PURITY 101 – Build Your General Support Team
All of these 101 tips come from chapters in my book 21-Day Purity Jumpstart. It is the foundational book for our ministry.
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I want you to take a moment today and assess your support team. Who’s walking with you on your sexual purity journey? Who’s providing support for you? Who’s coming alongside you so that you don’t feel like you’re alone in the battle?
Your support team needs to be filled with three types of people:
- General support
- Specialty support
- Drill-Down support
GENERAL SUPPORT
Most of your support team will be made up of general support. They will be people who know at least a little bit of your story and support you. They could be your spouse, friends, family, neighbors, church members, a minister or anyone who can show love to you and support your purity journey.
Support people need to be safe to talk to. It’s okay for a person on your support team to challenge you, correct you or disagree with you, but they should not beat you up and tear you down with their words. Good support is built on trust. Good supportive people are reciprocal – you share, they share, and you both build up each other together.
Invite people to support you. Most of the time you are the one who will have to take the initiative. Be courageous. Step up to the plate and reach out. Start by sharing a little bit of your story. Test the waters and see if they are good for it.
Every best friend, accountability partner, soul mate, spouse and mud-walking friend starts out as general support. Most of your general support will be just that – general support. But God will cause some of your relationships to blossom into deeper support.
As you build your General Support team, look for people who:
- Love you as you are – You need people who accept you – good, bad or ugly. These people are pro-you. They are happy when you are around. They will be people who fulfill the Bible’s command to “love one another.”
- Talk about normal life things too – Do all aspects of life together, not just the hardships. Sometimes you need people to help you process hardships. Sometimes you need people who talk to you about normal life. Sometimes the need of the moment is to have fun together. Find people who are multi-dimensional in the way they relate to you. Two of my friends are in prison because of their sexual struggles. When I visit and write, we talk about their situations and their struggles if those are the needs of the moment. Most of our time is spent talking about normal life issues. We talk family, discuss sports and current events, share spiritual insights, and joke with one another.
- Hang out together with – Add four or five guys you can build into your support team to watch the game with or go to the movies with. Ladies, find four or five gals you can have brunch with or share Pinterest ideas with.
- Have common interests – You need to cultivate a few hobbies and share them with your buddies. It will be a very important part of your offensive strategy. Instead of going to bad places to do bad things with the wrong people, I go to good places to do better things with supportive people.
- Go a little deeper – These people do know your story, or at least some of it. They need to be deep enough and know enough so that they can talk with you, support you, and pray for you. People who just talk about the weather or the sports game are not part of your support team.
Action Step: Make a list of people whom you would consider General Support.
Q: Where are the gaps in your General Support? Are your friends multi-dimensional enough?