0:00:00 – Speaker 1
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0:00:10 – Speaker 2
Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630, the Word nextTalk Radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a non-profit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:32 – Speaker 1
Well, today we’re going to continue in our pornography series with our special guest author and founder of Bee Broken Ministries, jonathan Dardy. Welcome to the show. Thanks, I’m glad to be here.
Yeah, we’re excited to have you here. So many great resources on your website, such a great story. We’re going to dive right into that. The story of Bee Broken Ministries began with Jonathan and Elaine Dardy you and your wife. Personal journey through the devastation of sexual addiction and brokenness led to the formation of your ministry. As healing began, first for Jonathan and later for Elaine, they started to realize how prevalent sexual brokenness was for families nationwide. Not wanting their healing to be in vain, they decided to begin reaching out to other men and families who could benefit from the principles they learned on their journey to freedom and restoration. The road was difficult and painful, but they share how the results have been worth every step. Through your book and through your website, jonathan, tell us personally a little bit about you and your family.
0:01:30 – Speaker 3
Sure, well, my wife and I have been married for 21 years. So that’s sort of telling you the end of the story before the beginning, because that is only a reality, because of God’s grace, because we actually had a separation as a result of my sexual sin and there was no guarantee, really not even any prospect, that we would get back together after that. So, to give you a little bit more information about where we are now, we’ve been married for 21 years. I’ve been doing this ministry full time, vocationally for the last 14 years. We have three teenage kids, two girls and a boy. So we’re kind of in the thick of that reality, which is obviously a lot of your listeners.
Absolutely, they’re in that exact same situation, so I want your listeners to know I feel where you’re at.
0:02:17 – Speaker 1
You know, I know exactly what it’s like.
0:02:20 – Speaker 3
But in some ways I’m grateful for the history that I’ve had because in a lot of ways it has prepared me for this season with my kids, because I know that a lot of adults, a lot of parents, they have not maybe gone through maybe the kind of healing or journey that I’ve gone through.
We deal with a lot of people in our ministry that are in that category of having teenage children but the parents haven’t dealt with their brokenness and we’ve got many men that are drowning in pornography and other kinds of sexual sin, and so that obviously creates a strain in that relationship, which then only affects the kids, and how do you pass along something that you don’t possess?
And so I’m actually grateful. It’s kind of a weird thing to be thankful for. I’m grateful for all the brokenness in my history, because I was fortunate to be able to learn a lot of these things about walking in purity prior to having teenage children, and so, therefore, we were able to raise our kids in a home that is very open about all kinds of topics. There’s nothing that’s off the table in terms of conversation, which has helped tremendously, because our kids will come home from school and they’ll be like hey, so the kids at school were talking about cutting and the kids at school were talking about pornography or whatever else, and we can have totally open conversations about that to where it’s not something that they’re having to figure out on their own.
But my story started when I was 12 years old and I was exposed to pornography and simply didn’t know what to do with that, because that wasn’t necessarily the dynamic in my home growing up. I did have parents that were Christians. They loved the Lord, they loved me and my sister, but they had no experience with any of that in terms of their history. As far as how do you deal with teenagers that are starting to, you know, plus, the kinds of struggles that my parents dealt with in their childhood were a little bit foreign to the ones that I dealt with.
And I think that’s sometimes a generational thing, although I think the saturation of pornography in our culture today is making that less true with each future generation, but at least for me. I didn’t have a place where I felt like I could go talk to my parents about that. So I did, like most kids in my generation, which was just figure out answers on your own, which usually meant locker room conversations, pornography, you know, all those types of outlets for being able to figure out what sexuality was really all about.
0:04:56 – Speaker 2
That’s some good stuff right there. You know, when you were sharing your story, I thought of Deuteronomy 23.5, the Lord, god, loves you because he turns your curse into a blessing. And that’s one of the verses we use here at nextTalk, because so many times, you know, parents will call us and say my kid, my eight year old, has, is in a pornography. Now what do I do? And that is the verse that we give them. You know, this is your light bulb moment to kind of turn things around. And when I was hearing your story and how you said, I kind of am grateful now because we’ve turned around and now we’re talking about everything. You know, this is our hope and prayer for our nextTalk community.
