Beyond The Building: What Churches Need To Understand About Recovery - Nate Graybill

Open. Hey everybody. We're going to go ahead and get started. Uh, in the break, I was actually looking at the people we've got in Hubalo and the people that we've got watching us on Twitch and I think we actually have more people watching us on Twitch right now than in Hubalo. Uh, which is which is exciting and and actually haven't heard what's going on in Big Screen yet. And so um you know, you know, I I was actually talking uh offline with uh Nathan Greyville, our next keynote.

It's like, you know, I I I feel like by doing these conferences with the registration and all this, it's like, you know, we're working really hard to keep it a secret instead of letting some of the stuff explode. And so, um I'm I'm wrestling with that. Let's just let's just say it that way. I listen, these past two talks have been great.

Uh so uh excited what what uh Sepy some of what she's experiencing at an individual level what we what we learned from Conrad about Project Exodus how they're they're ministering to individuals like Sepy but also working with churches in in helping them create a culture of of recovery and and we're we're really excited to be to be partnering with with Project Exodus in in the months ahead with um with um Stacy as we're tackling what what recover uh what recovery looks like for for digital missionaries.

Uh and I'm excited for what's coming up next um as as we're bringing in uh my friend uh Nathan Greyville. Nate uh has been somebody that I I met during the COVID season and um you know really uh platformed in in in the recovery world as we started talking more and more about digital recovery uh was was created I'm sorry uh Regeneration was created here in uh in in America out of uh Watermark Church in Dallas and uh Nate just has been a great voice in my life at a personal level but also you know organizationally about the opportunities for recovery in in digital ministry.

And so I'm excited to have Nate come on and be uh your next keynote speaker. But before we get there, I I want you all to take a look at this video. So, here's the video and uh and then Nate Greyville um uh national I think it's national director national director of Regeneration will will be on uh after uh this video. So, here y'all go. Just kidding. Uh that was weird. I think Andy clicked it at the same time I Here you go. Heat. Heat.

N. Heat. Heat. Well, hello. My name is Nathan Greyville. I'm the founder and national director of Regeneration. Um, I want to take a few minutes just to talk about the ministry here. But before I do that, I just want to tell you more about myself. Um, when I first confessed my pornography struggle to my wife over 25 years ago, I had no idea how God would use that struggle to help me experience him in new ways.

When we came to our church for help, there wasn't a ministry to help with my kind of addiction. But we started to process our struggles with a small group of Christ followers. And as this group helped bear our burdens and search the Bible for instructions, we uncovered the root of my addiction. It was a desire to seek glory for myself.

I've been using my gifts and abilities to try and gain affirmation and admiration from others. Whenever I was feeling rejected, uncertain, or afraid of failure, I just ran into a fantasy world where I was always affirmed, never failed, constantly admired. And discovering the root of that struggle shifted my recovery efforts from simply trying to modify my behavior to spending daily time with God and allowing him to transform my heart.

A couple years later, after my wife and I had been helping other couples work through similar struggles, I was asked to help launch a care ministry at our church, Watermark Church here in Dallas. And we chose a Christ-centered 12-step recovery ministry because of its structure and curriculum. At first, I was skeptical of those 12 steps because my recovery happened in a small group working through scripture.

But soon, I realized that those steps simply outline biblical principles of healing that I experienced in my own recovery. I also realized that everyone coming to the ministry had been humbled by a struggle in life that they just couldn't get past and they were willing to be authentic and do difficult work to get well. We had people desperate for change in an environment that was prime for discipleship and we saw incredible life change. However, the scope of that ministry that we were using was limited.

It lacked depth with some of the spiritual instruction and biblical application. Most people saw it as a resource only for those dealing with traditional addictions. But the reality is is that all of humanity has been corrupted by the fall in the garden of Eden. Through Christ, God is recovering his people to bear his image once again. And in that sense, all of us are called to recovery. So it was out of a desire to see the life change occur throughout the entire church and to help people grow deeper in all aspects of life that we began developing a new ministry.

Regeneration um takes the 12 steps back to their biblical roots and moves the goal line for participants from healing from a particular struggle to full devotion to Christ in all areas of life. Sobriety comes through the middle of that journey, but it's not the end. These principles aren't just applicable to addiction struggles, but helpful to uncover and deal with anything preventing people from living out God's purpose for their lives.

Things like pride, insecurities, fear, anxiety, and more. The steps integrate formational elements critical to a Christian's maturity. It weaves in biblical theology for a person's salvation and sanctification. It builds in scripture memory, daily prayer, and authentic biblical community as a means of transformation. Provides daily lessons to continually connect people to Jesus, the one who provides true and lasting recovery.

Participants meet regularly in gender-specific mixed-issue groups so that they can focus on the root heart issues over behavior modification and put all struggles on the table. Usually our addictions are result of some deeper underlying things going on. And so Regeneration integrates key stages of spiritual growth including accepting Christ Jesus as Lord, dealing with idolatry of the heart, driving those addictions, embracing our identity in Christ, and practicing biblical peacemaking processes.

