Becoming Whole
Relationships and sexuality are areas of life that can be beautiful or confusing, life-giving, or painful. Becoming Whole is a conversational podcast for men, women, and families seeking to draw nearer to Jesus as they navigate topics like sexual integrity, relational healing, spiritual health, and so much more.
Becoming Whole
Sexual Wholeness for the Family
What kind of legacy are you leaving in your home? For many men, this question cuts deep. They're physically present but emotionally absent—buried in work, numbed by addiction, or simply disconnected from their own hearts. Meanwhile, their families feel the void: wives longing for connection and children navigating life without the emotional safety they desperately need.
In this powerful conversation, Aaron Tagert sits down with Joel Warneking, Executive Director of 423 Communities, who shares his journey from sexual addiction to wholeness. Joel's story follows a familiar pattern—childhood exposure to pornography that developed into a full-blown addiction lasting through Bible college and ministry positions. Living a double life of public ministry and private shame eventually led to a breaking point that became his pathway to healing.
The heart of this episode explores how men's healing transforms entire family systems. When fathers engage with their own emotional wounds and develop sexual competency, they create safe spaces where rupture and repair can happen naturally. Joel explains how understanding our physiological responses to stress—what happens in our bodies when we feel triggered—allows us to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively to our spouses and children.
Perhaps most powerful is the discussion about parenting teens through sexual development. Before parents can effectively guide their children through conversations about sexuality, they must first do their own work. Creating an emotionally safe home where children can bring their struggles without shame becomes the foundation for healing across generations.
Whether you're struggling with your own unwanted sexual behaviors, trying to build a healthier family system, or wanting to guide your children through today's hypersexualized culture, this episode offers both hope and practical wisdom. The journey begins with allowing yourself to be fully known so you can be fully loved—by God, others, and even yourself.
Resources:
- 423 Communities
- Awaken Retreat
- Sacred By Design Retreat
- Treading Boldly
For more information or to join click one of the links below.
Manna - Men seeking freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, temptation, and shame.
Oasis - Women seeking freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, temptation, and shame.
Compass - Wives seeking healing from betrayal and broken trust.
Awaken Men's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!
Sacred By Design Women's Retreat 2025 - Register Today!
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
Hey friends, welcome in to today's episode on the Becoming Whole podcast. My name is Aaron Taggart and I'm one of our spiritual coaches at Regeneration. Let me ask you a question what kind of legacy are you leaving in your home? For some of us that question stings Because deep down we know we're physically present but emotionally absent. Maybe we've been living shut down, buried in work or numbing out in addiction and while we're stuck, our families feel the void A wife longing for connection, kids navigating life without the emotional safety and leadership they were meant to have. But here's the hope we can restore, sorry. God can restore the heart of man. He can awaken you to your story, heal the broken parts and grow in you the capacity to lead with love, strength and humility.
Speaker 1:Today I have the privilege of sitting down with my friend Joel Warnicking, the Executive Director of 423 Communities, which is a Christ-centered recovery ministry helping men, women and teens break free from sexual brokenness and grow into emotional, spiritual and relational wholeness. Through safe, structured groups, biblically grounded curriculum and honest community, they guide people from isolation and shame to restored intimacy with God, healthy relationships and renewed family life. Joel, it is an absolute joy of mine to have you on the show today. Welcome to Becoming Whole brother.
Speaker 2:Aaron. Thank you so much, brother. I think that's one of the joys of my entire week to be called your friend. So thank you for welcoming me into this space. It's such a joy. We've had opportunity over the last year to rub shoulders and work in arms and helping men find wholeness and healing. And, brother, you are a brother and I am so honored to be with you today. Just seeing you makes me smile. And man your mission statement. I think that's even better than mine, so I should just adopt that for our ministry here on the spot. Brother, thank you for the gracious intro for who we are and what we do. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, likewise brother. Yeah, it is such a joy to call you brother. So thank you for joining us today and I'm really excited for what we have in store for our listeners. So with that, let's dive in. So with that, let's dive in. So I'd love you know. I know, joel, a lot of our listeners, you know, probably aren't familiar with you, and especially the work that you guys do at 423 Community. So, as we start out today, could you just share a little bit more about yourself and especially the great work that you guys are doing with men, women and teens over at 423?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I found my own recovery through 423 about 12 years ago. Just by the grace of God happened to find this ministry founded in Portland, oregon. We've been around for about 20 years or so. We were founded by John Mark Comer out of Westside Salt Rock Church in Beaverton Oregon by John Mark Comer out of Westside Salt Rock Church in Beaverton Oregon out of a response from the local church.
Speaker 2:And so John Mark, as a pastor, was seeing just man after man and couple after couple come through the prayer room, desperate for support from pornography addiction and just the cataclysmic effect that it can have on the family system, and he said we've got to do something. So Dave Scriven, our founder, was a member at Solid Rock with John Mark and he said Dave, you're a recovery guy. What do we do? John Mark said you should start a men's program, call it 423 Men, which comes from Proverbs 423, which is guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life. And it's just this, this model for us that we are beset by so many things in this broken world that seeks to tear us apart. At the very fabric of our beings, the core of our identity is being destroyed. And so for four to three men at that time, when it was, was just a call for men to learn how to know how to protect their heart. Where is their heart? First you have to identify where your heart is so that you can learn to identify it. And through the lens of healthy sexuality, 423 Communities was born, was born In that church. At one time there were hundreds of men and women and teens that were going through programs specifically designed for sexual addiction reparation and healing, spousal betrayal repair for men, women and teens. And then the local church began to see the effect that 423 was having in Solid Rock and said hey, what are you doing? We want some of that too, and so our mission to equip literally every church in the world that we can get our hands on with a healthy recovery community to find hope, healing and restoration from the impacts of problematic sexual behaviors and addictions was born. And so from that day we've been expanding across the country into a few other countries at this point, where we are partnering with the local church to help create a healthy recovery community, not just simply, hey, here's a curriculum, here's a book, here's a guide, go do it yourself, but where we walk hand in hand with pastors in churches and leaders all around the world to create what is a healthy community in which people can find health, life and restoration.
