St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Random Lake, WI will host Pastor Donavan Riley for a Saturday seminar on July 19, 2025, from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. Donavan will present three 45-minute sessions on the theme, The Impossible Prize: Addiction, Grace and the Unfree Will.
Registration is free but requested. A free will offering will be taken. For more information, please call the church office at 920-994-2228.
Join us for a stirring exploration of the deep entanglement between the human will, addiction, and divine mercy. Drawing from Martin Luther’s bold teaching on the grace and unfree will, this lecture will uncover how the grip of addictive behavior is not merely a matter of poor choice, but a spiritual condition of captivity. One only grace can break.
Through his experiences as an addict, convert, and priest, Pastor Donavon Riley will guide hearers through Scripture, theology, and lived experience. This is not self-help dressed up in religious clothes. This is about death and life, about the cross of Christ that meets us in the ash heap, not after we’ve cleaned ourselves up.
Whether you wrestle with addiction yourself or love someone who does, these talks will offer clarity, courage, and the comfort of a God who works not through power and pride, but through weakness, wounds, and mercy.
Come with your weariness. Come with your doubt. Come with your questions. There is hope here. Not cheap hope, but blood-bought, cross-shaped hope.
Event Date
