Taming the Media Monster

Would you be upset to learn that someone was competing for your mate’s heart, subtly sending negative messages about you, and seeking to horn in on your marriage by robbing the two of you of time alone for talk and intimacy?

Upset? You probably would explode with anger and hurt. No marriage has room for another lover.

But each day assorted voices lure you and your spouse away from each other: television, Internet, radio, magazines, newspapers, music, movies, and video games. Dennis and Barbara Rainey discuss this fully on FamilyLife.com.

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Tal Prince Speak on Breaking Free from Porn Addiction

One of my buddies, Tal Prince, tells his story about recovery from porn addiction in this video.

I love what Tal says about porn and sex addiction being classified as an “intimacy disorder.” To be sure, lust often drives our attraction to pornography, but it is a multi-layered sin. We often retreat to porn because we find a sort of acceptance in our fantasy world that we crave.

“Intimacy is not what our culture says it is. It’s got nothing to do with sex…Can you sit down with somebody and just be fully transparent, just open your rib cage and push everything out—’Here’s me: here’s my faults, my failures, my hopes, my dreams, what’s good about me, what’s bad about me’—and have another person see that and say, ‘I see that, and I love you anyway.’ That will change your world.”

For Tal, the turning point was when he confessed the extent of his sin to his wife. It was when he made his invisible war with porn visible. It was the beginning of massive change.

Learn more about Tal and his ministry, Route1520, through the following links:

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Teaching Your Kids to Make a Covenant With Their Eyes

She sat across from her 14-year-old son, John, asking him what she knew was an uncomfortable question. “Have you been looking at pornography?” His face reddened. Hers turned an ashen white as he admitted to frequent visits to porn sites in the last year. Mixed and complicated feelings seemed to fill the room. John was filled with shame and embarrassment. She was frantically searching for words to say, trying to express disappointment and compassion, while squeezing in a badly needed birds-and-bees conversation. It was awkward, to say the least.

John’s story is a common one. Research shows that most boys and girls are exposed to pornography before the age of 18. About 70% of boys and almost 25% of girls admit they have spent more than 30 minutes looking at pornography on at least one occasion. By the time they get to college, half of all male students spend up to five hours per week online for sexual purposes. Read the rest in my guest post on ShepherdPress.com…

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Why I’ll Never Stop Using Covenant Eyes

The following is an e-mail we received from one of our members, Jeremy Adelman. Jeremy is a recent graduate of North Dakota State University. We’ve re-published it here with his permission.

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I first started using Covenant Eyes during my junior year of college when I was having a difficult time with an addiction to pornography. I had used other accountability programs in the past that were free, but none of them were as quality as Covenant Eyes.

The fact that you have to generate an uninstall code in order to remove Covenant Eyes is great, because then my accountability partners can ask me about it when they see I have generated one. In addition, Covenant Eyes does an incredible job of tracking the websites and catching the questionable ones.

In the end, Covenant Eyes couldn’t completely change my addiction, because my heart needed to be further transformed by Jesus Christ for me to see some victory in the area of pornography, but it was an incredible tool the Lord used throughout that transformation.

I still use Covenant Eyes even though I haven’t looked at pornography for over two years, and I likely will never stop using Internet accountability.

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Porn Exposed: Strengthening a Marriage Invaded by Lust

Covenant Eyes Radio – Episode 79

 
 George and Ashley [19:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today I’m speaking with George and Ashley Weis. A while back Ashley found a pornography link on their home computer. This was how George’s secret obsession was discovered.

George will talk with us about his struggle with lust, and Ashley will talk about how this discovery made her feel. Together they will talk about all they have learned and how they have strengthened their marriage since then.

Ashley is the author of Exposed, the story of a marriage counselor who discovers her husband’s pornography addiction, and a teenage girl who falls into the self-destructive industry.

Today on the podcast we are also announcing the winner of our drawing for a free copy of Exposed.

Music for today’s podcast is “Every Knee” by Phil Joel.
Listen to more Covenant Eyes Radio on iTunes.

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Updates to Our iPhone App

We’ve been able to fix some of the quirky things about our browser for the iPhone® and iPod touch®. Aside from some stability fixes and a few visual elements, the two major changes are:

  1. The Keyboard – Remember the little keyboard that wouldn’t go away? We made it go away. Now you won’t have it crowding your screen.
  2. Google Search – Before if you used the Google search bar, it would just take you to Google’s homepage. Now, it actually runs the searches you ask for (imagine that).

In the near future we plan to make a few more updates, including a fresh look for the iPhone 4 and a larger app for the iPad.

