Dirty Girls Ministries

Based on Mark 5:34a, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole,” this conference experience will tackle tough subjects normally left untouched by the typical women’s conference. Topics that both Christian and non-Christian women struggle with in today’s culture.

In addition to main teaching and worship sessions, women will select breakouts addressing issues like porn addiction, abortion, human trafficking, grieving mothers, homosexuality, marital intimacy, teen purity and more.

Register by May 15 to receive early-bird pricing of just $25 per person (jumps to $35 after May 15). Price of admission includes a breakfast devotional led by Lisa Whittle, lunch provided by Chick-fil-A, a teen purity fashion show by Nuance Boutique and all conference materials.

For more information including a complete listing of breakout topics OR to register now please visit: WHOLECONFERENCE.COM

This conference is appropriate for all women age 16 and older. Mothers and daughters are encouraged to attend together.

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PRESS/MEDIA: Click here for our official press release.

Our friend Crissy (a former porn actress) is interviewed by Pastor Mark and his wife during this message and our friend Bill Struthers (author of Wired for Intimacy) is quoted.

At times throughout this message, there are things that are tough to hear, but that is exactly why you need to listen to it. You can check out a preview of Pastor Mark’s message below and watch/listen to the whole thing, here.

A particularly powerful and disturbing quote from this message is:

“Some of you will say, ‘Well, I don’t contribute money to it.’ But you do, because the advertisers are the ones who pay a fee, and every time you click, you are legitimizing their existence, and you’re participating in a culture of slavery and abuse. And there is no such thing as free porn. The people participating pay and the advertisers pay so that you can enjoy their suffering, shame, and humiliation… Some of what’s made is because of sex trafficking; some of the women who are even in the industry in the US are often held against their will, threatened, beaten, traumatized, because it’s always about the money. And even if you’re not giving your credit card number, by clicking on the site, you are encouraging an advertiser to pay money, so that someone might be assaulted and abused, and you’re complicit in that.”

I recently returned from Thailand where I saw with my own eyes, very young women (likely underage) being trafficked for sexual purposes. I am still processing this trip and hope to write more about it in the near future. But the correlation between pornography and human trafficking is very, very real. We have to wake up and face this very dark reality and the responsibility we have in it.

Face the tough stuff,
Crystal Renaud
DGM Founder

ht: Covenant Eyes

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Loyalty Pains
By Renee Fisher

I want to let you in on a secret. When I wrote “Not Another Dating Book” I had been single pretty much my whole life. I was fast approaching 29 years old with no man in sight. Some of my friends were already married, some had kids and weren’t married, and others were serial daters but hadn’t met anyone of quality–yet. I wanted to write a book that could help you find your own love story, the most important being with God!

Today if you find yourself nursing a broken heart as a single, inside of marriage, or just not sure where to begin to have healthy relationships–read and be encouraged!

Loyalty. It hurts when someone leaves, breaks up, or cheats on you. It hurts beyond words. Misery loves company, and that’s why God asks us to get connected. We’re here to encourage one another. Take long walks. Talk and share. Pray together and point each other back to God–even when He is silent.

Leah is the best biblical example of this. She was not loved. Nor was she the favorite wife of Jacob. After Leah’s father tricked Jacob into marrying her, Jacob spent seven years working for the hand of her young sister, Rachel. Ouch. Talk about a loyal pain. But the Lord noticed her misery. As Ann Spangler and Jean Syswerda put it, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Leah’s husband) looked down and saw a woman who was lonely and sad because her husband loved his other wife better than he loved her. So, to ease her sorrow, to provide her comfort, God gave her children–beautiful, upright, strong children, one of whom would found the lineage of the priests of Israel and another who was an ancestor of Jesus Himself.”

I know some of you–myself included–have experienced deep sorrow from a painful breakup. From someone breaking his or her commitment. Maybe you’re the one who broke it. You never know how God’s going to redeem your love story. He’s still writing the pages as we speak. Learn to trust Him and put your hand in His. He’ll lead you down the path of righteousness. Next time you’re tempted to believe you’re the only one with heartache in relationships, take heart and think again.