All along, all along participants are encouraged to integrate into a local church. Regeneration is both recovery and discipleship through the framework of 12 biblical steps. When we launched Regeneration and opened the doors to the entire church and community, we actually doubled in size. Thousands came from strangers struggling with addiction to church staff wrestling with pride. It affected our entire church culture. And now we see this spreading beyond our church. God is using Regeneration in similar ways across hundreds of organizations around the United States and internationally.

We are in over 42 states here in the United States, eight countries internationally in five languages. We run in churches, online groups, community centers, prisons, transitional living, and yeah, even some of our student ministry runs as curriculum within schools. I'm so thankful that you've come to learn what God can do with people humbled by life who are looking for change. The spirit working through God's people, and God's word can bring true recovery to entire communities through the body of Christ.

If you want to learn more about Regeneration and the support offered by Watermark Resources, please reach out to us at watermarkresources.com or check out our ministry-specific website regenerationrecovery.org. And I pray today in this conference that God would give you clarity about the needs of your organization and direct you the right tools.

And even if Regeneration is not the right tool for you, I pray that whatever method you choose, Christ would work by his word and his spirit through your people to heal and transform lives just like he does with Regeneration like he's done with um Exodus and many other ministries that are online.

All right. So now I want to move on to uh our session for today. And the title for our session um let me get to my right page here um is um beyond the building what churches need to understand about recovery. I was really encouraged by Conrad Cooper's um um session there. He worked through a number of myths and uh we have a lot of the same information and I'm just going to confirm some of the things he said but I'm going to actually work through some realities um for um you know uh that we see within churches. And so rather than myths I want to I want to work through some realities that churches need to face.

And the first thing, first reality that I think is really important for ministers and pastors and people to understand online is that uh recovery is biblical discipleship. Um I didn't understand this because remember my recovery happened in a small group working through scripture together. So when we joined a 12-step ministry, I was suspicious.

Um but over time I recognized that these were biblical principles. And so I'm going to run through this real quick with you as we talk about 12-step ministries. And then recovery can happen through a number of different means, but 12 steps are traditional uh steps that actually have spread through AA and secular ministries. And so I want to talk through what the biblical principles underlying those steps are. The 12 steps were developed by Christians working through scripture.

So steps one through three um really deal with humankind's sin, you know, our depraved nature. It deals with God's nature, his holiness. Um it deals with um his love, his goodness, the need that he needs to punish sin and then also his solution which is turning our lives and wills over to God through the care of Christ. Steps one through three is essentially the gospel that you're working through. Steps four through six in the steps um really help people understand their sin and their sin patterns and how it plays out in their life and then helps them confess that sin uh to God and to other people and then take steps of repentance. So really we're dealing with sin, confessing it and putting it to death in those steps.

Steps seven through nine of the 12 steps um help people follow God in all areas of life, not just their area of recovery, and invites the Holy Spirit to to speak into all aspects of life and engages in a daily relationship with him. It teaches us to forgive others and also make amends for our own sins. So, we're working on a relationship with God and our relationship with other people during those times.

Steps 10 through 12, help people weed the garden of their heart to keep sin from taking root. Teaches them how to experience an intimate relationship with God, helps them out to understand their identity in Christ, and then actually helps them carry out the great commission. And so what you can see here is the underlying principles of the recovery steps that have made their way throughout the world are actually biblically based spiritual formation practices that all Christians go through in terms of their own maturity and growth.

So why should you do discipleship through recovery? Is that possible? And this was one of my aha moments too when we launched the ministry in our church. The first thing that I noticed was that participants coming through the door already realized that life is not as it should be. There's something broken that they can't fix. And that does a couple of different things for them. It humbles them and they become willing to work hard, do hard work to get well, you know.

Um and so they're they really come asking what do I need to do to get past the pain and the things that are overcoming my life?

And that makes a very unique environment for discipleship. People that maybe have never been willing to consider spiritual matters are open to spiritual matters and instruction.

And this often times is one of the only places in the church where all of these things happen. People don't necessarily come on a Sunday or discipleship ministries or Bible studies broken, humbled, willing to work, willing to be authentic and open to some deeper spiritual conversations.

And then the other thing that I would say, I mentioned this in the intro, is that in reality, God is recovering us all to his image. You know, the fall in the Garden of Eden gave us a sin nature, and God is rescuing humanity through Christ. And in that sense, we're all in recovery.

So recovery is a great place to disciple many in the church and many outside of the church. The real second reality that I want to talk about that's already been mentioned is number one is that these problems are already in your church.

There's a lot of pastors that say, "Well, we don't have these problems or we don't want to open up our doors to invite these problems in." And I would argue that these problems are already in your church and they should be in your church. You should be inviting people in. And so we're going to take some time to walk through this reality. I had a hard time convincing pastors of this.

And so what we've done over the last year at Regeneration is we've actually started to survey participants. We track them through the process. And over the past year, we've surveyed over 3,600 participants.

