April 30, 2024 • 49 mins
Special guest Arthur Nisly shares his passion for redemption from sexual brokenness. He started an organization to help men find freedom from unwanted sexual behaviors and to train others to do the same. In this conversation with President Zack Johnson, he shares his story of leaving El Salvador after 30 years and hearing God’s call to start this ministry. He explains why many stay trapped despite trying desperately to get free, why “symptom control” doesn’t last, and his approach of getting to the issues underlying addiction. He also gives practical advice on responding to others who reach out to us for help.
Mentioned in this episode:
• Hope Journey Guide – Arthur’s website
• The Freedom Fight – Free materials that Arthur uses
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zack Johnson (00:05):
It is Friday, march 22nd 2024.
I'm here with Arthur Knisleyand, arthur, we don't have your
bio printed on our websitebecause you are one of our first
guests on the podcast.
That's not from Sattler, okay.
So I thought I could just openby asking you your story, sure,
how do asking you your story?
Sure?
How do you share your story?
(00:26):
Where are you from?
What are you about?
Are you married?
Do you have kids?
Arthur Nisly (00:30):
Whatever you want to include, Okay, I grew up in
Kansas, the South Central KansasHutchinson community.
From an early age, I just knewthat I wanted to be involved in
missions.
I didn't know what it wouldlook like, and then, in my early
(00:52):
20s, I went to Costa Rica fortwo and a half years and then,
while I was there, they asked meto come to El Salvador, where
they were recovering from allthe missionaries having left
because of the Civil War there.
I loved—I was a single pastorand I loved what I was doing and
(01:14):
so I just told the people I'mgoing home to get married and
I'm coming right back.
I married my childhoodsweetheart and it was about two
years later that we moved to ElSalvador and I worked there as
the mission director under AmishMennonite Aid, and my wife and
(01:39):
I loved it.
We thought we would be therethe rest of our lives, and so 30
years of living there, we lovedit.
We thought we would be therethe rest of our lives, and so 30
years of living there, we lovedit.
We thought that was a perfectfit.
And then, in 2016, we had tocome back to the States because
of my wife's health, and thatwas a jolt unexpected.
(02:00):
We didn't know what to do withthat.
And so I still remember the dayI was driving truck for my
brothers.
Here I am, I'm almost 60 yearsold.
I thought I was going to livethe rest of my life in El
Salvador and then, all of asudden, I'm transplanted back to
my home community and I'mtrying to figure out what to do.
(02:21):
I'm working for my brotherscommunity and I'm trying to
figure out what to do.
I'm working for my brothers,trying to figure out what to do
next.
And so I still remember thedate June 30, 2017.
I just, kind of out of the blue, said so what am I supposed to
do now?
And I just it wasn't an audiblevoice, but it was a clear sense
(02:41):
that God wants me to.
I want you to learn how to helppeople who are struggling with
addiction.
And I immediately knew thatmeant my people conservative
Anabaptists and that it meant asexual addiction.
And so you know, I would listensix, eight hours of audio per
(03:01):
day while I was driving, and Iwas just trying to figure out
what this looks like.
My constant question was willthis help my people?
And so there was a lot of.
You know, brain science is abig deal in sexual addiction
recovery.
(03:21):
And my question is always willthis help my people or will this
be something that is theory,that doesn't really make a
difference?
Fast forward to where do I learn?
Where do I take training?
Where do I get the step to divein and start?
(03:44):
And so I took some training andbefore I took the training, I
sent the guy an email and saidwould you be willing to teach me
?
I don't have a significantsexual addiction story.
And he said, sure, you can takethe training, but I don't think
(04:05):
anybody will listen to you.
And I said, okay, that's fine,but I feel like God is calling
me and I'm willing to take thatrisk.
And so that's what I did, andbasically he taught me about the
technology he uses and how hegoes about doing it.
He didn't help me very muchwith a curriculum, and so I, but
(04:35):
it felt safe.
I said, if people come to me,it's going to be slow and I'll
just keep working part-time formy brothers.
And yeah, that's what I thoughtwould happen.
But the first person came to mevia email and said, arthur,
would you walk with me?
That was 2019.
And then I got busier andbusier.
(04:58):
Word got around.
I think it was a God thing.
And then in 20, june, the 29th2021, was my last day of work
for my brothers.
So then on, I knew I could tellthat I was going to have enough
people that really wanted help,that I was going to be able to
(05:21):
do this full time.
I took the way of doing thisfor profit because I didn't
think.
I said why would we create anon-profit if we don't know if
this is going to fly?
And I've been amazed at the waythat people are coming to me.
(05:44):
This month of February, 10different people went to the
website and filled out the formand said can you help me?
What's your website?
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Okay, so it doesn't take verylong.
I have two different sides ofthe of the website.
(06:05):
One is I want to help otherpeople and the other is I need
help for myself, and I'll talkabout that later.
But but I have just been blownaway with the, with the number
of people who are just thislooks like a safe place.
It's not my home community, ormaybe it's because I don't know
anybody in my home communitythat I can trust, and so they
(06:28):
contact me and we have that freediscovery call and then we
figure out if this is somethingthat they want to do.
Sadly, there's a bunch ofpeople they have to wait.
I'm so busy that they have towait a couple of months, but
I've hired a man to help me withkeeping the people busy doing
(06:53):
valuable things during themonths that they're waiting for
me, and so I'm really excitedabout that.
And that sounded like a longbio.
Zack Johnson (07:03):
But anyway.
No, it's your story.
That sounds like a long bio,but anyway.
Arthur Nisly (07:05):
No, it's your story, it's my story, and I
don't think of myself as abusiness administrator, but I'm
having to learn how do you dothis?
Yesterday I was talking with Icall him my mutual mentor, we
spend time together once a month, and he just said Arthur, we
have got to figure out a way toscale this so that we can have
(07:25):
other people doing what you'redoing, because if you do the
math, we need dozens of peopledoing what I'm doing.
I also train people.
I teach them what I'm learning.
Twice a year, two groups of 10.
Twice a year, two groups of 10.
(07:51):
And they two Monday evenings amonth on Zoom.
We talk, I teach them what Iknow, what I've learned, we
discuss things.
These men become friends, and soI guess it was last year, in
March of last year, I wasfeeling this I've got to have a
way to get people to help me.
Most people expect to helppeople face-to-face, local, but
(08:25):
we need more people.
We need more people.
We need more people to not justdo local, and so the vast
majority of the people will betalking, helping people locally
in their local church orface-to-face encounters.
But the need is so huge forpeople to tell people from a
(08:45):
distance, and so I'm havingpeople sit in on my sessions,
these people who've gone throughthe mentor training I call them
prayer partners.
They sit in on my sessions andI tell them and they learn about
what I do, and it takes it fromtheory to practice.
And so we've been doing thatfor almost a year and I have
(09:09):
like 10 men that are sitting inon my sessions.
But we still haven't masteredthis last step, to go from
sitting in on sessions to daringto do what I'm doing.
And we have some ideas.
We're praying about this.
I think we're going to befiguring something out, but
(09:31):
that's where we're at right now.
I love what I'm doing becauseGod has given me an audience.
Some men are really stuck, butnot near all of them.
Some of them are strugglingless frequently and I get to
(09:53):
work with them and to figure outwhat's going on, what's
triggering them, and so I'mpracticing, I'm learning with
them and I've become veryconfident about what the primary
triggers are.
And so I'm practicing, I'mlearning with them and I've
become very confident about whatthe primary triggers are of the
kinds of people that come to me.
Zack Johnson (10:11):
So I'm really excited about that and the
people that want to help othersare going to be talking to
people like that.
Yeah, it's hard for me to keeptrack of all the questions I
have for you.
You mentioned a couple ofthings in your story that I want
(10:32):
to touch in on and maybe I'lljust ask some quick rapid fire
questions.
What are the general ages ofpeople you're working with?
Is it Good?
Arthur Nisly (10:42):
question.
I'm going to guess that 25 to35 is the biggest group.
I have a little bit moremarried men than single men.
I thought it would be the otherway around, but I'm going to
guess.
I have a couple 45-year-old menand lower 20s, but the middle I
(11:09):
think.
I'm guessing that 25 to 35would catch over half the people
that.
Zack Johnson (11:15):
I work with, so it's sort of the concentrated
ages young adult yes.
