Listen to the Podcast:
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Mike Brollier is a counseling pastor at Rocky Mountain Calvary, a church of over 5000 based in Colorado Springs. Mike shares that:
- EVERY marriage that comes to them for help has porn involved.
- Some wives have such a hard time coping with their husband’s porn addiction they became suicidal.
- The youth pastors of their church believe that 100% of the young men have problems with porn, in addition to many young women.
- When men come to their support group for help, most stop attending.
TRANSCRIPT:
ANNOUNCER:
This radio program is PG-13. Parents strongly cautioned – some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13.
Jesus’s mission was to comfort those who mourned, bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound. For those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung:
MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO:
Hey, Mike Genung here. And welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Glad to have you along. Coming to you from Phoenix, Arizona. And now we get – now that summer is over, we get seven months of spring, and boy, I don’t miss that snow!
Porn in the Church: do we have a problem with that? Statistics show that 65% of Christian men and 30% of Christian women are viewing pornography. And yet, if we have this problem, why isn’t it being broadcast openly?
1 Cor. 5: the Apostle Paul jumps down the Corinthians Church over the sexual sin of just one man. What would Paul do today if he came and saw the massive numbers of believers who are in bondage to pornography? I imagine that after he got done tearing his robe and putting ashes on his head, he’d been “All right, we’re going to get down to business here.” And I think I’ve mentioned before that after COVID, our sign-ups for groups and counseling has shot through the roof, and porn views worldwide were up 25%. People were coming to us with marriages in crisis even more than usual. So this is a serious epidemic of sexual sin.
And then our youth is being corrupted by pornography even more. I’ve seen numbers that have showed that 74% to 75% of youth, including youth pastors, are viewing pornography. And that survey just came out that said that half of Christians now believe that sex outside of marriage, before marriage, is okay. So this is a topic that has to be opened up because it’s corrupted and corrupting the Church and destroying lives.
Today I have a guest with me from Colorado Springs. Mike Brollier is the Men’s Ministry and Counseling Pastor there at Rocky Mountain Calvary Church in Colorado Springs. And Mike, welcome to the show.
MIKE BROLLIER, COUNSELING PASTOR, ROCKY MOUNTAIN CALVARY CHURCH:
Thank you, Mike, for having me. This is a privilege and just a pleasure to be here with you today.
GENUNG:
So, Mike, describe for our listeners what it is you do.
BROLLIER:
Well, I’ve got many hats over here at the house – at the house – at the Church, the house of the Lord, we’ll call it that. First and foremost, I’m a Men’s Ministry pastor here, and overseeing all events that go on and Bible studies, that sort of thing. And then also I do counseling. I’m one of the counselors here at the Church and I do marriage counseling, individual counseling for men, and families, at times, is what I do mostly here.
GENUNG:
And what is the size of the church in attendance? Roughly?
BROLLIER
Well, because Calvary Chapel doesn’t do membership, we don’t know for sure. But somewhere in that range of five to 6000 people would call Rocky Mountain home, that attend on a regular basis.
GENUNG:
So you must be busy seeing quite a few individuals and couples coming to you for help, then?
BROLLIER:
Well, I kind of have job security in the counseling, that’s for sure, that we have so many people coming to us asking for help, especially in their marriages.
GENUNG:
And do they come to you – when they come to you, does the topic of pornography ever come up?
BROLLIER:
Well, you know, Mike, I’ve shared this with you before. I’ve been on staff here for four years now, in this position, and 100% of my marriage counseling sessions, when they have come to me, it is 100% that there’s pornography in the marriage. And we have to remember that these are couples that are in the Church. So when we look at the numbers of 65%, 70%, that sort of thing, of men in the Church that struggle with pornography, it shows that and then some, because we only do counseling for those that attend Rocky Mountain Calvary.
GENUNG:
So do you have many individuals coming to you with this issue then?
BROLLIER:
Absolutely. It doesn’t seem like a day goes by that a man reaches out to me from this fellowship and sometimes outside this fellowship: “Man, I’ve got a serious problem. I’m addicted to porn.” And a lot of times it’s the last straw. The wife has spoken up and said, “That’s enough. Get it fixed or I’m out of here.” So, yes, I have men constantly coming to me, asking for help with that addiction to pornography.
GENUNG:
And what are the age ranges of these that are coming to help?
BROLLIER:
For me, it’s mostly that 30-50 age group that come and ask for help with this pornography addiction that they have. Most of them have been tied in this sin for their entire life, some of them from very early ages – six, seven, eight, or teenage years, and it’s just tearing them apart. And they are seeking help with this sin that’s going on in their life.