Speaker 2:For me, my five-minute story or less is you know every guy that I've done an intake with thousands of guys at this point the story is almost always the same and mine falls right in line with that that around the ages of six to 12, mine was right around eight years old I stumbled across my first explicit material and it was amidst my family's divorce, so turbulent time in my family system. I just happened across this magazine in an abandoned barn near our home. It's like an awful scene from a movie right where the kid stumbles across this treasure trove of curiosity in this foreign place. And for me it was the place that I would go to run away from the chaos of home that I would seek to escape, that I would seek to avoid the discomfort of a family system that was falling apart. I would seek to avoid the discomfort of a family system that was falling apart, and little did I know at that time that this innocent, at that time, curiosity towards this material was training me to develop a full-blown compulsive addiction to sexual behavior and acting out when, through grade school and junior high and high school, into Bible college, into full-time itinerant ministry. I was traveling the world on a record label, preaching, teaching, doing music on staff at churches, doing ministry, and yet I had almost a daily compulsive addiction to pornography and masturbation, living that double life and saying the mantras that every addict knows. Which is tomorrow will be different? I can take this, just me and Jesus. We got this Holy Spirit. Let tomorrow be a different day. And yet I found myself back in that same trough again the next morning.
Speaker 2:For me, it really turned the corner when a pastor came to our church and he preached a message, one that's very familiar today, but he said you will never be fully loved in any capacity until you are fully known. You're only loved to the capacity of which you are known. And I realized that moment that I had isolated myself from others, from God, from my wife, even from myself of being able to honestly look into the mirror. And then the heartbreaking reality was that, therefore, I was completely unloved by anyone, didn't even love myself at that point, and so I disclosed to my wife in a haphazard, shambled disclosure of this is out of control and I don't know what to do and I'm terrified of this is out of control and I don't know what to do and I'm terrified. We approached our church at that time and the response was wait, who's looking at Pornhub Church? We need to find them so we can fire them, because we can't have any sin in the camp. And so I danced out of the room and said I'll go find that guy, that bad guy, and I'll bring him back and we can get him together. That bad guy and I'll bring him back and we can get him together. And so that that moment just kind of drove my wife and I into deeper isolation and where we just tried to police and you know, we shut down the computers and the phone and take the cord to the TV and just tried to white knuckle our way through a compulsive addiction to this incredibly pervasive behavior that is pornography addiction.
Speaker 2:About three weeks later into this white knuckling compression of my life, I found another opportunity to engage in sexual behavior While riding my bike, like I did for exercise. I felt arousal and my brain exploded with hey, this is where you can get your drug, you're not doing anything, the whole thoughts of an addict. And so I would go out and ride my bike and allow myself to be a bit exposed and get that sexual hit that I was so craving in that moment, and then would go back to being the dismayed idiot of what are you doing? Why can't you just stop doing these bad things A few times into doing that? About a week later, there was a police man waiting for me and I was arrested for indecent exposure while on staff at a church. My name was on the local news broadcast all over, and that was when my life ended and my story of new birth and new life began.
Speaker 2:It was sitting in a jail cell, panicked from knowing what was going on outside those doors, that I heard that still gentle voice that I had heard as a kid when I accepted Christ, and it was the voice of the Father. And for me it was not what I expected of the Father, and for me it was not what I expected. I expected an angry dad who was enraged that I had defamed the gospel, that I had defamed the name of Jesus, that I had been another poor example of a follower of Christ, that I was a hypocrite, of which I was, and yet it was the voice of a tearfully joyful father who was so pleased that I could finally see that he was closer than I could possibly fathom, that while I was in the depths of my sin he was nearer to me than I could even imagine, and so for me that was the beginning of my journey towards recovery. I found 423 right in the midst of that, flat on my face, as a full-blown compulsive addict, not knowing heads to tails of my shame and identity. But for me it was the place where I could come every week and experience that same love of God through the presence and love of my brothers. That when I brought my dirty, shamed self into the room with a group of other men, eight to 10 men, and sat with them for two hours and shared the depths of my soul, the depths of my identity and all of my woundedness, and was loved with that passion and that joy and that embodied presence of God himself in that room, oh my gosh, like that completely just lifted my soul. It really gave me the foundation to move forward in health and found restoration and sobriety and healing, not only for myself but for my wife and I.
