Broken Vessels

Dr. Mark Denison's newest book addresses recovery from sexual brokenness and is written specifically for ministers. Denison draws on 31 years as a senior pastor and on his own experience of falling into sexual brokenness and recovering from it. He takes on subjects that many writers avoid.

The book asks and answers hard questions. Can a Christian love God while also using pornography? Why do 37% of pastors struggle with it? What leaves pastors open to sexual brokenness? What are the three basic causes of sexual addiction, and what are the four keys to recovery? Can a pastor who has fallen return to ministry? Denison works through the theological problems tied to these issues and looks past the surface behavior to the deeper causes beneath it.

Although written with pastors in mind, the book is meant for church leaders in general. Denison notes that three of every eight men on a church's staff may face this problem, yet only 7% of churches have a prepared response, leaving the other 93% exposed. For those churches, he offers a step-by-step approach to addiction and pornography, along with an in-depth look at one of the church's major challenges of this generation.

The book also includes personal accounts from seventeen pastors around the world. They describe their own addiction and recovery, including the pain, abandonment, trauma, and restoration they experienced.

Denison and his wife Beth founded There's Still Hope, a recovery ministry for people who have fallen into sexual brokenness. Mark leads the 90-Day Recovery course and seven weekly recovery groups, one of which is for pastors, and the couple also leads several groups for couples. He serves as a Recovery Specialist for C3 Global Network, which provides resources to hundreds of churches, and he speaks frequently at Iron Sharpens Iron, Come to the Table, Castimonia, and other national conferences. He is the founding pastor of Recovery Church, which has campuses in Florida and Texas as well as an online presence.

Denison spent more than 30 years as senior pastor of three churches in Texas. He holds a D.Min. and an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a MAHS from Liberty University, and a B.A. from Houston Baptist University. He is a trained Pastoral Sex Addiction Professional (PSAP) and has been trained by Celebrate Recovery. He and Beth have been married since 1983 and live in Bradenton, Florida, near their son. They also have a Shih-Tzu.