And I want to show you what's coming in the doors of Regeneration. Regeneration first and foremost was founded within churches. And so the first seven years of our existence, we've only built within churches. We've recently started to extend beyond the church. But this is what is in the churches coming to the ministry. And I want to show you this is presenting struggles self-reported by participants when they come in.

Not surprisingly, sexual struggles are at the top of the list. But you can see as we've integrated discipleship, we've got a number, we've got a large percent just coming to be discipled. And then you can just see a broad array of struggles and addictions down through the list. This top ten list represents 78% of the people that come through the doors.

And you just see how these steps really work on a number of different struggles including chemical addiction, guilt and shame, trauma, depression, worry, anxiety, fear, including some of those sexual struggles.

And you might think, well, have you opened up the doors to the community? Who's coming through those doors? Well, we ask a number of questions on the front side just to say, who is it? Are these believers coming in? And so one of the first questions we ask are, describe how you feel about this statement: Jesus is God, savior and ruler of my life.

And so when we ask participants that statement, you can see here that 92% of the people before they start the steps answer, "I feel positive or excited about Jesus being my God, savior, and rule over my life."

So we're talking about believers within a church context that are struggling with these issues. These issues are in your church. We also asked them a few more other questions which are really, really interesting.

We ask them to describe how they feel about themselves. And so if you look at the chart here, when we ask someone how they feel about themselves, look at this. Only 38% of those that are coming to Regeneration in these churches out of these 3,600 people feel positive or excited about themselves. 62% feel negative or unsure about themselves.

We also asked them, "Hey, how do you feel about God's plan for your life?" You can see there's a higher percentage here that feel positive or excited, but you still also have 38% that are uncertain or feel negative about God's plan for their lives.

In addition, we ask them to describe their relationships. Now, we know from addiction recovery how important community is and being fully known and fully loved is to someone's not only life in Christ but in maturity within the church.

And so when we ask them about their relationships, 45% of the people coming through the door that are in churches feel alone or unknown. And only 21% of those that come in feel like they're in what we would describe as biblical community where they're encouraging one another with scripture, they're holding each other accountable, they're spurring one another on to love and good deeds, they're bearing each other's burdens. Only 21% when they enter the ministry on the front side are in biblical community.

Then we ask them to describe their purpose in life. This is very sad. We see that over half of those coming through the door describe their purpose as meaningless, destructive, and self-focused. Only 16%, maybe those that are seeking more discipleship, have a God-focused purpose in life. This is truly sad. This is what's happening in our churches today.

When we do our conferences at churches around the country, we also ask these questions: Why do people seek help outside the church? And we've heard this through a number of different people already in the session.

One, people often feel like nobody here struggles like me in the church. I'm all alone. Second, they feel like nobody in the church has the expertise to handle my struggles. Quite honestly, we have pastors that feel that way, that we don't have the expertise, and they send people away.

They might be wrestling with shame. Many of us when we're stuck in sin, we don't want to share. We're afraid of being known, afraid of being exposed, afraid that we'll be rejected.

But the church, the body of Christ, is supposed to be a place where we're fully known and fully loved. Fourth, they believe the church isn't safe. And maybe this is a reality. Maybe it's been something they've experienced in their own life or they've seen with other people. But for whatever reason, they perceive that church as an unsafe place or they feel like the church doesn't want to be bothered by the mess. They just are shipping people out to get help. We don't talk about our struggles here and that would be too much of a bother.

I not only don't want my mess to be known, I don't want to be in the business of bearing other people's messes. And so there's some results that happen from isolating the church.

And so these straw polls that we do in our conferences, here's some of the results that they list. One, the struggling person isn't known and has no accountability. They're alone within the church. Ironically, some of the most lonely people in the church are those behind the pulpit. They're isolated as well.

Number two, we miss opportunities for discipleship. Remember, my personal recovery happened in a small group of people working through scripture, not in traditional twelve-step program. And those people had to search scripture. I had to be authentic. We got to know each other. It challenged their lives to grow. They were authentic with us. And we had this incredibly important discipleship moment when we're shipping people outside of the church. We're actually losing a prime opportunity for discipleship of one another.

It creates a church culture of shallow and inauthentic relationships. A lot of people go to church and they have this veneer smile where they're pretending. And so it feels like it's irrelevant. Like I can't be known here. I really don't know anybody here and I'm all alone. And when someone actually looks for help outside the church, they're at risk for unbiblical counsel or just altogether cutting God out of the equation altogether. They might search for it online. They might search for connection advice. We know from digital ministries that the online advice that we get is often not biblical and not helpful. In fact, harmful.

And so what you have in the end is an isolated sheep. And scripture has something to say about isolated sheep. You know, really an isolated sheep is lunch. You know, your adversary the devil prowls like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. And so a sheep that's away from the herd is prey. And we see that when people become isolated from the church, this also affects culture.

And we see ongoing mental health declines in society. The National Institutes of Health reports that between 2019 and 2024, just over a five-year span, the percent of US population reporting symptoms of anxiety and disorder has almost doubled.