GENUNG:
Yeah. What we see here, on average, I would say most men get hooked around the ages of eight. So that sounds comparable to what you’re seeing.
BROLLIER:
It does. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it’s all over the place, but it starts early, that’s for sure. For me, it was about age 12-13 when I first saw those images in a magazine.
GENUNG:
So did you have your own struggle with that stuff?
BROLLIER:
Oh, absolutely. I did for a long, long time. About 25 years ago was when I got caught with pornography. And I’ll never forget the day I’m walking down the hallway as I’ve come home from work and my wife is sitting on the bed and she has the magazine, and she just tells me right then and there “I don’t ever want to see this again.” And so right about 25 years ago was when I stopped pornography and believe me, it was a tough thing to overcome. It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened very, very quickly. And the Lord was gracious with me, to walk down that road with me, and help me with the addiction of pornography.
GENUNG:
Yeah, that would – just the image or the picture of walking in and seeing my wife holding something like that, that seems like that would be like shock therapy right there.
BROLLIER:
It was. I’ll tell you what, men aren’t always the smartest guys on the planet. And I said, “How did you find that?” And she says, “It doesn’t matter how I found it. But I knew something was wrong,” because she literally had to lift up the mattress on the bed to find the magazine hidden underneath it. But she knew something was going wrong in our relationship and it had been going on for a long time.
GENUNG:
So it’s just kind of in your mannerisms, and how you were treating her, that kind of tipped her off?
BROLLIER:
Yes, we were struggling in our marriage and had been for some time, not really bad, but there were definite issues. My requests in the bedroom were starting to become things that hadn’t been there before, starting to have some difficulties in that area myself during that time. And so she knew something was up, but she just couldn’t quite put her finger on it because she had never caught me looking at pornography before.
GENUNG:
So what would you say to those who say “Ah they’re just pictures. It’s not a big deal. You’re just doing it alone. You’re not hurting anyone.”?
BROLLIER:
That is the lie of Satan himself. Because pornography not only hurts you, but it hurts all those around you. And we know this was sin, that it will just compound itself. It’s like dominoes following that. It just keeps running into the next person, and all of a sudden there’s a community of people that know the damage that’s been done. So it’s not just yourself. Another thing I see is when we are in the depths of pornography and that sin is how we treat other people. We don’t treat them the way they’re supposed to be treated.
GENUNG:
Well, from what we see, it really turns men’s hearts into a rock. And then they become sex- and self-absorbed.
BROLLIER:
I will not disagree with you at all on that statement, Mike. It’s a selfish, selfish sin, pornography is. And when we get just addicted to that, it just controls us throughout the day, through the night, just consumes our thoughts. And the deeper we get, the more it controls us. And then therefore, we don’t perform as a husband and a father the way God would have us to do.
GENUNG:
Well, and you mentioned performing in the bedroom. What we see now is youth are struggling with erectile dysfunction and doctors are scratching their heads. What they’re finding out is that the brain doesn’t send strong enough signals down to the male parts, and then it doesn’t work right. So, yeah, it affects everything.
BROLLIER:
Oh, absolutely. Men have shared that with me, and that sexual anorexia that’s going on. And a lot of times that’s a sign to the wife of “What’s going on here? You’ve never had a problem in that area before. What’s going on? It’s just not the same for us in the bedroom anymore.”
GENUNG:
Tragically, what we see is that there are a lot of men, when they’re exposed, they delay in taking any kind of action that’s going to be effective. They just kind of wait in the wings, or, “Ah, I can handle this on my own, and I don’t need counseling or support groups.” Do you see that? And what do you see to those that say this?
BROLLIER:
Well, it just so happens this past Tuesday night, we started our fall Bible studies here at the Church, for the men and the women. And we have a sexual purity class that we offer for the men. And I was just so thankful to God for all the men that signed up for this course this go round. But it doesn’t take long, and all of sudden guys are dropping out. Because it’s not time for them, or they don’t have that big of a problem, or, “I don’t need to sit here with a bunch of guys and talk about this. I can do this on my own.” And that’s the scary part, because we can’t. We can’t.
Even when I was in the throes of pornography abuse, I would go times where I could stop, because I was just so angry at myself, and I could stop for a short period of time, a week, maybe two, and then I’d be right back into it. And we know. I don’t look at pornography as a disease. It’s sin. Call it what it is. It is sin. I know the science behind it, too, with the neural pathways and all the chemicals that are released in our brain when we’re looking at pornography. But it still comes down to one thing: you have a choice to either look at it or not.
