Needed Navigation: A Teen's Guide to His or Her Identity in Christ in a Sex & Porn-Filled World

By Noah Filipiak

Teens are being bombarded with porn and sex everywhere they turn. 93% of boys and 62% of girls first see porn before they turn 18. With smartphones everywhere, this is no surprise. What is a surprise is how little the church talks about porn and when they do, how unhelpful it often is. 

Messages of "stop it" and "it's bad" heap on shame and fail to get to the root of the issue. Needed Navigation is a hope and grace-based approach for teens looking to navigate these difficult issues. Whether you're caught deep in the addiction, or you want to make sure you never are, this guide is for you. It's also for teens who want to be a safe person for their friends to come to for help. 

Author and Pastor Noah Filipiak shares from his own struggle with pornography as a teen and an adult, modeling the grace and vulnerability every teen needs to find freedom from these sins that can master the best of us.

Needed Navigation goes deeper than surface-level symptoms and offers a guide to every teen guy and girl's identity in Christ. It looks at the desires beneath our desires and how only the love of Jesus can truly satisfy us and change our hearts.

 

Small group questions are included inside the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beyond Books
• Release date: Mar 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224526314

Noah Filipiak

Noah Filipiak, the founding pastor of Crossroads Church in downtown Lansing, Michigan, is a graduate of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Jennifer, have 3 young daughters. Noah grew up as part of the original "Internet Generation" and is passionate about seeing men become whole in Christ in a world full of false promises. He also hosts the "Behind the Curtain" Ministry Podcast and blogs at atacrossroads.net. Connect with Noah on Twitter and Facebook @noahfilipiak.  

Book preview

Needed Navigation

Text copyright © 2024 Noah Filipiak

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means–electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other–except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.

Cover design: Zane Ogle

NEEDED NAVIGATION

A TEEN’S GUIDE TO HIS OR HER IDENTITY IN CHRIST IN A SEX & PORN-FILLED WORLD

NOAH FILIPIAK

Beyond Publishing

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to say a huge thank you to Ryan Wong and Matt Bushart for being incredible editors of this book. You made it so much better! Also tons of gratitude for Maverick, Sky, and Asher for being fantastic teen beta readers and giving great feedback. And thank you to Crystal Renaud Day for writing the foreword and for all the amazing work you’re doing to help women be free from porn and unwanted sexual behavior.

CONTENTS

Foreword

About this Book

1. A Teen Who Loved Jesus But Couldn’t Stop Looking at Porn

Small Group Discussion Questions

2. What’s the Problem with Porn?

Small Group Discussion Questions

3. God’s Better Plan

Small Group Discussion Questions

4. Filling That Emptiness

Small Group Discussion Questions

5. How to Stop Looking at Porn

Small Group Discussion Questions

6. Navigating Purity Culture

Small Group Discussion Questions

Further Resources

Notes

FOREWORD

I was exposed to pornography—a hardcore, pornographic magazine—at the age of 10 years old. Home alone one afternoon after school, I was confronted by a magazine neglectfully left out on the sink in my older brother’s bathroom. And he was only 15! That one moment—just a few pages—took me on a nearly ten-year struggle with pornography and compulsive masturbation. While most of you who picked up this book may have been exposed to porn differently (e.g. social media, gaming, websites), let me just say regardless how, the result is probably the same.

Oh, and did I mention yet that I am female?

My entire existence as a teenage girl was spent living with a secret addiction that filled me with tremendous shame. Plus, I believed I was the only one. When I was in the throes of my addiction, there were literally no resources available for women or girls facing a porn problem (in fact it would be a decade before there would be and I was the one who wrote it!). It wasn’t until I was nearly 20 years old that I discovered other females consumed porn, too. That was when I met another woman who shared her story with me and supported me on a path of healing. Long before then, I could only have dreamt of finding a resource like Needed Navigation to show me there was hope. Hope not only for freedom and wholeness, but hope also that I wasn’t so debilitatingly alone.

Fast forward, I don’t woulda-coulda-shoulda. Of course I wish I had never contributed to someone else’s abuse (as pornography is a form of human sex trafficking). However, I spent too much time living in shame to continue feeling bad about my past. Especially since God has redeemed my story again and again as I have been working professionally in the area of female pornography addiction for over fifteen years. Using my story to help other women be set free from pornography through my ministry SheRecovery has been the single greatest gift of my life.

I had the pleasure of meeting Noah Filipiak when he invited me on his show, The Flip Side Podcast, to discuss female pornography addiction and to share my own story. What sets Noah apart from most men in this work is his desire to bring women and teen girls into the conversation of pornography use and recovery. That shouldn’t be a rare quality! Noah understands that pornography doesn’t discriminate between male and female. God created each of us, male and female, in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and in doing so He made both genders with sexual desire. To be sexual is to be human, and to be human is to struggle.

Noah also knows what it is like to be a teenager struggling with pornography. Like me, he has been where many of you have been. Noah found freedom from pornography… and so did I. If we can do it… so can you! But none of us can do it alone. I encourage you to read Noah's words with a readiness in your spirit to lean into the good work God is already doing in you and with an openness to confess and be accountable to do the next right thing in front of you. You have everything to gain, and nothing to lose (except hopefully the porn!).

Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me with love and tender mercies. He fills my life with good things. My youth is renewed like the eagle’s! Psalm 103:2-5 NLT

Crystal Renaud Day, MA

CEO & Founder, Living on Purpose / SheRecovery

www.sherecovery.com

ABOUT THIS BOOK

I wrote a book for men called Beyond the Battle: A Man’s Guide to His Identity in Christ in an Oversexualized World. ¹ The aim of Beyond the Battle is to help men see that what they are looking for from porn, sex, and women can only be found in the love of Jesus. The book can certainly be read by women as well, but it targets some hang-ups that are unique challenges to most men.

As I’ve had opportunities to speak at churches about sex and pornography, I’m often asked for a resource I’d recommend for teens. While I’m sure there are some great resources out there, I wanted to provide my own that follows the path of Beyond the Battle. This is a path that goes beyond surface-level solutions and gets to the root. It’s a path that examines what’s beneath our desires for sexual sin and how God wants us to get those desires met in healthy ways, at any stage of life.

And seeing as my struggle with pornography started when I was a teenager, and I suffered through the entirety of my teenage years without anyone talking