Speaker 2:She has developed our Betrayed Partner Program. She gets to walk with women all over the world through her support groups that she's written curriculum for helping them find their own health, stability and wellness through their husband's betrayal. Now together we get to run 423, me as the executive director, her as the woman's director, although she's on the board, so she says that she's my boss, but hey, she loves that fact. She says that she's my boss, but hey, you know, she loves that fact. And yeah, we get the immense pleasure now to take that same message of hope that I received all those years ago, following after Dave Scriven and John Mark, helping men, women, betrayed partners, teens, college students, parents find hope, health and healing, not just from ending bad sexual behavior but truly and wholly finding emotional and spiritual wellness in which they can begin to live the life that God created them for. So, brother, yeah, it's an honor to be in this work and getting to walk alongside men all over the world as they seek to find that.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what I love so much about my time with you, aaron, and my time with Regeneration folks is I feel like there is such an understanding of how much need there is to not just approach sobriety. I call it Christian whack-a-mole, right, a lot of recovery groups is you walk in the door and everyone's like holding their, their big Bible and they're like what'd you do wrong? You're like I failed and they're like whack, and they get a, hit you on the head with the Bible until you stop doing bad things. But to truly embrace the path of wholeness, of holistic healing, where you are approaching the heart, the mind, the body, the soul, and bringing that into a place of restoration, not just simply ending bad sexual behaviors, is one of the reasons I love spending time with you all and is really, I believe, the crux of how we approach recovery with men as we move forward in this space. Yeah, yeah, I believe the crux of how we approach recovery with men as we move forward in this space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, gosh man, thank you for, thank you for sharing all that with me and our listeners. I mean love, the transparency of your vulnerability, I mean, you know, in this work, like that's pretty paramount to to, you know, healing, and the more that we share in in safe spaces not in the Bible thumping whack-a-mole spaces, but in safe spaces the more we share, the more power, um, uh, that the shame, uh, it's lost. Uh, it loses that power. Uh, slowly, over time, right, and so, and then just even like you know I'm, I'm sitting here processing how four to three communities started, started with men and it's morphed into more than that, which is beautiful. But some of our conversation today is going to kind of be this progression and talking through what happens in a family. We're talking about men, what happens in a family when things begin to change for that dad, for that husband and so sort of. Our kind of arc for today is we're going to go through this journey of becoming aware of our own story, building an emotional, healthy family system and growing in sexual competency and spiritually grounded parenting so that you can truly care for and guide your children and you know the things that you were just kind of mentioning, really begin to get into that. So I love that. That's kind of where it started, because you know I take a step back and you know there's a lot of things floating around about masculinity and this is toxic or that's this, and what is it mean to be a man today? And you know, ultimately we can look at Jesus's life uh, what it means to be a man, uh, how to interact with people.
Speaker 1:Um, you mentioned your inability to love yourself and then to love others. I think about what does Jesus tell us? The most important thing is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is, like that, to love others as you love yourself. And for listeners today who maybe struggle with that same thing loving themselves, finding themselves in those places of despair and addiction and you know, don't know, maybe, what's going on, you know in their own stories. That's that's why it's so important to grow in that sort of awareness you know of, of our own stories, and so, with that, let's go ahead and jump in. Yeah, you know thinking about, you know, emotional awareness in particular. And why do you believe that emotional awareness and growth are essential for a man to truly lead his family beyond just providing or being present.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, you know, we teach, we teach recovery from sexual addiction through two components, right? One, I think is the most prominent, which is that there is this powerful dopamigenic cycle in the brain and the body and it takes over the reward system and it creates this addictive process that takes over the whole body. Right, it's this compulsive component and that's what you're trying to gain sobriety from. Is this addictive process. And so many guys will focus on simply getting to behavioral sobriety as a metric for health, as a metric for emotional health, and yet they don't realize that the second component that we see through sexual addiction, problematic sexual behaviors, is what I call just the compulsion away from internalized pain and there has to be a simplified version of that, someone needs to give it to me but that there is inside of us so many beautiful God-given characteristics of what it means to be made in the image of God, where we have those desires to be loved and to be seen and to be safe and to be nurtured and to have healthy physical touch and to be wanted and just all of the things that make us relational beings. And yet, because of the broken world that we exist in, because of the nature of humans and broken family systems. You see that these emotional places, when they are broken and they will be broken even if you have an healthy, engaged family system you're going to come out with attachment wounds. You're going to come out with a dysregulated sense of self where your belief about yourself is that you are unwanted, that you are undesirable, that you are not safe to be touched. And if those places inside of our emotional self are not approached with kindness and curiosity and community, those all have ka-ka-ka sounds.
Speaker 2:I love that If you don't approach those things with that kindness and compassion and community and curiosity, those places of emotional awareness will never allow you to actually integrate in a healthy way with others. I love that. You said that's. You know, we're called to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love others as yourself. Every day, when we send our girls off to school, we have this little conversation in the car and we say what are the three things today? And they go love God, love others and love yourself. And for them? Oh, it makes me cry, I almost got.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Three kids one's on the way, I'm going for four, so we're excited. Kids One's on the way, I'm going for four, so we're excited and really for them. It's a way for us to teach them that if you don't love yourself and I think, going back to what you said if you don't know how to love those deep, complex, wounded places in your own story, you're not going to be able to love others in the same way that you love yourself, able to love others in the same way that you love yourself. And so teaching men that, realistically, growth through your sexuality is emotional health, is emotional awareness, is understanding those complex places in their being so that they can engage their wife, so that they can engage their kids, so that they can lead inside of their communities, beyond just being a physical force, right, actually being someone who is present and engaged and attuned to what is going on in the system. And so, yeah, I think it's one of the most important aspects for a man to do this journey is really engaging in those areas as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right. And so when a man is sort of maybe avoiding his own story, maybe he's not sure even how to enter into that, or he's refusing to engage emotionally, we know that that impacts his wife, wife, his children and it impacts the family as a whole. How, in your experience, how have you seen that sort of play out in some of the men that that you guys have worked with?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I even think of my own experience right of um. You know, when you carry those, when you carry those, um, those emotional wounds in your own story, when you have a story that has been unprocessed, you know, inside of 423, we teach a lot of internal family systems. We teach inner child recovery from Eddie Caparucci. And so there's this language of this exile, there's this language of this wounded inner child, this exile. There's this language of this wounded inner child and those parts of us, those parts that carry the stories of our past, that part of me that carries this you are unwanted, you are unneeded, you are undesirable. When I carry that wounded, unmitigated story into the relationships with others, I am constantly on the defense, pushing people away from potentially being wounded. Right, like your spouse, your kids, like they have such a unique ability to wound those deepest parts of us. Right, if you enter into marriage and you are not in a healthy place, your spouse is poking every single insecurity because there's no place for you to hide.
