Pastor Vern Tompke on P*rn Recovery, Accountability, and Church Culture

In this powerful episode of The Covenant Eyes Podcast, host Karen Potter sits down with Canadian pastor and recovery advocate Vern Tompke, creator of the Finding Traction and Pastors on P*rn podcasts. Vern shares his deeply personal story of overcoming p*rn*graphy addiction while serving in ministry — and how God turned his healing into a mission to help others.

Together, Karen and Vern discuss:
•  The unique challenges pastors face when struggling with p*rn
•  How shame and burnout can fuel addiction
•  Why accountability and community are essential for recovery
•  How technology — and tools like Covenant Eyes — create safer environments
•  The importance of churches embracing brokenness to foster healing

Whether you’re a pastor, ministry leader, or someone seeking freedom from p*rn, this episode offers wisdom, hope, and practical tools for lasting transformation.

Listen now to discover how faith, humility, and accountability can bring freedom and restoration.

➡️ Learn more about Vern’s ministry: https://BandOfBrothers.care
➡️ Pastors, get your resources here: https://cvnteyes.co/4fTsi9j
➡️ Get Accountability with Covenant Eyes: https://cvnteyes.co/4gb6xme

💬 Share your thoughts or prayer requests below — we’re in this together.

#CovenantEyes #PornRecovery #FaithOverPorn #ChristianRecovery #PastorsOnPorn #FindingTraction #VernTompke #Accountability #FreedomFromPorn #ChurchHealing #SexualIntegrity #faithbasedhealing

⏱️  Chapters:
00:00 – Welcome from Karen Potter
00:45 – Introducing Pastor Vern Tompke
01:10 – From Pastoral Ministry to P*rn Recovery
02:10 – Creating Finding Traction & Pastors on P*rn
03:00 – Why Pastors Hide Their Struggles
04:15 – Vern’s Own Journey to Healing
06:00 – Burnout and the “Perfect Storm” of Addiction
08:00 – Finding Mentorship and Safe Spaces
10:00 – Practical Steps for Recovery
11:40 – Why Covenant Eyes is Essential
13:00 – Understanding the Roots of Addiction
15:00 – Relapse and Grace in the Recovery Journey
17:00 – The Power of Gentle Accountability
20:00 – Managing Technology and Triggers
22:00 – Building Healthy Digital Boundaries
23:00 – Social Media as a New P*rn Substitute
26:00 – Church Culture and Brokenness
28:00 – Why Churches Must Platform Healing
31:00 – Examples of Courageous Churches
33:00 – Where to Find Vern’s Podcasts
34:00 – Final Thoughts and Gratitude to Covenant Eyes

