During my first year as youth pastor, I was invited to guest preach for a man who was a hero in his denomination. He had come to Christ at the age of 47, put himself through Bible college, and followed a call to buy a tent and evangelize South Australia. He and his wife planted a string of churches across the outback, including the vibrant church where I spoke.
A few months after my visit, I learned this man was no longer in ministry; he was involved sexually with women in his congregation. I was shocked.
First, he was a hero of the faith—the churches planted through his sacrificial ministry bore testimony to his love for Jesus.
Second, he was nearly 70 years old. Even at that age, his sexual appetite had brought him down.
Just 30 years old at the time, I wondered, Doesn’t sexual temptation ever let up?
A few years later, I found myself attracted to another woman in our congregation. To this day I can’t explain why. My wife is vivacious, gorgeous, and passionate. Yet nothing I did would make the attraction cease. I survived because the fear of God moved me to ask for help before I fell.
My first step was to tell my wife. It was risky, but I knew the attraction had become so relentless I was in danger of doing something inappropriate. Helen was wonderful. She said, “This is an attack on both of us, and we are going to fight it together.”
The distressing attraction still didn’t go away, so I very reluctantly took a second step: I told my senior pastor what I was going through. He drew near me like a father and coached me like a son.
Still, for all that, the attraction stuck to me like glue for a year before it cracked and dissipated. Today I couldn’t muster those feelings for that woman if I tried. I am in love with my own wife, still serving God. I am a survivor.
Then I was called to be pastor of Careforce Church (formerly Mount Evelyn Christian Fellowship). Founded in 1947, it was a small, white-painted, wooden chapel designed to serve about 50 people. In the late 1970s, the charismatic renewal touched this church and it grew to 350. They purchased eight acres, planned a new worship center, and sensed God moving when their minister fell in adultery. For nearly a year, the elders guided the church without a pastor until, in late 1982, they called me to join them.
I realized that the very year I’d been going through my terrible experience of attraction was the same time that the man whose ministry I would take was in adultery, destroying his own marriage and ministry.
Sexual Discipleship
Developing and maintaining a healthy sexuality is a challenge for every man. We live in a highly provocative and eroticized world, thus the potential for men to develop distortions in their sexuality is great. Learning to handle the pressure of male sexuality is one of the skills a man must acquire if he is to be successful in his personal life, in his home life, and in his spiritual calling.
In 1992 my wife and I founded a new ministry, delivering pastoral care and discipleship to wounded people using a small-group model and structured teaching process. It quickly became a potent tool for evangelism and church health. Deciding to address the issue of men’s sexual discipleship was not difficult.
The first time we offered a “For Men Only” support group, 13 men showed up. Listening to these men share their despair over sexual passions convinced me the need was real. One man drove nearly 500 miles every Thursday night just to be in that group.
Eventually the ministry became known as “Valiant Man,” a 10-session program for the sexual discipleship of men. It involves a teaching session followed by small-group processing and personal application. It also includes 65 days of morning and evening devotions focusing on rebuilding and restoring moral and spiritual purity.
I was moved by 1 Thessalonians 5:14, in which, in a list of some 17 elements of a healthy church environment, Paul says to “help the weak.” The word used is astheneia, which denotes weakness of all kinds, including “moral weakness” of such magnitude as to render a person disabled or powerless. What an apt word to describe the pain-filled struggle of the addict, impotent or strengthless, disabled to the point of being powerless.
There are some in the church who would deny that any believer in Christ could ever be considered powerless. Yet Paul knew it was a reality, at least in Thessalonica, and something should be done about it. And he did not want them discarded or ignored.
Paul advises that they receive strength. One definition of the word he uses adds that Paul’s word connotes “to aid,” “to care,” “to hold to,” and “to hold fast.” Thus, as Christians, we bear the burdens of the weak by joining with them in an intensely accountable, face-to-face, continuing relationship of caring support, until such time as they find the strength to stand.