Speaker 2:And so what happens when a father avoids his own story and refuses to engage emotionally with his family? It leaves his wife without a safe place to build relationship. It leaves a marriage without intimacy. It leaves children without a healthy role model to teach them how to regulate. That's one of our jobs as adults is to teach children how to regulate through the complexities of life. And yet when you have an unhealed story, it's as if that part of you is still a seven, eight-year-old boy trying to navigate the complexities of life. And so I would say that, for a family as a whole, the most important aspect of a family system is an emotionally healthy and whole man who can lead his family well, man who can lead his family well and I think that's why this work that we're doing is so important to this space is to help men find the ways to become emotionally whole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think, especially in that role as father, I've really appreciated John Tyson and his work on fatherhood and manhood, and he has a book called the Intentional Father and he identifies early on in the first chapter that there are five types of dads.
Speaker 1:There's five types of fathers there's an irresponsible father, there's an ignorant father, an inconsistent father, an involved father and then the intentional father.
Speaker 1:And that word intentional, I think, is just so encompassing of a lot of the work that we do with men is trying to you know you don't just, you know find healing and transformation in sexual addiction and brokenness on a whim. You know you have to be intentional, and so this is work that needs to be both intentional for yourself but then allows you to intentionally show up in different ways for your family, for your spouse, for your kids. It really, you know, that's the intentionality I think, is like really what brings um the opportunity for that transformation and change in in the home. But it's gotta that and like you really have to be intentional about it because there's there's a lot of things that you can do and it can be overwhelming, but um, you just one step at a time and I think, I think some of the things that keep us from being intentional, right, the things that keep us from doing the things that we don't want to do, right.
Speaker 2:um, you know we see paul talk about this in scripture of that there are these deceitful desires at work within our members that keep us from doing the things that we want to do. And so I see that even in my own story of like. I so wanted to engage my wife in relational and emotional intimacy. I so wanted to. When she brought a conflict to me, I wanted to be able to respond in kindness and in love and in patience and in long suffering, and my greatest joy is to serve and love you, honey. And yet what came out of me was either complete, numbed disassociation and shut down, or what came out of me when that got provoked and poked was rage and anger and don't come close to me because you're going to see my brokenness and it was just this violent internal dialogue that kept me from doing the things that I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we teach our men is the window of tolerance, right. We teach through polyvagal theory and I don't think most men know that so much about becoming emotionally present is also about engaging our bodies well is learning how to regulate and become a grounded presence and recognize when we are being taken over by our body's response to perceived threat. Right when my wife, who is um, who is a lovely, albeit not gentle woman, she's very, you know, fact forward and fiery and I love it, but we can butt heads for sure when she steps into the room with conflict and she needs me to rise up and be an intentional presence in the room to help manage and navigate through conflict, and yet I am so physically torn asunder by my body's response to stress, I am incapable of doing the things that I want to do inside of that relationship. And so I think some practical first steps that a guy can take as he's trying to figure out how to begin growing emotionally right, especially if he feels shut down or disconnected from relationship, is really learn to pay attention to his body. Right, like when, when you enter into conflict, when you enter into relational conflict, man, do you feel your, your, your blood pressure rising and you know the heat coming to your face and your brain going offline and you're like why am I about ready to fight my wife?
Speaker 2:For no reason. There's no reason for me to not be this engaged presence, or when your children and I have a lot of them now, you know when they're constantly pecking and poking and asking the same questions. You know why is there fire raising up to the back of my neck and taking over my being, when an intentional father, and what my deepest heart's desire would be would be to get on the ground with them and love them, look them in the eye and encourage them and pick them up and be this loving, intentional presence. If you have that dysregulated body and you're disconnected from being able to be present, you are literally incapable of being a present. You know intentional father in the room, and I think so many men are just so not attuned to what is going on physically inside of their bodies that it keeps them from being who they're called to be as men as well, that it keeps them from being who they're called to be, as men as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we've done. I've got four kids, so I'm very familiar with what you're. Yeah, just wait, buddy. No, they're great.
Speaker 1:I love my kids, but I experienced that from time to time too and, honestly, what I have grown in awareness of over the years and as I've gotten healthier just even being able to realize in me right now, um, I can show up differently because I begin to realize that this isn't even about the frustrations I might have with my kids at that time, there's actually something deep within my story that I'm being reminded of Um and that can just really piss me off, um and I, and that comes out sideways.
Speaker 1:And so I you know this is just an encouragement for for all of us and then those listening that that might resonate that the more we can create these sort of buffer moments in our interactions to to ground ourselves emotionally, and it doesn't. It doesn't need to be a long time, you know, just a little pause, a little question and then begin to enter in fully present, into that moment, can really transform, can really transform that outcome and how we show up. But again, there it comes back to sort of some of that intentionality and and and learning and growing in that, so that you can implement that in in those moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think one of the one of the best ways to really cultivate an awareness of yourself and your story is through the context of community. Right? I think Kurt Thompson has a phrase that I see myself more clearly when I see myself through your eyes. I think one of the things that I've seen working with men is that a lot of men don't know how they're showing up in a room, they don't know how they're showing up emotionally, they don't know how they're becoming present in relationship. And when you can do this work inside of the context of a community and sit with other men and have a safe, loving people that look at you and know you and walk with you, it really can open up the doors to you to engage your own story. Right, because those unhealed parts of our story, they will always come out inside of relationships. Right, that wounding that you carry from your father, right, that wounding that you carry from your first girlfriend, or the first friend group that you never fit into, or the sport team that you never got picked for, those emotional wounds you carry them in a powerful way and they will be unleashed on those who you are in relationship with unless you become aware of them and begin to approach them to provide healing for them right. And I think that's one of the defining characteristics for a man inside of a family system. Like when I think of what does it mean for a man to help curate an emotionally healthy family system, which is, yeah, every guy's like wait, how do you, how do I do that? How do I curate a healthy family system? I think I think a defining characteristic that I've seen for an emotionally healthy family system is a family that can engage in rupture and also find repair right, because healthy family system is not just about being free from conflict. This world and this life is going to be filled with conflict. We're going to experience frustration and dysregulation inside of relationships, but it is how we engage in those ruptures and it's how we engage in the repair of those ruptures that I think, really defines what a healthy family system means. So I think just a personal example is, like I said, my wife and I are big you you know, thought first or speak first, think later, type people in a relationship, and so there are plenty of moments where we enter into conflict and it's we have learned over the years to enter into that rupture with this like hey, I'm going to honor you. I'm going to see you as a daughter of God first. I'm going to approach you as my wife of God first. I'm going to approach you as my wife and honor you.
