document and this process of developing purity groups is about student groups. And I know for some people they might feel like, well, that should be first because we need to help our teens. And but for us, it's a little deeper in the process. And so, Rich, maybe talk a little bit about why is that, what steps are involved in launching student groups and are there any special qualifications for those who would lead student groups that people should keep in mind when they consider starting those?

Yeah, and I like, kind of the way you intro it, it's a little bit further down on the. Just in the step. And part of that is we need healthy leaders to lead those groups. And you get healthy leaders by leaders that have gone through this. And then not only that, just those leaders in the church because their youth are going to be vetted and background checked and all that stuff. So you need to make sure that those are some steps that are up front so that those leaders are okay to lead the youth. But I think having healthy leaders is going to be the biggest thing. I know just at the church I go to, some of those leaders who have led these groups are guys that have come out of seven pillars groups and they all have a story. And all of our stories started when we were a kid. So we can relate to these youth now. And we're Getting ready. I believe we're launching Living Free here in September at our church again and this will be the second or third time around.

And that's a resource for college age.

For the college, yeah. And so what we're doing there is we're actually using the Living Free for like the older high school that's 17, 18 and then. But the, the resources we have are Living Free for the college men, the top gun for the, the teen boys, the younger teen boys, and then behind the mask for the teen girls. And then also a lot of churches will use Unraveled for the college age girls, which is another great resource and oftentimes that gets forgotten sometimes. So as Ashley and I are talking to churches, the question is like, well, what resource do you have for the college age girls? And then we'll say we'll take them through, through Unraveled. So yeah, but I think it's, it's really important and not to rush to do a youth group because obviously we know they need it. But if you don't have healthy leaders, you can't, you just can't start it. Now if a passer has a bandwidth, you know, to do it, then you can maybe start there. And then the other thing I would say just to add to that, when you're leading youth in this material, you have to have a co leader not to lead it by yourself. There has to be that safety aspect.

Of just leaving because you also have like age stuff like, you know, a kid is a minor and so like, you know, having conversations with parents, confidentiality, like all these things come up. And so it's really important to have a plan in place for that. Right. Because it's not that these groups aren't necessary and needed. They absolutely, we know that they are. We absolutely know that they are. But it can go really bad really fast if you don't have things set up the right way.

Yeah, yeah.

We do get that question quite a bit from churches of. Well, you know, we're a smaller church and we don't have many groups or we don't have a youth pastor. So there's a 16 year old boy, couldn't we just have him do seven pillars with the men? And we have a pretty hard no there because there are just so many legal things that can come up between that adult and minor situation. So I mean it's one thing if a dad wants to go through sexual integrity one on one with his boys. We highly encourage that. If you've got a vetted youth leader that can take even A couple of guys through material that can be very, very helpful. But when you're trying to integrate a minor into what's meant to be an adult men's or adult women's recovery group, you're just, you're putting yourself in some dangerous situations that are better to be avoided. Now if you are talking like you talk living free, if it's a 17 year old boy in a group with 19, 20 year old, like that's a different situation that is workable, particularly if you have the permission of the 17 year old's parents, you'd still want that charity level too, but that's still a group for them and their age group. You don't want to create a situation where the challenges that a 35 year old male are facing versus a 16 year old are just. They're very, very different and really not appropriate to mix. So I know the heart behind it is, well, just this kid wants to do it and he'll be there with his dad. And it's like, you know what, the dad's not gonna be as honest with the kid there and the kid's gonna be involved in some conversations they just shouldn't be involved in yet. So try to figure out a way to make it work. And that's where we'd love to advise a church. If you've got particular questions, what that.

Looks like and the reason why this is just thinking through this conversation, these steps practically, there's a reason why this is down a number five is because in the foundation and in recovery groups and support groups, you are creating potential people who can lead these groups. Or, you know, I just, I feel like, and I know this happens in my church, that I know a guy who leads groups of young men, you know, college age and out, out of college. And those guys are leading groups. And so they've been through group. And so you basically have some iterations of groups where there is a layer of health that's being established. And again, at a smaller church, this may be difficult. Maybe it's that same person leading groups every time. But the mishandling of these is what we want to avoid. And having it so far down in the process is for that reason. So we can try to hedge that.

Yeah.

All right. The next step, ongoing support. We talk about that quite a bit. What kind of options do we offer here at pure desire for the groups in the church?

