October 2, 2026
CALVERT CITY, Ky. (KT) — As a pastor as well as a law enforcement officer, Randle Record has seen the plague of pornography and screen-time addiction impacting people of all backgrounds — from those in the church to criminals. That awareness of this serious societal issue has been a guiding force in his focus on shepherding families through “thought life issues” for three decades.
Record said that while on staff at Highview, then-pastor Kevin Ezell allowed him to work as a law enforcement agent, first with the Louisville Metro Police Department and then with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
“Naturally being a police officer is very close to being a pastor — in one you have a taser and a Glock and the other you have a Bible and ‘Thus sayeth the Lord,’” Record said, adding that “the word of God is more powerful than anything.”
It was during that bivocational role, Record said he started noticing similarities in people. “The people we had to arrest … somewhere, somehow, you would find porn in their life. It was either in their house or it would come out in court. And while as a pastor, I was meeting guys at 5 o’clock in the morning because there were church members struggling with the same thing.”
“The Bible says all sin is a common struggle — but the difference was the path of their sin.” He said the biblical teaching that “what you do in private becomes public,” is evidenced in the pornography situation. “Because you participate in private so long it becomes part of you.”
Record said he was “intrigued as a pastor why you are simultaneously having to counsel people to do right.” He added that the pornography struggle is with both men and women, but how it is promoted to one sex is different from the other. He said the porn industry “uses a lot more trickery to get women involved. It leads them with love stories.”
Record said that people who view pornography can be found in churches, in the streets of Louisville — “the sin is the same, you are just changing locations (of those involved). The prince of the power of the air is given way too many opportunities. In the past you had to really work to get access (to porn), but now the access is in your pocket (cell phone). It’s way too available to men. You see it on the streets but also in the church.”
He added, “The thing that really helped me is to guard my eyes and ears and to understand that their problem is content control. When you find out how your brain processes this new media we walk around with, you’ll want to get every kind of guard. God didn’t design your brain for that kind of content.”
Record said surveys show that Sunday is the number one day that people look at porn. “It is like the evil one is mocking us. What if everybody had a covenant with their eyes not to look — think how much more passion we would have for evangelism?”
While noting that technology is not going to change, Record said “we have to have some education of how to handle that. It’s what the National Center for Thought Life does. We go in and teach how to protect your church, your staff. Judgment starts at the church.”
Record said his new book is intended to help people “protect their home, modem, router, wireless network and devices. Do you use onboard protection on your phone? How do you block those (objectional) categories if you don’t have software on your phone?”
Record pointed out the U.S. is the No. 1 creator of porn websites, and that across the world there are 266 new porn websites created every day. “It’s not going to change — we have phones in our pockets, so how do you live godly when carrying this around?”
On the horizon for Record is a third book that will be written for students. Later will be a book for young children. “They know the swipes. They are going to start (viewing screens) from birth. We really believe you have to start teaching this from the toddler age.”
Record’s work is to help people of all ages to be on guard from everything from clicking on unsuspecting sites to making accidental clicks.
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This story appeared in Kentucky Today.
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