# Article about Skip Ryan



## MarieP (Feb 24, 2012)

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I guess this one is good!

A recovering drug addict finds his way back to Park Cities pulpit | Steve Blow Columns - News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News

I am glad the Lord has seen fit to bring this brother to repentance and restore him to usefulness!


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## he beholds (Feb 24, 2012)

Can't read it without being a subscriber : (


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## MarieP (Feb 24, 2012)

Wow, they closed it up since I posted!

Here is his testimony from several years ago: Skip Ryan Testimony | Denny Burk

And here is the blog post from this morning- it quotes part of the article: Recovering Drug Addict Finds His Way Back to Pulpit | Denny Burk


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## yoyoceramic (Feb 24, 2012)

When a drug addict gets rehired by his old employer, that’s a great story of recovery.
When that drug addict is a minister and is rehired by his old church, that’s a living sermon.
“It’s a story of rescue and redemption,” said the Rev. Skip Ryan, former senior pastor of Park Cities Presbyterian Church.
On Sunday, it was announced to the congregation that Ryan is returning to the church staff as an assistant pastor.
Ryan, 64, abruptly resigned from the church in 2006. The story was that he had health problems. But news accounts quickly gave the full explanation. He was an opiate addict, hooked on prescription pain medicines.
Percocet, hydrocodone, OxyContin — Ryan took them all while presiding over the booming church. “I was hiding so much. My life was a sham,” he told me this week.
Outwardly, Ryan seemed a model of success. Park Cities Presbyterian was formed in 1991 as a more conservative offshoot of Highland Park Presbyterian. Ryan was called to be the new church’s first senior minister.
And in just a few years, the church had grown from 1,000 to 5,000 and had purchased the former Highland Baptist Church facilities on Oak Lawn Avenue.
But inwardly, Ryan said, he felt less and less capable and ever more burdened by all his responsibilities. One day in 2002, he was suffering from a pounding headache. Instead of the usual remedies, he took some leftover pain pills.
“Alarm bells should have gone off in my head, but they didn’t,” he said. And at first, the painkillers were great, seeming to cure all that ailed him. “The pills helped with more than one kind of pain,” he said.
But before he knew it, he was addicted — lying and conniving to keep the supply coming. And his dual life led to even more pain than he had felt before.
In 2006, he was attending a four-day conference that happened to be at a recovery center. There, a counselor asked a seemingly innocent question about the God that Ryan served. He began a theological answer, but the counselor rejected it.
“He saw something in me. And he said, ‘No, your god is drugs,’” Ryan recalled. “When he said that, I felt like the Lord was putting a sword through my heart.”
His recovery began on the spot. “I went there for four days and stayed for seven weeks,” he said.
Back in Dallas, his church and a wide circle of admirers were stunned to hear that he was resigning. In the following days, they were even more shocked to learn why.
Ryan says now that no one should have been shocked. As he has worked on his own recovery and also helped others, he has learned just how common addictions are — both to drugs and alcohol, but also to things like gambling, p0rnography, overeating and even shopping.
“Just because you are a Christian doesn’t mean you aren’t susceptible to all kinds of problems and needs in your life. The question is how you deal with them,” he said.
Ryan credits current Park Cities Presbyterian senior pastor Mark Davis with doing the unheard of: bringing a former senior minister back into the church, particularly after such a public fall.
But Davis told me that a supportive congregation is the key. “I have had no pushback,” he said. “In a church of 5,000, I have not had one negative email or phone call.”
Both men call this a story of God’s grace. “This is really what Christianity is all about: God pursuing his people and offering rescue,” Davis said.
For his part, Ryan said simply, “It’s like coming home.”


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## Edward (Feb 24, 2012)

I thought about writing something last week, but wasn't sure how widespread the interest would be. Thanks for posting. 

Basically, he'll be working at the church 1/3 of the time, and at the seminary 2/3, with fairly tight control on his outside engagements and controls in place to make sure that he doesn't over-commit of his time and energies.


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