Arthur Nisly (11:22):
It's either people who would like to get married
but don't feel comfortablegetting getting married, taking
this into their marriage, or thepeople who are married and it
marriage didn't fix it like theythought it would, and so it can
(11:42):
be either way.
Zack Johnson (11:43):
And then, how do you?
How do you you find?
Do you market your business?
Do people find you?
Is it word of mouth?
What's the mechanism?
Arthur Nisly (11:52):
There's people who write me these emails and say
we can make your website morevisible, but there's no reason
to do that, because people Ihave more people than what I can
help right now and how do theyfind you?
I've gotten to speak in severalpublic, big public events and,
(12:15):
uh, and it's just word of mouth,I, I don't understand.
It's a god thing, I'm convinced.
But people go to the websiteand then there's this free
discovery call.
Okay, I have a couple oftestimonies there of people who
talk about their relationshipand working with me and, yeah, I
(12:41):
start working with two newpeople a month.
That needs to change, butthat's where I'm at, and so if I
have 10 people, if I dodiscovery calls with 10 people,
and probably 75 of the peoplesay this is what I want to do,
there's no sense in waiting.
They're willing to wait, eventhough they have to wait a
couple of months.
They just say I'm ready to dothis.
(13:05):
They're frustrated because theycan't get on top of it
themselves.
Zack Johnson (13:10):
Right, and then maybe I'll just ask a little bit
about.
This is a fascinating topic,but what's your method?
What do you talk about?
What have your method?
What do you talk about?
What have you found?
I'm guessing you train otherpeople.
What do you train them to do?
What does it typically looklike?
Arthur Nisly (13:35):
In December of 2021, I found the Freedom Fight.
Fight.
It's a series of 64 videos fiveto seven minute videos that
people watch if they're marriedand if they're not single.
It's four, six lessons.
I feel like it's the best thingI've found for people like us
(13:58):
Good stuff, bible-based, and soI'm confident I have them doing
that.
I use a coaching software whereI can assign homework
assignments and I see theirchecking in forms, I see their
(14:20):
crash reports, and so beforeeach session, I just kind of go
through stuff and I see wherethey're at.
But my current philosophy isthat I'm using the coach account
.
I'm using the Freedom Fight tocover basic teachings.
They do a better job than whatI could and my current
(14:40):
philosophy is I'm going tofollow the theme of emotional
pain, the things that triggerthem.
I'm going to follow that, we'regoing to talk about that and
we're going to teach them how togo to God with this stuff that
is overwhelming to them.
(15:01):
This stuff that is overwhelmingto them, and men, frankly, are
relieved to hear that someonebelieves that they don't want to
do these things.
They're used to having someonesay you just need to try harder,
(15:22):
you need to pray more goodstuff, but it's not working for
them.
And so when I say my experienceis that way over half of the
triggers for the men that I workwith is emotional stuff, and so
my goal is to help them learnhow to go from overwhelm,
(15:43):
rejection, loneliness, whateverit is.
I help them go from there towhere is God in all this?
What does God want me to know?
How am I supposed to handlethis?
And I say your problem is notthat you want to be known.
Your problem is that you areimmature and you haven't yet
learned that skill, that skillof knowing how to diffuse those
(16:11):
painful emotions.
They haven't yet learned how togo to God and say God, where
are you?
What do you want me to do?
What do you want me to know?
So that's the skill I teachthem.
And the exciting thing is thatwhen I can help someone deal
with their emotional junk, theintensity of their sexual
struggles drops dramaticallywhen you can help someone deal
(16:33):
with their emotional junk, theintensity of their sexual
struggles decreases dramatically.
Zack Johnson (16:39):
Yes, I very confidently say that give me
some examples of emotional junkso I can wrap my mind.
I am taking some guesses, butyeah, a big one is overwhelm.
Arthur Nisly (16:57):
The other thing that I teach is that there can
be multiple things that build ontop of each other.
So if you have had a fight withyour wife, finances aren't well,
you feel like you can't keep up, like other people are
expecting you to do stuff.
(17:17):
Just, there can be lots ofdifferent stuff that build on
top of each other and all of asudden, this person goes from
I'm handling life okay to justkind of gasping and saying get
me out of here.
And my experience is thatpeople very, very consistently,
(17:40):
because of past history, becausesexual release is pleasurable,
because we have an enemy I don'tunderstand all the reasons, but
it just feels like it's anatural thing that when I'm
overwhelmed, when I can't handleit, when I feel like I'm not
good enough, I'm bored.
(18:04):
People have gotten used to thedopamine rush of sexual release
and then, all of a sudden, I'mteaching them to stop and all of
a sudden, life is boring, andso that's another one that some
(18:25):
of my guys are dealing with.
Yeah, so those are some of theones that I think of right off
the top.
Zack Johnson (18:33):
That makes sense.
And then my string of questionsmight seem a little bit
unrelated here, but you dealmostly with men and not women.
And how do you defer women tosomebody else?
How do you think about that?
Arthur Nisly (18:53):
I work only with men, but this is my chance.
I'll just say that sexualaddiction among women is a
bigger issue than what we havethought, and the women who are
trapped feel shame, additionalshame, because women aren't
supposed to have this problem.
And so this is my opportunityto say women who struggle
(19:19):
they're not weird, they're humanand we need to help them.
On my website, under theresources section, I have a list
of women that are willing totalk to betrayed spouses Great,
and I wish I had a list of men,but I don't.
(19:41):
I'm still.
I don't know who to referpeople to when I'm when You're
over capacity, I'm over capacity.
Zack Johnson (19:54):
And so, and then I want to ask you something about
.
In your story I think I caughtunderstood right that a lot of
people look outside their owncommunity for help and as
opposed to within their owncommunity, and so do you see the
relationship that as a benefit,to be removed from somebody's
(20:17):
other circles of relationships,or is that?
Is that not a benefit whenyou're trying to help somebody
that wants to overcome theiraddiction?
Arthur Nisly (20:28):
Well, my first comment is that men who are
struggling, sensitive men whoare struggling, will go to their
church leaders, and the churchleaders do the best they can,
but they don't know what to do,and the tendency is to heap on
shame.
(20:50):
And if you heap on shame, otherpeople learn it's not safe to
get real, and so there arepeople who just say it's not
safe.
I can't think of anybody that Icould talk to and so they.
I think my model I'm kind ofshifting, but I think my model
(21:14):
is better because I don't takethem out of their current
environment.
There's other residentialprograms that I think are
(21:34):
probably the best thing for menwho have to have high walls
around them and to not be ableto be naughty.
But the men that come to mealmost all of them are able to
make significant progress andthey're glad to be able to talk
to someone, and they're alwayschecking me out after their
first big crash.
They're watching me to see ifI'm going to be judgmental, if
I'm going to be helpful, if I'mgoing to help them get back up
(21:55):
again, or whether I will shamethem like everyone else has.
And so I lost your question.
Zack Johnson (22:03):
Where were we?
It was more about the benefitof being outside community
versus inside community, andwhat I'm going to get at with
that is if you're over capacity,is it a benefit for communities
to train up their own people,and then should they be aiming
outside of their own?
Should it be community tocommunity or within community?
Arthur Nisly (22:26):
No, my stated goal is that in every conservative
Anabaptist church there be,everybody knows that if you're
struggling with this, that Jackis the person that you talk to
in our church and that peoplewill say I'm so glad he's
talking to Jack.
That's what I want.
(22:48):
And, and just to just for therecord, when men come to me
within two or three months, Iwant them to start to have
someone that they can talk to,someone that they can.
They can, uh, when I'mstruggling, they need to have
someone local that they can talkto, because I can't for 20
people I can't say call meanytime, day or night.
(23:08):
Yeah, I can't do that.
Zack Johnson (23:10):
So your goal is to train up local, Absolutely
Local helpers for local people.
Arthur Nisly (23:18):
And most of the 35 men that I've trained are doing
that local Great.
Zack Johnson (23:25):
And then I want to talk a couple of questions.
In your story you had thatmoment where you approached the
person doing the training andyou said I don't have this in my
past and they said peoplearen't going to listen to you.
I'm guessing.
What's been your experiencewith that?
Arthur Nisly (23:44):
Is it true to you?
I'm guessing what's been yourexperience with that?