Speaker 2:But there's times when we hurt each other, there's times when we rupture the relationship. But we have had the ability now to lead our family through seeing what repair looks like of rupture in relationship. And so we sit down with the kids and say, hey, mom and dad got frustrated with each other and you know they're emotional, attuned little creatures themselves and they're like, yeah, we could sense that you guys were fighting and it's like you know, hey, daddy just wants to apologize. That was not the way that I should have responded to. Your mom and Rachel will also apologize.
Speaker 2:And we teach them that, hey, life is going to be filled with hurt and with woundedness and you're going to have rupture inside of relationship.
Speaker 2:But as a man and as a husband to model sitting down in front of them and walking through asking for forgiveness, of sitting them and looking them in the eye and saying, hey, daddy was a little bit grumpy. With my youngest four-year-old I said daddy barked a little bit too loud, didn't he Like daddy's a big dogumpy. With my, with my youngest four-year-old, I said um, daddy barked, barked, a little bit too loud, didn't he? Like daddy's a big dog, he's got a big bark. I barked too loud. And she goes yeah, you barked too loud, I'm so sorry that I barked so loud. Right? So it's just teaching them that they can express frustration, that there can be anger, but it's how we enter back into relationship and repair those wounds and those ruptures in relationship. That, I think, really marks a healthy emotional family system, not one that's just hey, we never have any problems of any sort ever and we never voice any concerns. I think that's just a little bit of avoidance.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, and the word, as you're talking about all that too, the word humility like comes up actually in the repair.
Speaker 1:And I think the lack of humility is probably more often than not what keeps people in maybe a state of unrepair.
Speaker 1:Um, I want to be right, I don't want to be wrong, whatever it might be Right, and sort of this lack of just humility and sort of lowering ourselves and humbling ourselves in that way that it, yeah, it can really keep us from from entering in into that repair. And that is so often what's needed. And I know, you know, I I've seen for me, like you know, when I come to one of my kids and and and model that you know, hey, like I'm, like I I got really upset and angry, Um, and I'm sorry for yelling, you know, I'm sorry, but but then I'm modeling too, like what that looks like. And it's so important because if, if we don't model that and we just get the other stuff, you know, then we're kind of left in those ruptures and those really just become wounds. Yeah, you know that repair is this opportunity to enter in and to help kind of maybe prevent some of those things from taking a little bit deeper toll and festering over time and years, and then in the way that they become.
Speaker 2:Well, I think for a thing, for you to actually grow, there has to be a break, right? And like it's in those moments I think that's an important thing for parents, right, is it's in those moments, you know, I think of some of the dads that we have in our communities that are in community with their sons. So there's a son who's in a program, and then there's a dad who's in a program, and then there's a wife who's getting healing. The goal is not like oh no, I don't want my kid to ever struggle or ever fall or ever have any wrestlings with sin. And it's like, well, that's just a part of this broken human experience that we're going to encounter these broken places in our story. We're going to encounter sin in this life.
Speaker 2:But it's teaching them how to come back from those things.
Speaker 2:Right, it's about teaching the son that, hey, when you encounter lustful thoughts, when you cross the boundary that you said you were never going to do, when you encounter lustful thoughts, when you cross the boundary that you said you were never going to do, when you find yourself maybe stuck in a pattern of addiction, right, it's not like, oh no, there's no hope for you.
Speaker 2:Like, good luck, kid. Like you broke the law it's more of. And how do we enter back into healthy relationship with God and with others and repair and remove that shame so that they can then move forward in emotional health and stability? If there was never a rupture, then there is never a moment to teach how to grow beyond that rupture. And so we can see those moments where there is break and see those moments of rupture as a place to teach and train the next generation to be able to grow, heal and mature through that process, rather than just be decimated by the shame covered up and hope no one ever sees it again, right, which I think is what the majority of people have done for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes me think of this quote from a very unspiritual movie, but I think it's Batman Begins, and Alfred is talking to young Bruce Wayne and he says why do we fall, master Bruce? And his response is so that we can learn to get back up. Yeah, such a powerful quote, and you just put that in the context with, you know, the Lord's grace and understanding and as we grow, and you know, it really allows us to learn about ourselves and even as adults, to take, you know, take a look at our stories and learn about some of the things that have happened in our lives that may contribute to some of these. You know behaviors and patterns and things like that that we're discussing today. So learning is is so important because when we, you know, we can learn from, from our mistakes.
Speaker 1:Right, there's that old saying learn from your mistakes, and Richard Rohr says that. You know, thinking about some of the things that you've been sharing too, and the pain that some of these things can, can, you know, cause in an individual's life that if we don't transform our pain, we will always transmit it, and then someone always has to suffer, and so broken people break people, and we're all, we're all broken, we're all people, and so we need to learn what that looks like, to like to enter in, to allow that thing to be transformed, to grow in those ways of repairing those ruptures so that we can show up in that sort of God-designed way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when you apply these concepts that we've been talking about to our sexuality right, when we apply that to you know, someone becoming sexually competent and finding healthy sexuality and healthy sexual fluency within the family context, that is such a beautiful thing, brother. Because, man, if I had a family system that would have walked with me through that initial finding of pornography and that shame that began to creep in. If I would have had I had great parents, but if I would have had parents who were competent in their own healthy sexuality and healthy emotional sexuality, step into that space with me and kind of that. Hey, you know why do we, you know why do we fall, so we can learn how to get back up. Let's walk you through, son, why God created our sexuality to exist, why you know, what is the beautiful design behind sexuality, why do we protect it? How do we protect it? Okay, let's walk through all these different ways that we can grow and mature in our sexual health and competency.