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Transcript

0:06

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Covenant Eyes podcast. It's Karen here, and I am so glad to have you joining us. We have got a great show lined up for today. We have got a special guest joining us from over the border in Canada. We are excited to have Vern Tompke. Did I get that right? Go right now. Awesome. Well, welcome to the podcast. We're so glad to have you joining us. It's great to be on. I love getting to know you guys. Got to know Rob and Sam as well. And you guys have been such a blessing in my life. So I'm just so glad to be here. Well good. Well we are excited to have a conversation and learn more about the work that you're doing. So for our listeners that are not familiar with you, or maybe don't listen to your podcast or haven't heard of it yet. Yeah, talk to us a little bit about the work that you're doing in the ministry, that you have as well. Well, I was, a pastor. I still am a pastor for 35 years. And, out of my own struggle with porn, I'm kind of an overshare. My wife says I'm an overshare. Karen. And, I've just kind of been the guy. Whatever I learn and grow in and the comfort and healing I've received, I just. I just want to give it away. Maybe that's every pastor something, but most pastors don't like talking about sexual brokenness. I, I that's not been part of my journey. So my journey coming out of addictions, my journey coming as a pastor, struggling with porn has all been a part of my story. And so coming down to a place of healing, I developed a couple podcasts. One of them is called Finding Traction, which is basically helping just your regular Joes with just how to develop plans, how to look at life's issues, how to create, just a better understanding of how to find healing. And then I also created that kind of a parallel podcast called Pastors on Porn. Really subtle title, right? Yeah, yeah. And that is all around dealing with issues for pastors, how to create cultures within churches that are, you know, we're agents of healing. So kind of all things church related is pastors on porn. And then all things individual related is finding traction. Oh my goodness. Well, you definitely stay busy with two podcasts and totally, you know, two different demographics that your team is. Well, I love that. Well, let's start with the work that you're doing with pastors. But you know the work here at Covenant Eyes, we work with a ton of churches, and we talk to pastors all the time. We know that there are pastors that are struggling with pornography. But, you know, there's so many reasons for a pastor not to step forward. You know, I mean, the culture of the church sometimes is less than forgiving. They don't have a plan to help them find restoration. Their jobs, their families, everything's on the line. There's a lot at stake. But also, you know, addressing our sins and overcoming those is super important. So what kind of advice do you offer to pastors as you're working with them and through your work on your podcast? Well, first of all, I say to pastors, it it is hard to call people into the light if you're still standing in the shadows, that that is true. And every pastor knows if there's not a congruence there, it it is such a weight on ministry to to do that. I recognize we do live in a in a challenging culture as as pastors, sometimes people confuse sexual brokenness or struggles with porn, for example, with illegal behavior, which, you know, that that's an entirely different, you know, thing and or taking advantage of people in the congregation. There is real, honest church discipline, and there's real, honest boundaries and accountability that needs to happen. But for your regular pastor like me, for 2030 years, I struggled with sexual brokenness around porn. I, I, I could have just left the ministry and I know that's what happens. People quietly leave the ministry in the call of God on their lives because they're afraid of being found out. And I just said, is there a better way? And I fortunately was able to remain as a pastor. I got mentoring, I got help from a variety of sources, and I am and maybe a unique situation. I was able to transition to a place of healing while remaining a pastor, and that the you know, the great grace story of that is, God was able to use my healing and the comfort I've received to help other people. And I know that's not everybody's story, but I think that's the ideal story. When pastors are addressing their own brokenness and bringing other people along in the humility that they're growing in. That is so powerful and so good. And that is really the hope that we can get more pastors on that path and that journey. Absolutely. Talk to us a little bit. So, you know, through your podcast, I'm sure that you get contacted by lots of pastors who, you know, definitely know they want to address this, the secret sin that they've been living with, but they don't know what to do. What resources and ministries do you, partner with to really help them kind of get those wraparound services so that they can navigate through this? Yeah. And and first thing, I, I don't recommend going public as a starting thing. I recommend get some personal help start dealing. You know, if you know I'll sit down with people and go and I do. I have a lot of individual calls with pastors. We meet on a private you know, private zoom call, and I'll just say, tell me your story, tell me your story. And as I hear their story and I start listening to some of the dynamics, then it's pretty clear. Do you got do you need to to, work on self-care? Is this just a question of of the self-care situation in your life? The wheels are starting to come off because of a burnout situation. That's what happened to me. Karen, at 40 years, at 40 years old, I went through a significant burnout. And that's when porn completely resurfaced in my life. I call it my perfect storm. I was I was by vocational, I was burnt out and I was alone in a high speed office. Well, you can get that connection right. And so, so basically, guy, so many pastors would say, I have no place to talk to. I'm working with a pastor right now who's in his 60s. He's just nearing retirement. And this is it was a sad story. He said, you know, I went through my entire pastoral life struggling with porn. Now that I'm, you know, basically retiring, I can finally now share my story. And I'm glad he's sharing his story. At 60, you know, mid 60s. But how much more would God have been able to redeem his story and push back against the enemy's plans if he had finally found some hope and healing earlier on in his ministry, and what the changes could have been with the people he came in contact with. Wow. Oh my gosh, that is a really heart wrenching story. Yeah. So many pastors, you know, certainly because of the nature of the work, they carry the burdens of their congregation. They are putting out fires there, you know, they are burnt out. They are burning both. You know, the candle at both ends, as they say. And a lot of that leads to isolation. They don't have people in their lives that they feel that they can confide in. What steps do you recommend to pastors? You know, I think I believe that we all need a band of brothers or a sisterhood of sisters around us, but how do pastors get to a place where they feel safe enough to find those people and build that that band of brothers around them? Well, sometimes it's feel safe and sometimes it's just the pain becomes so strong. If you've ever had an abscess tooth, I've had two of them. You know, you will

