Adults air dirty laundry online
Carla Hinton
The Oklahoman
A craving for pornography: "I've not been able to stop lusting after these images."
mysecret.tv
A hidden addiction: "For the past few years I have been sinking into a huge hole created from my gambling."
A regretful deed: "When I was younger I had an abortion to hide the sinful life I was living."
These are among the hundreds of secrets being confessed on an adults-only Web site recently launched by Edmond-based Life Church.
The site --
www.mysecret.tv -- began simply as an online component of a message series started earlier this month by senior pastor Craig Groeschel.
However, church officials said it has quickly taken on a life of its own.Church members spread the word about the site through posters, yard signs, e-mail, Web logs and cards. More than 650 anonymous confessions and 50,000 hits later the site has apparently become a starting point for individuals looking to come clean about hidden sin and hurtful situations long buried away.
Bobby Gruenewald, the church's new campus development leader and a pastor on the church executive leadership team, said there's no mystery to the phenomena: Many people have a secret and they feel the need to share it.
"This series we thought would help people in dealing with some of those challenging topics, to maybe shine some light on those areas of their lives," he said.
Gruenewald said the Web site was created so that people could confess their secrets from the privacy of their computers. Confes sion, he said, is indeed good for the soul.
"The Bible says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us. It's always amazing how God can transform someone's life if they're willing to confess and be forgiven."
The site includes a link where people can ask for prayer and Life Church members have been asked to pray for those who request it, he said. Church leaders also respond to the confessions by sharing resource information such as help for addictions and other online sites. Gruenewald said thus far, some people have been willing to unmask for the sake of receiving face-to-face help from pastoral leaders.
However, most people posting confessions appear to enjoy anonymity. They have posted their secrets in various categories provided on the site, such as pornography, gambling, abuse, relationships, adultery, eating disorders and others. Anyone scrolling the site can read the confessions, which warn that the postings may not be suitable for youths 17 and younger.
Some revelations might be disturbing to some people. Gruenewald said he and other Life Church leaders believe there are really no surprises when it comes to sin and all of the confessions are not sinful in nature, but merely long-held secrets. In one posting, a person who said she was active in a local church while also a practicing wiccan. "It's always shocking to kind of see some of the dark things that people have gotten themselves into but sin is sin and we've all sinned," he said.
"As a pastor of a church, that's part of the reason we're discussing these things now. The great news is that God has made a way of redemption for all of us -- a redemption process through His son, Jesus Christ."
The categories with the most posting have been pornography, sexuality and abuse, he said.
This week, the church included a link that includes the postings of individuals who say their lives have been changed after their online confession.
"This gives others hope," said Gruenewald.
"As people begin to take these steps. As they acknowledge it, they begin the process towards restoration."
Scott Rodgers, campus pastor for Life Church in Mesa-Gilbert, Ariz., said the new Web site generated local print and TV news stories about the validity of online confessions.
He said he sees the confessions as valid because the first step toward healing is admitting there is an issue that needs to be addressed."The thing about it being anonymous is that it's very safe. It's helping people take that first step."
Meanwhile, Life Church's mysecret.tv is part of a growing trend in interactive Web sites created by churches, said Chris Forbes, an Oklahoma City consultant who specializes in church marketing solutions. He said he had not heard of any other church use a Web site for confessions.
Forbes said churches are beginning to see the endless outreach opportunities that come with the World Wide Web.
"The Internet is a response media like direct marketing and people really haven't used that in church until recently," he said.
"What you have with the Internet is a great roadside billboard on the information highway, but you now have a place where they can pull over."
Forbes said interactive Web sites serve as outreach tools because such sites are "three dimensional" instead of "flat."
Forbes, founder of ministrymarketingcoach.com and marketing evangelism specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, knows what he is talking about.
He helped created
www.mostimportantthing.org, an interactive evangelism Web site launched several years ago by the Baptist convention, and also provided input for a similar site,
www.askGodanything.org, launched by Edmond's First Baptist Church earlier this year.
Life Church has an average weekly attendance of more than 16,000 people at its eight campuses, including an Internet campus.
www.mysecret.tv
Originally Posted by Midtowner
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