Notes From The Field: Part 1c

These are my personal notes from the Promise Keepers event held on the 13th and 14th of November. These are my notes and my thoughts that go along with them. They are not necessarily the thoughts of the speakers, so they should not be taken as so. This event was a fantastic, eye opening weekend that I shared with my father. Enjoy the notes and thoughts and if you have any questions feel free to comment or email me.

Thanks,

Session Three – Craig Gross

• Founder of xxxchurch.com
• There has been a change in the world of pornography
  • It used to be hard to obtain and see, now it is hard to avoid
  • 400 million porn sites
• Porn isn’t real it is a reality and has no place in a healthy relationship
• Two Truths about Porn
  • Fantasy, not reality
  • You are not alone in your struggle
• 70 billion dollar industry
  • 12 Billion is pent on the industry which is more than the revenue for professional organized sports in North America
• When caught in the struggle and fantasy of porn the question that needs to be asked is whether or not you are willing to fight for your family and for your relationship with God
• “What started online has taken me offline”
  • An individual that confessed his addiction on xxxchurch
  • Online surfing only leads to even more addiction outside the comfort of home
• Craig on what he sees when he looks at the crowds from his booth at Porn Shows
  • “These aren’t images, these are lives.”
    • The people that are in the industry are now real for Craig at the shows and he sees them with the lens of Christ
    • People broken, in pain and in most cases seeking for help
• Best quote of the whole weekend
  • “You can’t blame the dark for being dark, you can only blame the light for being dark.”
• “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” Bible
  • He does love Porn Stars, just not porn
    • These are children of God not images or fantasies
  • On average they give out 3-5 thousand bibles per show
• He has never met a girl that is in the industry that says she is happy
• Romans 7:18
  • 18For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
    • What holds us back in the world?
    • We begin to believe things like “I can will it, but I cannot do it.”
    • We get pulled by the influence of sin to do the opposite of Christ
• As men if porn gets into our lives it strips us of our integrity and our word (influence)
• Three Steps
  • 1) Step up and confess to God
    • God loves us despite our faults
    • We can’t live freely unless we are willing to die for Christ first
    • All roads to recovery begin with Jesus
  • 2) Confess to someone else
    • most confessional emails sent to xxxchurch are to the info account, not to accounts of actual people
    • They still haven’t confessed to a real person, they are still stuck in their fantasy land
    • nine out of ten conversations actually stop after they realize that it takes a real person to stop an addiction
      • They get scared off when info@xxxchurch emails them back
    • Filters found on xxxchurch.com send emails to your selected individuals to foster an accountability system
      • This allows for some light to penetrate the darkness
  • 3) Physical Removal
    • Proverbs 26:11
      • 11Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly.
        • Who really likes vomit that much?
    • The Bible is very clear as it tells us to flee sexual sin
    • x3pure.com (type in Canada for promo offer)
      • Process of removal and a curriculum
    • At this stage if it takes getting rid of your computer do it, cell phone, blackberry etc.
    • WHATEVER IT TAKES!
• The message of Jesus is to unite not divide
  • This was in reference to his friendship with Ron Jeremy
  • Love the sinner hate the sin idea