Yeah, and there's really two aspects to this question. There's what can pure desire do for you and your groups? And then there's the question of what do you do as a church to support your leaders in your groups? And so, you know, from the pure desire side, we have so many resources and tools that we want to make available to you. Many of them free, like the podcast, our free resources page, and then tools like the group leader training that you can use to continue training your leaders, making sexual integrity 101 available. I mean, just using our tools, I think, is where I would start. But also we have a system of church group advisors. These are volunteers that are serving in their local church, have seen success in launching and maintaining a group ministry in their church, and are there just to do what their title says, to advise you on best practices, next steps for troubleshooting. We want you to have a relationship with them. And so if you've not connected with that person or if you don't know who that person is, connect with Rich and Ashley and our groups team and they'll get you connected to their church group advisor because we're here to answer those questions. And like we've said many times on the podcast, it might be new for you, but it's probably not new for us. And so we can say, hey, here's what we've done in these situations. Here's what we've seen. So that's on the pure desire side, on your side of the equation. I think there's a temptation when groups are launched and there's kind of that initial push that a church can get through that and feel like, whew, like, we did it. We addressed that topic, we started some groups, and then those groups disappear, off the radar for months, if not years at a time. And then a church will come back around and say, man, well, we tried that, but they kind of disappeared after a while and no one was joining them. And we'll ask questions like, well, how often were you talking about it from the stage? Well, never. Were you listing the groups on your website? Oh, no, they were confidential. No, the people in the groups are confidential, but having groups is not confidential. You need to create a system where it is supported, that we have groups that can help you. And so to mention those as a part of your church's discipleship process, to list that we have groups, and here's who to contact if you're interested in more information. Like I said, another place you may not. It's not always appropriate to list the time and place the group meets because that might make someone feel too nervous about showing up. And then my family's going to ask, why do you need to go to church on that night. Isn't that when the recovery groups meet? And what's wrong with you? And for sure. So not the. The time and the place, but the fact that you have them making sure it's on your website and then just supporting regularly. We recommend that once a quarter, as you get these groups up and running, that where God is at work in someone's story and they're at that place of saying, I'd be happy to share part of my story, that you have testimonies up front or maybe you video them. And. And that doesn't mean a person's going to stand up front and tell their whole sexual history. That would not be appropriate, but that they could talk about an aspect of growth, of victory, of freedom. And when you highlight a testimony, you are giving everyone else the message that this is something that we help with here and is not too big or scary for us as a church. There are options available and that can just do a huge service to your current groups and leaders that feel like, hey, our ministry got highlighted, it got spotlighted, and now it's generating interest. And when you do that again, even just quarterly, it keeps it in front of people. Because the other thing we've seen is you will have men and women in your church that the first time you announce it, they need it desperately. But the lies they're listening to or the shame in their life is going to keep them from joining. And the second time they hear it, they're going to start to go, well, I think they're serious, but I'm just not ready. And it might be the third, the fourth or the fifth time that they finally are convinced, okay, I think they're serious. I think they actually want to help me. And it sounds like when people have done it, it's safe and it works, that they're not going to out me and make me feel embarrassed. It's going to be a really safe, confidential process. I'm going to sign up. So you've got to keep bringing it up so that people get to that place where they're confident enough to actually jump in.

Absolutely. And you have to understand that just because you maybe have a large portion of your church has maybe gone through group doesn't mean, oh, we need to stop doing this or we need to stop growing. I mean, the idea of becoming more and more aware of statistics and trends and the broken. Like, as a leader in a church, as someone who's trying to help people, it is important to know what's going on in the world. It's important to know the brokenness your people are bringing in. And this idea of ongoing support, like tap into the greatest resource you have. And at that point, it's going to be us, it's going to be our groups team, it's going to be the conversations with the church group advisors, it's going to be the resources, you know, and I love. Dr. Ted talked about it. I've heard him say it a number of times. That we pay the dumb tax is what he says over and over. Right. Like, I don't know if he says it over and over. I just have heard him say it a lot. That we pay the dumb tax so that other people don't have to, so the churches don't have to. And so we figured out a system that works and it helps churches to really tackle this issue and create healthy congregations and communities of people. And that's what we're after, an ongoing developing growth of a church. Okay, so as we've gone through this process, you know, and again, 30,000 foot, this might have felt for some people like we're driving through a school zone. It might have felt like a flyby. But. But as we've gone through this, what encouragement would you give people in this process? You know, it's easy to see this and feel overwhelmed. So what are some things you would offer to them?