In addition, the Department of Mental Health and Human Services here in the US says that there's nearly 60 million people in the US with some form of mental illness that's been diagnosed and almost half of those go untreated.

And so we see in society that this is growing and it's harmful to society. And when people leave the church it also affects the church.

The religious landscape is changing. The Pew Research Center on Religious Landscapes, you know, between 2014 and 2024 reports these changes in how people view the church. The percentage of people who view religion as very important has dropped 15%. The percent who attend weekly services has dropped 11%. The percent who pray daily has dropped 11%. The percent who read scripture at least once per week has dropped 12%. The percent who are certain that God exists has dropped 9%.

So increasingly people view the church as irrelevant and not worth their time and it's affecting their relationships with God and other people.

But that's not how Jesus responded. Jesus didn't ship people out. When we look at his life, he did something radically different. Number one, he met people where they were at.

I think about the Samaritan woman at the well. He went into Samaria, a place that Jews would walk around to meet this woman at her need.

Jesus also provided healing to offer spiritual insight. And I think about the paralytic man, the paralyzed man that was lowered through the roof. And Jesus tells him, "Your sins are forgiven." And the people said, "Well, who is this to forgive sins?" And he says, "So that you might know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Stand up and walk." He provided healing to offer spiritual insight not just to those people but to the people surrounding.

Jesus saw the person behind the mess. And I think about the woman that crashed Simon the Pharisee's party that was washing Jesus' feet with her tears and her hair. And Simon the Pharisee says, "If this man were a prophet, he would know the sinner who's touching him." And Jesus answered Simon's thoughts and he says, "Simon, do you see this woman?" And he talks about how she's loved him since she came in. And he tells her, "Your faith has made you well."

Jesus sees the person behind the mess.

And then Jesus invites the hurried to come to him. "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," he says.

And finally, Jesus calls followers to do the same. Go and make disciples of all nations. And what we find here is that God's plan A is the church. Not just the big C church, but also local church, local churches. We are to gently restore and bear each other's burdens. That's Galatians 6:1 and 2.

We're to confess to one another and pray together for healing. That's James 5:16. We're to comfort others with the comfort we've received. That's 2 Corinthians chapter 1. We're to equip the saints to build up the body of Christ. That's Ephesians chapter 4.

And so just in summary on the second reality, these problems—number one, people are hurting and these problems are in your church.

All right? People are increasingly seeking help elsewhere and view the church as irrelevant, unsafe, or unable to help. And lastly, God's plan A is the body of Christ, the church.

Now the second issue that we have, the third reality I say is that you have the resources.

Um, I, we often get questions: well, we don't have the resources, we don't have the people, we don't have the expertise, we don't have the spiritual maturity. And I would argue that you do. Um, you don't need a lot of resources and you already have much of what you need on the front side. Scripture confirms this. You know, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 tells us that we have the spirit. We've received the spirit who is from God that we might understand freely things freely given to us by God and impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but by the spirit to others.

We have the Holy Spirit. Number two, we have God's word. And 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God might be complete, equipped for every good work.

And number three, you have God's people. You have stories in your congregation. You have people that have been comforted by Christ. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1 it says, God comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with a comfort with which we've been comforted ourselves by God. And so you can see that we have the spiritual resources necessary to care for those that are hurting. And not only that, but you really don't need a lot of resources to reach out and meet people where they're at.

During the COVID years, our experience online with recovery wasn't great. But when that ended, we had a few people that had joined that weren't able to get the same type of recovery and they asked to launch some online groups.

Now, our church wasn't necessarily sure about this. So we actually ran some pilot groups of online groups which only required internet access and the free tools that we already provided for them.

And so, um, when you think about online groups and small groups being effective, I just want to talk about the survey results that came out of those five groups that were there.

Number one, 40% of the people that were in those groups came from our church. So we were caring for local people that couldn't make our ministry night.

60% came from other places and it reached across 15 states. And so not only can you care for your own people, but you can reach the world.

Okay. Um, the second thing that we found was that online group retention was 20% higher than our in-person groups. People started in small groups. They couldn't miss and so they were present. Uh, they stayed longer. The retention was higher. 80% of the leaders of those groups noted that weekly participation was equal or higher than our in-person groups.

Again, because the internet provided a means for them to be connected when traffic was bad, they had sick kids, they couldn't miss, or when they were traveling for work.

Um, so online groups provided more regular attendance and higher retention. Leaders also reported that participants were actively engaged with local mentors. One of the things that we require beyond the group, the curriculum, and the leaders is that participants actually connect with somebody locally that they can meet with face to face and we train that mentor as well because we don't want them to become disconnected or isolated in recovery. And so we were finding that people were actually building community within their own church and in their own places over time.

And what we also had was an overwhelming demand. We only had registration for these groups open for about a month and we had a waiting list of over 150 people.

Our biggest area of growth was people said, in fact our church leaders said this: it's not the same as in person and it's not the same as in person, but the social aspect we figured out as well.

