Grace, not guilt.
Sounds like something you'd see on a bumper sticker, right? Short, cute, maybe a little cliché.
But here's the truth: when you're working with people whose lives are falling apart—people struggling with p**n, infidelity, betrayal, behaviors they're ashamed of—there's plenty of guilt to go around.
What's missing is grace.
I know this personally. Growing up, I did things I wasn't proud of. But I didn't talk to anyone about them. I didn't ask for advice or explore what could have been different, because I was terrified of the guilt and shame that would come with those conversations.
And that fear kept me stuck.
Here's what I've learned in this work: guilt is a powerful motivator, but it's incredibly short-lived.
You can guilt someone into white-knuckling their way through a few weeks or months of behavior change, but it won't last. And it certainly won't heal what's underneath.
Real change happens when people step into recovery, not because they're being shamed into it, but because they genuinely want a better way of living and they know they have the support to get there.
Now, let me be clear: grace isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card.
There's always responsibility. There's accountability. Sometimes people have to sit with the consequences of their decisions, and that's hard.
But grace creates the environment where people can actually do that work without hiding, without shutting down, without running back to the behaviors that got them stuck in the first place.
In this video, I share the story of a guy in our community who made a mistake. It wasn't a small one. It was the kind that would've gotten him kicked to the curb in a lot of communities and/or churches.
But when we brought it to his attention, he owned it. He took responsibility. He accepted the consequences and stayed accountable to do what needed to be done.
And instead of rejecting him, we kept working with him. We offered grace along the way.
What happened next surprised even us.
Instead of withdrawing into shame and hiding, he leaned in. He engaged the tough questions in his life. He did the deeper work. And through that process, he grew tremendously.
Today, he's living a completely different life from when he first came to us.
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