My experience is the exactopposite that people assume that
if you don't have a story, youwant to stay away.
But God has given me a heartand whenever I see somebody for
the first time, I talk to themon the phone, because
(24:05):
face-to-face Zoom is scary.
But whenever I see somebody thefirst time, I just I can just
see who they're going to be oncethey're free and I'm just so.
I get so excited because I can.
I can see.
I feel like a granddad because Ihave these men who are getting
married and they're at a goodplace, they're useful in their
(24:29):
local churches, and so my goalis to have men the men that I
train for them to lead out intheir local churches, making it
safe to give help.
And my premise is that if men,if we have a basic framework
(24:53):
that helps us to understand whypeople act out in the first
place, that we can walk withthem and we can help them.
And it's the people that areharsh, are the people who don't
know what to do, the people whoare harsh just think well, he's
still struggling.
I've told him to pray more,I've told him this and it's just
(25:14):
kind of this feeling of well.
I just heard a story recentlyof someone who, when the church
leaders found out that he hadsome level of struggle, he's on
their radar now and they aresaying before communion, you
(25:36):
need to disclose how well you'redoing so we know whether to let
you partake of communion.
Zack Johnson (25:42):
That's the wrong way of using communion doing so
we know whether to let youpartake of communion.
That's the wrong way of usingcommunion.
Um, so coach me, coach methrough that.
Let's say that I'm in a men'ssmall group like a, a normal,
regular, um men's group thatmeets and somebody confesses as
a sexual sin.
(26:02):
Let's say to four people what,what do the other?
What should the other men do inthat group, on the spot that
somebody confesses because I've.
This is a really real, a reallyreal scenario where I think
there's like a there's a littlebit of awkwardness to know, do
it?
Do I pray for healing?
Do I say something?
(26:23):
Do I say nothing?
Do I give them a hug?
Uh, do I avoid it?
What?
Do I bring it up in communion?
Do I pull them aside and saymake sure to solve this before
taking in the part of the lord'ssupper?
Yeah, there's all sorts ofinteresting dynamics.
So what, what would you say topeople who experience this but
don't really know how tointeract or have okay?
Arthur Nisly (26:44):
so the question is um a group of four or five
people who are meeting locallyand one of them discloses I had
a bad crash, yeah I either oneway or another.
Zack Johnson (26:58):
I I sin sexually, okay, um, let's say either in
pornography and the thingsassociated with pornography.
And, yeah, what's the stepsthere?
Arthur Nisly (27:11):
The most helpful thing that we can do is to
understand where it's comingfrom.
My basic premise, and hereagain, you have to understand
the people that come to me arepeople who are broken, who are
distraught, who are saying Ihate this, this is not what I
want to do, so I'm I'm not.
(27:31):
I'm not saying that what myposition is is for everybody,
but because there are people whoare sneaky and who like their
lifestyle and don't want tochange.
So I'm not talking about that,but I'm talking about men who
are deeply grieved about whatthey're doing.
They don't want to do this andthey want to stop, but they feel
(27:54):
powerless to stop.
To those people, I think thebiggest thing that we can do is
to believe that they have goodintentions and to join them in
being curious about what's goingon.
And so I do two things.
When someone is crashing prettyregularly where did it happen?
(28:18):
Where did it happen?
How are you feeling at the time?
And we're trying to come upwith practical things that they
can do to stop the behavior.
But I'm not like a lot ofpeople who say praise, the Lord
Jack is living in victory forthree months now.
That's not where I'm at.
(28:40):
I say we live in victory.
We don't do that stuff so thatwe can get underneath to what's
really going on.
If you think about it, the manwho gets drunk is covering up
stuff.
His wife screamed at him, helost his job or whatever, and so
(29:05):
life is overwhelming and hegets drunk.
And so if we can help him tonot get drunk, what's going to
happen?
The stuff underneath is goingto come bubbling to the surface
and we'll be able to look at it,to work with it, and so my
model is the big reason to stopthe behavior.
(29:27):
It's sin, so we stop thebehavior.
But it's not just that's ourfinal destination.
It's to help us get underneathand to understand what are the
driving things underneath thatare driving it.
Zack Johnson (29:41):
So it's dig, dig into the person's life a little
is right, but.
Arthur Nisly (29:46):
But we're going to be able to get there if we can
help them stop the behavior, andso I do practical things to
help them stop, and then we do.
The second thing we do is tohelp them identify what's going
on inside and why they feelthose things.
A lot of men are not veryemotionally aware, and so I get
(30:07):
to walk with them, I model thatfor them, and then the third
step is to teach them how to.
I call it two-part journaling.
Often it's a letter to God I'mfeeling this.
(30:28):
I'm feeling this.
This is why I'm feeling it.
So where are you, god?
What am I supposed to do withthis?
What is the godly way to handlethis?
And learning to connect withGod and to get his perspective
is going to calm me down insignificant ways.
Plus, they learn to have apersonal relationship with God,
and that excites me.
So I get to help people.
(30:49):
Way over half of the men that Iwork with experience really
significant victory with.
They no longer go there becausethey know that it's not so much
that I'm a bad person, it'sjust that I didn't know how to
find freedom, and then theydevelop that relationship with
(31:10):
God.
That's what I get to see.
Zack Johnson (31:17):
That's what excites me.
I guess you, from what Iunderstand, you view or I think
I agree with this that peoplearen't.
It's hard to talk about thisstuff.
When you talk about it, you arenervous, you're afraid.
Arthur Nisly (31:35):
But I'm not nervous anymore.
Zack Johnson (31:38):
But so how do you, what are some of these barriers
that people have to approachyou, to approach anybody, and
how do you overcome some ofthese inhibitors to talking
about this?
Arthur Nisly (31:55):
See, I have the blessing of having done this for
a couple of years with a lot ofpeople and I very confidently
can tell them with a lot ofpeople and I very confidently
can tell them.
I often tell guys early on.
I say I don't think yourproblem is that you have too
many sexual hormones.
Your problem is that youhaven't yet learned how to go
from emotional overwhelm tocalming yourself down.
(32:18):
So when men hear that it givesthem hope I'm not this wicked
person, it's just that I haven'tlearned that skill and they
have hope they say, oh, it's agame changer to understand,
(32:43):
because before this they areasking themselves questions why
do I do the things that I hate?
That's a big question.
I claim to love God and I'm sureI'm never going to do it again,
but then I did it again andtheir self-confidence and their
(33:10):
understanding of what's going onjust goes out the window.
They just I don't know what'sgoing on.
And so I think people when theydo a first crash report,
they're kind of checking me outto see if I'm going to beat up
on them or if we're going todance around this.
(33:31):
If someone tells me I kind ofmessed up, I say I don't know
what that means.
I want to know what you did,how long you did it, how soon
you got up afterwards and theyjust know that and we very
quickly can get past the shameand we diagnose what's going on
(33:54):
and we'll try whatever to beable to help them.
So I don't know what it's liketo feel shame.
When they understand that I'mglad to be with them and that
(34:16):
I'm not putting them in a box,their way of looking at it
changes and they're glad to bewith me even though they have a
crash report.
Zack Johnson (34:22):
And you have a.
I'm guessing you've seentransformation in positive
testimonies.
Yeah, lots, there's hope.
Arthur Nisly (34:28):
Yeah, there's lots of hope.
Just yesterday I had a man.
We had my last meeting with him.
He's going to get marriedbefore too long and he and I
agreed together you're good togo.
It doesn't mean that I knowyou'll never crash again, but
you have the skills, you havethe understanding and you're
(34:51):
going to be able to keep growing, because that's what it is.
You keep growing.
If you had a crash because ofthis, okay.
So we learn, we grow, we closethat door, we're more careful to
stop the behavior, but we'realso looking at what's
(35:12):
underneath and what's causingthis, and I'm just really
excited about the chance I haveto work with men consistently.
We're discovering that dealingwith the emotional issues brings
(35:34):
the level of sexual temptationback to a manageable place where
people can get.
Sure, if there's provocativecontent, sure, I'm going to be
drawn there, but I can thinkclearly.
I say clear thinking.
Arthur can say why would I dothat?
That doesn't help me to get towhere I want to go.
No, thank you.
That's where we that's the kindof men that I help create.
