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Meet Scott Reall

“Most of us are stuck in our pain. However, all it takes is a single step to begin the journey that can lead us to the end of our suffering.”

Pain is inevitable. It ignores age, gender, race, education and bank accounts. Simply put, the reason we fear pain so much is because we can’t control it. But here’s the incredible part of that equation: We can control our suffering.

Scott Reall is the author of the groundbreaking series Journey to Freedom and founder of Restore, a ministry of the YMCA of Middle Tennessee. He is someone who has emerged from the darkest parts of life with a practical and powerful vision that speaks with refreshing honesty to our shared suffering.

We’re all broken in places no one else can see. Most of us suffer deeply from sexual addictions, relationship issues, co-dependency, low self-esteem, food addiction, grief, sexual or physical abuse, fear, depression, infidelity, anxiety, alcohol, pornography and drugs.

You name it. The list of life-controlling issues goes on, and on, and on, and on. Fortunately, so does God’s ability to touch those broken places and restore each of us to wholeness.

“I’ve seen incredible health and healing come from lives of utter wreckage — mine included,” says Scott. “Every day we see individuals rise from the ashes of shame and fear to find real joy and real freedom in daily living.”

How It All Started

Scott’s passion for helping people break free from life controlling issues began while serving as Senior Wellness Director for the Green Hills YMCA in Nashville, TN. Each day as Scott met with people to discuss their fitness goals, bigger issues surfaced — issues such as depression, loneliness, substance abuse, disordered eating, and low self-esteem.

That re-emerging pattern of mental and spiritual suffering sparked a burning passion in Scott to integrate the mind, body and spirit to help hurting people achieve true health and happiness. And, he used the YMCA’s heritage of faith to develop a powerful Christ-centered curriculum that would ignite a process of lasting change in people’s lives.

Scott began facilitating a spiritual and mental recovery program at the Y in 1994. Six years and hundreds of participants later, Scott partnered with the Middle Tennessee YMCA system in 2000 to found Restore, a life-changing ministry of the YMCA. And, in 2003, he published Journey to Freedom, the book that inspired the incredible grass-roots popularity of the Journey to Freedom 8-week course in Ys and churches nationwide.

2008: Five-Book Series Debuts

A single Journey to Freedom book has expanded into a series, published by Thomas Nelson, which takes on some of life’s toughest issues. Each book has been turned into an 8-week course.

• Journey to Freedom: Discovering a lifetime of Hope, Health and Happiness
• Journey to Living with Courage: Freedom from Fear
• Journey to a Life of Significance: Freedom from Low Self-Esteem
• Journey to Healthy Living: Freedom from Body Image and Food Issues
• Journey to a New Beginning After Loss: Freedom from the Pain of Grief and Disappointment

“The 10, 20 or 30 pounds people want to lose when they come in the Y can’t compare to the weight of the pain they’ve been carrying around for years and the havoc is reeking on their mind, body and spirit, ” says Scott. “We’ve seen individuals, couples and families gain real tools to walk with courage and confidence into their future. Most of us are stuck in our pain. However, all it takes is a single step to begin the journey that can lead us to the end of our suffering.”

Scott’s Personal Journey

Scott’s vision and passion for Journey to Freedom comes out of his own difficult journey toward freedom from addiction. Scott hit rock bottom more than once after turning to unhealthy vices to manage his feelings of loneliness and powerlessness. With two divorces and many broken relationships indicating his need for help, Scott’s personal journey lead him to freedom in the proven 12 Step philosophy championed by Alcoholics Anonymous.

“These principles saved my life,” Scott candidly proclaims. “In creating the Journey to Freedom series, I wanted to plug in similar principles but speak directly to the variety of life-controlling issues I was seeing in our Y.”

Rather than promising a quick fix, Scott encourages people to do three things in trying to make permanent changes stick: Commit to a Journey to Freedom program, surround yourself with a support system and never, never, never give up.

“It’s about progress, not perfection,” says Scott. “Even though I have found real freedom from my issues, I still consider myself in recovery. This is a process for me just like it is for anyone else. Real change is something you work at every day … It works if you work it.”

If numbers are any indication, something is definitely working.

“We’ve grown from just fifty participants in 2000 to over five thousand who will have gone through the program by the end of 2007,” says Scott.

A Growing Hands-On Ministry

In addition to writing curriculum, as the director of Restore, Scott is also responsible for the leadership and development of their group-based programs, which are hosted at various partner churches in the Nashville, Tennessee area. He also devotes much of his time to one-on-one consultations with group facilitators and individuals in crisis, as well as expanding Restore’s visibility in communities across the country.

Even though the workload seems daunting, Scott couldn’t be more enthusiastic. “I believe this is what God created me for,” says Scott. “Everything I’ve gone though in my life has brought me to this place where I can deliver this healing ministry. I can’t wait to see how God grows it!”

After founding Restore, Scott won The National YMCA Earl P. Armstrong Scholarship Award and began classes for a master's degree in Theological Studies at Covenant Theological Seminary. He is a certified grief recovery counselor of The Grief Recovery Institute, has completed Ernie Larson’s Stage Two Recovery Life Management Program, and was recently ordained as a minister through St. Paul’s Community Church. Scott earned his Bachelors of Science Degree from Otterbein College in Westerville. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the father of three grown children and a member of St. Paul’s Community Church.

Scott also spends an increasing amount of time traveling the country speaking to churches and Ys about the Journey to Freedom story and how it can transform their communities.


To read about Journey to Freedom in the news, CLICK HERE.

Journey To Freedom

is a class offered by Restore Ministries.

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