Joy Blogger

The price of the Restarting license has been the source of quite a bit of conversation. Even though everyone wants us to continue developing more materials there is a sobering moment of thought before people spend the $495.00 for the Open Group License. I am tempted to point out that after the first 200 participants you will recover the license fee just from savings on materials. If we think about donations, a group of 50 people who give a donation $1.00 for each night they attend will pay the fee the very first time you complete the 12 week training. By the second time through you could buy and donate a copy to form a second Restarting group. It really is not expensive if you consider the cost of a cup of coffee. Instead, what we are receiving are questions like, “Could you set up a payment plan so groups could pay this off over time?”

What these discussions about price suggest to me is the issue of perceived value. If we were offering a laptop computer for churches with the latest technology at $495.00 we would have a rush of orders we could not fill. After all, a computer has value. Churches understand that Restarting provides the latest technology for recovery based on strong developments in both prayer ministry and brain science but there is very little perceived value in our product. Why? I think it reflects the lack of value in the last programs and videos they bought. Experience tells them that if you buy a computer you get something that will last you for at least two years and do some good. If you buy a video based program for your church that promises to change lives you get little value at all. Look at the results of the last 10 video programs you tried.

So we have a big bump to get over. To design and create a program and training that really does teach some skills, bring some healing, change some lives and provide serious content has taken us some serious work and some serious development costs. Just the Restarting module has over 6 hours of teaching in it and 36 exercises. Some other recovery programs can put all their content into a 20-minute DVD. Judging from the responses we are getting, most churches find more value in the video projectors they buy than in the programs they run through them.

Really, we are not that interested in having you buy another program and plug it into your church. Recovery is not just for people at the bottom or on the fringes any more. Real change comes through people who are really changed. Restarting is joy based, joy driven and Immanuel focused. Once you perceive the value of brain skills, a way to heal in groups and the need for community, Restarting will have the value you seek.

- Jim Wilder

I heard recently if you take a hummingbird feeder, fill it with sugar water and get birds accustomed to feeding from it, then replace the sugar water with artificially sweetened water you will kill them.   No, sweeteners are not toxic to hummingbirds; they simply die of mal-nutrition.   They drink what seems like food but in reality has no calories for their bodies to use as fuel. 

This is a great analogy for pornography and sexual addiction.  (And other BEEPS as well)  God created us with an innate hunger and need for joyful, relational connections.  We all long for and need to be with people who are genuinely “glad as glad can be to be with me.”  Pornography seems to provide that connection; after all what speaks this message more clearly to a man (or a young boy for that matter) than a beautiful woman appearing naked as the object of his delight? It is close, but no cigar.  It provides excitement, pleasure and chemical activity in the brain, but not in the right place. It becomes candy: lots of calories, but no protein.  It feels good but has no sustaining power.

God gave the gift of sexual intimacy as a way for a husband and wife to share a powerful joy connection.  He even placed the control of our genitals immediately adjacent to our attachment center so that sex would serve as “super glue” bonding man and wife together.  However, when individuals act out with pornography, masturbation and insecure, non-joy filled relationships, they end up bonding themselves to computer screens, fantasy and/or serial relationships that have no sustaining nourishment.  The momentary intensity is high, but the hunger returns almost as quickly as the shame.  The shame, of course, compounds the hunger and the spiral continues at an ever increasing and destructive rate. 

Sexual addiction is just like other BEEPS in most ways.  However, the shame and social taboos associated with it often make it an even more difficult and baffling enemy.  The good news, however is there is hope.  We have seen many individuals face their addiction head on, in community and find freedom and healing.  The THRIVE principles are incredibly helpful in this pernicious war and many are incorporated in a new recovery manual, New Hope For Recovery From Sexual Addiction, upon which I am just putting the finishing touches.  If you are interested in learning more about the manual or sexual addiction recovery, go to www.newhopelawernce.com . 

Darrell Brazell