From Sampler to Sower

In the fifth and final sermon from our True Love Waits series, the goal is to help students understand the pledge we are asking them to consider making.  We look one more time at what the Bible has to say about living lives of sexual purity, and then we break down the True Love Waits pledge to see that it really is a reflection of Biblical values.  The service ends with an invitation to prayerfully make a True Love Waits commitment and to communicate that they made that pledge by turning in a commitment card.

As usual, after the jump you will find a summary of the lesson as well as a fill-in-the-blank outline master and sermon audio. Also include is a sample of our True Love Waits commitment cards and the parent’s letters that we send to the parents of students who make first time commitments, as well as those renewing their commitments, inviting them to take part in the True Love Waits ring ceremony.

(more…)

Careful boys, we don't want that going off in here!

In our fourth sermon of our True Love Waits series, we mix things up a bit with a surprise pop quiz. Given the format, we don’t have outlines to pass out, so no PDF files to download, but there are plenty of memorable visual aids involved, so your students won’t need notes to remember what you talked about.

As you prepare for this lesson, make sure you have a roll of duct tape, a short sleeve shirt, a sex bomb and a good healthy length of waterproof cannon fuse…

After the jump we’ll let you know what to do with it all.  And as usual, there is sermon audio of this lesson from our 2010 True Love Waits series at the end as well.

(more…)

In the third lesson of True Love Waits, we attempt to correct a common problem to purity series. Specifically, I’ve noticed it’s common to pay a lot of attention to the waiting part, but not spend much time even considering the issue of true love. Yet it’s true love that we believe is worth waiting for.  So what do we know about true love.

I start teaching this lesson by showing the scene from Princess Bride in which Inigo and Fezzik take what turns out to be a mostly dead Westley to Miracle Max in hopes of a resurrection pill.  Max proves skeptical and refuses to act for anything less than a noble cause.  When he puts the question (and a few billows of air) to Westley, Westley replies “true love.”

Max eventually acknowledges:

Sonny, true love is the greatest thing in the world…except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe.

And the Bible agrees.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:7, NIV)

After the jump we’ll talk a bit more about this incredible gift of love, as well as what happens when we despise the gift by trading it to satisfy carnal desires.  You’ll find a summary of our sermon, as well as our fill-in-the-blanks outline for the lesson, and sermon audio of the lesson taught live.

(more…)

In week two of our True Love Waits series we address the very prevalent problem of pornography that our students face.  The goal of the lesson is to challenge them to see through the myth that someone pornography will leave them more knowledgeable and more experienced, and as a result better lovers.  Instead we hope to help them see that pornography may, in fact, sabotage their hopes for a healthy sex life later in life.

This may seem like a bit of a backwards approach to the subject.  And really it is, at least according to our normal way of teaching.  Typically we start with Scripture and work from there.  But we find that students already know deep down that looking at pornography is wrong.  And yet they do it anyway.  They don’t need us to prove to them that pornography is wrong.  They need us to help them see that it is not only wrong, but also harmful.

After the jump you’ll find a summary of our sermon on the subject, as well as the fill-in-the-blank outline we use and audio from this sermon, as preached as part of our 2010 series.

(more…)

In the first lesson of our True Love Waits series each year, we attempt to redefine the goal.  True Love Waits (TLW) is not just about helping teens remain virgins, it is about helping them live lives of true purity.

We take as our text 2 Corinthians 11:2

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. (NIV)

In modern English, “virgin” and “chaste” are practically synonymous (if, that is, anyone even  knows the word “chaste” any more).  Yet biblically speaking they are not the same thing.  Otherwise, Paul’s description here would be redundant.  Why does he feel the need to clarify the church is to be presented as a pure virgin?

After the jump, we’ll walk you through the rest of the lesson, as well as provide a copy of our sermon notes, a link to the audio of this sermon, and a script for a drama that can be used with this lesson. Just click on “More.”

(more…)

As I mentioned in a post a few years back, every three years our youth group features a special series called True Love Waits. Actually, I said we did it every two years, but we have since transitioned to a three year cycle.  The goal remains the same, to make sure we emphasize this subject and give every student the opportunity to make a True Love Waits pledge during their Junior High years.  We’ve transitioned to a once-every-three cycle because we’ve also transitioned from a 7 & 8 to a 6-8 Junior High ministry.

Recently some colleagues on my district have asked me to share the resources from this series so they can have a look at what we do.  And so I’m posting these here, not just to archive them for myself, but to make sharing them easier.

Today, after the jump, you’ll find the information we make available to parents at our parent’s meeting at the start of the series.  And in upcoming posts this week you’ll find the rest of the resources from the five week teaching series.

(more…)

True Love, Condoms and Purity Pledges

In my last post on this subject, True Love, Waiting and Purity Pledges, I questioned just how newsworthy the recent study by Janet Rosenbaum really is.  The study in question examines how effective purity pledges are in delaying the onset of sexual activity in teenagers by comparing students who report having made such a pledge with students from similar familial, religious and relational backgrounds who did not report making a pledge.

The study finds, ”Adolescents who take virginity pledges are not less sexually active than closely matched adolescents who do not take pledges, but they are less likely to use birth control and condoms.”

Previously, I reflected on what the first part of that finding should suggest about how we minister to teens.  Today I’d like to examine the implications of the second part of that finding – the fact that those who make purity pledges are significantly less likely than non-pledgers to use condoms or birth control if and when they do have sex.

(more…)

Purity Pledges and Waiting Until Marriage

The news has been making a lot about a recently released study by Janet E. Rosenbaum which studies the effectiveness of purity pledges in helping teens wait until marriage before having sex.  All the major outlets have run a story, from FoxNEWS to MSNBC, the Chicago Tribune to the Washington Post,  US News and World Report to Newsweek. (Oh, wait.  As far as I can tell, Newsweek is one of the few sources that hasn’t run a story on it yet.)

Stories have been leading with titles as titillating as ‘,Abstinence-only’ is a total crock, That virginity pledge I took didn’t work….and now I have four children, and the incredibly misleading Study: Teens Who Took Virginity Plan More Likely To Have Sex.

However, I have to wonder just how newsworthy this really is. (more…)