call a dentist at 11: 8:10

00 at night and say, I need to see you. You will knock on their door because you will go, I cannot deal with the the incongruence in my life any longer. Yeah. And and I have, you know, in my situation, I came to a point where we drove an hour to get some counseling because I just felt the internal pressure of, you know, the dissonance in my life. I couldn't live it any longer. And I had it, you know, I needed someplace to turn. So I drove to, you know, a sex addiction therapist in Vancouver. And I begin to. What's going on with me? Why I'm in this place. It's years later. I. I found a mentor like myself. His name was Michael Leahy. Great guy. Guys to appreciate. Michael I know Michael. Yes. And we work together. And now I'm able to mentor other pastors to say, maybe I'm the very first guy that you've talked to somebody outside of your church in a safe way. And we can begin to look at what's going on in your life used, you know, and the classic line is porn is not your main problem. It's your favorite solution. So what do you what are you trying to solve? What is going on here. And it's in that safe environment that we can you know, I've had groups of just pastors who get together because then it that's some of them. That's that's what they need to feel safe. Yeah. You know, other pastors go at it. That's not as big a deal as long as there's nobody from my own town for you. Yeah, right. So all of those steps are ones that I know I've worked with pastors and and I'm hopefully able to pass on the same, mentoring that I got from somebody, like, with Michael. That's amazing. So talk to us. You know, on the flip side, you're also, you know, running a podcast that really speaks to the individual, the individual that is struggling with pornography, maybe in recovery. So in your work in that space, what are you finding most helpful and beneficial to the guys? And gals that may be listening to your podcast when they're they're looking for help? Well, I think it's it's a multi-pronged approach. I, I really resist sometimes. I'm a bit of a contrarian, when people say to me, all you need to do is fill in the blanks. And, and churches, we've, we've been horrible that way. You just need to know your identity in Christ character. You just need to memorize these verses. You just need to know that you're not a sinner. You just need, you know, whatever you are, all you need to do is. Yeah, I go, well, that's a good thing, but maybe for you it's something different. You know, the two big starting points of this, I say the guy's number one. How has doing it on your own been working for you? Hmm. Good question. They all go. Well, it's not. I've tried, you know, 100 times to to quit this behavior, which is hurting me, hurting the people I love. That's the first thing. And I'll say the second thing is, well, tell me how, you know, your willpower has been working. You know, how is that work? Because obviously, you you've you've purposed and resolved in your heart 100,000. You know, how many times to to end this behavior. So doing that alone is not working. Doing it with willpower is not working. So I, I'm a really practical, pragmatic guy. And I like to say the very first thing I want to help you with is how to turn the engine off, how to get out of this despair, shame cycle, lather, rinse, repeat, cycle. And you know you're bringing your car into the mechanic and the engine is racing and there's something wrong with it. And the mechanic says, well, let's turn the engine off before he puts his hands in there. Right. And and so we just work on some practical things. Okay. What type of relapses are you having? Are they impulse relapses? You know, it's like having a bowl of chips beside you. And at the end of the day, magically, they're gone every day. You know, it's empty. And so I say, well, let's get let's work on getting screen time. Let's work on getting Covenant Eyes on your phone. Let's work on some of these practical things to put some, you know, some resistance and distance between you and the impulses that get you in trouble. That's why I love Covenant. You know, people go, well, you know, I really should be able to do it. I'm a Christian. I should be able to do it. I shouldn't need these external crutches and Covenant Eyes and the I'm saying I need them. I've been in recovery for 15 years. Yeah, I need them. And so that's the first thing. Get the ancient, just the practical plans in place to create a safe environment with your technology, a safe environment, a plan. Look at the times of the day that you struggle or the week days of the week. Let's do that first, so you're not endlessly into self-recrimination despair shame cycle now. Now that we've got a little bit of clear thinking, now that we've gotten rid of some of the brain fog, now let's begin to look at some of these other areas. What are the mistaken beliefs that you have? What are the unmet needs that you're trying to solve with porn? What is perhaps I had, Tim Fletcher on, this last week from, interview a therapist, and he says, you know, when we talked about what is the area of is there trauma? Is there something where you attach to these behaviors? So, so