Since the time of Genesis God has been making and remaking His covenant to His people. Unlike your ex, “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” (Numbers 23:19). No. Say it again: No! No loyalty pains or broken commitments can separate you from God’s love. (Excerpt from Not Another Dating Book, © Harvest House, Eugene, OR).

• Friend Renee on Facebook
• Follow Renee on Twitter
• Read Renee’s blog on relationships
• Purchase a copy of Not Another Dating Book

Please welcome Lauren Jacobs as DGM’s new Community Manager.

As Community Manager, Lauren will be facilitating and generating content for all of DGM’s Social Media pages including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and this blog. She will also be moderating our online community so it may continue to be a safe place for women to find help, hope and healing.

Lauren has not only captured the vision of DGM, but like all of us on staff, is now willing to volunteer her time to help spread God’s message of hope to women around the world. Jenny and I are so excited to have her join our team and look forward to what the future holds for all of us.

Please help to make her feel loved and welcomed.

With hope,
Crystal Renaud
Founder, Dirty Girls Ministries

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MORE ABOUT LAUREN

Lauren currently resides in Long Beach, CA where she was born & raised. Her journey has zig-zagged with great enthusiasm over the years, but the constant has always been a desire to serve God while advocating for & ministering to women. She stumbled upon Dirty Girls Ministries while searching for recovery tools & resources which lead her to participate in DGM’s Leadership Training in the Summer of 2011. Since then God has made it clear that His desire is to use her brokenness for good.

Her heart breaks for women in the midst of struggles with sex/porn addiction, sexual abuse, depression, & body image and she enjoys mentoring women in these areas. She is blessed to be involved in The People of the Second Chance ministry at Mariners Church in Irvine, CA which encourages men & women alike to be honest about their brokenness & search for healing.

Lauren loves swimming, witnessing the births of babies, yoga, reading & writing, singing in her car, inside jokes with her kookie family, and being crunchy. You can follow along on her continued road to healing on her blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Start 2012 off right with Covenant Eyes for FREE for 30 days for yourself, your family, or your organization.

With so many inappropriate websites and Internet temptations, what we do online impacts our lives offline. Covenant Eyes provides Internet solutions (accountability & filtering) to protect your integrity online. These types of Internet solutions are not just for addicts, but helps bring internet accountability and safety into everyone’s home and workplace. We’re excited for you to give it a try and to do so for free!

CLICK HERE TO ACTIVATE PROMO CODE AND SIGN UP TODAY!

Candidates should model a Christ-like lifestyle and attitude of sexual integrity that is reflective of our team. Both positions can be accomplished remotely. Once all applications and resumes have been received, interviews will be conducted with eligible candidates via Skype (with video when possible).

Click on the links below for job descriptions and use the form below to apply.

VOLUNTEER ADMINISTRATOR

VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY MANAGER

SORRY, BUT WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS

Your tax-deductible donation will enable us to continue our ministry to women as well as allow us to achieve some really exciting plans we have for 2012. Some of those plans include DGM’s first women’s conference, a minor revamp of our website to incorporate a more strategic starting point for new and returning visitors, group facilitator workshops and more. Also, your gift will help keep our online community up and running (now consisting of over 750 registered members!).

BUT IT’S MORE THAN A DONATION, IT’S  A PARTNERSHIP

DGM can only operate through of the financial contributions of others. Each and every cent goes directly to the operating costs of our programs and services providing hope to women struggling with addiction. We never charge for our services and no one at DGM currently receives a salary or financial support from these gifts. Your financial partnership keeps us going.

WILL YOU PARTNER WITH US?

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TODAY

For inclusion in the 2011 tax-year, all gifts must be received or post-marked on or before December 31, 2011.

This webinar is ideal for:
• Pastors, ministers, or church leaders
• Small group or Bible study leaders
• Accountability partners of those who struggle
• Spouses of those who struggle
• Men and women who struggle

The webinar is now available as a recording online. Check it out below!

With hope…
Crystal Renaud

The following story comes from our friend Lauren Dubinsky, founder of Good Women Project.

If you’re a woman who has even just dabbled in pornography, please take a moment and read her story.