So many times we say you cannot talk to your kids about something unless you’ve been healed yourself. And that’s exactly what you’re saying, you know, because I walked through this journey and allowed God to heal me and I listened to God and was obedient to what he was calling me to do. Coming out of the sin, you have a whole new relationship with your kids now and you’re able to talk with them and nothing’s off the table. I think that’s so beautiful and so such a great testimony about what nextTalk is all about.
0:06:02 – Speaker 1
Well, and it applies to more than sexual sin, as we were speaking about truly walking through whatever it is, whatever your burden is or whatever your sin may be, and healing first, and then being able to be open about it with your spouse and your kids, allows that environment of open communication. That here’s what I walked through. Here’s how the Lord healed me. Let’s talk about it so you don’t have to take that step.
0:06:25 – Speaker 3
Well, and I will share with you one dynamic that I’ve introduced with me and my son when he turned 13, we started having what I call man meetings.
0:06:35 – Speaker 1
Yes, love that.
0:06:36 – Speaker 3
Got him a William Wallace sword, essentially knighted him and said you’re no longer a boy, you’re a man in training. And so I gave him a short history lesson about how it’s only been the last 100 years that we’ve even had the term teenager. You had children and adult, you know.
Yeah that’s true. So what we do in these man meetings is, to your point, I try to let him know not only the things that historically meaning okay, wherever he is at his age and his stage of life, I share with him where I was at his age and stage of life, and so there’s an identification that says, oh, dad’s not always been this old buddy buddy, you know.
0:07:12 – Speaker 1
Exactly.
0:07:13 – Speaker 3
But the other thing I do and this is sometimes where parents sort of freak out is I say I also share with him how I’m growing right now and that’s where I think a lot of parents think that their only job is sort of dumping information into their kids and making everything about their lives historical. And then their kids are thinking my parents are saints, they’ve got it all together there’s no problems now.
And I try to let my son know that there is. There are things in my past, things of which I have been healed, in terms of certain sins and brokenness, but I’m still in a growth process now and I don’t want him to think that there’s ever a point in life that you reach that, hey, you got it all wrapped up, you got it all figured out. So, even letting my son see now the things that I struggle with in terms of anger and envy and those types of things, he’s able to say, okay, dad’s still in process, so, but you know what? He’s not crazy, he’s not out of his mind, he’s a good guy, you know. So it gives them a sense of hope in a growth mindset rather than hope, and some kind of destination that they’re aiming for, where they’re not gonna have any problems.
0:08:18 – Speaker 2
I love that. That’s great. I love it too because so many times, teens that I talk to say I can’t share this issue with my parents because they’re perfect and I’m not and they do feel that way and so when we share our struggles, past and present, with them, they can really relate to that and they’re like I’m not the only one struggling in this world, and especially now with the online world and how things have just shifted so much. I mean, not only our kids are exposed to so much pornography and everything else. I mean we’ve got live stream violence going. We’ve got suicides online that we’re processing together that we can really talk through those issues with our kids about. I love that, jonathan.
0:08:57 – Speaker 3
And I do think there’s. I always tell parents, though, that they need to think in age appropriate ways, so there’s a different, there’s a whole different level of disclosure that I have with my 15 year old son than when he was eight, so it’s like we wanna let parents know you don’t dump on your seven year old kid all of your current baggage. It’s like no, we need to, but you also. But I think as they grow, it’s important to let them know where you are now for that very reason, so that they don’t get this idealistic mindset that says mom and dad are done growing, they’ve figured it all out.
Because then it comes across like you said it comes across as I can’t communicate because I can’t identify.
0:09:42 – Speaker 2
There’s a wallet.
0:09:43 – Speaker 3
There’s no way to identify with this quote. Unquote perfect parent.
0:09:47 – Speaker 1
Yes, I have younger ones on the team and I see my seven year old. His eyes will light up and get big when he’ll share a struggle or I can tell he’s going through a struggle and if I can tell him a story how I went through that same thing, even if it’s something small, his eyes will get big and he’ll feel like, oh, she gets it. I think that gives them a connection point where they don’t feel like perfection is the goal. Like you said, like we’re in this together. She understands, or he understands, you know, dad, and it’s gonna be okay Like mom’s, okay, like you said, not falling apart at the seams.
0:10:20 – Speaker 3
And I would say this that I really think that the reason that I’m able to have these conversations now with my kids and all of that, is because I went through a very, very difficult journey. So you know, and I brought so much of the pain on myself. Now we like to tell people. You know it comes to our ministry and everything. Listen, there’s certainly an aspect of your history of brokenness that was not your fault, because every there’s not a kid who gets through childhood unscarred.