GENUNG:
And what would you say to those that say, “Well, I’m not looking at it every day. For me, it’s once every month, once every two months.”
BROLLIER:
Sure. That’s the – I call that the puppy attitude is, “Oh, we’ve been such a good boy,” and they pat you on the head and maybe rub your tummy kind of thing. “Well, I deserve it because it’s been two weeks, or it’s been a month or it’s been two months.” One of the key triggers is when they have had a fight with their wife and there’s anger going on, and it’s like, “Well, I’m going to get back at her for that. And so I’m going to go look at pornography and masturbate, and I’m going to get back at her for what she did.”
But what do you tell a guy that is struggling with it but doesn’t think he is struggling with it? If you look at pornography one time, that’s a sin. There it is. It’s no greater or less than any other sin, but it is a sin and you can’t justify it. We cannot justify our sin in front of God. It’s a choice that we make, and they need to understand that. We men need to understand it. We just can’t do it. Stop it. You can’t do this. It’s just totally degrading to your body, to your wife, and utmost, to God the Father, in that sin that we do.
GENUNG:
Well, and what I’ll tell people is in Matthew 5 we are told that if we look at a woman with lust, we’ve committed adultery. And so I would never tell my wife, “Hey, I’m just going to commit adultery on you once a month, once every two months. You’re good with that, right?”
BROLLIER:
Yes. I’ve brought that up myself with men, “Why don’t you go ask your wife and see if it’s okay for you to go do that tonight or tomorrow, whatever it is? Put it on the calendar so she knows it’s going to be happening.”
There are differences in how the Church looks at pornography. Is it adultery or not? Some go with the thought that “Well, there wasn’t that physical act with that woman. So it’s not really adultery.” But I disagree with that, because if I’m looking at another image, going to Matthew 5, and I have lust in my heart, and then I have self gratification with that image, in my mind I just had sex with that woman. So therefore I have committed adultery.
And that is one thing in the Bible that says you can get divorced biblically, because it doesn’t say go get divorced, but it says that there’s no repentance. Then that’s something that you can do, biblically speaking.
GENUNG:
Talk about the wife and how it affects the wives.
BROLLIER:
Oh, my goodness. Mike, that’s just so hard to talk about sometimes, because it just breaks my heart to see what we’ve done to our wives. And mostly it’s how we make them feel: that they’re unwanted, they’re not attractive, they’re ugly. And the list just goes on and on and on. You don’t perform like that person in the image, all these types of things. And so it just tears the woman down, and then they feel they are useless. And so then the relationship that they had with their husband at one time is now gone. And there’s many times where suicide comes into play as well that the woman’s just like, “I can’t handle this anymore. I’m checking out.” And it just breaks my heart to see that kind of stuff for the women.
GENUNG:
Yeah, we’ve seen them get so devastated. Many end up on psychiatric medications. Some even end up in the Psych Ward. And then, I mean, there’s an intense spiritual battle around this to destroy both lives, isn’t there?
BROLLIER:
Oh, absolutely. You know, Satan is really good about that, that he can sneak in and it starts off so innocent, so to speak. And then it’s just full-blown. It goes from that temptation to full-blown sex, and then you’re addicted to it. And Satan knows if he can go in and cause a disruption in husband and wife, then the family unit will fall apart. And then in his mind, he has then won, because he’s broken up the family. And that is heartbreaking as well.
GENUNG:
So part of it is equipping them to be spiritual warriors, right?
BROLLIER:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It is. I’m thinking of 1 Thess. 3 – I think it starts in verse five – [EDITOR’S NOTE: The correct book and verse that Mr. Brollier is referencing is Col. 3:5] “Therefore, put to death your members which are on the Earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” And that’s what pornography is, it’s idolatry.
And when people ask me about different issues, whether it’s pornography or homosexuality or drunkenness, whatever it is, I can’t tell them this is my opinion. This is God’s word that says we are not to do this. And that is who we need to obey; not what man says or what the world says, but what does God tell us to do, and what God tell us not to do?
GENUNG:
Talk about youth. How critical is it to reach youth and equip them when it comes to this issue?
BROLLIER:
Sure. In our youth Ministry here, going from grade six all the way through, and even our young adults, college age kids and stuff like that. You think we’re in a pandemic with this virus? Yes. We’re in a pandemic with pornography at all ages. When I talk to the youth pastors here, they pretty much believe that just about 100% of those boys, and some of the girls, are addicted to pornography at a very early age. So it is widespread through the Church.
