Hey, everybody, welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast, Karen Potter here at NRB I've got Rob Stoddard joining me at this lovely event. Yeah, it is. It's been, been a fun couple days so far. Busy, noisy, loud. But, a lot of great activities. Yeah, I but, you know, we keep running into amazing people like today's guests. I'm so excited to have this conversation. You want to introduce. Our guest today is Gary Blackard from, Adult & Teen Challenge. And, wonderful ministry that we've been aware of and, done some things with over the years. So, Gary, welcome to the covenant Bank podcast. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. You guys do great work. Yeah. Well appreciate that. Thank you. Well, Gary, you start out, tell us a little bit about how you got involved with, Teen Challenge and Teen Challenge and, you know what? Most people know what your ministry is, but tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. So I've been in this role, president and CEO, for six years, was involved at the board of directors level prior to that, working for Evangel University as a VP there. And the Lord just called my wife and I and, to jump from being a board member to, hey, let's, let's, go into ministry and figure out what the Lord wants us to do with with the teen challenge. Been around since 1958, 67 years. David Wilkerson, that whole story Cross and the Switchblade. And we now have over 200 centers in, the United States. Men, women, adolescent boys and girls, women with children's centers. And now we're getting into military support. Wow. That's incredible. So for people that are not terribly familiar with what you guys actually do at the grassroots level, talk to us a little bit about how you serve adults and teens. I think a lot of people are more familiar with the work that you do with teens, but the adult programs are amazing. So let's talk a little bit about what you do specifically. Sure. So so we do everything related to addiction recovery. So anybody that's struggling with alcohol and drugs, although now it's grown to gambling, you know, porn, obviously technology actually technology is the fastest growing addiction in the United States. So, people will come into our programs. We're a residential program. We do have a nonresidential component called Ready Now, which is our, community, small group ministry. But for the most part, we have in these centers, people come into our programs and they can be 30 days long. They could be nine months long. They can be 15 months long. That's the longest we have is 15 months. And so just depends on where in the nation and what their need is. And, you know, because frankly, somebody that's a 15 year meth addict, it's not going to get resolved in 30 days. So it's going to take them a while to change. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit about how you guys partner I'm assuming you partner with churches and things like that and organizations that help people get connected with your ministry so they can get into recovery. Yeah. No, we partner with a lot of different organizations, churches obviously being a primary source, right where we'll go in the churches will share testimonies, what's happening with the people in our programs? We get a lot of referrals that way through our churches and through word of mouth, but also the court system. So we do a lot with the court systems across the United States, the drug courts that are out there. And and it's great because a lot of these judges will say, hey, you either go to jail or we'll send you to a teen Challenge program, which is great. So, so, yeah, partner with a lot of different, organizations. Warriors Journey is our brand new partner on the military side. Oh. That's amazing. We have a dedicated men's facility in North Carolina now for veterans and active duty men. And tell me. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? How did that come about? We know service members come back. They're struggling. There's a lot of addiction that starts. How did you get into this? Yeah, actually, per capita, the US military has a higher rate of addiction than the US population. Wow. And so, I was watching a television show on Navy Seals with my wife, a couple of years ago. And my and the theme of the show was about addiction in the military. And my wife leans over and says, hey, how come Teen Challenge doesn't do anything with the military? The rest is history. As soon as she said that, I'm like, hey, I'm saying that that's going to be my idea now and then. So that's actually how we got into we started praying and, and the Lord started opening doors and, and we're actually doing some work with, the military in Germany. Oh, wow. As well. And Warriors Journey in Germany. We're looking at Japan and some of these other locations that have large U.S. bases. And so, yeah, we're very excited about that, that strategy. Yeah. As you guys are working with folks, that are going through recovery, do you have on staff, you know, counselors and therapists and what is the wraparound services that you're providing? Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like. Yeah, I think a lot of people think that the old school, teen challenge has been around. You know, you read your Bible, you go to chapel, and you're done. Well, that's not teen challenge. I mean, certainly Christ is the DNA. Jesus is the answer. And we do have chapels and they do do. Bible studies. And they do do, group studies, etc. but we also have group counseling. Okay. We have individual counseling available. We have some of our centers have licensed, counselors on staff. We have a full detox, as well, which is, the first detox we've had in, in the history of the ministry, all run by Christian doctors and nurses, just trying to get at that continuum of care to say we need to introduce Jesus upstream, not just wait till they come into our program. Instead of, you know, referring them back out to a detox, because we typically don't take people into our programs until they're fully detoxed just for the health concerns and all of that. But instead of just referring them to a detox down the road, hey, why aren't we doing more in that space so that we can control the environment and and, make sure that they're getting introduced to the gospel sooner rather than later. Excellent, excellent. Gary, you mentioned you have 200 locations now. Is that grown a lot in the last. Oh, yeah. Six years? Yeah, I would say yeah, I would say probably over the last 15 years there's been a lot of growth. There's been a lot of movement as well. We've had centers, merge centers, moved from one area to another. But there's been a lot of growth. And unfortunately, the market of addiction is not going anywhere. 