We open the groups 30 minutes before for conversations. Our leaders stay 30 minutes after. They would do online lunches later in the week. They do workshops later in the week. They'd connect for social gatherings online and they'd even come up with hand signals to encourage one another while they were going through. They learned how to communicate and create relational connections as they were going through.

And what we've seen over the last several years is just big growth from ministries that operate with limited resources. You know, our book distribution with Regeneration has grown 10 times over since 2022.

We've run online pilot groups to launch international ministries. We've partnered with Crew in Albania, Romania, Poland, and India, run their staff through, and now these ministries are operating in-person ministries and even creating churches that start with recovery in their own countries.

We've seen affinity groups form. Uh, we partner with an organization called Standing Stone, which is a ministry for pastors and their spouses that are struggling, and they run Regeneration as one of their options there. We have Christian veterinarians that are running a Christian veterinarian online group where they connect veterinarians from around the country that have a shared experience but are also wrestling with addiction.

Um, and so we see these affinity groups rising. Um, we're operating now in prison ministries and transitional living partnerships and even small churches that only have one or two people that are willing to run a recovery ministry. They can run one that's a hybrid or online and they can minister to their local people and they reach out to other people across the world as they invite them in.

We've seen just some big growth in organizations that have limited resources. And so what's happening in these groups? I want to walk through some results as we talk about spiritual formation through recovery.

Remember when I asked, when I showed you the pie chart initially, how do you feel about yourself? Only 38% felt positive at the beginning of this recovery process.

Look at the change by the end: that 38% shifts to 91%. Only 2% feel negative or indifferent. My bet would be that maybe they weren't open or authentic with everything in that ministry.

When we asked about God's plan for their life, we saw that 38% weren't exactly positive. Um, look at what happens by the end of the 12 steps.

89% with zero negative or indifferent. 11% are still, I'm not sure about God's plan for my life. But you see just massive shifts. And now let's get to even some more.

Remember that chart about people feeling alone or unknown and only 21% in biblical community. Look at what happens: 63%, what we would call biblical community. 45% goes down to 5%, almost a shift to 40% on both of those categories. Just amazing connection. Anyone, even in the secular world, will tell you the importance of community connection in the goal of recovery from addiction.

And when we asked about purpose in life, 54% had said that their life was meaningless, destructive, or self-focused. Look at the shift by the time that people are done.

This is spiritual formation happening through 12 steps. 75% by the end say my purpose in life is God-focused. Um, just massive transformation happening within this.

And then let's ask the question: do people get well? Right? They come in for a specific reason. Um, out of the whole, we got 25% that say some freedom.

Remember, we got all different kinds of struggles coming in that door. 25%, they say they have significant freedom in that particular area that they came in with, and 49% say they not only have significant freedom in that area of struggle but in many areas of life.

That means 99% experienced some level of freedom and three out of four experienced significant freedom from the issue that brought them through the door.

Amazing transformation happening in these groups. And so the other thing that I would say is, um, I'm a pastor. Uh, there's been, I'm the fourth pastor in my family and I do believe that sometimes the reason why these ministries aren't open to it is because we're not healthy behind the pulpit.

And I know in my own family there was a pastor in our family that kept secret a pornography struggle for 20 years. Never came out in his ministry.

Um, but when it did come out, it really wrecked his family. Um, and it came out and it destroyed things that he had done in legacy.

And so I know based upon statistics, I think that even Conrad said that 67% of pastors are wrestling with pornography themselves. That there are people online and people in the pulpit that are wrestling in secret now.

And the reality is, um, if you confess your struggle, all will not be lost. In fact, scripture says, "Whoever conceals his transgression will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes it will obtain mercy." There is mercy and grace that will wait for you.

I can't guarantee you that you're going to keep your job, but you don't want to make the exchange for a job over your own personal relationship with the Lord.

And once you do that, your ministry has shifted from your mission to an idol. There's nothing more important than your own experience and your own relationship with Christ.

And what you're putting on the table for the sake of that ministry will cost you later. I'm going to pull up Ezekiel chapter 34 where the shepherds weren't shepherding the sheep.

And God says, "Surely because my sheep have become prey, my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts. Because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, the shepherds have fed themselves.

Therefore, I'm against the shepherds. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.

I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost. I'll bring back the stray. I'll bind up the injured.

I'll strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong. I will destroy. I will feed them in justice." All this to say is that God loves your people more than you do.

He is going to carry out his mission. You've been invited into something that he's already doing. Don't lay your own personal relationship with God and your own spiritual health on the altar of idolatry of ministry.

God loves them. He'll take care of them. He wants you. He's created us to be fully known and fully loved, including you behind the pulpit.

And so here's your next steps. You know, pastors and vocational ministers out there, if you're struggling, please tell somebody. Please tell somebody. You're not alone.

I've been there. If you've been, if you struggled in the past, you experienced freedom, you're struggling again, don't get caught up in keeping up an image.

Two, if you're isolated, get connected to a local body of Christ. Join an online group. If you're a pastor on staff, ask an elder or someone else to be in your life.

