This section of "Celebrate Recovery Alaska" exists to support, encourage and provide resources to religious professionals who are contemplating a need for, desiring, or are in recovery.  If you are a pastor, missionary, religious professional, or a spouse of one, and you need help......we hope that this site will be helpful to you and that your time here will guide you towards a saner and more grace-full style of life.

"Ordination to the Christian Ministry does not transport any person into another category of human experience.  Needs, emotions, feelings remain the same.  The basic dishonesty of Christian ministry today is that many of us have been programmed into pretending we are different than ordinary mortals, and many members of our congregations play that game so that they can live vicariously through us." (Harold Frey,  Pain & Joy of Ministry)

You may have asked yourself the above questions numerous times  as you have secretly struggled with the horrible viciousness and cruelty of your own personal sin.  You don't know what to do, where to go, or whom to talk to about it.  After all, you are the pastor or pastor's wife.  You're suppose to know everything, have everything in order, be in complete control of self, and maintain the highest example of a "real" Christian Minister with the full and highest calling of God on your life.  Right?

How can I talk to just anybody?  If I talk with someone everyone could find out and then where would I be?  I could lose everything: my family, my marriage, my church, my position, my family possessions.  I have so many responsibilities that depend on me: my family, the bills, the church, the church ministries and projects, the church staff, my denominational office and position.  I just don't see any other possible avenue except to struggle within, keep it secret, and hope God delivers me without anyone knowing.

Sadly, Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker stated the same things in the midst of their sin just a short time ago.  "Be sure your sins will find you out." Num. 32:23b   "For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known." Lk. 12:2    Ministers, Christian Professionals, and their spouses have fallen in every denomination throughout the world.  At this very moment many are struggling with such bondage to sin that it is merely  a matter of time before exposure, pain, and ruin.

    It "doesn't" have to be so.  You don't have to be secretly in bondage, secretly struggling, secretly tormented, nor be anxious about that day when it will all be revealed.  You don't have to live a facade before your family nor church.  Your Heavenly Father is fully aware and has given you a choice: 1. Seriously get help right now; or 2. He will do it for you.  God will not allow your sin to continue, as it most certainly harms you and precious others.  You can be all God has and wants for you to be! 

This site will provide several pages of information designed to help you take serious action to initiate or continue your recovery.  As a former minister, I implore you, do something NOW.  Your fears, as maybe stated above, are minimal compared to what can truly happen.  "The enemy comes but to steal, kill, and destroy...I have come that you might have life and that more abundantly." Jn. 10:10   Even in the midst of your current situation, God has a plan of healing, deliverance, restoration, and fullness in Christ.  But you must give up, let go, and trust God like you never have before.   Scary, yes, but honestly the beginning of the best for your life, family and ministry.

Read all these pages.  Take courage and immediately act on what you've read and learned.  Don't wait nor postpone.  Do it right now.  We are praying for you.

"Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you...Who leads you by the way you should go."
Is. 48:17