456 - When Hurting People Come To Church w/ Drs. Shaunti Feldhahn & James Sells

Pure Desire Podcast

Pure Desire Ministries

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

4.8 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2026

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, we explore the heart behind the book, When Hurting People Come to Church, and the growing mental health crisis impacting families, churches, and communities—including those navigating sexual addiction and betrayal trauma. Our guests, Shaunti Feldhahn and Dr. James Sells, explain why so many people struggle to find timely help and how the Church is uniquely positioned to respond. Rather than serving only as a referral source, churches can become places of relational care, where ordinary people learn to love well without needing professional credentials. You’ll hear practical ways to support others without burning out, along with an introduction to the CARE strategy and The Church Cares, a movement equipping congregations to walk with hurting people. You’ll discover a hopeful vision of compassionate, community-based care.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to The Pure Desire
0:09.5	podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking
0:15.6	free from all forms of compulsive sexual behavior. And whether today is your first day in recovery or your
0:21.8	10,000th, we hope that you will hear life-giving conversations that maybe you've never gotten to be a
0:27.7	part of before. Today is episode 456 and here joining me as my co-host for this series is the one
0:35.3	and only Heather Cole. Heather, good to see you again.
0:38.0	Nice to be here again.
0:40.7	I am really enjoying this series that we are doing and grateful that you're the co-host
0:45.0	because it's all about new books and I know that you're a bit of a book nerd.
0:49.2	And we got to interview some really great guests today.
0:52.9	One that many of our listeners might know,
0:54.9	Shanti Feldhan, is better known for the marriage books that she and her husband, Jeff, have done.
1:00.8	But she has branched out into some different kinds of research, along with a psychologist named
1:05.8	Dr. James Sells, or Jim, as he goes by. And we got to talk to them today about their new book when hurting
1:12.5	people come to church. Yeah, this was really a great conversation. I really didn't know what to
1:19.1	expect, but the practical approach to equipping the church to deal with all kinds of mental health or emotional health issues
1:31.0	that we've seen increased over recent years was helpful, simple, and yet still kept me
1:40.3	wondering, okay, how do I, how would you jump into this? What's the next step? I want to see
1:46.2	what it's going to look like. And yet when they talk about it, it's just like, oh, you grab
1:51.9	these people and you do this thing. And you know what I'm saying? It was simple. And yet there
1:57.2	was still a little bit of a, okay, I want, I want more. I want to hear more. I want to see the blueprint.
2:05.4	Well, and a lot of their conclusions were research and data driven, which I know means a lot to you as well.
	...

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