So there’s always a point at which somebody else’s brokenness got dumped into a child’s life. But then, especially the men that we deal with in our ministry, we also tell them at some point along the way. Then you pick up that brokenness and you begin to carry it. So and I’m not too concerned about exactly where that line is it’s like listen, at some point somebody showed you pornography or got you involved, you know, dumped their brokenness into your life, but then you pick it up along the way, and so what I had to learn was that at a certain point, when I was essentially destroying my life through pornography and all kinds of other sexual sin, I had to come to a breaking point where I realized I had to acknowledge what I was carrying and the choices I was making and therefore then start going through a recovery process.
And that’s what I think has then benefited me as a parent is because I had to take ownership of the things that I did, and to be able to pass that onto your kids in a society where we have essentially kicked responsibility out the door personal responsibility of our choices is super important because we need to be, because we live in a society now where I think everything is about victimization. And it’s saying well, there is still a line. I’m not denying the reality of victimization.
We are all victims of something at some point in our lives, but there is a point at which, then, we have to say what am I carrying, what have I picked up, and said I’m going to make a willful choice into these damaging behaviors, and that’s what we have to take responsibility for. So I feel like we need healing from the things that were dumped into our lives and that, I believe, is something that can only happen, I believe, through the Holy Spirit in terms of the healing that he can give us.
But then I believe we need repentance from the things that we have picked up, and that’s where I see so many people struggling in our current day and age is oh listen, I’ll be happy to admit that somebody’s brokenness has gotten dumped in my life and I’ll go through a healing process, but I still want to kind of cling to my sin that I’m carrying, and so we try to teach both that there is a healing process but there’s also repentance, and I think that’s hugely important to teach our kids too is that there are things that you do need to be healed from, because it’s something that was not your fault, it was a wound that was inflicted upon you, and I tell my kids all the time I said I hate to say it, but I’m sure I’m the cause of some of your wounds it’s like nope there’s no perfect parents.
0:13:29 – Speaker 2
Didn’t mean it, but yes.
0:13:31 – Speaker 3
And so we believe forgiveness is huge in this process as far as the relational dynamic. But those are the two main things in terms of the process that we want to get people into is understanding the things they need healing from that were not their fault, but then also fully acknowledging and recognizing the things that they need to repent of because they have.
0:13:53 – Speaker 2
Well, and I think the repentance is where the hard work comes in, because that’s where you’re breaking the cycles, you’re saying no, you’re coming up against that temptation and that normal pattern that you have to say no to, and that’s a very big struggle, and so I think that’s where your ministry comes in and helping people do that. So tell us a little bit about, like, the resources you have available for men and women, both.
0:14:16 – Speaker 3
So our primary audience, so to speak, and in terms of who we serve, our adult men and women.
I know we’ve been talking about teens here a lot.
We have resources for teens, but kind of our primary audience that we serve directly Our adult men and women, most of whom are married. So, and the typical scenario that we get is the man who is struggling with some kind of sexual brokenness issue Whether it be pornography or affairs or anything like that and so then the wife is dealing with betrayal, mm-hmm, and so the the two main resources that we have directly to serve those couples is we have a three-day intensive for men who are wanting to overcome any kind of sexual struggle or stronghold. That’s our gateway to freedom workshop and then we have an entire wives care ministry that helps women in these online wives care groups, which have been a phenomenal success, because a lot of women who are going through this they feel a double betrayal, because they not only feel betrayed by their husband, but then they almost feel like they’re carrying an additional shame when they have to go, drive their car to some location and get out and walk to a group, it’s just like they’re just carrying this additional shame like this isn’t mine.
Why am I having?
to do this, so the online groups have given a great sort of starting point for these women to feel safe, to be able to work through that. So through our gateway to freedom workshop, we help men start their journey of healing and growth, and then through our wives care ministry, we help women heal from the betrayal, and and both of these are Independent of one another we like to say that when a couple has faced this kind of trauma that they’re, the best Sort of recovery process is for them to have a season in which they’re getting individual help, and then You’re better prepared to deal with any kind of marriage help. But also then we think of that as a family. So most of the married couples that we deal with they’re also parents, sure, so we have our pure community ministry. That is a Clearing house for all kinds of resources for any, anybody, whether you’re a man who struggles, a woman who struggles, teens, parents, couples. It’s got all kinds of books, podcasts, events, groups, counselors. All of that is on our pure community website at pure community dot org.