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Pornography is a charged subject, and it’s a word that rarely crosses the lips of most women. Yes, there are now breeds of the modern woman who watch, talk and joke about it regularly, but most of us still stay further away from speaking the word than we actually stay away from it.

When I was in high school, pornography was on the long list of “bad things” that I didn’t know much about – and unfortunately also on the list of things I had participated in. Nevermind why I was watching it, the how is the same for all of us: we stumbled upon it because of someone else. And none of us knew what to expect, or how to handle it.

Later in life, I caught myself remembering how I used to watch it for a few minutes here or there, and wondered strictly out of boredom if it would fill the big, empty space of loneliness in my late nights. There were no parents around to hide from anymore, and no one checking my Internet history. Pornography was easy, and I never exactly knew why it was bad, particularly since I wasn’t actually having sex. To me, it was just something dirty that you probably shouldn’t have anything to do with. But “probably shouldn’t” never stands up against loneliness and boredom.

I am not one with an addictive personality. Meaning, I binge, and then drop things quickly. I knew this about myself, and so I used this as an excuse for watching pornography. I’d watch it every night for a couple weeks, then not at all for a few weeks. Always off and on. Clearly I wasn’t addicted. Just like I smoked, and never became addicted to nicotine, and drank, but never became an alcoholic. I was just watching it, and could stop anytime I wanted. No damage done, because I was still in control.

Wrong. Nicotine still seared my lungs, and alcohol still did some decent damage to my liver and personal life. Just because we aren’t addicted, doesn’t mean it does no harm. Even while I wasn’t “addicted” to watching pornography, I always wanted more. It existed as a guaranteed time-filler and pleasure-bringer, and when you get an hour to yourself – that’s an easy default. An easy default activity that establishes a heavy precedence in what you do with your next bad night.

I wish that 10 years ago someone had educated me on pornography. What it is, what it does, and what it reaches in and destroys in the hearts, minds and bodies of men and women.

I wish that someone would have told me that researchers have proven it sabotages your sex life.

I wish someone would have explained how dopamine, the chemical that is released every time you experience pleasure, drives you to return to what provided that feeling before.

I wish someone would have told me that the kind of pornography you’re most turned on by is usually linked to a corresponding hurtful event in your life, further injuring your brokenness.

I wish someone would have told me pornography would normalize things I wasn’t emotionally or physically ready to handle in my relationships with men, making me feel like I had no options or control over my sex life, filling me with much regret.

I wish someone would have told me I would begin to objectify men, build up images in my mind, and think of sex day in and day out, to the point where I couldn’t remain focused on anything else.

I wish someone would have told me it would make me feel less valuable to men, and bring up insecurities for years in the bedroom.

I wish someone would have pointed out pornography establishes your sexuality completely apart from real-life relationships, causing huge problems in your intimacy with real significant others.

I wish someone would have explained what “sexual anorexia” was and that countless young men are unable to get erections because they’ve been watching porn since they were around 14 years old.

I wish someone would have told all the men I’ve dated that the porn they are watching is keeping them from being turned on by me, ultimately destroying our relationship.

I wish someone would have told me that the dopamine and oxytocin being released from my watching certain types of pornography would cause me to question my sexual orientation, which in turn cost me relationships with friends.

My list of “I wish’s” is nowhere near complete, either. In the end, I simply wish someone would have told me why it was so harmful, instead of simply putting it on a list of things we don’t talk about. Had I known how much it would have harmed me, I would have left it alone.

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DGM loves to share stories and victories from women who have been affected by pornography. If you would like to submit your story, you may do so from our contact page, here. We will always ask permission before posting them.

Willful Entrapment is a visually arresting short film that removes the veil from the the perception of “innocent fun” from pornography and depicts it as the door to psychotic addiction and destruction that it really is.

They’ve taken their hard-hitting film and are rereleasing it, adding discussion questions and more to the already powerful material.

From FireTrigger: Our aim is to create something that would really help organizations / churches effectively engage their people on this topic. Be part of the first wave to gain access to this material and have the opportunity to let us know direclty what you need.

You can be one of the first to access this material by applying to receive a Beta DVD.

APPLY NOW