Zack Johnson (35:59):
Amen, and then there's going to be switching
gears a little bit, and youmentioned something about the
decision between nonprofit andfor-profit.
Do you have a business modelthat allows you to support
yourself to do this work?
Yes, I charge a monthly fee Forthe people talking to you.
Yes, all right.
Yes, tell me about it.
(36:20):
I haven't heard about peoplepaying a monthly fee and I'm
really intrigued by this.
Arthur Nisly (36:29):
Well see I get to say that I am proving that
Anabaptists will pay somebody ifthey think they can help them,
and I'm proving that this is abusiness model that really does
work.
So I charge a monthly fee forthe weekly meeting and I charge
a monthly fee for the weeklymeeting and I charge a monthly
fee for the twice a month andthen downgrading to once a month
(36:51):
before they graduate.
Right now I'm working hard toimprove the mentor training and
I'm working with men who areprayer partners.
So I'm doing things that Ididn't used to do and the
finances are tight.
(37:13):
I have a lot of software as aservice expenses, I Zoom, and
many, many others that I use,tools that I use.
I think this is a model.
I'm really excited about itBecause I can train men and they
(37:37):
can watch me for a while andthen either my dream is them
working for me or one of the menthat I trained is in the
process of starting up um.
He made the decision that,because of his people group his,
his people is probably going tobe better for him to to do uh,
(37:57):
do it on his own um, but itreally is important for men to
have skin in the game.
I.
Other people may disagree withme, but for me to offer somebody
this isn't going to cost youanything.
I think it's wrong.
I think it keeps therelationship transparent when
(38:20):
he's paying and it's enough thathe's going to think twice about
just letting this drag on andon.
Zack Johnson (38:33):
And for people I guess for people considering
that it might be intrigued bythis as a way to make a living
do you think there's room forthe I hate to say that industry
it's not an industry, but isthere room for more people to
make careers out of this?
Arthur Nisly (38:51):
I'm convinced it is.
That's why I said we need adozen people doing what I'm
doing.
The model that I would reallylike to see is that men take the
training and maybe in their 50sor 60s, when they have learned
(39:13):
a lot, that they be able tooffer to mentor, like this, and
see where it goes.
What I did was I quit.
I went from four days a week tothree days to two days and then
I quit.
(39:33):
I don't think of it as abusiness, but that's what it is.
It's a way that I can pay myexpenses and I am.
It's more than once a week, acouple times a week, that I go
out to the kitchen and I tell Iwork from home.
(39:54):
I tell my wife you can'tbelieve what I just saw happen
and I get these opportunities tosee people having a live
encounter with God and havingthese aha moments and it's
(40:17):
wonderful.
I love what I'm doing.
Zack Johnson (40:19):
I get to see people change and yeah, yeah,
Well, I guess if you had youexplained your website that
there's a place to go if youwant to help people, a place to
go for people who need help,would you have any sort of
general next actions for thosetwo categories of people to
(40:41):
share with on you, sure?
Arthur Nisly (40:48):
Yeah, if you want to get help for yourself, just
there's the two categories andthen click on free discovery
call.
Listen to the coupletestimonies there.
I think it's four different menwho share their testimony about
life transformation and thenthere's a schedule, a free
(41:11):
discovery call, and so they'lldo that.
We'll get the email, we'llreach out to them, I'll give
them a scheduling link and theycan look at the options and they
can schedule a time to talk tome.
It's 45 minutes and they tellme their story and I tell them
(41:35):
whether I think I can help themand then they get to decide.
I don't have any problem withpeople saying I want to talk to
my wife, I'll get back to you.
That's perfectly fine, becausethey know what I offer.
They know how long they'regoing to have to wait.
So that's that part, yep.
(41:58):
The other is help others.
That's that part of the website.
That's that part of the website.
Very quickly you'll get to alink that describes in detail
what I offer.
And, just for the record, I amthe May group.
(42:19):
I have seven people out of theten.
As soon as I expect, before theend of this month, there's
another publicity event the endof this month.
I'm afraid that it's going tofill up and then I'll have a
group in September.
But basically there on that, Idescribe everything.
If you want to ask questions,you could reach out to me and
(42:42):
I'd answer your questions.
But those are the next steps.
Zack Johnson (42:48):
Okay, great, and then I'll leave it with some
open-ended questions here.
But do you have anything elseyou would like to talk about or
share, about your burden forGod's people or your vision for
the future, or anything at all?
Arthur Nisly (43:37):
vision for the future or anything at all.
I think about Ezekiel 37 andthe word picture of dry bones
and how those dry bones become amighty army.
I think there's a lot of peoplesitting in church who aren't
very active in their openness todoing, to working, to accepting
(44:00):
opportunities for ministry.
All that stuff changes and mydream is to see dry bones become
a mighty army, and I don't knowof any church that says we have
too many people in ministry, wedon't know what to do with you.
Please just sit on the bench.
I don't know of any church likethat.
(44:22):
We all have lots of things thatmore people could be doing, and
so my dream, my vision, is Ineed to tell you this story I
used to be a missionary and thatwas just everything.
(44:43):
That was everything that I did.
Zack Johnson (44:44):
I feel like I need another podcast just to ask
about El Salvador.
But maybe another time, maybeanother time.
Yeah, here I am.
Arthur Nisly (44:53):
I've come back to the States, I've left my people.
I felt like my wife and mygiftings, that was just perfect.
And my giftings, that was justperfect.
And so here I was in the Statesa couple of years and I was
(45:17):
double-guessing myself because achurch in Pennsylvania asked me
to speak on mission, and so Iwas thinking through all that
stuff I was preparing for that,and I'm just kind of feeling
like, did I really hear Godright about staying here in the
States and helping men heal?
And right after that, before Iactually went to the missions
(45:40):
conference, I had one of the menthat I was working with, say
Arthur.
I contacted the missionorganization.
I wanted to do it before, but Iknew that I was in no shape to
be able to offer myself.
But now that I'm doing well, mywife and I are going to go to
(46:00):
the mission field and that wasjust a confirmation to me that
God is calling me.
I'm still a missionary, but Godis calling me to prepare men
that are dry bones to become amighty army.
Zack Johnson (46:21):
And then the other thing you mentioned, this goal
of having one person in everychurch.
At least one person in everychurch is there is a funny word,
that question is there a titleor something that you use in
your mind for that person?
Uh, like a, a certifiedaddictions counselor, or what's
(46:42):
the what's the goal?
Arthur Nisly (46:44):
if you could state it one more time Well, it's for
us to go as a people, to gofrom sweeping it under the rug,
ignoring the issue, or makingpeople do public confessions,
(47:07):
hoping that it will shame themenough that they'll stop.
It doesn't shame people enough,because this is a deeper issue.
But everybody learns that inthis church it's not safe to get
help.
So I don't know what the rightname is.
I don't know what the rightname is, but it's somebody that
(47:29):
my guys, as they get ready, aswe're starting to talk about
them graduating, I say I wantyou to one of these next Sundays
after church, when you're in aconversation with somebody, just
drop this bombshell, just sayyou know, I'm really glad that
(47:49):
I'm not struggling withpornography like I used to, and
I warned them there's going tobe a dead silence and then
you're going to say, oh, why didI do what Arthur told me to do?
And then the conversationresumes.
But very consistently, peoplewill come to you afterwards and
say, uh, tell me some more, Iwant help because you're
(48:12):
planning the seats for somebodyelse.
Yeah, to grab on that might bedealing with it and and one of
the things that I tell the menthat I'm, that I'm mentoring is
you need to, uh, you need tohelp other people get free.
That's part of your protectionto keep to, to not get sucked
(48:32):
back into the old ways of livinggreat.
Zack Johnson (48:36):
Well, we are just about approaching the the time
limit when our audience losestheir concentration and signs
off here.
But, arthur, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
And then we have a conferencetomorrow at Sattler.
It's called Therefore Go andwe're actually a student
arranged a lot of the conferencethis year for their capstone.
(48:57):
And what will you be talkingabout tomorrow at the conference
?
Arthur Nisly (49:00):
I'll be talking about equipping communities to
help people who experiencesexual addiction.
Zack Johnson (49:07):
Amen, and it's part of the commission, it is.
It's part of discipleship,that's right.
Yeah Well, thank you so much.
And if you're a Sattler person,go to our website.
