Well we finally got to start the series on Sex. We were supposed to start 2 weeks ago but weather issues made me delay. I’ve talked to a lot of Youth Pastors about this and we are pretty much all on the same page. Someone needs to bring this up with students. Most of them aren’t getting this information from their parents or other trusted and safe adult. They are getting all kinds of information about sex from each other and the media. This results in a very distorted view on sex and sexuality. Most of the YPs I talk to plan some kind of sex talk every 2-4 years. I have a major series planned once a year and a single night topic about 6 months out from that. I feel bad that I don’t spend more time dealing with this subject but there are also a lot of other subjects I need to talk about plus presenting a solid Biblical overview on the Gospel. I could talk with my students every single day for hours and not cover everything I really want to.
I have mentioned the statistics that show the shocking hours a day the students have been exposed to sex. Literally thousands of hours of sex by the time they are teens. One night every couple of years isn’t even a drop in that ocean of sex. An entire series barely scratches the surface.
Anyways, last night I focused on sex and sexual purity. I presented 5 major myths that they are having screamed at them on a daily basis.
- Sex is no big deal
- Sex is just physical
- Sex is something everyone is doing
- Sex is unavoidable
- Sex is something God hates
Then I presented the story of sex that the Church tends to present. “………….” Either a bunch of nothing or a bunch of hate.
Finally I showed what God really had to say about sex.
God MADE sex. He wanted it to be fun and frigintastic. He formed up Adam out of the dirt and then said, “he looks lonely” so He goes down to talk to Adam. He says, “Dude I got plan for you that you will LOVE. Now take a little nap and when you wake up you will think you died and went to Heaven … which is admittedly pretty cool since you’re already in paradise with Me.” Then Adam wakes up and sees Eve and is blown away. One of the first commands God gives is to have lots of sex (makes plenty of babies).
The thing is, God put a boundary around sex to make it better. God knows how we are designed and knows that sex is best in a long term committed relationship designed for raising children. We call that marriage.
I explained a bunch of reasons why and then went on to talk about purity. Is it ok to do everything but intercourse? Personally I don’t think so. I explained how even looking at porn can cause problems down the road, but ultimately I put the responsibility of choice on them. If you give a bunch of rules then people are interested in pushing the boundaries of the rules or keeping the exact rule while breaking the intent of the rule. “Don’t lay down with the person you are dating” which of course means it’s ok to have sex before marriage as long as you do it standing up.
I do want to say it is really difficult to talk to students about this. It is troublesome trying to be frank and specific without being vulgar. The whole time I kept hearing myself say words that are full of innuendo. Early on I explained that this was a difficult subject but an important one. I said “This is hard to talk about,” and immediately I thought “why did you have to say ‘hard’?” Do you realize just how much you say that sounds dirty? If not go watch old Bevis and Butthead reruns.
Every try to talk to students about sex? How did you handle it? Were you overly focused on how each word you said could be taken?
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Something that sticks.
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Nick, I think it’s GREAT that you’re so serious about educating your teens on sex. When I was a youth, the extent of what we learned about sex in youth group (and I had a good youth pastor) was “don’t do it.” I heard the youth around me constantly asking questions like “how far is too far” and “is masturbation sin” and “if I’ve done it am I doomed to hell” but never getting answers and never getting a chance to dialogue about it at all.
I’m pretty thankful that my job with youth doesn’t include having to have The Talk. I do the administration end of the job most of the time and occasionally get to do altar counseling. If it was my job, I don’t know what I’d do, but it seems to me like you’ve got a pretty good handle on it. You’re starting with the right motives and that’s really taking a big step in the right direction.
I think we got even less on the subject than that. It really bothers me how little the church talks about something so important.
I always remember what my old youth pastor told me. “Marriage is not about sex.” That’s stuck with me ever since and helped me when dating my g/f who later became my wife. Like sex was not the focus you know?
nicodemusatnite.blogspot.com
I think that is so important. I know a young man that got married on the DL right out of HS. I’m pretty certain that is a product of “save it for marriage” with no other counsel.
I’ve spent a number of years being concerned how church says “sex is bad”. But then you get married and they say “sex is good”. Mixed message much? I’m glad you explained to your kids that God’s “rules” on sex don’t have to do with Him being a jerk, He just wants it to be as great as He intended it to be, and the confines of a loving marriage is His intention.
I think that is the big problem. Tel a teen “sex is bad” and then they start fooling around and it doesn’t “feel bad” and they get really confused.
Wow Nick, this is very timely for what I’ve been thinking about. Thanks for sharing your teaching methods!
Youth welcome and thank you.
the last 3-4 years i was YP, i took my group through 2-3 weeks of The Sex Talk
– the first week was always the whole group together – we’d talk about those myths you brought up, an what God’s perspective on sex is (and it AIN’T “sex is bad”).
– the second week, i’d bring a panel of folks in (married couples & singles) and we’d do a frank discussion about sex and an open Q&A of the panelists (always a varied group – some had had sex before marriage, others didn’t, singles who had already had or hadn’t had sex, and one year we had a 55 year old dude who was still a virgin) or a stack of magazines (cosmo, etc.) and music and address the sex / image issue from that perspective.
– the final week was splitting up guys and girls and having what could have been wildly uncomfortable (but never was) open Q&A about anything and everything sex / bodies / sexuality. i’d give out 3×5 cards and pens and they could ask ANYTHING. i obviously reserved the right to not answer questions i thought were asked just for the shock value, but we didn’t get many of those.
we were blessed with a large youth group of astoundingly varied backgrounds and experiences. the yearly sex series was always a success, with many students becoming comfortable enough to actually talk about what has frequently been a taboo topic in the church.
glad to hear you’re addressing this head-on.
I think that is a great program. I’d like to do something like that in the future.