Traditionally sex talks are given once (if you’re really lucky twice) a year in youth groups. They are often advertised and may therefore have an element of hype surrounding them. I don’t think this is the best way to preach on sex. I have adopted more of an approach of dealing with it as it arises in our different Bible series’.
This year I have given 3 sex talks. During term 1 we were doing a series on Genesis 1-11 with our year7-9s. For the second talk I gave a talk on God the ultimate wedding planner and spoke about God’s purposes for marriage from Genesis 2. On our year 7-12 youth group camp, in a series on Idolatry, I spoke from 1 Thess 4 about fleeing from the idol of sex. And last week, during our 1 Cor series with year 7-9, I spoke from chapter 6 about what sexual immorality is why we ought to flee from it.
I’m always conscious of not wanting to say too much too soon… but at the same time our culture and our high schools will continue to shape teenage lives and their attitudes toward sex… we need to be letting the Bible shape our teenager’s worldview. Otherwise how will they know God’s mind on things if they haven’t yet been taught it!
Here is an article about how pop music shapes teenage views on sex.
Here is a book that encourages sexual purity in a lust-saturated world.
What do you think? How often ought we preach on sex to teenagers? How should we go about it?
I did a ‘sex talk’ at youth group a few years back, and the way I tackled it, was I put a whole bunch of comments about sex that you often hear from Christians on small pieces of paper. Whacked them in a hat, and drew them out one at a time, giving a small discussion on each thing.
This way it didn’t feel like a formal ‘sex talk’, even though we covered all sorts of things, like purity, modesty and being alone together. I could also throw in a few throw-away, slightly jokey things to lighten the mood.
One problem with the ‘sex talk’, is that if you do them too often, you become labeled as ‘the sex talk leader’.
We had one leader who was always doing sex talks, and then she went and got pregnant… (my wife adds ‘she did really good sex talks but didn’t follow her own advice’).
That hurt me, and the other leaders heaps as well as making it a lot harder to talk about that kind of thing in the future.
We need to be careful.
What we say is important, but we must make sure we live it.
hey thanks ian for the thoughts.
agree – like any content… that the preacher has to back up what they are preaching by living it.
i don’t think i’m labelled as the sex talk leader… simply because i do more than half of the talks each year… so if 3 talks in 30 are about sex… i hopefully won’t get that name!
my guess is that i won’t get pregnant after one!! (can’t speak for my wife though…)
how is that girl going?? still walking with the Lord?
graceout
daev
Last time I talked to her ( a few years back), she was attending church still. We kind of lost contact so I’m not sure any more.
It is sad though.
So… your wife (Rowena?) is pregnent then? ;)
So… your wife (Rowena?) is pregnent then? ;)
no… not that i know of!!
(Rowena?)
yes that’s her name