I'll tell you what to do thereat Sattler.
Sounds good.
And then your website one moretime Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
You can find out more aboutyour work there.
(49:27):
That's right, all right, thankyou so much, arthur.
God bless you.
Arthur Nisly (49:30):
I'm glad to be with you yeah.
Zack Johnson (49:36):
1.
It is Friday, march 22nd 2024.
I'm here with Arthur Knisleyand, arthur, we don't have your
bio printed on our websitebecause you are one of our first
guests on the podcast.
That's not from Sattler, okay.
So I thought I could just openby asking you your story, sure,
how do asking you your story?
Sure?
How do you share your story?
(00:26):
Where are you from?
What are you about?
Are you married?
Do you have kids?
Arthur Nisly (00:30):
Whatever you want to include, Okay, I grew up in
Kansas, the South Central KansasHutchinson community.
From an early age, I just knewthat I wanted to be involved in
missions.
I didn't know what it wouldlook like, and then, in my early
(00:52):
20s, I went to Costa Rica fortwo and a half years and then,
while I was there, they asked meto come to El Salvador, where
they were recovering from allthe missionaries having left
because of the Civil War there.
I loved—I was a single pastorand I loved what I was doing and
(01:14):
so I just told the people I'mgoing home to get married and
I'm coming right back.
I married my childhoodsweetheart and it was about two
years later that we moved to ElSalvador and I worked there as
the mission director under AmishMennonite Aid, and my wife and
(01:39):
I loved it.
We thought we would be therethe rest of our lives, and so 30
years of living there, we lovedit.
We thought we would be therethe rest of our lives, and so 30
years of living there, we lovedit.
We thought that was a perfectfit.
And then, in 2016, we had tocome back to the States because
of my wife's health, and thatwas a jolt unexpected.
(02:00):
We didn't know what to do withthat.
And so I still remember the dayI was driving truck for my
brothers.
Here I am, I'm almost 60 yearsold.
I thought I was going to livethe rest of my life in El
Salvador and then, all of asudden, I'm transplanted back to
my home community and I'mtrying to figure out what to do.
(02:21):
I'm working for my brotherscommunity and I'm trying to
figure out what to do.
I'm working for my brothers,trying to figure out what to do
next.
And so I still remember thedate June 30, 2017.
I just, kind of out of the blue, said so what am I supposed to
do now?
And I just it wasn't an audiblevoice, but it was a clear sense
(02:41):
that God wants me to.
I want you to learn how to helppeople who are struggling with
addiction.
And I immediately knew thatmeant my people conservative
Anabaptists and that it meant asexual addiction.
And so you know, I would listensix, eight hours of audio per
(03:01):
day while I was driving, and Iwas just trying to figure out
what this looks like.
My constant question was willthis help my people?
And so there was a lot of.
You know, brain science is abig deal in sexual addiction
recovery.
(03:21):
And my question is always willthis help my people or will this
be something that is theory,that doesn't really make a
difference?
Fast forward to where do I learn?
Where do I take training?
Where do I get the step to divein and start?
(03:44):
And so I took some training andbefore I took the training, I
sent the guy an email and saidwould you be willing to teach me
?
I don't have a significantsexual addiction story.
And he said, sure, you can takethe training, but I don't think
(04:05):
anybody will listen to you.
And I said, okay, that's fine,but I feel like God is calling
me and I'm willing to take thatrisk.
And so that's what I did, andbasically he taught me about the
technology he uses and how hegoes about doing it.
He didn't help me very muchwith a curriculum, and so I, but
(04:35):
it felt safe.
I said, if people come to me,it's going to be slow and I'll
just keep working part-time formy brothers.
And yeah, that's what I thoughtwould happen.
But the first person came to mevia email and said, arthur,
would you walk with me?
That was 2019.
And then I got busier andbusier.
(04:58):
Word got around.
I think it was a God thing.
And then in 20, june, the 29th2021, was my last day of work
for my brothers.
So then on, I knew I could tellthat I was going to have enough
people that really wanted help,that I was going to be able to
(05:21):
do this full time.
I took the way of doing thisfor profit because I didn't
think.
I said why would we create anon-profit if we don't know if
this is going to fly?
And I've been amazed at the waythat people are coming to me.
(05:44):
This month of February, 10different people went to the
website and filled out the formand said can you help me?
What's your website?
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Okay, so it doesn't take verylong.
I have two different sides ofthe of the website.
(06:05):
One is I want to help otherpeople and the other is I need
help for myself, and I'll talkabout that later.
But but I have just been blownaway with the, with the number
of people who are just thislooks like a safe place.
It's not my home community, ormaybe it's because I don't know
anybody in my home communitythat I can trust, and so they
(06:28):
contact me and we have that freediscovery call and then we
figure out if this is somethingthat they want to do.
Sadly, there's a bunch ofpeople they have to wait.
I'm so busy that they have towait a couple of months, but
I've hired a man to help me withkeeping the people busy doing
(06:53):
valuable things during themonths that they're waiting for
me, and so I'm really excitedabout that.
And that sounded like a longbio.
Zack Johnson (07:03):
But anyway.
No, it's your story.
That sounds like a long bio,but anyway.
Arthur Nisly (07:05):
No, it's your story, it's my story, and I
don't think of myself as abusiness administrator, but I'm
having to learn how do you dothis?
Yesterday I was talking with Icall him my mutual mentor, we
spend time together once a month, and he just said Arthur, we
have got to figure out a way toscale this so that we can have
(07:25):
other people doing what you'redoing, because if you do the
math, we need dozens of peopledoing what I'm doing.
I also train people.
I teach them what I'm learning.
Twice a year, two groups of 10.
Twice a year, two groups of 10.
(07:51):
And they two Monday evenings amonth on Zoom.
We talk, I teach them what Iknow, what I've learned, we
discuss things.
These men become friends, and soI guess it was last year, in
March of last year, I wasfeeling this I've got to have a
way to get people to help me.
Most people expect to helppeople face-to-face, local, but
(08:25):
we need more people.
We need more people.
We need more people to not justdo local, and so the vast
majority of the people will betalking, helping people locally
in their local church orface-to-face encounters.
But the need is so huge forpeople to tell people from a
(08:45):
distance, and so I'm havingpeople sit in on my sessions,
these people who've gone throughthe mentor training I call them
prayer partners.
They sit in on my sessions andI tell them and they learn about
what I do, and it takes it fromtheory to practice.
And so we've been doing thatfor almost a year and I have
(09:09):
like 10 men that are sitting inon my sessions.
But we still haven't masteredthis last step, to go from
sitting in on sessions to daringto do what I'm doing.
And we have some ideas.
We're praying about this.
I think we're going to befiguring something out, but
(09:31):
that's where we're at right now.
I love what I'm doing becauseGod has given me an audience.
Some men are really stuck, butnot near all of them.
Some of them are strugglingless frequently and I get to
(09:53):
work with them and to figure outwhat's going on, what's
triggering them, and so I'mpracticing, I'm learning with
them and I've become veryconfident about what the primary
triggers are.
And so I'm practicing, I'mlearning with them and I've
become very confident about whatthe primary triggers are of the
kinds of people that come to me.
Zack Johnson (10:11):
So I'm really excited about that and the
people that want to help othersare going to be talking to
people like that.
Yeah, it's hard for me to keeptrack of all the questions I
have for you.
You mentioned a couple ofthings in your story that I want
(10:32):
to touch in on and maybe I'lljust ask some quick rapid fire
questions.
What are the general ages ofpeople you're working with?
Is it Good?
Arthur Nisly (10:42):
question.
I'm going to guess that 25 to35 is the biggest group.
I have a little bit moremarried men than single men.
I thought it would be the otherway around, but I'm going to
guess.
I have a couple 45-year-old menand lower 20s, but the middle I
(11:09):
think.
I'm guessing that 25 to 35would catch over half the people
that.
Zack Johnson (11:15):
I work with, so it's sort of the concentrated
ages young adult yes.
Arthur Nisly (11:22):
It's either people who would like to get married
but don't feel comfortablegetting getting married, taking
this into their marriage, or thepeople who are married and it
marriage didn't fix it like theythought it would, and so it can
(11:42):
be either way.
Zack Johnson (11:43):
And then, how do you?
How do you you find?
Do you market your business?