0:16:38 – Speaker 2
Pure community org.
0:16:39 – Speaker 1
Perfect, okay, and that all kind of comes together on your main website be broken, calm, and so people are listening and they’re saying I’m really struggling with this. Is that the best part?
0:16:50 – Speaker 3
starting point. Yes, if they just go to our be brokencom Web page. The home page has a lot of information about what we just talked about regarding the gateway workshop, the wives care stuff. We also even help men who are in a good place To seek to mentor other men.
So we have what we call purity, mentor training, because we feel like the overall process Is what we call heal, grow, serve. So there’s certainly a healing component in terms of the journey of getting well. Then there’s a growth we want to grow in the grace that we’ve been given and the healing that we’ve been given. But we feel like you haven’t really closed the loop Until then.
0:17:24 – Speaker 2
You’re serving and and giving and pouring back into others, and so that’s kind of the process that we take people through one of the things that we found in our ministry is People sharing their story is so beneficial because so many times satan convinces us that we’re the only one going through it. Whether it’s pornography you know in a marriage, or pornography with your child, or you know your child is cutting. Whatever it is, satan wants us to be in the dark. He wants us to suffer in silence, and one of the things key phrases we like to use is don’t be scared into silence. Share your story, and so I love that serve component. There’s so many people who need to hear your restoration story on how God brought you through such a challenge.
0:18:10 – Speaker 3
And if there are any pastors or ministry leaders listening, I want them to know that we, one of our core values in our ministry, is story, and so we always are encouraging those who have influence in the church to be thinking through Strategically. How are they creating safe environments for people to share their story, not their kind of polished testimony?
0:18:33 – Speaker 2
Yes, in terms of, like, how they came to know Christ, which is important. That’s good.
0:18:37 – Speaker 1
But they’re really old.
0:18:39 – Speaker 3
Yes and so I actually wrote another little book Called grace-based recovery Okay, for that very purpose, realizing that, after having been in ministry full time for 10 years and traveling all around the country, I realized, you know what Most of the environments that I see in terms of churches or anywhere else dealing with sexual brokenness, they are performance based. Your, your worth is still based on your performance, like, hey, if you did well this week, we’re gonna applaud you. If you didn’t do well, we’re gonna go look down our nose, and what we realize when we look in the scriptures is that, well, god will always address our behavior. He never attacks our worth in terms of our personhood.
So it’s kind of what we call the difference between guilt and shame.
0:19:19 – Speaker 2
I like that, and so what we?
0:19:20 – Speaker 3
try to do is we say you need to create grace-based environments that are really about growing still, about healing and pursuing righteousness, but in an environment that says there’s nothing you could do good or bad that will change your value before God. Because we like to say I used to say that people are priceless. I don’t say that anymore. I say that you’re actually worth a very specific price to God the life of His only Son. So, and is there anything more valuable than Jesus? So when you realize that, you realize, okay, now we have a baseline that my value won’t change and I can struggle towards righteousness, rather than feeling like, if I come in this week and I’ve failed four times, I have the temptation to lie now because my value is based on my performance and we wanna take that away and say no, no, because of the grace of God, your value doesn’t change, but you still need to tell your story and confess your sins, and so those are the kind of environments that we always encourage pastors and folks in ministry to try to create.
0:20:21 – Speaker 2
I think that’s so wonderful, because so many times we get caught up in this Christian mask that we have to wear to look perfect you know the perfect family sitting on the front pew every time on Sunday and we need to take those masks off and we need churches that are transparent with sharing our stories and then that can create families who are transparent. So many times we’re not talking at home about all these issues because we’re not talking about it in the church either, and so those two things go hand in hand.
0:20:49 – Speaker 3
Absolutely, and I do think, then, we need to marry this grace-based environment with the repentance, because sometimes what I’ve seen happen, you know, I love the fact that in John, chapter one, we’re told that Jesus was full of grace and truth, not grace or truth full of grace and truth yes, both.