now that the engine is turned off, let's begin to ask the underlying. The deeper questions. I kind of do it in the two pronged approach. We look at spirituality. We look at your relationships. We look at your habits. We do all of these things. It we come at it from many different angles. And that takes time. Right, Karen? So, you know, I mean, it must be maybe it's a guy's thing. I don't know, maybe girls, they come to me and in one way or another they're asking this question. Okay, so how quick can we get this thing turned around. Right. Yes. As a first question as well, how many years have you been working on embedding this, this habit in your life? Right. You know, and is it five, is it ten? Is it 20? Isn't that right? So chances are if if you've been working on developing this in your life as a way of life, it's your goal. Solution. For every problem you have, every negative emotion you have, chances are it's going to take time for you to reverse engineer some of this and so I mean, that's why I've developed like a one year video course called Finding Traction to walk people through that they can do individually, or they can do with a group of their buddies or they can do with me. It takes time. It does. Yeah, absolutely. We hear that a lot. And I mean, we live in a world that's all about instant gratification. Get things done quickly. So it's almost embedded in our nature now. Like to want things quickly. But unfortunately, things like recovery, God can do miracles. He absolutely can and he can, you know, redeem you and restore you and in a drop of a hat. But most of us have to put in the time and the work. And I'm so grateful that you called that out, because often people overlook that and think this is going to be fast. So as you work with men I love, I love the fact that you're a pastor because you tie everything back to, you know, strong, faith connection, you know, making sure that they're growing spiritually as they're unpacking this addiction. So talk to us a little bit more about some of the the hang ups and things that people run into. So maybe they found some sobriety from pornography use, but then they have a relapse. What do you do for those people in those situations? Because that can be really, really heart wrenching for someone that's maybe been in recovery for a year and now they've really fell back in. Well, and and we start with saying, if you're going to start a recovery on the recovery journey, the very first thing that's going to be with you is humility. You're not going to get quick answers and otherwise you would be insufferable. And we all know the person that just prayed at prayer and God healed them from smoking or or drugs and you're going, well, that's amazing. But there is a step in humility. And the classic line I say to guys, Karen, is no matter how far down the road you get, you know, driving your vehicle. If I could drove all the way to Kentucky, there's going to be a ditch still on both sides of the road. No matter how far I get, it's still there. And so what we do is to say to people, number one, my job is not to make you feel bad so much. You know, I know one of the questions and you guys work a lot with this word accountability. But the word accountability is all about connections. It's not making you feel bad. Yeah. Karen, if if I, if me feeling bad about my behavior was the was the reason for change. If the if it was the key to change I would have changed 3040 years ago. Right? Yeah. And so much of accountability just embeds that shame. Well, what were you thinking? Well, we talked about this or why didn't you call me all of those kind of things. And I just say, let's come alongside of you, okay? What did you learn? You've developed a plan. You're responsible. You know, you're responsible for your recovery. What did you learn from that relapse? What unmet need? What what practical? Was there a weak link in your environment? What was the was there a strong emotion that you need better tools to equip yourself with? How do we do? We learn from our failures. Righteous man falls seven times, right? It says in Scripture and and yet in church life we go one fall, especially in the sexual area, means you're done for. It's you know, where to restore, you know, Galatians six, we are to restore each other gently. Yeah. Right. And so that's you know, I know, I know our groups are working well when, you know, when people come in, they had, you know, we do a check in every week and, you know, red, orange, green kind of stuff. And if people are are not doing well, if they skip that week, I know we've missed something in the culture of our group. Yeah, I don't want to go to that group because I didn't have a good week. If that's if that's people's response. That's not a good group. Right? Yeah, that's a great way to look at it I love that and I think you bring up a good point too. Like when people, you know don't show up to group or you know, they don't check in, you know, your accountability partner, you know, we should we should reach out to them as, yes, their friends and their accountability partner. Because oftentimes when you know, we make a mistake or we fall down, we tend to kind of revert to that