Do people find you?
Is it word of mouth?
What's the mechanism?
Arthur Nisly (11:52):
There's people who write me these emails and say
we can make your website morevisible, but there's no reason
to do that, because people Ihave more people than what I can
help right now and how do theyfind you?
I've gotten to speak in severalpublic, big public events and,
(12:15):
uh, and it's just word of mouth,I, I don't understand.
It's a god thing, I'm convinced.
But people go to the websiteand then there's this free
discovery call.
Okay, I have a couple oftestimonies there of people who
talk about their relationshipand working with me and, yeah, I
(12:41):
start working with two newpeople a month.
That needs to change, butthat's where I'm at, and so if I
have 10 people, if I dodiscovery calls with 10 people,
and probably 75 of the peoplesay this is what I want to do,
there's no sense in waiting.
They're willing to wait, eventhough they have to wait a
couple of months.
They just say I'm ready to dothis.
(13:05):
They're frustrated because theycan't get on top of it
themselves.
Zack Johnson (13:10):
Right, and then maybe I'll just ask a little bit
about.
This is a fascinating topic,but what's your method?
What do you talk about?
What have your method?
What do you talk about?
What have you found?
I'm guessing you train otherpeople.
What do you train them to do?
What does it typically looklike?
Arthur Nisly (13:35):
In December of 2021, I found the Freedom Fight.
Fight.
It's a series of 64 videos fiveto seven minute videos that
people watch if they're marriedand if they're not single.
It's four, six lessons.
I feel like it's the best thingI've found for people like us
(13:58):
Good stuff, bible-based, and soI'm confident I have them doing
that.
I use a coaching software whereI can assign homework
assignments and I see theirchecking in forms, I see their
(14:20):
crash reports, and so beforeeach session, I just kind of go
through stuff and I see wherethey're at.
But my current philosophy isthat I'm using the coach account
.
I'm using the Freedom Fight tocover basic teachings.
They do a better job than whatI could and my current
(14:40):
philosophy is I'm going tofollow the theme of emotional
pain, the things that triggerthem.
I'm going to follow that, we'regoing to talk about that and
we're going to teach them how togo to God with this stuff that
is overwhelming to them.
(15:01):
This stuff that is overwhelmingto them, and men, frankly, are
relieved to hear that someonebelieves that they don't want to
do these things.
They're used to having someonesay you just need to try harder,
(15:22):
you need to pray more goodstuff, but it's not working for
them.
And so when I say my experienceis that way over half of the
triggers for the men that I workwith is emotional stuff, and so
my goal is to help them learnhow to go from overwhelm,
(15:43):
rejection, loneliness, whateverit is.
I help them go from there towhere is God in all this?
What does God want me to know?
How am I supposed to handlethis?
And I say your problem is notthat you want to be known.
Your problem is that you areimmature and you haven't yet
learned that skill, that skillof knowing how to diffuse those
(16:11):
painful emotions.
They haven't yet learned how togo to God and say God, where
are you?
What do you want me to do?
What do you want me to know?
So that's the skill I teachthem.
And the exciting thing is thatwhen I can help someone deal
with their emotional junk, theintensity of their sexual
struggles drops dramaticallywhen you can help someone deal
(16:33):
with their emotional junk, theintensity of their sexual
struggles decreases dramatically.
Zack Johnson (16:39):
Yes, I very confidently say that give me
some examples of emotional junkso I can wrap my mind.
I am taking some guesses, butyeah, a big one is overwhelm.
Arthur Nisly (16:57):
The other thing that I teach is that there can
be multiple things that build ontop of each other.
So if you have had a fight withyour wife, finances aren't well,
you feel like you can't keep up, like other people are
expecting you to do stuff.
(17:17):
Just, there can be lots ofdifferent stuff that build on
top of each other and all of asudden, this person goes from
I'm handling life okay to justkind of gasping and saying get
me out of here.
And my experience is thatpeople very, very consistently,
(17:40):
because of past history, becausesexual release is pleasurable,
because we have an enemy I don'tunderstand all the reasons, but
it just feels like it's anatural thing that when I'm
overwhelmed, when I can't handleit, when I feel like I'm not
good enough, I'm bored.
(18:04):
People have gotten used to thedopamine rush of sexual release
and then, all of a sudden, I'mteaching them to stop and all of
a sudden, life is boring, andso that's another one that some
(18:25):
of my guys are dealing with.
Yeah, so those are some of theones that I think of right off
the top.
Zack Johnson (18:33):
That makes sense.
And then my string of questionsmight seem a little bit
unrelated here, but you dealmostly with men and not women.
And how do you defer women tosomebody else?
How do you think about that?
Arthur Nisly (18:53):
I work only with men, but this is my chance.
I'll just say that sexualaddiction among women is a
bigger issue than what we havethought, and the women who are
trapped feel shame, additionalshame, because women aren't
supposed to have this problem.
And so this is my opportunityto say women who struggle
(19:19):
they're not weird, they're humanand we need to help them.
On my website, under theresources section, I have a list
of women that are willing totalk to betrayed spouses Great,
and I wish I had a list of men,but I don't.
(19:41):
I'm still.
I don't know who to referpeople to when I'm when You're
over capacity, I'm over capacity.
Zack Johnson (19:54):
And so, and then I want to ask you something about
.
In your story I think I caughtunderstood right that a lot of
people look outside their owncommunity for help and as
opposed to within their owncommunity, and so do you see the
relationship that as a benefit,to be removed from somebody's
(20:17):
other circles of relationships,or is that?
Is that not a benefit whenyou're trying to help somebody
that wants to overcome theiraddiction?
Arthur Nisly (20:28):
Well, my first comment is that men who are
struggling, sensitive men whoare struggling, will go to their
church leaders, and the churchleaders do the best they can,
but they don't know what to do,and the tendency is to heap on
shame.
(20:50):
And if you heap on shame, otherpeople learn it's not safe to
get real, and so there arepeople who just say it's not
safe.
I can't think of anybody that Icould talk to and so they.
I think my model I'm kind ofshifting, but I think my model
(21:14):
is better because I don't takethem out of their current
environment.
There's other residentialprograms that I think are
(21:34):
probably the best thing for menwho have to have high walls
around them and to not be ableto be naughty.
But the men that come to mealmost all of them are able to
make significant progress andthey're glad to be able to talk
to someone, and they're alwayschecking me out after their
first big crash.
They're watching me to see ifI'm going to be judgmental, if
I'm going to be helpful, if I'mgoing to help them get back up
(21:55):
again, or whether I will shamethem like everyone else has.
And so I lost your question.
Zack Johnson (22:03):
Where were we?
It was more about the benefitof being outside community
versus inside community, andwhat I'm going to get at with
that is if you're over capacity,is it a benefit for communities
to train up their own people,and then should they be aiming
outside of their own?
Should it be community tocommunity or within community?
Arthur Nisly (22:26):
No, my stated goal is that in every conservative
Anabaptist church there be,everybody knows that if you're
struggling with this, that Jackis the person that you talk to
in our church and that peoplewill say I'm so glad he's
talking to Jack.
That's what I want.
(22:48):
And, and just to just for therecord, when men come to me
within two or three months, Iwant them to start to have
someone that they can talk to,someone that they can.
They can, uh, when I'mstruggling, they need to have
someone local that they can talkto, because I can't for 20
people I can't say call meanytime, day or night.
(23:08):
Yeah, I can't do that.
Zack Johnson (23:10):
So your goal is to train up local, Absolutely
Local helpers for local people.
Arthur Nisly (23:18):
And most of the 35 men that I've trained are doing
that local Great.
Zack Johnson (23:25):
And then I want to talk a couple of questions.
In your story you had thatmoment where you approached the
person doing the training andyou said I don't have this in my
past and they said peoplearen't going to listen to you.
I'm guessing.
What's been your experiencewith that?
Arthur Nisly (23:44):
Is it true to you?
I'm guessing what's been yourexperience with that?
My experience is the exactopposite that people assume that
if you don't have a story, youwant to stay away.
But God has given me a heartand whenever I see somebody for
the first time, I talk to themon the phone, because
(24:05):
face-to-face Zoom is scary.
But whenever I see somebody thefirst time, I just I can just
see who they're going to be oncethey're free and I'm just so.