GENUNG:
And do you see issues where Mom and Dad are giving kids smartphones at an age where they’re not emotionally mature to handle it?
BROLLIER:
Absolutely. What does a fourth grader or fifth grader need with a smartphone? And free access to go anywhere you want? Parents are blind and think, “My kid would never do that.” But in reality, yes, your kid will do that. Whether they’re with a friend, or by themselves, and have that unlimited access to the Web out there, they’re going to come across it because they’ve heard about it, whether it’s on TV, radio, whatever it is. And they are curious, and so they’re going to go look for it and they find it. And a lot of times they find it accidentally.
GENUNG:
So really, you see parents that are kind of naive to this whole thing?
BROLLIER:
So many parents. Talking about sex to our children, the Godly way of how sex was created… I know it’s scary, and it’s uncomfortable, but you can’t deny the problems that are going on out there. We need to be proactive. And a lot of times at an age… and of course, age-appropriate when we talk to them of what’s out there. And that to be careful with it. And if we’re bringing them up – they’re our children – in the ways of the Lord, then hopefully they’re going to be stronger against the temptation of sexual sin.
GENUNG:
Yeah. And the whole culture is just getting so warped. I don’t know if you heard this, but I think it was in Southern California recently, a woman who is a current porn actress just set up a church with their husband, and they’re calling it a church “of sinners for sinners”. Have you seen that?
BROLLIER:
I have not. That’s not making any sense to me, Mike, but okay, tell me a little bit more about it.
GENUNG:
Well, I haven’t gone in-depth, but I just know that she’s a current porn actress and they just started this Church. And that’s how warped sexuality is getting when you can have a Church from a woman who’s engaged in that currently, and the leadership of the churches, that’s how messed up the whole thing has gotten.
BROLLIER:
It is. And Scripture tells us in these end times that the things that were good will become bad and the things that were bad will become good. And that’s what we’re seeing. We would have never thought about having a porn actress starting up a church and being actively involved in pornography. And yes, it sends out that message to the world that it’s okay to do these things.
GENUNG:
Yeah. And there’s another story where a woman, who is a pastor’s wife, checked out and said, “I’m done with this,” and went back to being a porn actress like we had before. And every single week somebody in a trusted leadership position in the Church is being arrested for child porn. So the whole thing is just blowing up.
BROLLIER:
Yes, it is. And it’s ushering in Jesus’s return. And it just seems like the pace of that is just really picking up of what’s going on in the world today, and especially in this sexual sin area, that it is affecting, globally – men, women, boys, girls, age six to age 80 – it has no boundaries on who it’s going to go after.
GENUNG:
So how critical of a role does prayer play in all this, in recovery for the couple, but also for the Church at large?
BROLLIER:
Oh, my goodness. Prayer is probably the biggest struggle for believers. I think we all are a little short in that area. And there’s times that we’re doing really good, and there’s times that not so much, but prayer is real and it is effective. And when we all get on the same page about prayer and what it is we’re praying about, God hears that and he does amazing things. And we’ve had some events here at Rocky Mountain Calvary, with the pastoral staff of – well, we had one pastor that died and was brought back to life, and my issues with COVID six months ago and still dealing with that and almost dying. And it’s just one thing after another. But when we rally around and pray for individuals or groups, God steps in and does amazing things. And so whether it’s an illness or whether it’s pornography, when we are in agreement and we have a lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, praying for the men and women in this bondage, God steps up and does great things.
GENUNG:
So we got a minute left, Mike.
BROLLIER:
Okay.
GENUNG:
Speak to listeners, anything.
BROLLIER:
Anything for the next 60 seconds? Oh, my goodness. Well, man or woman, whoever is listening out there, this is a real struggle. You know it, because you’re in it. Seek help. And the cool thing is that the Holy Spirit, when we ask, will step in. And that’s the only way to overcome pornography addiction, is to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, to help us overcome the sin. And we are not recovering addicts. We have overcome, and we give praise to God directly.
GENUNG:
Well, thank you for joining us, Mike. I appreciate it.
BROLLIER:
My pleasure.
GENUNG:
And thank you, our listeners, and look forward to seeing you next time.
ANNOUNCER:
Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international Ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung’s books, groups, counseling or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call our office in Chandler, Arizona at 719-888-5144 again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call the office at 719-888-5144.