It’s November 2023; I’m in England, at the Christian Resources Show, walking down an aisle between exhibits. In ten minutes I’m scheduled to give a seminar on “Finding Freedom and Healing from Porn Addiction and Adultery.” I hear my name being called… “Mike, Mike”… but I ignore it. No one knows me here so they can’t be looking for me.
So I thought.
I hear my name several more times, stop, and turn around. A woman approaches me and asks, “Are you giving the seminar on porn addiction in 10 minutes?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be bringing my husband.”
She turns around and walks away without saying another word.
Minutes later, I’m in the seminar area, getting ready. She reappears, introduces her husband, and walks away. As the seminar winds down, she returns; I see her talking to her husband. They approach me, in tears, and thank me for sharing. Porn addiction had been causing pain and wreckage in their marriage for years and now they have hope.
I’ve been going to the UK to exhibit at the CRE show for five years. I’ve also spoken in churches and had counseling sessions in the UK with individuals and couples. The stories I’ve been a part of include:
* The wife who came to our stand and broke down crying because she lost her marriage to her husband’s porn addiction.
* The men who come to our stand and share their struggles, often, with their heads down in shame and embarrassment. Our stand is a safe place for them to unload their burdens.
* The 70-year-old elder of a church who told me he’d never heard a message on sex from the pulpit in his life.
* The man in his forties who heard about us from our podcast on Spotify and said he’d never heard a message on sex or porn at his church.
* The woman in her sixties who was a ministry leader and shared, in tears, how her husband had been frequenting massage parlors.
* The man in Christian media who called me the “porn guy” as I visited his stand. (I kid you not.) It seems that my reputation had preceded me.
* At every show, I heard repeatedly that there are no other Christian ministries in the UK that offer help in the sexual arena like Blazing Grace does. We were often encouraged to keep coming back.
One woman prayed over me because she understood the intense spiritual battle set against the church to keep it silent on these issues, which the following story illustrates.
In the morning hours of the first day of the first CRE show we attended in Sandown in 2019, no one was coming to our stand; they were avoiding us as if we had spiritual leprosy. I found CRE’s prayer team, a wonderful couple, and we prayed against the spiritual battle. The dam broke, and people were coming to our stand from then on.
There are many men, women, and youth in the UK Church who are in bondage to sexual sin. The UK is the second largest consumer of porn in the world, second only to the US; surveys show that upwards of 70% of UK Christian men are viewing porn, same as what we see in the States. I see the UK as a mission field that is ripe for what we have to offer in ministering to the sexually broken.
We have been praying and asking God to open the doors in the UK. An opportunity has surfaced with a UK Christian organization to create a video series on recovery from sexual sin for men, wives and youth that would be promoted to the 70,000+ churches there. This will cost more than $14,000.00. We have also been praying for an office to work from to offer counseling and as a launch point. This could be as simple as a room at a church or a ministry. Perhaps you’d like to help us find a church to host one of our conferences. Or help us get our radio show broadcast in the UK. All of these would make a significant impact; we can’t do this without your help.
My team and I have decades of successful experience in partnering up with God to set captives free in the sexual arena. We put an equal emphasis on the wife’s healing and the husbands as both need help. It is critical that we reach our youth as this is when the seeds of porn addiction are planted, especially during a time when large numbers of youth are leaving the church. When I ask youth why they are leaving the church, the response I often hear is that they aren’t being equipped in the areas they’re struggling with, especially sexual issues. Of course, many adults could say the same.
Please pray for us and for open doors; prayer is critical. Perhaps you may be able to help us with the cost of the video project, help with an office, or set up an event. I’d love to meet you at our stand at CRE next month if you’re there. Our stand number is B27.
Porn has spread like a global virus in nations everywhere; the US is the worldwide King of Porn, as the larger producer and consumer. No church can be a part of Jesus’ work to set captives free in this arena if they won’t expose these issues and equip people to heal and overcome.