I get so excited because I can.
I can see.
I feel like a granddad because Ihave these men who are getting
married and they're at a goodplace, they're useful in their
(24:29):
local churches, and so my goalis to have men the men that I
train for them to lead out intheir local churches, making it
safe to give help.
And my premise is that if men,if we have a basic framework
(24:53):
that helps us to understand whypeople act out in the first
place, that we can walk withthem and we can help them.
And it's the people that areharsh, are the people who don't
know what to do, the people whoare harsh just think well, he's
still struggling.
I've told him to pray more,I've told him this and it's just
(25:14):
kind of this feeling of well.
I just heard a story recentlyof someone who, when the church
leaders found out that he hadsome level of struggle, he's on
their radar now and they aresaying before communion, you
(25:36):
need to disclose how well you'redoing so we know whether to let
you partake of communion.
Zack Johnson (25:42):
That's the wrong way of using communion doing so
we know whether to let youpartake of communion.
That's the wrong way of usingcommunion.
Um, so coach me, coach methrough that.
Let's say that I'm in a men'ssmall group like a, a normal,
regular, um men's group thatmeets and somebody confesses as
a sexual sin.
(26:02):
Let's say to four people what,what do the other?
What should the other men do inthat group, on the spot that
somebody confesses because I've.
This is a really real, a reallyreal scenario where I think
there's like a there's a littlebit of awkwardness to know, do
it?
Do I pray for healing?
Do I say something?
(26:23):
Do I say nothing?
Do I give them a hug?
Uh, do I avoid it?
What?
Do I bring it up in communion?
Do I pull them aside and saymake sure to solve this before
taking in the part of the lord'ssupper?
Yeah, there's all sorts ofinteresting dynamics.
So what, what would you say topeople who experience this but
don't really know how tointeract or have okay?
Arthur Nisly (26:44):
so the question is um a group of four or five
people who are meeting locallyand one of them discloses I had
a bad crash, yeah I either oneway or another.
Zack Johnson (26:58):
I I sin sexually, okay, um, let's say either in
pornography and the thingsassociated with pornography.
And, yeah, what's the stepsthere?
Arthur Nisly (27:11):
The most helpful thing that we can do is to
understand where it's comingfrom.
My basic premise, and hereagain, you have to understand
the people that come to me arepeople who are broken, who are
distraught, who are saying Ihate this, this is not what I
want to do, so I'm I'm not.
(27:31):
I'm not saying that what myposition is is for everybody,
but because there are people whoare sneaky and who like their
lifestyle and don't want tochange.
So I'm not talking about that,but I'm talking about men who
are deeply grieved about whatthey're doing.
They don't want to do this andthey want to stop, but they feel
(27:54):
powerless to stop.
To those people, I think thebiggest thing that we can do is
to believe that they have goodintentions and to join them in
being curious about what's goingon.
And so I do two things.
When someone is crashing prettyregularly where did it happen?
(28:18):
Where did it happen?
How are you feeling at the time?
And we're trying to come upwith practical things that they
can do to stop the behavior.
But I'm not like a lot ofpeople who say praise, the Lord
Jack is living in victory forthree months now.
That's not where I'm at.
(28:40):
I say we live in victory.
We don't do that stuff so thatwe can get underneath to what's
really going on.
If you think about it, the manwho gets drunk is covering up
stuff.
His wife screamed at him, helost his job or whatever, and so
(29:05):
life is overwhelming and hegets drunk.
And so if we can help him tonot get drunk, what's going to
happen?
The stuff underneath is goingto come bubbling to the surface
and we'll be able to look at it,to work with it, and so my
model is the big reason to stopthe behavior.
(29:27):
It's sin, so we stop thebehavior.
But it's not just that's ourfinal destination.
It's to help us get underneathand to understand what are the
driving things underneath thatare driving it.
Zack Johnson (29:41):
So it's dig, dig into the person's life a little
is right, but.
Arthur Nisly (29:46):
But we're going to be able to get there if we can
help them stop the behavior, andso I do practical things to
help them stop, and then we do.
The second thing we do is tohelp them identify what's going
on inside and why they feelthose things.
A lot of men are not veryemotionally aware, and so I get
(30:07):
to walk with them, I model thatfor them, and then the third
step is to teach them how to.
I call it two-part journaling.
Often it's a letter to God I'mfeeling this.
(30:28):
I'm feeling this.
This is why I'm feeling it.
So where are you, god?
What am I supposed to do withthis?
What is the godly way to handlethis?
And learning to connect withGod and to get his perspective
is going to calm me down insignificant ways.
Plus, they learn to have apersonal relationship with God,
and that excites me.
So I get to help people.
(30:49):
Way over half of the men that Iwork with experience really
significant victory with.
They no longer go there becausethey know that it's not so much
that I'm a bad person, it'sjust that I didn't know how to
find freedom, and then theydevelop that relationship with
(31:10):
God.
That's what I get to see.
Zack Johnson (31:17):
That's what excites me.
I guess you, from what Iunderstand, you view or I think
I agree with this that peoplearen't.
It's hard to talk about thisstuff.
When you talk about it, you arenervous, you're afraid.
Arthur Nisly (31:35):
But I'm not nervous anymore.
Zack Johnson (31:38):
But so how do you, what are some of these barriers
that people have to approachyou, to approach anybody, and
how do you overcome some ofthese inhibitors to talking
about this?
Arthur Nisly (31:55):
See, I have the blessing of having done this for
a couple of years with a lot ofpeople and I very confidently
can tell them with a lot ofpeople and I very confidently
can tell them.
I often tell guys early on.
I say I don't think yourproblem is that you have too
many sexual hormones.
Your problem is that youhaven't yet learned how to go
from emotional overwhelm tocalming yourself down.
(32:18):
So when men hear that it givesthem hope I'm not this wicked
person, it's just that I haven'tlearned that skill and they
have hope they say, oh, it's agame changer to understand,
(32:43):
because before this they areasking themselves questions why
do I do the things that I hate?
That's a big question.
I claim to love God and I'm sureI'm never going to do it again,
but then I did it again andtheir self-confidence and their
(33:10):
understanding of what's going onjust goes out the window.
They just I don't know what'sgoing on.
And so I think people when theydo a first crash report,
they're kind of checking me outto see if I'm going to beat up
on them or if we're going todance around this.
(33:31):
If someone tells me I kind ofmessed up, I say I don't know
what that means.
I want to know what you did,how long you did it, how soon
you got up afterwards and theyjust know that and we very
quickly can get past the shameand we diagnose what's going on
(33:54):
and we'll try whatever to beable to help them.
So I don't know what it's liketo feel shame.
When they understand that I'mglad to be with them and that
(34:16):
I'm not putting them in a box,their way of looking at it
changes and they're glad to bewith me even though they have a
crash report.
Zack Johnson (34:22):
And you have a.
I'm guessing you've seentransformation in positive
testimonies.
Yeah, lots, there's hope.
Arthur Nisly (34:28):
Yeah, there's lots of hope.
Just yesterday I had a man.
We had my last meeting with him.
He's going to get marriedbefore too long and he and I
agreed together you're good togo.
It doesn't mean that I knowyou'll never crash again, but
you have the skills, you havethe understanding and you're
(34:51):
going to be able to keep growing, because that's what it is.
You keep growing.
If you had a crash because ofthis, okay.
So we learn, we grow, we closethat door, we're more careful to
stop the behavior, but we'realso looking at what's
(35:12):
underneath and what's causingthis, and I'm just really
excited about the chance I haveto work with men consistently.
We're discovering that dealingwith the emotional issues brings
(35:34):
the level of sexual temptationback to a manageable place where
people can get.
Sure, if there's provocativecontent, sure, I'm going to be
drawn there, but I can thinkclearly.
I say clear thinking.
Arthur can say why would I dothat?
That doesn't help me to get towhere I want to go.
No, thank you.
That's where we that's the kindof men that I help create.
Zack Johnson (35:59):
Amen, and then there's going to be switching
gears a little bit, and youmentioned something about the
decision between nonprofit andfor-profit.
Do you have a business modelthat allows you to support
yourself to do this work?
Yes, I charge a monthly fee Forthe people talking to you.
Yes, all right.
Yes, tell me about it.
(36:20):
I haven't heard about peoplepaying a monthly fee and I'm
really intrigued by this.