We really appreciate all the comments we’ve received from our app users about ways to improve our services.

For more information about our browser, read our app user guide.

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Internet Accountability – Is Pornography Ruining Your Family?

This isn’t a pleasant topic. But it’s important to face it. Pornography ruins people. The wanton destruction of pastors, husbands, fathers, teens, moms, and leaders is shocking. Destruction by pornography. It silently ruins millions with its illicit pleasures and mind-crushing power. This is a major problem. We’ve got to do something about it….

Over at ShareFaithBlog.com, Daniel looks at a solution to these issues. Read more…

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Reflections on CS Lewis and Killing Lust

by Brian Gardner

I first discovered the Breaking Free blog somewhere around the beginning of 2008. I was in the middle of extending the curriculum I had developed for the Sexual Integrity for Men course that I teach. In the midst of my research on the web for resources, I found a link to Luke Gilkerson’s blog at Covenant Eyes. I was hooked at once.

I have been a Covenant Eyes user and supporter for many years, and firmly believe it’s the best accountability software out there, but we need more than the reinforcement of having someone know what you’re doing online. There’s also a need for mental transformation by the word of God and the power of the Spirit.

  • Seeing the effects of pornography on the minds of those who abuse it, the negative effects on spouses, families, friends, and ministry, and the devastating consequences of sin left unattended is important.
  • Understanding the power and primacy of the grace of God as witnessed through the cross of Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners like me, is important.
  • Moving towards real community through accountability, confession, caring, and prayer is important.

There is more, but to put it as simply as possible: it’s important to formulate a Christian worldview on sin, grace, and redemption, and to be continually re-inoculated with the truth. Breaking Free is a great resource that helps to meet that need in my life, and I’m sure the lives of many of its readers.

One of my very favorite posts, C.S. Lewis on Lust (Part 1), excerpts a story from The Great Divorce. If you don’t know what I’m talking about go read it right now – I can wait. (Read Part 2 and Part 3 if you like, but don’t forget to come back here.)

Now that you’re back let’s reflect on Lewis’ insights into lust. Read more…

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Internet Precautions: Tips for helping you and your kids make good choices online

by Emily Malone

Have you ever gone on a diet and wished you had simply maintained your weight instead of allowing it to climb steadily higher over the years? What could have been managed with a little more discipline and self-control has seemed to sky rocket out of control.

Unfortunately, many habits have the same tendencies. These habits outgrow their seams (but not metaphorically), and sadly they become much more sinister. Over time, these bad habits become part of who we are and what we value.

If that frightens you, you are not alone. I have seen far too many of my own bad habits fester until they are full-out sins and practically part of the very fabric of my being. This is not the time for me to lay out my sins (praise the Lord!), but rather a time to share how our family is strategically purposing to prevent online sin, starting with us and trickling down to our children.

I am a huge believer in God’s grace and His forgiveness for past sin, but in this case, rather than wait until one of us stumbles, why not prevent bad Internet habits by fostering good ones? Unlike a diet, this kind of plan does not rely on self-control and discipline. On the contrary, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ and the power of His Spirit (yes, I’m invoking the entire Trinity), we are prayerfully thinking through how to safeguard our computers, and therefore our family.

That may seem like a dramatic statement, but too many marriages and families have been ravaged by the effects of easily accessible and private online pornography. Read more…

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How to Lock Down FaceTime on Your iPhone

The iPhone® 4 is like something out of the Jetsons. It really is a remarkable phone.

One of the newest and neatest features is FaceTime, enabling people to have two-way video conversations.

Unfortunately, the adult industry is one of the first types of business to incorporate this feature into their overall marketing plan. Now iPhone users can engage in video sex chat. And with more than three million of these phones sold, “FaceTime sex” may begin to catch on.

Of course two-way video chat isn’t a brand new thing in the universe, but the iPhone 4 makes this service far more accessible and portable. For those into sex chat, this service may prove to be a tantalizing concept. Anode Hug, owner of an adult sex chat service says, “One thing we’ve heard—time and again—from our customers is that, as much as they enjoy watching our girls, they’re still left with a sense of longing, a sense that something’s missing, and that stems from their overwhelming desire—a need, really—to not only watch, but to be watched.”

Even now, Craigslist ads are searching for women who want to participate.

Steve Jobs has been outspoken about wanting to keep porn off the iPhone, which is a commendable goal. I wish more entrepreneurs had his convictions.  In keeping with those convictions, Apple has created a lock-down feature for video chatting… something that will be useful for both parents and for adults who don’t want the extra temptation. Read more…

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