Yeah, I was thinking about this and when I was kind of jotting some notes down earlier, the first one I'd say is don't try to do this on your own. We do have churches that try to do it on their own without reaching out. And then there's just a lot, there's a lot of problems. But I think the biggest thing I was thinking of is really for the pastor's side of it to really encourage them, especially if they're listening to the podcast and you're thinking about what are we going to do for our men and women is really just to invest in your leaders. Now what I mean by that is you don't have to be all hands on and overseeing the ministry and making sure that you're in every meeting. And Nick, you mentioned about speaking from the pulpit and you're actually talking about pure desire and sexual brokenness from the pulpit so people can hear you. What I mean about investing is supporting them, maybe the church membership. So investing some of that up front for your leaders, give them access to the group leader training, The Sexual Integrity 101, you know, and then after investing in that and giving the tools for your leaders Let us at Pure Desire, with our group advisors, Ashley and I and the groups team, we train. We're going to work on training those leaders, you know, through the membership, through all the stuff that we have, those tools that you mentioned with. So a pastor initially, their thing is why I just don't have the bandwidth. Well, that's why we have a team that will actually help those leaders. And so I think a lot of times the pastors get a little nervous up front, but that's why we do what we do. So I think a lot of times the people that are starting groups are nervous because they know and because just the history that they've had with churches, it's like, well, they give us a room, but they really don't support us. It may not be that they don't support you, it's just they don't have the bandwidth where they're all hands on. So I think for leaders to recognize that a pastor oversees a church with so many ministries going on, he's excited that you're over here helping men and women. He's just not super engaged because he's over everything going on. And let us come in and help develop the leaders.

Yeah. And if you're a pastor or staff member, that's what we want to hear you say, is that we care about you and we know it's hard to start a new ministry, but we've really tried to design this in a way that if you'll open the door, we'll step in and do the rest. We'll help train your leadership, we'll give them best practices, we give them group structure. And then if along the way you've got questions, you want to know about our theology or how do we handle things like, we're here for that. I've told people we encourage skepticism because I firmly believe that Pure Desire's methodology, our biblical foundation, hold up to the questions. And so for you as a leader and pastor, we're here to support you so that you can feel like, man, I just invested a little bit of my energy to help them get going. But now I get to trust that Pure Desire is there for them. And I just, I kind of get to stand by as the cheerleader and say, keep going, you're doing awesome, while I'm busy doing all the other stuff that's on my plate. If you're not a pastor or staff member, I think my encouragement would be the phrase, do not despise small beginnings. You know, start with what you've got. And if you feel like, you're being given permission just to start a group, and there's a few people interested. And you had these grand visions of how it was going to transform your church and become the ministry. It's like, well, you know, God's in charge of that. But if what he's given you is three other people that are interested in the group, then pray and begin meeting. And we have so many stories that started like that. Like, we just started a group, and God multiplied it. And then we had two groups, and then we started a spouse group. And then it caught the attention of one of our staff members, and they started promoting it. And then we did an event. And pretty soon they look back and they've started, you know, dozens of groups and impacted other churches and raised up leaders. And they're like, how did that happen? But it all goes back to remember it was that group of four of us meeting every Friday morning. And we thought we were the only ones. And now look what God has done. So that may be your story. And if that means for a year it's quiet, and for two years, it doesn't feel like much trust that God will use that. Because like I said, we've seen story after story where that is exactly how they begin. Yeah.

My encouragement would be not to get ahead of yourself like that. These steps, some of them may take, I think of the recovery groups, it may take a year or two before you're launching support groups. Genuinely, it may be that reality. And if you get ahead of yourself and you're trying to, like, go into step four, five, and six before really even having any sort of foundation or groups going like this can burn out super fast. People can get really hurt. And then you lose all the momentum that you've been trying to create. I'm not saying that you can't restart, you know, like, that's possible. But just trust the process. Like, this is the pattern that we see more often than not. Some things can change. The order of things can change. But to not feel like day one, we are building this mega ministry that's a part of our church. I mean, to your point, Nick, starting small, it's okay to start small. It's okay to start humble. And over time, if you're taking those right steps, that's how huge things in this world are created and built is just one small step at a time, over time. And so just trust this process and know that there are gonna be moments where you're super discouraged. You're like, this is not working. Like, I feel like Our groups are good. I feel like they're well attended, but we're just not getting a lot of traction. That doesn't mean it's not working because those people are going to impact people in your community as they get healthy. So just trust the process and don't get ahead of yourself. This, I feel like even just through this conversation, it's good to just be reminded of that, that this is just that, a process. And it's not an equation where if you do all of these things, everyone in your church will get healthy or, you know, you'll, if you were able to get all these six steps that you'll actually get the complete buy in from your pastors or elders. But just to know that this is what we see typically. And again, you know, to, to talk about step six again, like we're here to have those conversations and to support you and to help you through this process. This is not something where we're helping you start our ministry. We're helping you start your ministry and we're happy to support that. So, Rich, thanks man, for all the work that you're doing. Nice job, man. Thanks for being with us today.

Thanks, man. Yeah.

And wherever you're at on your journey, pure desire is here to help create a roadmap for your healing. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual brokenness or betrayal trauma, go to PureDesire.org and start the healing journey today. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and drop us a review. Each week. We're putting out new content to help you on the road to healing and freedom. And lastly, never stop being healthy.

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