432 - Why Pastors Don't Get Help With Their Addiction

Pure Desire Podcast

Pure Desire Ministries

Sexual Addiction Recovery, Religion & Spirituality, Celebrate Recovery, Sexuality, Porn Recovery, Porn Addiction Recovery, Health & Fitness, Aa, Education, Betrayal Trauma, Recovery, Biblical Recovery, Christian Recovery, Healing, Sa, Christianity, Self-improvement

4.6 • 682 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this honest and compassionate conversation, we explore the hidden struggles pastors often face—and why many suffer in silence. Our guest, Cal Rychener, unpacks the key barriers that keep church leaders from seeking help, including fear, shame, and unrealistic expectations. We look at the dangerous impact unaddressed struggles can have on both the pastor and the church, and the steps leadership can take to build a culture of proactive care and support. Through real-life stories of pastors who finally reached out, we see the power of grace, community, and trusted resources—like those from Pure Desire—to bring healing and restoration. This episode also casts a hopeful vision for what a truly healthy church looks like: one that cares well for its leaders. If you’re a pastor, church staff member, or simply someone who wants to support your leaders better, this conversation offers both challenge and encouragement.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hello there, good listener.
0:07.1	I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to The Pure Desire podcast, your
0:11.9	biblically based and clinically informed approach to breaking free from compulsive sexual
0:17.1	behaviors and healing from betrayal trauma.
0:20.3	Today is episode 432, and here joining me as my
0:23.7	co-host in this series is Mr. Rodney Wright. Rodney, welcome back to the podcast. It's good to see you
0:30.5	again. Yeah, thank you, Nick. It's great to be with you here today. Always enjoyed doing podcasts.
0:36.1	Yeah, I commented at the beginning. You're,
0:37.8	you're looking very professionally these days, you know, joining from like an actual podcast studio.
0:44.0	I am. This podcast is brought to you in Cordela. I'm from Cortalane, Idaho, is where I'm at
0:50.1	currently from Lake City Church. So Lake City Church, where I pastor for 17 years, is
0:55.7	sponsoring in their podcast room to share today. So if you're in the North Idaho area,
1:02.9	come join us at Lake City Church in Cordillane, just a shout out for them. Good people there.
1:07.7	Go check them out. Well, today we're continuing a series. This is episode two out of four that we have been doing on healthy churches and healthy pastors. And today we interviewed a good friend of ours, actually a board member at Pure Desire, but a significant influential pastoral leader, Cal Rickner, who talked a lot about why pastors get stuck and when they do,
1:30.0	why they don't always reach out for help. And I think it was a really powerful conversation
1:33.6	today. Yeah, it was beautiful. And Cal has a lot of history with just not because of his age,
1:40.6	but because of his age. He's served local churches for a long time, and he's seen a lot.
1:45.4	And so I appreciated Cal saying, hey, we used to do it this way. I think we need to pivot now and
1:51.0	move toward this direction. And he gave some real practical ways of helping us think about how to do
1:55.6	that. So this would be a great podcast to give to your pastor, to, if you're on board member or serve with a church, just encourage pastors to listen to this.
2:07.4	Yeah, and even if you're not a pastor, you know, maybe you're hearing this like, maybe this one's not for me.
2:11.8	I'll just skip it.
	...

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