July/August 2014 – Christian ministry digs deep to help troubled teens, anxious parents
Getting to the heart of the matter is what founder Mark Gregston and his team at Heartlight Ministries do for troubled teens from all across the country. 

Gregston told AFA Journal, “Heartlight is a residential counseling center for struggling teens, a place of help and hope for parents, and a respite that is intended to move kids toward biblical principles and values that will hopefully save their lives in the process.”

Heartlight Ministries was established in 1988 by Gregston and his wife Jan. After working as youth ministers in Oklahoma and later with Young Life, the couple opened their home to teens who were struggling through family crises. This spurred them to start a residential program that helps teens escape a destructive lifestyle in a context that involves the entire family. So 26 years ago, the Gregstons bought property in East Texas, formed a non-profit, and began taking in troubled teens and leading them through a five-level program aimed at creating strong bonds and relationships with their parents and families. 

“We started with eight kids, and now we have had over 2,600 kids live with us,” Gregston said. 

Adolescents who participate in the 9- to 12-month program live in homey log cabins with in-house staff members on a beautiful 150-acre campus. Participants are provided with biblical counseling, mentoring, group therapy, academic opportunities, and indoor and outdoor activities, all with a spiritual emphasis in a loving relational setting. 

The gospel and relationships
Participants are not force-fed the gospel, but the gospel is at the core of Heartlight Ministries and shapes the relationships between the staff and the teens. Without the gospel, true healing and restoration could not take place. 

“The gospel brings hope, but it also commands each one of us to love in a way that only God can love, in that it gives us an ability through His Spirit to love unconditionally,” Gregston explained. 

“We are able to take the gospel and present it in such a way that it’s not just words but it’s actions – living with somebody one on one where they actually get to see the gospel of Christ being fleshed out in the life of somebody else,” he added. “Our kids get a taste of the character of God through relationships while they’re here.”

For example, Gregston and his wife live next door to the ministry’s property. He does not spend as much time counseling participants as he does interacting with them and talking with them one on one as they struggle through certain situations. Whether it’s inviting a group of girls over for dinner and a movie, sitting around and shooting guns with a group of guys or water skiing all together, the purpose is to build authentic relationships. 

“I think most kids probably spend the majority of their time in the shallow end of the relationship pool,” Gregston said. “By doing so, they never get to experience what it’s like to have a relationship [with others] or a relationship with Christ Himself.”

Gregston believes quality relationships are key to the overall wellbeing and change of the adolescent and his family. 

“Most kids in their desperation don’t really realize the trouble they are in until they get away from it and actually see that they do need a change,” he explained.

“We are all sinful, … [but] our relationships can all be restored,” Gregston added. “That’s why God came – to redeem us, to restore us and to bring us back into a right relationship with Him.” 

The culture and the heart
In fact, Gregston said that the most compelling aspect of Heartlight Ministries is that they work with teens who are no different than typical church kids.

They come from wonderful backgrounds and have great parents. They have grown up in the church pews, attending worship services and knowing Scripture like the back of their hands. They even resemble a typical youth group from any church around the U.S. Yet, too often churchgoers dismiss the fact that children can grow up in church and still be lost.

“I don’t think these kids are any worse than anybody else,” he said. Rather, they are lost, and the culture has overwhelmed them “like a tsunami wave of influence.”

 They start to spin out of control and make poor decisions as they grapple with worldly influences.

“So is it sin?” Gregston asked. “Yes, there is no question. Are there others things going on? Oh, absolutely. 

“But the tendency is to look at their behavior,” he said. “The behavior that we see is merely a symptom of something else that’s really going on in their lives. So we get to the heart issues.” 

Heartlight Ministries seeks to examine the motivation behind a troubled teen’s behavior and identify the disconnection between what he believes and how he is engaging in the world.

“I really believe you can raise kids to live in the zoo, or you can train them on how to survive in the jungle,” Gregston said. “What I’ve seen through the years is that kids need to be trained in the jungle because that’s where they are going to be living if they’re going to be light in the darkness.”

The help and the need

Therefore, Gregston spends a lot of his time helping parents, conducting family-in-crisis conferences and speaking to churches. His aim is to prevent rather than recruit. 

He seeks to help parents who struggle to transition from teaching their children to training their children. Parents are quick to please, protect and provide for their children. But Gregston believes they often fail to prepare them for adulthood during the adolescent years. 

“The first 12 years ought to be spent imparting information,” he explained. “Adolescent years need to be spent imparting wisdom. This is where the Christian life is caught more than taught … because wisdom is always transferred through observation, that which I see; reflection, that which I think about; and experience, that which I do.”

Gregston concluded with this appeal to teens and their families: “Our mission is to help families. Our purpose is to love you and help you sort through things and help you get to a better spot.

“So we need voices out there that are telling people there is help, there is hope, there is a way that you could change the way you live and change your family.”  

Gregston on American Family Radio
In addition to speaking to parents and conducting conferences, Heartlight founder Mark Gregston is the author of several books and resources aimed at caring for teens. He writes a weekly email newsletter and is the host of Parenting Today’s Teens, a radio program heard on over 2,500 outlets, including American Family Radio. His program airs every Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on AFR.

Heartlight Ministries
P. O. Box 286
Hallsville, TX 75650
903-668-2173
heartlightministries.org