Speaker 2:As a young man, if I had had that kind of family system, I probably wouldn't be on this podcast with you. I'd be off living some abundant life elsewhere, god knows where. Right, it feels like utopia and that's kind of what I see through working with men in this space is when you have parents who are raising these beautiful young children through the lens of gospel-centered sexuality and have the ability to talk fluidly about hey. I remember when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 19, 24, getting married, and I can speak fluidly through my story of hey. I remember the first time I encountered this material and I remember how that felt. Son, I can imagine what you're going through and I want you to know that I'm in this with you and I understand what you're going through and I'm going to walk you through, if you'd let me, on ways that we can mature and grow through this. I mean a mom and a dad that are sitting in that space with their kids, offering that type of emotional safety and that type of guidance through those difficult conversations. I mean that changes the trajectory of an entire life.
Speaker 2:We have a program called 423 Next where we walk with high school students. We got kids down to 13 years old who are in a group every week for two hours working through their struggles with pornography and masturbation and really this culture of hypersexuality that we find ourselves in, and I think there's a few stories in this where it's actually kind of the reverse, where we have healthy teenagers going back into their home and helping disciple their dad to start stepping into healthy sexuality, which is just. I mean, those kids are studs, I don't know what else to say. But seeing that next generation begin to flourish in healthy sexuality and healthy emotional, relational, spiritual health is just, is so beautiful, because when you have a life that has been unhindered and unfettered by, you know, compulsive sexual addiction, it's such a beautiful, beautiful life for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I love that. I want to go back to what you said a minute ago too, just about, like when we're talking about the getting back up and what that looks like and that spiritual sense. I think you know it might look like confessing and repenting, you know, and it could be really scary. And I think it is scary for a lot of people. You know they have this idea or perception of what it means to confess, what it means to repent, and it's spent some time, you know, do a little word study. You know in scripture. You know, do a little word study. You know in scripture.
Speaker 1:And you know that would be my encouragement to the listener is you know we've heard this, I think, in so many different contexts and in church and different things too, that can kind of skew. You know what this is. You know it's like confessing isn't always about like sharing all your deepest, darkest secrets. It's about, you know, sharing. You know it's really about speaking the truth of what the Lord says in a situation and if you're not kind of living that out or you've kind of fallen short in different areas, then you're confessing his truth for these different kind of things, and then it means turning around, turn the other direction, go the other way and walk in that. So when you get back up, are you just going to stand there, like when we get back up we don't just stand still, like we have to sort of continue that journey, and so the repenting is kind of putting us on that right path, you know?
Speaker 1:So it's not something to be sort of scared about, like when we talk about repenting to your spouse or repenting to the lord, like in confession, and um, I just think that you know, I don't know about you, but I just I've seen this, you know, pop up in some of the different groups and men that we've worked with that that see this sort of as a almost like a scary thing and, um, I just want to kind of like break that off that it's not confession and repentance isn't a scary thing, and I just want to kind of like break that off that it's not confession and repentance isn't a scary thing. It doesn't have to be a scary, very healing thing and a very redemptive thing to experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know going back to that, you know it is just speaking the truth. I think that goes goes a little bit back to and if you can't engage your own story, if you can't engage the truth of what has for him to really engage and speak the truth in any other context, because he's so afraid of all that other truth spilling out. And yeah, I think that is why creating spaces, safe places for people to engage in confession and having people walk alongside you to help you move towards repentance is such a beautiful thing. I think that's probably one of the number one things that we hear from the spouses of men who go through our program is wow, like Tim actually learned how to communicate and apologize. And you know they're becoming more emotionally able to be fluid in these conversations.
Speaker 2:Because in that safe, attuned presence of a group or with a coach or with a counselor or at a retreat where you're able to just bring everything into the light, where you're able to confess, not just like the bad secrets of the things that you have done that you would say are sinful, but, man, how I felt as a seven-year-old boy, or how I felt as an 11-year-old chubby kid, or the pain of growing up feeling just disconnected from community groups, and when I can bring all of that, all of me, into the light, when I can learn to live a life that is fully disclosed, where there is no dark stain within me, where there is no shadow that does not come into the light of being known.
Speaker 2:When I allow myself to be known by others, it allows me to confess and repent right. And so, like you, have to be able to find a space where you can be fully, fully known so that you can be fully loved, and in the safety of love is where you can practice confession and repentance. If you practice confession and repentance in an unsafe community or in an unsafe environment, you're going to get beat up and torn up and it's going to keep people from moving forward towards health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it makes me think about that whack-a-mole thing that you talked about. Yeah, yeah, and how many of us have experienced that like in in our sharing, yeah, um, yeah, I just yeah that pause right there. I know I'm just thinking about, um, a listener who might be, you know, that just might be really resonating and so my heart goes out to you. Um, yeah, I definitely hope that you can find a place where you can have that safety to be able to share and to be known, as we've kind of talked about. It's so important and it's so needed for healing and on that journey of wholeness.