And so the thing is is when we have this grace-based environment, sometimes the temptation is to think that that means we don’t care about sin, and the reality is, when you think again, what we were talking about earlier about repentance. No, we’re inviting people into an environment where their worth doesn’t change, but we’re gonna challenge them to own up to the things that they have carried, that they’ve grabbed onto and says I’m gonna willfully choose to Disobey God’s best. And when they, when we have that environment, we’re inviting them to repent in a safe place where now real growth can happen instead of I can kind of have my cake and eat it too, and not really have to deal with?
0:21:44 – Speaker 2
Yeah, because then you have an actual behavior change. I mean, when you confront it, the behavior with actual truth, of that it’s wrong, then the Holy Spirit will do the work to say this is what needs to change. And so it’s not a, it’s not about accepting it and saying, keep doing it. It’s about accepting it and saying let’s break this cycle and move. I love that how you communicate that we see it a lot.
0:22:07 – Speaker 1
I do in groups anyway, and in churches, like you’re saying, there’s that environment of well, it’s okay, you’re forgiven, and then they continue that same behavior. So I love how you put the action with it because it’s so important. And then we need to take that home, like you said, mandy, that needs to be our model at home with our kids, walking them through challenges at every age and stage and what that looks like the sin and then the forgiveness, then the action to change it, and that’s why I think it’s critical to cast vision Both with, like what we do with the adults in terms of their marriage and their personal lives, but I think, with children too.
0:22:39 – Speaker 3
So many times, kids think, listen, I’m really just learning a sin management system, because they’ve never been told the vision. What does it look like to be a fully fruitful child of God?
And when we cast that vision of what that looks like, of being salt and light and and really being able to get to the End of it all. In here, jesus say well done, you finished. Well, when that vision is cast, then you start to understand why we have this struggle and why we continue to create safe environments and call people to Repentance. And it has meaning to it, rather than just like in the moment, feeling like, well, I’m just not supposed to do these things. Yeah, no, no, it’s part of a bigger vision of who God made you to be. He made you to look like Jesus, and so when that vision is cast, it makes the whole process makes sense.
0:23:23 – Speaker 2
Well and on a more specific scale, about their purity and saving themselves for marriage. You know, one day Casting that vision on you know. This is why we don’t look at porn. This is why we protect our heart and mind. This is why because we don’t want to fall into this Addictive state and then we’ve taken something from our spouse that we don’t even maybe know yet, but God has a plan for that to be a perfect union between that man and that woman.
0:23:49 – Speaker 1
You know you’ve written a book. We want to touch on that really quick. Tell us a little bit about the book and what kind of a resources it might be for whom.
0:23:56 – Speaker 3
Yes, so my book is called secrets and it’s really it’s my story of Coming out of my secret sin and my addiction to pornography and all kinds of other things, and what it is is it’s a great resource for somebody who Maybe is wondering man, how do I kind of bridge this gap between the things that I’m carrying in the dark and Desire that I have to not do that anymore, and so it’s kind of a good opening resource for people who, you know, go ahead, read it in your closet, you know, just be like. I don’t know if I want to do this, but it helps because each chapter has a living in the light section of how do you then begin to walk in the light rather than carrying these secrets?
0:24:34 – Speaker 1
So not just sexual sin, any kind of a secret. This would walk us through that process.
0:24:38 – Speaker 3
Yeah, probably most beneficial for those who feel like they are in some kind of addictive pattern, like they can’t break free and so and they also feel like they can’t tell anybody.
0:24:49 – Speaker 2
Perfect, well, and thank you. We’ve got two copies. We’re going to be giving away on our social media. We’ll give you direction there, but we have signed copies. Thank you for those. We appreciate having you on the show. We just pray for your ministry. What you’re doing is amazing and life-changing.
0:25:04 – Speaker 1
We really, really want everyone to check out your website. It’s fantastic. Be broken, calm, all the resources are there and it directs you specifically when to go for men, for these three-day workshops and for women, to find that online care group. Thank you so much for being on the show. We appreciate your wisdom and you being so open and honest. It’s changing lives. It has changed lives and we appreciate all that you’re doing for for the call.
0:25:29 – Speaker 3
Well, thank you so much for having me, and I appreciate what y’all are doing to get parents to talk to their kids and kids to talk to their parents.
0:25:35 – Speaker 2
Thank you for joining us on nextTalk radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am On a m 6 30. The word nextTalk radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a non-profit Organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk org. Are you ready for the next time?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