Don't be isolated within the body of Christ. It's the place that we're called to be fully known and fully loved. You can start a recovery group in your organization or online.

Begin to invite others in and go through it yourself if you need to. We actually encourage all of our pilot groups to include staff and elders in a cross-section of the church as they go through just to work on the culture of churches.

And the last thing that you can do is you can work on the culture yourself. Be a safe person by sharing your own story within your own church and outside of it.

That's what my wife and I did on the front side is that we didn't necessarily have a safe culture right away, but we made it a point to tell our story in every environment that we're in just because someone needed to breach the dam of authenticity.

And as Conrad said earlier, authenticity is much more powerful than anonymity. We're created to be fully known and fully loved and to be in such a community.

Most people. Uh, and then lastly, as a church, you want to meet people where they're at. Invite them to healing in Christ. And recovery is a great place to do that.

I know all you online pastors and digital pastors know how to do that. You're out in the world. Meet them where they're at. Share their story.

Invite them to recovery. And I just want to remind you of Jesus' mission. When he started it, uh, and he opened up the scroll and read from Isaiah 61.

This is what he said. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Jesus came to proclaim good news, to proclaim freedom, to regain sight, to set free those who are oppressed. And you today are the body of Christ.

You are Jesus to this world. And so I want to encourage you to carry out the great commission. You are God's plan A for his hurting people.

Don't negate that. Thank you for letting us be here and being part of this ministry. Jeff, I'm going to throw things back to you.

Happy to take questions or talk or summarize.

Yeah, love it. Thank you, Nate, for sharing. I suddenly realized I wasn't wearing my ears, so let me get everything plugged back in so I can actually hear.

Hey, listen Nate, thanks for sharing. Great message. I do want to ask a question. Um, you know, we talked earlier about maybe having a safe space to talk.

Um, you know, there's a lot of digital missionaries, digital pastors. Uh, some of them may not have a safe space to talk.

Even in my own ministry career, I shared a little bit about how I didn't have that safe space to engage in. Um, what advice would you give to somebody in that type of situation?

Yeah. Well, I think there's two things. Um, number one, there's a number of recovery ministries that are out there. So, even with Regeneration, you can pop in and join an online group.

Uh, like I said before, we've got ministry partners like Standing Stone which are dedicated to vocational pastors where you can be known and loved and go through Regeneration there as well.

But the one thing that I would say is, you know, we've grown up in a culture where we've got a church culture where it's not safe.

And even I've said before, like I think pastors sometimes are the most isolated people within a church. And that's true. You know, we as a church put that on to pastors.

Pastors accept that. But that is also a personal choice. That is also a personal choice. And so what I would encourage, no matter who you are, even if you don't have a safe space within your church, you have some people in your church that are safe people.

And you can invite somebody into that conversation. And I would say reach out and create a relationship. Reach out to someone that's been through it before and start to invite them into where you're at.

And it may be if you're a pastor on staff, it might be an elder or deacon or friend that you trust. It might be some other location.

But the last thing you want to do is stay isolated.

You know, that was really the sin of Adam and Eve when they covered up and they hid.

You know, God came to them said, "Where are you, Adam?" He doesn't say that because he doesn't know where Adam is.

It's a call for him to step into the light. He wants him to step out. And so you do have people in your life, if you're a believer, that you probably need to just take courage and say, "Hey, I need someone I can be real with and help me make decisions and talk through some things and just open up your life currently."

That's the first step.

I love it. You, a lot of what you're saying here resonates very well. Ian's asking the question, um, you know, how do we start?

So, I know like you're working with churches. I, you're offering groups as well for individuals who may want to connect with you on Regeneration.

What would it look like for an individual that wants to connect with you?

Yeah, there's two ways. Like if you're an individual that wants to go through, you can go to regenerationrecovery.org.

There's groups there all over the country that you can sign up with. Um, if you're interested in starting it at your organization. So right now we work with organizations but if a church has one person that wants to start an online group you know we are willing to do that.

So you can reach out to us at watermarkresources.com and we have full support, full ministry support. We provide coaches, all free online training. Uh, we have training for every week of curriculum.

We have development coaches that work with your people to help figure out the right ministry model for you in the right format. And we give full support ongoing for the lifetime of the ministry.

And all of that's for free at no cost. So you can find out more at watermarkresources.com.

Yeah. U, you know I, at a personal level I love Regeneration.

Uh, it was interesting. I was just talking yesterday with um, oh my gosh I'm blanking on his name. He's the recovery pastor over at Mariners Church in Southern California.

Paul, Paul Han.

Paul. Yeah. Paul Han. And they're, you know, I know they're doing Regeneration. Um, and there he was talking about how they're going to start online Regeneration groups like not for the campuses, but for the online audience in 2026.

That's one of the goals. And so, um, you know, I can fully say this as a church or an individual partnering with Regeneration to do this.

Um, wholly endorse, love it. Like, if as you look at the twelve-step process, as you look at the material that they're doing and the discipleship theming that's centered around it, Regeneration is an incredible opportunity.