Speaker 1:Joel, all right, so talking sort of about parents and the importance of their competency with their own emotionally, like their healthy spirituality, and then showing up for their like teens. I love what one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because I just love that you guys engage this work with teens and it's. There are not a lot of ministries that do that, and so I do want us to spend some time here really kind of highlighting, you know, what some of that has looked like and in the context of this conversation with the dad, and then just the growing of that sort of like in the emotional health, um, the sexual competency, knowing their own stories and um. You know, and I know, parents make a lot of mistakes when it comes to this, and how do they, how do they enter in, how do they engage? So what are some common mistakes that that that you guys have seen when it comes to talking about sexuality with their kids, and how might they do a better job entering in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's so much. There's so much there of things to approach with teens and man. We'd love to have our youth director, ben, on here at some point because he's working with the teens and parents every day. I think one of the worst things parents can do when they're trying to engage in those conversations around healthy sexuality is when they have done zero work themselves in their own sexuality. You know, they see their you know 15 year old son and they know through intuition that he's beginning to sexually act out, or they know that he's looking at pornography and just kind of out of panic, they just try to force and you know, just tell us everything that you're doing. And you know there's this panic and there's this emotional, you know, hyper response to this teen and that is anything but a safe place for that teen to have that conversation Right. And so if parents want to have conversations surrounding healthy sexuality with teens, one they need to start doing their own work surrounding their own sexuality. There is not I think Julie Slattery says it that we are all sexually broken in some way, regardless if you have struggled with addiction or whether you have been abused. We all struggle with sexuality in some way, and so parents need to co-get their own healing in this area, whether that's in a group, whether that's in counseling. Begin the conversations of learning how to live a life disclosed so that you can help your son or daughter disclose when they need to, when you have that sexual competency in your own story and you can regulate yourself to be able to begin to have those emotionally healthy conversations with your kids. It really all starts with being able to have an emotionally safe environment in the home. Like is your home a safe place for your kid to rupture and then is it a safe place for them to repair? Is your child able to fall short of the glory of God in your presence without you lashing out irrationally and trying to control and fix them? And so really learning how to create a stable, healthy emotional environment for your kids where they see it modeled by you.
Speaker 2:I think you said the humility that my daughter, my oldest daughter, is nine now. When she sees big you know gruff dad get down on his knees and say honey, I'm so sorry that I was rough with you or gruff with you. Daddy was just tired and I wasn't. That was not how I should have spoken to you. Will you forgive me when she sees that modeled of like wow, big superhero dad. Like they're young enough, they still think I'm a superhero, right, when superhero dad can get down on his knees and look her in the eye and say we have this another mantra. Like do you know that I love you? She goes yes.
Speaker 2:Say you know we have this another mantra, like do you know that I love you? She goes yes. Do you know I love you all the time? Yes, do you know that I love you even when I'm not nice sometimes? Yes, I do. Do you know that I love you even when you're not nice to me? Sometimes he goes yes. And I say, well, who could love you even more than I could? She goes Jesus. I say yes, yes, he does.
Speaker 2:And so just teaching them that, like, hey, love is messy and relationships are messy, but it's in humility when we're able to step into that space with them and give them a place to heal and to repair. Where we are attuned, we are present, we are calm, we are humble. That type of engagement transcends all conversations, not just conversations around healthy sexuality, and so if you're wanting to talk to your son or daughter about their sexual behaviors or their sexual practices, with pornography, but you haven't created an emotionally safe home. The conversations are going to be really, really difficult, and so having mom and dad go do their own work in regards to their healthy sexuality, practicing humility and confession and repentance between each other first before they try to engage the home, is probably some of the best things that a parent can do for their kid in that environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think one of the things that prevents parents from really entering into that like like you've talked about, is, you know, sort of getting a handle on their own sexuality, like how did they, what did they experience? What's a part of their story? Maybe that's been you know something that's been you know shameful, or something that maybe they haven't worked through or forgotten, and so that might prevent them from wanting to enter into those conversations. And so even that healing in your own story, you know, creates that ability to really show up, you know for, for your kids. And I think about the parents too, like who, who maybe are doing this, but sometimes, like might see you know one of their, one of their children come to them and share something you know really heavy sexually, you know, maybe they've been struggling with, you know, maybe they're identifying, as you know, homosexual or you know, but whatever, whatever it might be right, or that they've been viewing pornography and it's been going on for a while, but but that there there's this element in that that they're they're coming to their parent and they're sharing really hard and deep things and there is such a beautiful sort of opportunity there and what that means is that they feel like that parent is safe to be able to come and to share that.
Speaker 1:And you know we might not want that for our kids. You know we might not want that for our kids, but there's something about, I think, like the prodigal father and him just being there for that they're. They're trusting you with something so big because they feel like you are a safe person to come to and to share that with, and that is a beautiful starting place and that's huge. So, but I know, at the same time, that brings a lot of different emotions and you know, maybe I don't know I want to say regrets, but just trepidation about how do we move forward, what do I do now? Like all those kinds of things, right and so and I get all that. But yeah, what would you say? Maybe? What would you say to that Joel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. I think there's also a misnomer of people thinking that they have to have all of the answers for their kid right and part of it. I think the most important thing is being that safe presence for that person. That even goes to us as workers in the work of this recovery process is it's not by having all of the answers and knowing every single step and, yeah, I'm going to be the one that is your guide to finding sexual wholeness and healthy sexuality, and I'm the person who's going to perfectly model this for you.
Speaker 2:The best thing that a parent can do in that space is learn how to be a loving, kind, attuned presence where they are leaned in and they say, hey, I see you and I know that what you're going through is so difficult right now. Thank you for bringing that to this room. I love you and I'm gonna walk with you and, hey, together maybe we can find some resources to help with this. I would love to walk with you. I've been there, maybe where you are before, where I've wrestled with my own identity and I've wrestled with my own sexuality in so many different ways, and I know what it feels like and I'm going to be here with you, no matter what happens. That goes so much further than hey. Here's a 12-step plan for you to find wholeness. Let me know when you complete step one. I'll help you with step two. Like being that kind presence that is. Hey, I am your biggest champion, no matter what comes next, and I'm going to sit here with you until we find support.