old way of, you know, hiding in that shame. So as accountability partners and friends, we need to kind of do what's uncomfortable and just reach out anyways and let them know that they're there for him. I often I was, speaking with somebody and I'm not sure who it was, but they were talking about, you know, when you're in recovery and perhaps you have a you you fall back into using pornography and you have a moment, you know, you you don't start from ground zero. You pick yourself back up where you're at and you keep going. Because oftentimes we can think, well, you know, now I going to start all over and go through all this again. And it's like you, when you build a house, you know, you're building on a foundation and it maybe you get to the second floor and there's something you don't just burn the whole thing down and start over. Right? I mean, you just correct the little what happened and you take care of that and you continue building. So we need to remember that in our journey. I think sometimes we can forget that. Yes. You know, we do sometimes have relapse in our, in our recovery processes, but that doesn't mean that we can't keep moving forward. So I just want to make sure people have hope for that. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, technology. You know, that's a big one. Yeah. You know, and sometimes, like I the Bible is pretty clear about, you know, if something's causing us to sin, we take some pretty radical action, right? Sometimes our technology can just be too much for us. And I've seen guys, you know, get rid of smartphones. I've seen them give flip phones like, whatever it takes. But how are you coaching people with their technology? I know you mentioned Covenant Eyes is a great tool. And for a lot of people that that's the right answer. But sometimes that's not enough for some people, right? Well, it's it's not an, I, I always can tell this, this is one of the biggest places where resistance comes up in this process, because people want to do recovery, but they don't want to change their environment. It's a great, great book out there called by Benjamin Hardy called Willpower Is Not Enough. And in his book he works with professional athletes on other things. And what he essentially says is you need to make choices, but this is the way you make choices, subcontract your willpower to a successful environment. That is where your willpower comes in to choose the right environment. That's what you do with athletes. Their environment is all crucial atomic habits. And I love learning from another great book. That's a great book to make. To break a habit, you have to make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. And I and I say to guys, okay, you know what? There's different types of relapses, but the one that always got me in trouble was the impulse, the impulse relapse. And I need some friction. I need some distance. So I for example, here's here's a little, you know, example. My wife right now teaches elementary school. We have maybe five devices in our house that could access porn or access material. You know what all five of those have in common? They all have a remote control and I make a pre-comp every night. I make a pre-commitment. I take responsibility. That's that's true accountability. And every night when we're done watching TV, I pick up all the remotes. I hand them, I hand the box to my wife, and she throws all the remotes into the little clear box and spins the dial. And I don't think about it all. The next day, my smart TVs, they're my fours. They're my this, my that. I have made a pre-commitment to subcontract my willpower to a successful environment. I am. Awesome. And that's where, you know, screen time on my iPhone is a life saver. That's where Covenant Eyes is a life saver. You know, the thing that changed it for me was the fact that that people are going to see I had a problem forever with Google Images. Well, now you know. Now Google Images. I know I have 2 or 3 accountability buddies that they're going to see things. I love the fact that there's always somebody in the room with me metaphorically talking, talking, talking about technology. I do want to address something which I've worked with guys now for a dozen years or so. This is a big change carried over the last 2 or 3 years. I say to guys, do you realize how much things have changed in the last 2 to 3 years? People are now using social media in exactly the same way they used to use porn. And when guys check in with me, I often get this. Well, it wasn't porn. Technically. Whenever somebody use the word technically, I know, I don't know what's going on, you know, and, and and they're relating to Instagram. They're relating to YouTube shorts, Facebook X, whatever the shorts clips. Yeah. They all have different words. Yeah. But but they're using it in exactly the same way to exactly the same effect. And that is where the technology has really changed. And we've just had to say I have two challenges. I say to my new guys, I want you to do two things. Number one, for the first 60 days, I want you to connect with somebody every day until you get 60 days clean time. That's the one rule. Like, you know, Lord of the