Craig Groeschel is creating some controversy. His church created a website (mysecret.tv) that caught the attention of the NY Times, Intimate Confessions Pour Out on Church’s Web Site. The article begins:
On a Web site called mysecret.tv, there is the writer who was molested years ago by her baby sitter and who still cannot forgive herself for failing to protect her younger siblings from the same abuse. There is the happy father, businessman and churchgoer who is having a sexual relationship with another man in his church. There is the young woman who shot an abusive boyfriend when she was high on methamphetamine.Then there is this entry: “Years ago I asked my father, ‘How does a daddy justify selling his little girl?’ He replied, ‘I needed to pay the rent, put food on the table and I liked having a few coins to jangle in my pocket.’ ”
Mark Driscoll had his Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church. Now Groeschel promises to take it one step further, with the Fall release of Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God . MySecrets.tv seems to be a prelude to Groeschels own book of confessions. The chapters of the book carry titles such as I Can’t Stand a Lot of Christians, I Hate Prayer Meetings, I’m Afraid of Failing and Most of the Time I Feel Incredibly Lonely. The book description states:
The Dark Side of a Pastor's Life – A Breath of Fresh Air Are you tired of pretending? Living walled up? Going only skin deep? Craig Groeschel , pastor of the thriving LifeChurch.tv, sure was. And in his refreshingly raw and real book, he comes clean. Not that he has anything other than typical, human stuff to confess. Check out a few of his musings: I have to work hard to stay sexually pure, I hate prayer meetings, sometimes I doubt God , and I can't stand a lot of Christians . Through his incredible honesty, he opens the door for you to follow suit. Are you ready to dig deep and let God shine through the genuine you? No more living just to please others. No more hiding. You can be who God called you to be. You can live for an audience of One.
Yet, there is some backlash amongst Catholics who feel Protestants aren't holding confession in a high regard. "This is no substitute for the sacrament of Confession. Why did Protestants abolish Confession, anyway," writes Wilfred at titusonenine.classicalanglican.net.
More of confessions: One of the most famous confessional sites is a secular site, called Postsecret. Donald Miller has a great story of using a confessional booth in Blue Like Jazz.