Speaker 2:And then there's great ministries like regeneration right that can help walk with people through these different spaces and parents can come and get engaged and begin to learn and grow and get their teen connected to resources. Parents don't need to have all the answers, they just need to be a kind, attuned, loving presence yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean you guys are tremendous resource again for that and in our show notes we'll have a link to your guys's page and parents can find out more about the great work you guys are doing there, especially with teens. And I know you know our executive director co-authored Treading Boldly, which is really a field guide for parents to tread sort of through this pornographic age with their, with their teens, with their kids, and how to have conversations and all that. That's going to be in our show notes as well. Tremendous resource for parents. And I think you know the more we can highlight resources and just help for parents because again, feeling like I've got to have all the answers or I don't know what to do, well, like, here's a resource, you know, like that, have a conversation, you know, reach out to four, two, three, reach out to regeneration, you know, check this book out. You know, the more we can kind of equip ourselves, the better we can, you know, learn and grow in that and then to be able to be that safe presence, you know, for our kids, that intentional. I think that's back to the intentionality, the intentional father. I want to be a father that has ongoing conversations with my kids about all areas of their life, including their sexuality, and to feel safe and to comfortable, you know, to engage in those conversations, because those aren't one and done conversations, those are really in some ways lifelong conversations.
Speaker 1:You know, especially at least through you know, through their youth, and then even then you're, you know they grow up and get married and they have questions. You know, especially, at least through you know, through their youth, and then even then you're, you know, they grow up and get married and they have questions. You know, and you can be, you know you've been there and so you can offer that to them. So what a beautiful opportunity that is, and you know, to step into some of those things. I think what we've we've covered, you know, some really beautiful things today.
Speaker 1:I think what we've we've covered, you know some really beautiful things today. I think a good kind of progression through again just what happens in the home, when, when a man kind of steps up and embraces his own healing and how that can transform the home, and then growing in the emotional capacities and the competencies that we've talked about, um, all the way down to you know how that affects, uh, how their kids and the family are kind of receiving that um, the, the repair, the growth, the safety, all that Right. So, um, I want to just create some opportunity for you to share, um, uh, just anything that's coming up at 423 communities that you want to highlight.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. Yeah, Thank you for giving that. I think the first would just be we have a space for teens right now, down to 13. If you have kids and you don't know what to guide them towards, that is what that program is specifically geared towards. It's highly, highly trained leaders. There's a whole legal policy behind how to integrate.
Speaker 2:There's high connection with the family, so parents are involved and they go into their own program alongside their teen and we have parent support groups of how do you support your teen wrestling with addiction? How do you get support as a parent wrestling with the grief that your teen is an addiction? There's spaces available for people to connect to care in that space and then for you parent, if you need someone to walk alongside you as you learn to grow in your sexual competency and your emotional health, we have groups available year round, never ending. You can be in a group as long as you need to, with the focus being on that holistic sexual health and relational health for men, women's addictions and betrayed partners all over the country, and so we would love to walk with you in finding that sexual wholeness and healing becoming whole in those areas.
Speaker 2:We just released a great new resource for every member in the 423 men's program. It's a four-month intensive. It's part of our membership. It's a daily touchpoint for 109 days with world-class teaching and workbook content that guides them for their first four months in group. That we're really excited about. It has some great feedback from our community members as an essential piece for their recovery journey. So, yeah, we would love to walk with anyone anywhere that is looking for a place to grow in their health. That's what we're here to do.
Speaker 1:Joel man, it's such a joy again, man, to have you with us today.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad that you were able to join. I really enjoyed our conversation, your openness and your wisdom and the way that you live out the hope of the gospel. It's in such a practical and relational way and it's really deeply encouraging, and so I'm just grateful for how you shared not just the vision for 423 Communities but also the heart behind it Helping men, women and families move from brokenness into wholeness. That God intended. I think you reminded us today that change starts with courageously facing our own story and allowing God to transform our hearts so that we can love and lead well, and I know that today's conversation is going to bring hope and direction to a lot of people listening. So we're going to be cheering you guys on over at 432 and and praying for the continued impact of your work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, brother. No, thank you so much for having me on here. You're a dearly loved brother and I think we get to spend some time together here in the next month or so, which I am overjoyed to be doing with you and love the work that you guys are doing Regeneration and I look forward to linking arms with you in as many ways as possible coming down the line, brother.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, man. Thanks again, and to all of you listening, thank you for being with us today. Your willingness to lean into these conversations and to pursue wholeness is what makes this podcast so special. We're grateful that you're on the journey with us and we pray that today's episode encourages you to take your next step toward the healing and wholeness Jesus has for you and your family. Let me pray over you, joel, and our listeners as well. Father, thank you for Joel and the ministry of 423 Communities. We ask your continued blessing over their work, that many more hearts and homes would be restored through their obedience to you and for every listener today. Lord, would you bring healing and courage and clarity for the next step you're calling them to take and lead us all deeper into your love, lord, and may our lives reflect your wholeness. In Jesus name, I pray.
Speaker 1:Amen Thank you, brother, yeah, yeah. And before we sign off today, I want to personally invite you to two transformational opportunities coming up this fall. For the men, our Awaken Retreat is happening October 3rd through 5th. This will be one unforgettable weekend where you'll experience being known and named through brotherhood, the Father's heart and embodied healing. Whether you're just starting out on your recovery journey or you've been walking the path for years, this retreat is for you and for the women, sacred by Design. Retreat is happening November 7th and 8th. It's a unique space for women to slow down, connect deeply with God and to rediscover the beauty of who they are, beyond shame and beyond striving. It's a weekend of truth, grace and restoration. If you or someone you know is ready for something different, something deeper. Both retreats are open now, but space is limited and for all the details and to reserve your spot, just click the link in the show notes and until next time, keep pressing into the truth, keep walking in grace and keep becoming whole.
.png)