rings, the One Ring to rule, the one rule to rule them all. You're going to connect with somebody every day for 60 days. The rule number two is you're going to get rid of all social media for 60 days until you could 60 days and those. And then I know immediately what kind of well, I was kind of hoping to do this recovery, you know, a bit at a time without these strong, you know, if you're if this causes you to sin. Right. So but but technology is changing. That's not even getting into virtual three. You know all of that. We're just yeah. No. But that is absolutely crucial. And guys go well. And you occasionally get therapists and others saying, well, you know, Karen, if we really dealt with the real and, you know, the real issues of trauma and all this, we wouldn't have to deal with that. Why why do we why can't two things be true at once? Yeah. Agreed. Right. So yeah. There you go. There you go. Yeah. No, I think that's great. And I think we often forget that the algorithms on social media and often like when I'm talking to parents, I try to explain this to them. These platforms are all free. They're not free because meta and Mark Zuckerberg love us, and they just want to give us something free because they care about us. They they give it to us. Free because they are designed to market and manipulate you to do something that they want you to do, whether it's buy products, get into porn, you know, go down the rabbit trails, you know, social isolation, whatever it is like. We have to be more careful with even social media because it is so easy to get, especially for men online. The algorithm will suck you in. So even though you're like, well, I'm just, you know, watching hunting and fishing. Yeah, yeah, but how long before all of a sudden videos are being recommended to you because they want to draw you into that. So yeah, I love that you're asking them to take that 60 day pause. That's so smart. And I think it's smart for all of us to take a break from social media like, you know, fast from it for, you know, a given period of time because it is so addictive and leads us into all different places. Thank you. That was really good. So one other Covenant Eyes example, there's a couple news sites that constantly got me into trouble. I won't say which ones they are, but you probably can guess I can't. Yeah, yeah. And I just said that's it. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That new site is now on my covenant list. Yeah, get my new somewhere else. Thank you very much. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's a radical step, but you know what? That is the right thing to do. I mean, if it causes you to to sin like. Absolutely. So, let's talk a little bit. Let's go back into the church space and, you know, the church. You know, there was Barna stats over dropped last year. You know, 10% of churches have programs to address pornography, which is an improvement from the one that we did in 2016, but not by much, because 77%. Yeah. That's right. So there's a lot of work the church really needs to do in this space. But, you know, there's there's a lack of information, a lack of knowledge. You know, some pastors are struggling, so it's hard for them to, you know, bring that to the table. What can we do as a church, the big Seed church, on this topic to make some headway with this issue and help people? I, I, I don't think we're ever going to get very far if we're not willing to platform brokenness. And what I mean by that is my I that's why I love, you know, with the broken guys and Jonathan Doherty and all of that. Yeah, I love the name of their ministry. Because my thing is, all of us experienced brokenness. All of us experienced brokenness from the enemy in a myriad of different ways. It's not just sexual brokenness. It's not, you know, and if we're just fixated on sexual brokenness, it's what sky just any crutch. Christianity, if we're if that's what we're fixated on, then people that struggle in that area go, obviously there's something abnormal with me. And and that's why you're going, does that mean that every pastor needs to have a story of recovery from sexual brokenness? No. Obviously. But but it means to be able to have key leaders talk about their healing. You know, it could be from food addict, you know, food addictions. It could be from eating disorders. It could be from, you know, pornography. It could be all of that. Whenever, whenever we're we're unwilling to do that. Then here's the dichotomy. Karen. It feels like church Sunday morning is for successful. Got it together people. People on the platform of people whose lives I want to be like because they don't struggle with the things I struggle with and and the porn struggler. And two out of five young women struggle with porn as well. From that survey, the porn struggles. There's there's something uniquely wrong and broken with me. And of course, they stay in silence. And I put that at the feet of our church cultures and our leaders. Now, I know there's there's, you know, people are freaked out on legal stuff. But you know what? I just say we do. Our people such a disservice. And, you know, and I I'm, I understand, you know, there's there's great