Most people credit David Wilkerson for founding Teen Challenge. That's half the story. His brother Don answered a phone call and built the thing from the inside.
The co-founder of Teen Challenge told me getting clean and being transformed are two different things. He's right. Sobriety is the starting line, not the finish.
Not every person who walks through your door belongs in your program. The most Christ-like thing a recovery ministry can do is connect families to the help that actually fits.
We think repentance is about convincing God to stop being angry with us. It's not. He's running down the road to meet us before we even get the apology out.
God saw you when no one else did. He didn't wait until you cleaned yourself up. He found you in the field and spoke life over you
My three-year-old doesn't ask to watch Inside Out. She asks to watch Joy.
Has worrying ever made your life better? Has anxiety ever solved a single problem? I can examine a small issue from 1,752 angles and turn it into a full-blown crisis by Tuesday.
Twenty years of overdose calls, unanswered prayers, and friends who disappeared taught me the real cost of calling. Nobody puts that part in the brochure.
Ministry transition forced us to confront a hard question: are we honoring what God did, or camping out at a memorial stone and missing what He's doing next?
Rocco spent 17 years in addiction. He built 3.5 years of recovery, lost it in 30 days, then found his way back.
The dream becoming a nightmare doesn't mean God is done. It doesn't mean he forgot. It doesn't mean you heard wrong. Sometimes the nightmare is the setup for the envelope.
When someone you love is drowning in addiction, your first instinct is to jump in after them. But here's what nobody tells you: you can drown trying to save someone. After 20 years in recovery ministry, I've learned that empathy means "I understand," not "I'll fix it." You can love someone deeply without losing yourself in the process.
80% of the calls we received at our residential program came from families, not the person struggling. So we rebuilt everything around that truth. Here's what's new at SVTC.info and JustinFranich.com.
Sometimes the phrases we reach for feel thin. Not false... just thin. This is what it sounds like to believe God has a plan and still sit in the ache of timing, loss, and questions that don't resolve.
If you're searching for peace at 2am, you're not alone. The answer might not be trying harder or faking it better. It might be laying something down.
The father wasn't waiting at the end of the driveway with his arms crossed. He was running down the road before the apology was finished. The robe is waiting. So is the ring. So are the sandals.
You're white-knuckling something right now. Something that's already wilting in your grip. What if the thing you're afraid to lose isn't worth keeping anyway?
The prodigal who's been gone for years. The addiction that won't break. The marriage that feels beyond repair. Is his arm too short? Pray like you believe it isn't.
Over two decades after its founding, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge is transitioning from residential programming back to a community-based recovery model rooted in its original mission.
Aaron Gordon grew up in Washington, DC when it was known as the murder capital of the world, and he wasn't "supposed" to make it. Instead, he defied every expectation, graduated from West Point, and built a military career. At 54, he's still discovering the layers of identity and purpose God placed in him.
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