What Should a Pastor Do If He Is Struggling With Pornography?

If you found this article by typing that exact question into a search bar late at night, with the door closed and your phone brightness turned all the way down, I want you to know something before you read another word: I've typed some version of that same question. I've sat in the same silence. And I'm still in ministry, still married, still preaching, which means the thing you're afraid is about to end your life as you know it does not have to end it at all.

I've written before about the shame that kept me quiet, and about why looking at pornography doesn't automatically disqualify a man from ministry or require him to resign. If you haven't read those yet, they're worth your time, but this article is different from both of those. This one isn't about statistics or theology. This one is about what to actually do, starting today, if you're a pastor in this struggle right now.

I understand the shame. I understand the fear. I've felt the specific, particular terror of a man whose income, housing, marriage, and sense of calling all seem to be sitting on the other side of one confession. I'm not writing this from a safe distance. I'm writing it from the other side of the same road you're standing on the front end of.

Here is what I'd tell you to do, in order, if we were sitting across the table from each other right now.

Step 1: Get Honest With God First, Before Anyone Else

Before you tell a single human being anything, tell God the truth. Not the polished, performative version of a confession you'd feel comfortable praying out loud in front of your elder board. The real one. Name what you actually did, without the euphemisms pastors are so practiced at reaching for. Stop minimizing it in your own head before you've even said it.

This matters more than it might sound like it does, because most of us who've been in ministry a while have gotten dangerously good at praying around our sin instead of about it, thanking God for His grace in general terms while carefully avoiding naming the specific thing we need grace for. That's not confession. That's public relations, aimed at an audience of one, and God isn't fooled by it any more than a spouse is fooled by a vague apology.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, ESV). That promise is written for you, specifically, right now, but it's a promise about confession, not about vague guilt. Say the actual words to God. Let it be as uncomfortable and specific as it needs to be. This is the first step, and skipping it to jump straight to “fixing the behavior” is how a lot of men end up white-knuckling their way through short seasons of abstinence without ever actually getting free.

Step 2: Tell Someone, But Choose Carefully Who Goes First

Here's where I'm going to say something that might surprise you: I don't think your spouse should be the very first person you tell. I'll explain why in the next section, and I want to be clear up front that “not first” does not mean “never”, she has to know, and soon. But going to her before you've taken any other steps often means she absorbs the full, raw shock of the news with no plan, no support, and no sense that you've already begun doing something about it. That's not fair to her, and it usually isn't the wisest way to start the process either.

So who goes first? I'd point you toward two kinds of people, and I'd pursue both, not just one.

An online recovery community. This matters more for pastors than almost anyone else, because of a problem I wrote about in the last article: the isolation of the role itself. You likely don't have five other pastors in your city you'd trust with this. An online community, ours, or another one built specifically for men in this struggle, gives you somewhere to be completely honest immediately, without the risk of running into that person at a denominational meeting next month. It's not a replacement for in-person accountability. It's a fast, safe place to stop being alone with this tonight, while you figure out the rest.

A local pastors' group. Search for a ministerial fellowship, a pastors' prayer breakfast, or a peer cohort in your area, most towns and cities have some version of this, even if you've never attended. If you already know of one, even one you've been too proud or too busy to show up to, this is the reason to finally go. The specific value of a local group of men who also carry a pulpit is that they understand the particular weight you're carrying in a way almost no one else does: the pressure of always being the strong one, the isolation of never being able to be the person who needs help instead of the person who provides it. Find one of these men. Ask him to coffee. Tell him the truth.

Both of these matter. The online community gives you speed and safety. The local group gives you real, embodied, in-person accountability with someone who can look you in the eye and ask how you're actually doing. Don't settle for only one.

Step 3: Tell Your Wife, After You've Taken the Steps Above

Now go back to your wife. Not to hide this from her long-term, that path only leads to a harder conversation later, after more damage and more deception have piled up in between. But there's real wisdom in not walking through that door in a state of raw panic, with no plan and nothing to offer her except the shock itself.

By the time you have this conversation, you should be able to tell her more than “I have a problem.” You should be able to tell her: here's what I did, here's who I've already told, here's the community and the accountability I've already put in place, and here's what I'm asking of you now. That's a fundamentally different conversation than showing up empty-handed and asking her to carry the panic alone with you. It communicates something true and important: that you're not just confessing to unload your guilt onto her, but coming to her already moving toward change.

She deserves honesty. She also deserves a husband who's begun taking this seriously before he asks her to process it. Both things are true at once, and the order matters.

Step 4: Examine Why This Has Power Over You

Once the emergency-response steps are underway, there's slower, deeper work that has to happen, or the same struggle will simply resurface in a few months with a new set of excuses attached.

Ask yourself honestly: why is this attractive to you? Not the generic answer, “because I'm a sinner,” which is true but not specific enough to actually help you. What's underneath it, specifically, in your life? Is it stress you have no other outlet for? Exhaustion from a ministry role that never lets you rest? Loneliness that comes from being everyone's pastor and no one's close friend? An old wound from long before you ever entered ministry that this has always, quietly, been medicating?

This is exactly the work I built the Six Levels of this program to walk a man through, not just breaking the behavior, but understanding and addressing what's actually underneath it, because behavior modification without that deeper work rarely holds for long. A man can white-knuckle his way through ninety days of abstinence through sheer willpower and discipline. Very few men sustain real freedom without ever asking why the temptation had so much power over them in the first place. Filters and accountability software close an obvious door while that deeper work happens; I've written separately about where those tools fit and where they fall short.

Now, Here's the Hope

I know this article has mostly been steps and instructions, so I want to close with something more important than any of them: hope, grounded in something that actually happened, not just something I'm telling you to believe.

A while back, two young pastors reached out and asked to meet with me. Both of them were carrying almost exactly what I've described in this article, the shame, the fear, the not knowing where to start or who to trust with it. We sat down together, and I told them the truth about my own story, the same way I've told it to you here.

The night before that meeting, in prayer, I believe the Lord gave me the framework that eventually became the Six Levels this entire program is built around, not as an abstract teaching exercise, but as something I needed in order to actually help the two men sitting across from me the next day.

I talked to both of those men again this week. Both of them are still walking with God. Both are happily married. Both are still standing in a pulpit, still preaching the gospel, still shepherding real congregations, and all three of us are living in active, ongoing victory over pornography, not as a testimony from years ago we like to tell, but as a present-tense reality we're still walking in together.

That's not a hypothetical. That's not a marketing line. That happened, and it's still happening, this week, to men who once sat exactly where you're sitting right now.

If you're a pastor reading this in the middle of your own struggle, I want you to hear this clearly: the story doesn't have to end with your resignation, your marriage in ruins, or your calling abandoned. It can end, or rather, it can begin again, the way it did for those two men. With honesty. With the right people told in the right order. With the deeper work done, not just the behavior managed. And with a God who is still faithful to forgive and cleanse, exactly like He promised.

Start today. Tell God the truth tonight. Find one person this week, online or local, and tell them too. And when it's time to decide who among your leadership needs to know, I've written a full framework for that next conversation. You don't have to carry this alone for one more day than you already have.