Uh, and so, you know, feel free to check out Regeneration. Feel free to check out Project Exodus or what we're doing. Like once again, all of these are viable options for you to take steps uh for your organization to stop the problem, to stop the stigma, to correct the recovery issue that churches have today. And so take it on yourself as much as you can control to dive into this to look at it and um and be part of this the solution more than the problem.

And so Nate, thank you very much for jumping on the stream today. It went great. And uh next time I'm in Dallas, uh I owe you uh steak dinner or something.

I'm guessing you're some place around there steak. So

Cool. That's like the best view in the world right there. Is that 183 or is that 20?

I always forget.

Uh, it's 635, but it's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot of people.

Yeah. Very cool. All right. So, Nate, thank you, sir.

Uh, we'll be talking soon. Yeah. So, I suddenly feel like I've got a piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth right there. It's like getting it out and it's now up in my gum.

So, I don't know. Somebody clip that and put it like out there. Jeff's got a piece of lettuce. Sucking his teeth. Nice. Oh, there it goes.

It's gone now. See, this is what you get on the uncut. Hey. Um, seriously, Watermark uh is a great church here in Dallas.

Timothy Atik is funny, the lead pastor. I used to work with him when he was a young adults guy and uh when I found out he was a pastor of this mega church, like it's just funny to see how, you know, over the years, you know, people mature and grow and it's a really cool opportunity for uh for Timothy Atik. All right. Hey, listen everybody. Um check out Regeneration. Seriously, Project Exodus, great as well. You're not going to go wrong with either one, but there's intrinsic differences.

They're inherent differences between the two. Talk with Stacy, talk with Andy. They've got exposure on both of these and can help you process through that.

But, um, be sure to know what you're getting into on either side because there's pros and cons on both sides of that equation. Love both organizations.

There's pros and cons on both sides. Hey. All right. Listen, um we're so thankful for all of our sponsors, including what we've got coming up here, uh with uh God Tools.

So, God Tools is an incredible um opportunity, incredible resource to help people like you, digital missionaries like you, share Jesus digitally. So, we're going to queue up this video and then Justin Sudter, uh, project owner, product owner with God Tools is going to come on the screen and talk to y'all.

Take a look at the video.

Hey everybody. Um, okay. I think I'm on. Hey everybody. Uh, it's a pleasure to be with you.

My name is Justin. I'm the product owner, product leader. Jeff, no worries. They all kind of still count. Uh, of God Tools, which is an app that offers simple ways to talk about Jesus, as you just saw from the video.

Um, it is part of uh Campus Crusade for Christ International, also known as Crew, which I'm sure many of you have heard of. Um, also, I just want to say what a cool group and what a cool conference to be part of.

I think we all owe um Jeff and many others our thanks for putting this together. Um, yeah, I, I actually, you know, it's funny how God works in these things.

Uh, Nathan's talk right before this I think is like so applicable to so many of us uh in that we get burned out and we need others to come alongside us.

Um, but many of us actually don't know the best way to come alongside each other. And that's actually kind of one of the ways that God Tools helps.

Um, the vision of God Tools is that we want to imagine if all over the world more Christians shared their faith because they had a simple, clear, and engaging way to have a conversation about Jesus.

Now, um, I know I mean I work for Crew. I'm literally at Crew headquarters, so we are like definitely some of the people that love talking about Jesus and uh we want to win, build, send, and see the great commission fulfilled.

And I love that. But um if you're like me, I think when it comes to the idea of sharing your faith with your mom or your brother or your neighbor or maybe it's even uh a believer in your own church who needs help getting back on track, who needs to hear the gospel and refind that joy in salvation. Um, it's pretty hard. And uh that's specifically why we built um God Tools is for people just like you and me in the instances where we get lost.

And quick side story, we talk about God Tools sometimes as uh being a little bit like a flashlight where you know when you're out in the beautiful sunshine and I'm out here in Florida, which I'd say we get too much sunshine.

Uh, you don't really need a flashlight, right? You can see where you're going. You're not going to stumble. You're not going to stub your toe or anything, but spiritual conversations sometimes are like being in the dark and we don't really know where we're going and we're stumbling around and it's kind of rough.

God Tools is your metaphorical flashlight giving you some clear steps, some clear ways to engage in conversations about Jesus. The four big ways that we do that are tools, lessons, uh, being very multilingual, and then screen sharing.

Um, tools are things like the four spiritual laws, knowing God personally, um, which I'm sure many of you have probably heard of, but we have lots of other tools in there, and these are different ways to engage about the gospel.

One of my favorite tools is called Openers, and it's a conversation starter tool, and it starts you out with maybe in a category on sports. It starts you out with like 12 questions and the first few are pretty easy and then they get a little more eternally minded and then all of a sudden we're talking about Jesus and that's how we design tools are to help you get into more conversations and help you have better deeper conversations about Jesus. The other big way that we help is in lessons. And I think you all will probably find this especially helpful in that we talk about sharing our faith all the time, but a lot of people actually they know the gospel really well, but it's how do I even get into those conversations? How do I share my faith with my mom? How do I actually ask hard questions? What do I do if maybe the conversation's not going well?