groups like Pure Desire and Celebrate Recovery, for example. But that can be done one of two ways it can be done here is the abnormal group for abnormal people. Yeah. You go there, but it's also done. I've also seen it done well, like the hospital church movement and others where it's integrated into the life of the church. I just don't want it to be marginalized because when it's yeah, that's my fear. With how some programs are being implemented. I think you're right. And I think that doesn't actually get talked to a lot about because you're right, we all have brokenness in some shape or form. And it may not necessarily be pornography, but whatever it is, we all come to the cross with our brokenness and our sin. And so I think that's a really fascinating conversation that the church really needs to have internally and talk about how do we create that, that culture where it's okay to be broken, but we don't stay in our brokenness. Right? Christ died for our sins, and we can move through that. So I love that topic. That's really good. Well, have, you know, in your work you probably see some churches that are doing this right and well, so what are some examples maybe of churches that you've seen or leaders that are really delivering on this idea of you not just talking about maybe sexual brokenness or pornography use, but just brokenness in general, and that the the church is a safe, healing place. Well, I know in Sam Black's book, he, he interviewed James Reeve. I've talked. Yeah. Interviewed James. That was very good. I'm so thrilled. A good a Scottish pastor, friend of mine, large, multi-site church. He's one of the the site pastors. He created the video, I call it Dave Story where he's one of the pastors. And he he shared about the time that he first shared his struggle with porn with his wife and, and, and what an impact, you know, that began a process. So so it's Dave story under my name on YouTube. It's so encouraging. And that started using, you know, they began groups and began to work with men out of his courage in that place. Yes, of course, it needs to be navigated with the board and with leaders. But I, I think, I think fear keeps us captive, Karen. I think fear we're afraid. And I think the enemy is a bully. He loves to keep us in fear. And so many people would walk out of the shadows in their lives. If we as leaders, have the courage to walk out of the shadows ourselves, we're supposed to be as leaders. We're supposed to be the one to take the first step. I think that's what leadership is. Yeah. And so obviously there's wisdom in how we do that. But, so my Scottish part, there's, there's a few, Garrett calls, I'm going to interview him coming up. And, Fabulous. Part of my, my, my goal with the pastor on porn one is to highlight churches that have been courageous in this area. That's kind of where I'm moving the podcast to, to say, here's an example. You know, I love. That. Everybody didn't run out of the church when he shared his brokenness. Right? So we're starting, but we're still got a lot of work to go where 90% of churches, leave a lot of room for growth. Right? Absolutely. Well, I love that you're adding that to your podcast. So our listeners like, definitely check out the podcast so that you can hear those stories. Because often we find that, you know, somebody has to go first, right? And there's already people going first. So there are things that we can learn and from, and hopefully they'll share the mistakes they've made as well as the wins, because we learned through all of that. So I I'm so grateful to hear that you're going to have that on your podcast that we can learn from and grow with. So speaking of your podcast, both of them, how do our listeners find both of those podcasts so that they can take a listen and we'll make sure we drop those into the show notes as well. The two podcast the one for pastors is called Pastors on Porn. These are all on the regular podcast apps. The second one is called Finding Traction Recovery from porn. And there you'll get information on how to get onto the circle learning platform that I run, where you can get access to lots of free worksheets, get access to the groups, and also, I have a 52 week video course that people can take individually or with other people as well. So oh, that's the way to do it. Awesome. And then do you have a website as well? It's it's BandOfBrothers.care dot C-A-R-E. So BandOfBrothers plural .care. Perfect. All right. Well, listeners, we'll make sure we put all those in the show notes so you can get back to those easy and quick. Vernon has been such a joy to speak with you today. Thank you for your courage and sharing your testimony, and really just delivering these two powerful podcasts that really open up this issue to a wide audience and and bring them hope and give them, you know, wisdom from your own experiences. Thank you so much. And I want to thank Covenant Eyes, literally, I owe such a huge debt of gratitude to Covenant Eyes and your guys's faithfulness in my recovery. So thank you guys. Well, thank you. And thank you, listeners for tuning in to this episode of the Covenant Eyes podcast. We'll see you next time. Take care. God bless.