48 million people. According to the latest SAMHSA stats, 48 million people identify as struggling with addiction or meet, I should say, meeting the require ments of SAMHSA's survey, identifying as struggling with addiction, which is crazy when you think about it. 48 million people in the United States. So what are your plans to begin to continue to address this? And yeah. Tap into that. You know, we launched, like I said, the new brand ready now. And we want to get out into the nonresidential space. Because research also has shown that 90% of people struggling with addiction will never go into the residential component. A variety of reasons, right? Got kids at home, got a good job, got to pay the bills, you know. So we recognized that that was 90% that we weren't addressing in our residential. So we're really going after the nonresidential side. And what does it mean to train up counselors, train up facilitators to do small group ministry? And just engaging with families, engaging with people, helping them navigate and walk through this journey, on a weekly basis. And then using that as a referral mechanism. Maybe they do need license counseling. So we refer them to a licensed counselor, or maybe they do need residential. Okay. Now we can place you in one of our, centers. But really nonresidential is our our major strategy right now. Wow. Yeah. I'd love to dive into a little bit. You talked about getting referrals from the justice system. And so, you know, a lot of those people are probably, you know, they've hit rock bottom, right? I mean, when you're in the justice system, things have gone very bad for you. And so, you know, they're probably looking at their options and they may think, well, this is a path forward. And I'm sure they're not coming in thinking, you know, that this is going to be easy or fun, but how do you guys walk alongside them? Because I just think back to, you know, as a teenager myself, I remember those rebellious years and how I probably would have been, you know, a little hesitant to receive what was being offered to me. So how do you how do you help them acclimate and get into the program and actually embrace what you're trying to do? So, so I would say, what sets Teen Challenge apart from a majority of the programs out there helping those struggling in addiction is are consistency and showing the love of Christ and the hope of Christ. So when somebody walks into our program, yeah, there's so many other elements and like I said, group counseling, counseling, we get them immediately involved and things like that. But the consistency over the first two, three weeks, four weeks in the program, typically they're assigned to a buddy, and a buddy will walk alongside them every day, encourage them, the staff show immediate and consistent love over time. And for most of the folks coming into our program, they've never seen that done in a consistent way. They may have had a one time opportunity, or somebody may have invested in them one time mom close or whatever. But but consistently, day in and day out, even when they're showing their ugly signs to show them that love and give them that hope, that tends to to keep people there. Does it, man? I want to be a part of this. I want, I want to I want to change. I want to see, see my life change. And I think that's a huge component of why we're able to see what we do. You know, we we, commissioned Evangel, Evangel University in 2019 to do, outcomes study, or do a study on sobriety. And 78% of our people, who have graduated our program have remained, sober and serving them, which is a high number. Yeah. This industry. So. Oh, that's amazing. I love that. And you just wrap them in that love right out of the gate and the consistency, I love that. So that is well. Gary, it, so many people who are struggling with addictions, also struggling with porn addictions. Certainly we, we deal with that day in and day out. What kinds of things can the adult or teen challenge offer or help with somebody that is coming in with that kind of struggle? Yeah, well, first of all, we love the tools that you guys have. But I think in, in probably exactly what you, how you look at porn, we look at it with all addiction. Right. Is one is helping somebody identify who they really are. Your identity is not in a man or a woman. And now you've got to do these other things or or your identity is not as an addict or somebody who's a porn addict or whatever your identity is made in the image of God, and God created you in his image, as we were told in Genesis. So it's helping them walk through the identity journey and and of course, as they accept Christ in our program, then it's, hey, you're you're a son or daughter of the living king. And so so your addiction may still be there, you may still be struggling with that and tempted with that. But we're going to walk you through that journey and what that looks like. So identity becomes very, very important. I think value also becomes very important because coinciding with the identity is do I have value as a human being anymore because I struggled with porn for 20 years, or I struggle with heroin for 15 years and now my life's over because. Because I did all that ruined my family. Yeah, you know, I don't have value anymore. And we come alongside and say, oh yeah, you do. Yeah. You're, you're you're you're addiction didn't you didn't surprise God in any way. So he still has a plan for your life. He still has opportunities for you skills, talents and abilities that he's going to use in your life that will make a difference in the sphere around you. Right? So those are some of the things we hone in on is helping people understand and their value as a human being, their value with human dignity, and how God created them to be that way, and then their identity in Christ. And then, of course, there's many other elements, as well. But all too often people look at porn because of trauma they've been through, right? Or poor relationships. You guys know better than we do as far as porn goes. So, we see the same thing now, who's coming in with alcohol and drugs as they've done it because of trauma or, or poor decision making. And it got a lot. We'll talk to our listeners a little bit about how they can engage with your organization. Maybe they can support it financially, maybe get their church involved. How can they get involved? Absolutely. So everything we have is online at TeenChallengeUSA.org. Our phone number is 855-END-ADDICTION. So either one of those we can refer people. We have a center finder on our website where somebody can filter, hey, I'm looking for a men's program. I'm looking for adolescent boys or whatever they can filter. I'm looking for this state, etc. so they'll be able to find a center. But if they call that number, we have somebody waiting to just say, hey, here's here's what we can do for you, here's where we can help. And and so absolutely, the website also has the giving button. You can just click on that and you can give to a daunting challenge as well. Love that. Well it's a great organization. Thank you for what you're doing. Oh my goodness. There have been many people that have utilized your programs and come out on the other side and really boast of the greatness that you guys invested into them and just showing them the love of Christ. So thank you so much. Yes. Thank you, thank you. Well, to all of our listeners, we hope you enjoyed this episode of The Covenant Eyes Podcast. Definitely check out the show notes for all the links to check out Teen Challenge and Adult Teen Challenge and all of the resources that they have available. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. We'll see you again. God bless.