So, and then flying through this, we have a ton of languages in God Tools. I think currently there's actually like 120ish languages. I think it might be 123 as of like a few days ago. So lots of languages and we are always looking for partners to add more. We have a ton of usage especially outside of the US and it's just been a blessing to see the way that God is using this little app.

Lastly, screen sharing. This is a huge way that you can engage with people all across the world. We have an awesome story of a friend of mine who lives in Vietnam who shared her faith and brought someone to Christ who lives in Germany via the God Tools app by screen sharing and walking him through the gospel. And I mean what an incredible opportunity we all have to make our faith available to those who need it most.

So there's no big thing beyond this other than like if these are the kind of questions that you're having, please feel free to reach out to me on this platform. Come to my open table. Otherwise, godtoolsapp.com and Jeff will put up a link here in a minute. It's the best place for you to download it. And big extra thing for you all, it's entirely free. So I'm not looking to add you to some marketing campaign. I'm not looking you to buy my book or something. It is totally for you. So, thank you. God bless you. Appreciate you all.

Awesome. Yeah. So, so thank you for that. Justin, man, I appreciate. Man, I you know, I love you've been hanging out here with us with the conference all day. I've seen you around. God bless the internet for working wherever you are in the world. But thanks for hanging out with us. And so, I know Justin we're going to take a 10-minute break here in a second. And so, Justin, maybe if you could hang out in your table, there in the lobby, that'd be great. If you've got questions and interested in talking to Justin about God Tools, swing down there to the God Tools table, talk with him. Or if you want to, you know, ask him how many like what other titles are of his job title. I'm sure he's he could list off all of it, everything in there. Or you know what's it like working for a crew and everything with that. But no, Justin, man, I do I appreciate hanging out with you. It's been fun here with this one again and feel free to stop by and check in with Justin and godtoolsapp.com. Right. God Tools app.

Yes, sir.

On Android and iPhone. I don't know why I said Android. iPhone's of course the right choice. Although Android does have yeah, Android has the foldable phone. I'm feeling that, you know, until the iPhone Air becomes the iPhone full foldable phone and then, you know, I'll have my foldable iPad, which will make me happy and then, you know, I I was right in the world again.

Hey, we do have just stick around here for one second as I'm stalling. There's a question that came up. Let me take a look at this. Oh, this is coming from Twitch. Hey, there you go. God Tools Justin Sudter from Twitch. Does it have apologetic resources?

So, we don't at the moment as we would as many people would call them apologetics. The way that we are specifically helping fit into the sort of global body of Christ is we are really optimizing around not just helping people who share their faith 20 times a year, turn it into 30 or 40 times. That's awesome. But we really focus on helping people who have never shared their faith before share it for the first time. So we have some plans for some apologetic stuff in the future, but it might not look quite as much as defensive as as a lot of apologetic material is. And I think there's a great place for that. Certainly not doing that at all.

But where we where we live is really helping people who have never even told their friends that they go to church, you know. One one user that we had had said, you know, I I don't really want to fulfill the great commission. I just want to tell my mom I've been going to church and it's been changing my life. And that's sort of the person that right now we are really really seeking to help. And of course, tons of missionaries, tons of crew staff all over the world. It's been awesome to see that too. But that growth area of zero to one for us is just where we are spending all our time really.

Very good. You know, I will say for the person asking this, by by the way, that's a great answer. If if we can get I was I was who was I who was I talking with? I was, man, it's going to struggle with me. There's like 2.6 billion Christians in the world or something like that. One third of the world's population. And I was talking with somebody about that stat and they were like, "Well, if everybody if every Christian would just like lead one person to Christ, then we'd have 5.4 billion Christians." And I was like, "Well, thank you very much, Captain Obvious." Like, that was it. It was like a kid. I It's killing me. I can't remember who this was, but I was like blown away by the uh the simplicity of the idea.

Apologist.ai. Ap.ai. We did a show with them a stream a couple weeks ago. I'm blanking on the gentleman's name right now, but incredible resources aimed at, uh, more of the apologetics type type of thing. And so look at that. Apologist.ai would be a great option there. But Justin Sudter, thank you uh for jumping on this. Hey everybody, we're going to take a five minute. No, we're going to take a 10-minute break um towards this. I want to make sure that. No, we're we're still on schedule. Well, as much as schedule matters. We're we're about 20 minutes behind schedule, but we'll we'll make it up again.

So, uh we're going to take a 10 minute break. It is currently my watch is dead. 2:33 Eastern. Let's make it back at 35. 2:35 Eastern. Minute hand on 35. India, you're on your own. Okay, everybody. 2:35. 2. No, I'm sorry. 3345. 2:45 Eastern. 2:45 Eastern. Minute hand on 45.

Okay. Thanks everybody. Have a good one.