{"id":1799,"date":"2022-04-22T17:40:57","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T22:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/?p=1799"},"modified":"2022-04-22T17:41:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T22:41:02","slug":"former-porn-star-finds-jesus-during-easter-service-now-hes-a-pastor-that-moment-changed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/22\/former-porn-star-finds-jesus-during-easter-service-now-hes-a-pastor-that-moment-changed-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Porn Star Finds Jesus During Easter Service; Now He’s a Pastor: ‘That Moment Changed My Life’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This story just moves me!\u00a0 There are many more like it…and many more to come!<\/p>\n

May the whole world know that Jesus is LORD!<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"When Joshua Broome was a young man interested in acting, he moved to Los Angeles and got caught in a trap that many have fallen into.<\/p>\n

Struggling with bills and only able to land an occasional modeling gig or low-budget film part, his interest was piqued when customers at a restaurant where he was working told him to try acting in pornography<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He met with an agent, was promised he would be famous<\/a>, and was sold \u201ca counterfeit version\u201d of the life he\u2019d been dreaming of living.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy lack of belief in myself caused me to think, \u2018Man, maybe this is as close as I\u2019m going to get,\u2019\u201d Broome said, according to Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At first he told himself he\u2019d do one film, take the money, and run \u2014 but he eventually gained the stage name Rocco Reed, appeared in over 1,000 movies and earned more than $1 million.<\/p>\n

He was nominated for awards. He traveled constantly. He made money. But it was unfulfilling, and bit by bit he felt like he didn\u2019t know himself anymore.<\/p>\n

He was depressed and isolated<\/a>, and he didn\u2019t know where to turn.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoshua didn\u2019t exist,\u201d said Broome, 39. \u201cEveryone knew me by my stage name because that\u2019s who I had become.\u201d<\/p>\n

His life turned around in 2013 because of one simple interaction with a bank teller who used his real name and asked if there was anything else they could do to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost it,\u201d Broome told Fox News. \u201cI lost it because [hearing] my name shattered my numbness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same day, he quit porn. He packed a suitcase and left California. He moved back in with his mom in South Carolina and started focusing on a new career in personal training.<\/p>\n

After two years of hard work and dedication to his new craft, he was a general manager at a gym<\/a>, and he met a woman named Hope.<\/p>\n

She changed everything, too.<\/p>\n

While running, he confided in her and told her all about his past, knowing that it might scare her off \u2014 as it had many others \u2014 but Hope was different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018I just don\u2019t want to hurt this person. I\u2019m just going to tell her the truth, and I\u2019m sure she\u2019s going to want to have nothing to do with me,’\u201d he recalled thinking.<\/p>\n

She was shocked, but she didn\u2019t drop him. She told him that people aren\u2019t defined by the best or worst things they\u2019ve done, but by God: \u201cGod defines who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to another vulnerable conversation in which Broome acknowledged he didn\u2019t have much faith. When she asked him about it, he was honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just like, \u2018I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know the answer,’\u201d Broome said.<\/p>\n

They kept talking. They met up and talked more. Hope invited him to an Easter<\/a> church service, and on Easter 2015, Broome was introduced to the gospel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment changed my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI was able to relinquish not just the shame and the guilt from porn, but the shame and the guilt from feeling like I wasn\u2019t good enough my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given his personal experience with the porn industry, Broome is uniquely qualified to warn of the dangers it presents, which he does on his social media platforms and a podcast titled \u201cCounterfeit Culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is: Porn is detrimental to you,\u201d he said on an episode of his podcast, according to a 2021 article in the Christian Post<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s detrimental to the people you love most.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happens is: People create these false expectations of intimacy [and] relationships. What a woman should look like, what a woman should do \u2026 because they\u2019re learning this from a fictitious representation of engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, after years of healing, walking with Christ, studying ministry and theology, marrying Hope and raising three sons, Broome is a pastor<\/a> with Good News Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.<\/p>\n

He regularly travels to speak about his experiences and the redemption and fulfillment that Christ offers, eager to lead people away from shame and toward God\u2019s forgiveness and goodness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that trauma and pain and mistakes may entangle you,\u201d Broome said, according to Fox News. \u201cThey hold you back from the life that God designed you to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be the person to help untangle that web.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Former Porn Star Finds Jesus During Easter Service; Now He’s a Pastor: ‘That Moment Changed My Life’<\/a> appeared first on The Western Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This content was originally published here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story just moves me!\u00a0 There are many more like it…and many more to come! May the whole world know that Jesus is LORD! When Joshua Broome was a young man interested in acting, he moved to Los Angeles and got caught in a trap that many have fallen into. Struggling with bills and only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kHU7-t1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Untitled-design-2022-04-15T121531.583.jpg?fit=1200%2C630","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1803,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions\/1803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}