[...]youth pastor, was downloading a inappropriate contentographic video on his computer at work when he had to leave it to go to the weekly pastoral staff prayer meeting.
While he was gone, his administrative assistant went into Ulven's office to use the computer and was shocked by what he saw.
The assistant, who had been on the job for only a couple of weeks, didn't confront Ulven, but did tell the Rev. Mark Krieger, Modesto Covenant's senior pastor.
A day or two later, when he was called into Krieger's office, Ulven downplayed the incident. After all, even his wife had caught just a glimpse of his secret life over the past 15 years, and the lies went deep.
The Covenant denomination put Ulven under "discipline" and took away his pastoral license. They said the family should attend a different church to protect those hurt by his addiction, a consequence that deeply affected Ulven's wife and children.
Local church leaders agreed on a plan:
They would pay for an intensive four-day workshop in Tennessee on sexual addictions for the Ulvens and for counseling beyond that. They agreed to continue to pay Ulven's salary for three months.
Ulven said it was an offer full of grace, one he knew he didn't deserve.
"For the first time, I felt like this was a God thing, that getting caught was something God had initiated," Ulven said.
After the year, his church-sanctioned discipline was removed. He moved with his family to the Chicago area to enroll in North Park Seminary to complete his divinity degree.
The denomination allowed him to regain his pastoral license, Ulven said, because he never crossed the line into sexual abuse. "I never had touched anyone inappropriately or treated anyone inappropriately. If so, they would have still had me under discipline."
Addiction to inappropriate contentography created a barrier between Ulven and God. "I felt much shame," he said. "It's this weird irony that what we all want on our deepest level is to be loved and accepted just as we are. God offers that. But I didn't get that, and I turned to inappropriate contentography to feel better about myself by the acceptance of these fantasy women. It was driving a wedge between God and myself. It's strange that we take something good from God, sex, and twist it to make it something bad."
Ulven finished his seminary education in 2009 and signed on again with the Navy, this time as a chaplain. He's living in Maryland and stationed at a Coast Guard facility.
His experiences have helped him advise others who have come to him, troubled with sexual addictions. Ulven urges them to join an accountability group, which he called "the key to my recovery. You have to talk to other males about it."
He likes a Bible verse from I John: "It talks about walking in the light. It doesn't mean walking perfectly without ever stumbling. It means shining the light on the darkest part of our hearts.
"To me, that means if we are going to be pure as Christian men, we have to be able to admit everything. For the first 15 years of my addiction, I tried to overcome it without shining a light in that darkness. I prayed for years for God to instantly deliver me. He does that sometimes, but he didn't do it with me. He did it when I was willing to admit everything and walk in the light."
Like a recovering alcoholic, Ulven said, "I will always be a recovering sex addict.
"There are boundaries that I now need to set to keep myself sober (such as) accountability with other men. Another key tool for my recovery is on every computer I use, is a program called Covenant Eyes, accountability software that keeps track of all the sites you go to. Anything it flags, it sends to my accountability partner."
Don't quit working for God just because you've had problems, he said.~
Web Of inappropriate content: Ex-Modesto Pastor Makes Admission
