Introduction
Breaking the Silence

Sex. The very mention of the word in Christian circles causes ears to balloon like satellite dishes. Announce that this week’s sermon will address a sexual topic and a pastor can be sure the pews will be filled Sunday morning. Yet there are very few, if any, churches who are willing to deal with sexuality beyond the typical youth pastor’s urging young people to “save it for marriage.”

Trust us, we know. Before we founded XXXchurch, each of us worked in local youth ministries. We knew our youth were struggling with everything from dating purity to Internet porn. Yet we had no idea how to address these issues without offending someone or having some naïve parent jump all over us because they desperately believed their daughter or son was immune to such “fi lth.” Sex issues for teenagers have become the dirty little secret that nobody wants to talk about.

The results of the church’s silence are astounding. You can look around any high school or shopping mall and see the results of the sexual revolution. Scantily dressed young people fl aunt their bodies, advertising that they are “available.” And most of the time, it’s not on purpose. It is the result of confusion. Entertainment and pop culture have exposed them to too much, too soon, for too long.

Teenagers have many questions about sex, and they often have no idea where to turn for answers. Those who are already in sexually difficult places don’t know where to get help or how to find freedom. Teenage pregnancies, porn, and promiscuity have produced pain in the lives of many teenagers. Fast forward a few years and these same young people can find it nearly impossible to establish a healthy long-term relationship.

Today, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce. According to Janet E. Smith, author of The Christian View of Sex:A Time for Apologetics, Not Apologies, six out of ten teenagers are sexually active. She writes:

The millions of abortions over the last decade and the phenomenal spread of AIDS indicate that our society has serious problems with sexuality. In the last generation, the incidence of sexual activity outside of marriage—with all of its attendant problems—has doubled and tripled—or worse. We have no particular reason to believe we have seen the peak of the growth in sex-related problems.

When we founded XXXchurch several years ago, our goal was to create a place of honest dialogue and support for Christians who struggle with issues related to pornography and sexual addiction. We wanted to offer help to Christians and non-Christians in an area of sexuality where the church has long been silent. But as the outreach has developed, we have received hundreds of questions not only about porn, but also about virtually every possible issue related to sexuality. And many of these came from teenagers who are desperate to find anyone who will give them straightforward answers to their questions about sex.

This book is our attempt to compile some of the questions and answers that are most relevant to youth who are seeking to live out their Christian faith. Since our Web site and ministry has focused a great deal on pornography and sexual addictions, you’ll find those topics covered here. But this is not a book focused on porn. It’s an attempt to stand with young people in their struggle for wholeness and sexual purity and to give them frank, Christian answers to the very real questions they are asking about sexuality and their faith.

We understand it can be incredibly embarrassing for teenagers to ask questions about sex. Often they are made to feel that if they do ask a question, they may be judged for its content. And all the pressure surrounding sex doesn’t make talking about it any easier; it only brings a distorted attitude toward sexuality.

This is our attempt to help churches address the issue by addressing it for them. The book is a collaborative project, but most of the questions were originally answered by one of us. Since we think that personal connection is important, we tried to maintain the conversational tone in this book.

We hope young people will find this to be a valuable book that gives them answers to the questions they may be too afraid to ask and encourages them to accept God’s invitation to a pure lifestyle that is completely devoted to him.