This is sexual discipleship. Those falling to sexual passions, thoughts, emotions, and biochemistry often have no strength to stand alone. Paul suggests that people in this condition should not be left to handle their crisis in isolation. It could be said of this situation “it is not good that man should be alone.”
Thus the ones with strength must set themselves alongside the needy. They must courageously make a decision to firmly stick to the task, pay close attention to the needy individual, aiding, caring, and holding fast.
This is nothing less than a prescription for a healthy accountability group: a level of love and service from the strong, willing to form a relationship that stays close, holds on, and is not easily discouraged by failure or slowness to respond.
As 1 Thessalonians 5:14 concludes, “Be patient with everyone.” The process may not be rapid for those involved. Restoration for sexual addiction is not likely to be instantaneous or attainable through a single act of repentance, prayer, teaching, or spiritual ministry of some kind.
My experience is that a teaching process, supported by a small-group experience focusing on the needs of participants, in an atmosphere of support and accountability, fulfills the counsel of the apostle Paul admirably.
So we’ve expanded the “Valiant Man” program. In October 2004, 122 men from all walks of life, some Christians, some not, filled a room at Careforce Church for the first session of Valiant Man and then broke up into 13 small groups led by 26 facilitators, all of whom had participated in an earlier program. For the next ten weeks men listened, shared, journaled, cried, prayed together, and pursued the restoration of their moral and spiritual purity.
How did it go? We’ve posted a detailed assessment, with pre-test and post-test statistics, on the Careforce Lifekeys website. From the very first night, the facilitators reported men exhibiting astounding levels of transparency and honesty. Some weeks into the program, a woman came up to me at church, took me by the hand with tears in her eyes and simply said, “Thank you,” and walked away. Marriages were being redeemed.
After the program was over, one of the facilitators came to see me. He told me, with voice trembling, that God had met with him in prayer and showed him how masturbation commencing at the age of 11 had contributed to his drug addiction commencing at the age of 15. The revelation and the healing that followed for him that day were profound.
The stories of healing and restored dignity are prolific. Men have fallen in love with their wives all over again, destructive habits have been broken, and men have found a closer walk with Jesus.
Allan Meyer is senior minister of Careforce Church, in Melbourne, Australia.
The Ten Sessions of “Valiant Man”:
- A Vision for Manhood. An introduction to the four faces of manhood: Ox, Lion, Eagle, and Human Being. A call to sexual purity.
- The Arena of Healing. Eight attitudes a man must embrace if he is to see his moral and spiritual purity restored and fortified.
- The Sexual Man. The unique physical/biochemical construction of the male brain and hormonal engine. The liberating of manhood from feelings of shame over sexual passion.
- The Origin, Power, and Purpose of Sex. When men understand where sex came from and what it is intended to accomplish in their lives, it unmasks the ways men so easily misuse sex.
- The Cycle of Addiction. The drivers of sexually addictive behaviors: boredom, emptiness, unfulfilled needs, shame, self-pity, childhood abuse—and what to do about them.
- The Understanding Man. A woman’s sexuality is more complex than a man’s. Understanding a woman’s perspective on sex is vital if a man is to be an understanding man.
- Retraining Your Brain. Confronting the big three issues for men: fantasy, pornography, and masturbation. It’s not simply about praying more and reading your Bible more. Tools for brain training.
- Taking a Stand. Continuing the theme of retraining the brain, breaking habit patterns, and strengthening the will.
- Guarding Your Heart. Every man wants to be a Valiant Man, a good man, a decent man. This session helps men uncover their most noble motivations.
- Realistic Expectations. Four issues a man must understand in order to maintain his freedom, even after the program has drawn to a close.
For a one-hour introductory DVD “Becoming A Valiant Man” and the entire 10-session Valiant Man program on DVD with accompanying leaders’ and participants’ guides, visit http://www.careforcelifekeys.org/ or email: lifekeys@careforce.org
Excerpted from our sister publication, Leadership journal, © 2006 Christianity Today. For more articles like this, visit LeadershipJournal.net.