Arthur Nisly (36:29):
Well see I get to say that I am proving that
Anabaptists will pay somebody ifthey think they can help them,
and I'm proving that this is abusiness model that really does
work.
So I charge a monthly fee forthe weekly meeting and I charge
a monthly fee for the weeklymeeting and I charge a monthly
fee for the twice a month andthen downgrading to once a month
(36:51):
before they graduate.
Right now I'm working hard toimprove the mentor training and
I'm working with men who areprayer partners.
So I'm doing things that Ididn't used to do and the
finances are tight.
(37:13):
I have a lot of software as aservice expenses, I Zoom, and
many, many others that I use,tools that I use.
I think this is a model.
I'm really excited about itBecause I can train men and they
(37:37):
can watch me for a while andthen either my dream is them
working for me or one of the menthat I trained is in the
process of starting up um.
He made the decision that,because of his people group his,
his people is probably going tobe better for him to to do uh,
(37:57):
do it on his own um, but itreally is important for men to
have skin in the game.
I.
Other people may disagree withme, but for me to offer somebody
this isn't going to cost youanything.
I think it's wrong.
I think it keeps therelationship transparent when
(38:20):
he's paying and it's enough thathe's going to think twice about
just letting this drag on andon.
Zack Johnson (38:33):
And for people I guess for people considering
that it might be intrigued bythis as a way to make a living
do you think there's room forthe I hate to say that industry
it's not an industry, but isthere room for more people to
make careers out of this?
Arthur Nisly (38:51):
I'm convinced it is.
That's why I said we need adozen people doing what I'm
doing.
The model that I would reallylike to see is that men take the
training and maybe in their 50sor 60s, when they have learned
(39:13):
a lot, that they be able tooffer to mentor, like this, and
see where it goes.
What I did was I quit.
I went from four days a week tothree days to two days and then
I quit.
(39:33):
I don't think of it as abusiness, but that's what it is.
It's a way that I can pay myexpenses and I am.
It's more than once a week, acouple times a week, that I go
out to the kitchen and I tell Iwork from home.
(39:54):
I tell my wife you can'tbelieve what I just saw happen
and I get these opportunities tosee people having a live
encounter with God and havingthese aha moments and it's
(40:17):
wonderful.
I love what I'm doing.
Zack Johnson (40:19):
I get to see people change and yeah, yeah,
Well, I guess if you had youexplained your website that
there's a place to go if youwant to help people, a place to
go for people who need help,would you have any sort of
general next actions for thosetwo categories of people to
(40:41):
share with on you, sure?
Arthur Nisly (40:48):
Yeah, if you want to get help for yourself, just
there's the two categories andthen click on free discovery
call.
Listen to the coupletestimonies there.
I think it's four different menwho share their testimony about
life transformation and thenthere's a schedule, a free
(41:11):
discovery call, and so they'lldo that.
We'll get the email, we'llreach out to them, I'll give
them a scheduling link and theycan look at the options and they
can schedule a time to talk tome.
It's 45 minutes and they tellme their story and I tell them
(41:35):
whether I think I can help themand then they get to decide.
I don't have any problem withpeople saying I want to talk to
my wife, I'll get back to you.
That's perfectly fine, becausethey know what I offer.
They know how long they'regoing to have to wait.
So that's that part, yep.
(41:58):
The other is help others.
That's that part of the website.
That's that part of the website.
Very quickly you'll get to alink that describes in detail
what I offer.
And, just for the record, I amthe May group.
(42:19):
I have seven people out of theten.
As soon as I expect, before theend of this month, there's
another publicity event the endof this month.
I'm afraid that it's going tofill up and then I'll have a
group in September.
But basically there on that, Idescribe everything.
If you want to ask questions,you could reach out to me and
(42:42):
I'd answer your questions.
But those are the next steps.
Zack Johnson (42:48):
Okay, great, and then I'll leave it with some
open-ended questions here.
But do you have anything elseyou would like to talk about or
share, about your burden forGod's people or your vision for
the future, or anything at all?
Arthur Nisly (43:37):
vision for the future or anything at all.
I think about Ezekiel 37 andthe word picture of dry bones
and how those dry bones become amighty army.
I think there's a lot of peoplesitting in church who aren't
very active in their openness todoing, to working, to accepting
(44:00):
opportunities for ministry.
All that stuff changes and mydream is to see dry bones become
a mighty army, and I don't knowof any church that says we have
too many people in ministry, wedon't know what to do with you.
Please just sit on the bench.
I don't know of any church likethat.
(44:22):
We all have lots of things thatmore people could be doing, and
so my dream, my vision, is Ineed to tell you this story I
used to be a missionary and thatwas just everything.
(44:43):
That was everything that I did.
Zack Johnson (44:44):
I feel like I need another podcast just to ask
about El Salvador.
But maybe another time, maybeanother time.
Yeah, here I am.
Arthur Nisly (44:53):
I've come back to the States, I've left my people.
I felt like my wife and mygiftings, that was just perfect.
And my giftings, that was justperfect.
And so here I was in the Statesa couple of years and I was
(45:17):
double-guessing myself because achurch in Pennsylvania asked me
to speak on mission, and so Iwas thinking through all that
stuff I was preparing for that,and I'm just kind of feeling
like, did I really hear Godright about staying here in the
States and helping men heal?
And right after that, before Iactually went to the missions
(45:40):
conference, I had one of the menthat I was working with, say
Arthur.
I contacted the missionorganization.
I wanted to do it before, but Iknew that I was in no shape to
be able to offer myself.
But now that I'm doing well, mywife and I are going to go to
(46:00):
the mission field and that wasjust a confirmation to me that
God is calling me.
I'm still a missionary, but Godis calling me to prepare men
that are dry bones to become amighty army.
Zack Johnson (46:21):
And then the other thing you mentioned, this goal
of having one person in everychurch.
At least one person in everychurch is there is a funny word,
that question is there a titleor something that you use in
your mind for that person?
Uh, like a, a certifiedaddictions counselor, or what's
(46:42):
the what's the goal?
Arthur Nisly (46:44):
if you could state it one more time Well, it's for
us to go as a people, to gofrom sweeping it under the rug,
ignoring the issue, or makingpeople do public confessions,
(47:07):
hoping that it will shame themenough that they'll stop.
It doesn't shame people enough,because this is a deeper issue.
But everybody learns that inthis church it's not safe to get
help.
So I don't know what the rightname is.
I don't know what the rightname is, but it's somebody that
(47:29):
my guys, as they get ready, aswe're starting to talk about
them graduating, I say I wantyou to one of these next Sundays
after church, when you're in aconversation with somebody, just
drop this bombshell, just sayyou know, I'm really glad that
(47:49):
I'm not struggling withpornography like I used to, and
I warned them there's going tobe a dead silence and then
you're going to say, oh, why didI do what Arthur told me to do?
And then the conversationresumes.
But very consistently, peoplewill come to you afterwards and
say, uh, tell me some more, Iwant help because you're
(48:12):
planning the seats for somebodyelse.
Yeah, to grab on that might bedealing with it and and one of
the things that I tell the menthat I'm, that I'm mentoring is
you need to, uh, you need tohelp other people get free.
That's part of your protectionto keep to, to not get sucked
(48:32):
back into the old ways of livinggreat.
Zack Johnson (48:36):
Well, we are just about approaching the the time
limit when our audience losestheir concentration and signs
off here.
But, arthur, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
And then we have a conferencetomorrow at Sattler.
It's called Therefore Go andwe're actually a student
arranged a lot of the conferencethis year for their capstone.
(48:57):
And what will you be talkingabout tomorrow at the conference
?
Arthur Nisly (49:00):
I'll be talking about equipping communities to
help people who experiencesexual addiction.
Zack Johnson (49:07):
Amen, and it's part of the commission, it is.
It's part of discipleship,that's right.
Yeah Well, thank you so much.
And if you're a Sattler person,go to our website.
I'll tell you what to do thereat Sattler.
Sounds good.
And then your website one moretime Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
Hopejourneyguidecom.
You can find out more aboutyour work there.
(49:27):
That's right, all right, thankyou so much, arthur.
God bless you.
Arthur Nisly (49:30):
I'm glad to be with you yeah.
Zack Johnson (49:36):
1.
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