So how far is too far? When does a church push the envelope so far that the message gets lost in the envelope pushing?
Last night KAIT8 ran this story about Ignite Church in Joplin, MO and their sex series. So how about it? Are they out of line? Let’s consider this together.
There is a sexual crisis among Americans. We’re foolish to ignore it and we perpetuate the problem by acting like it doesn’t exist. There is a video on Ignite Church’s website promoting the series that illuminates some of the sexual issues that are wreaking havoc on families today. And the church is not immune to it. The vast majority of men in churches have been exposed to pornography at some point. Many of those guys wrestle with it on a frequent basis. As a matter of fact, more men than not in attendance on an average Sunday morning have viewed pornography within the last month. With the advent of multiple platforms for pornographic proliferation, men have become sitting ducks.
Beyond that, the erosion of social mores regarding sexuality have distorted our view of sex to the point where normal is now considered abnormal and abnormal is considered normal. The abnormality of multiple sex partners among the unmarried has become the societal standard of normalcy. The dysfunction of spouses engaging in sexual intercourse outside of marriage has transcended from abhorrent to expected in too many corners of society. The explosion of readily available pornography has transformed pornographic dalliances from the habit of the perverted to the past time of the masses. Sexually speaking, abnormal is the new normal.
If the sexual crisis in America is a fire, then the influence of the entertainment industry is fuel on that fire. The sexuality of entertainment is not real sex. Speaking frankly, it just doesn’t work that way. The sex that sitcoms laugh about, movies dream about, rappers rap about, and singers sing about is not how God blessed and ordained sex works itself out in the bedroom. The guilt and consequence free sex of entertainment is just not real. However, and this is critical, too many people miss that point. Rather than identifying the fact that what they are being bombarded with in the media is fictitious, they aspire to achieve something that can never be achieved. They look for an experience that doesn’t happen. And when it doesn’t happen, their lives become tangled in the mire of disappointment, frustration, and all too often ruin.
God designed people to experience real, fulfilling sex. Or as Les Parrott wrote about, crazy good sex. God’s plan for sex is an unbelievable experience within the confines of monogamous marriage that proves all other types of sex to be weak, unfulfilling, and undesirable. And the Bible is clear on that. Over and over, the Bible illustrates that God’s rules for sex are the most fulfilling, the most exciting, and the most beneficial for us as humans. It’s passionate, it’s growing, it’s engaging, and it’s satisfying. Married sex that doesn’t achieve this is existing outside of the intentions of God. To put it bluntly, we as believers in Christ have a better product to offer than the world. Sex between an emotionally and spiritual healthy man and wife is the apex of the sexual experience. And we ought to proclaim it. In the face of the sex crisis in America, the church ought to speak up and clearly proclaim the message of the Bible regarding God’s design for our sexuality.
But there are some pitfalls that the church must avoid when speaking of sex. I’ll mention three:
First, we should not speak of sex in a crass manner. Sex is a sacred act of unifying intimacy between a husband and a wife. It is to be honored as a beautiful and holy gift from God. But too often in our zeal to address the issue, we’ve become crass. We proclaim in public what should be left for the privacy of the bedroom. For example, a stage decorated like a bedroom is just as likely, and maybe even more likely, to inspire inappropriate thoughts among the people of God thus nullifying the intended purpose of the stage design. It is possible that doing such things actually raises hurdles for people, particularly men, that aren’t necessary and that can be harmful. We must speak of sex in a way that is relevant to those who listen but honorable to the gift itself.
We should also be very careful in using the imagery of the world’s version of sex to try to make our point. Truthfully, the only real concern I have about Ignite Church’s sex campaign is the imagery they use in their advertising. The images that they chose to use of the men and women in the sexually suggestive positions seems to be more in line with advertising that pornographers (or Abercrombie and Fitch) would use rather than the church of the living Lord Jesus. Now, I full well admit that I’m armchair pastoring here. If any of the Ignite Church guys read this, know that I’m not throwing stones at you and I give you kudos for taking on a subject that we have too long neglected. However, my point is that as we seek to teach the Biblical view of sex in a language that our society speaks, we need to give careful thought to the impressions our imagery creates. As I stated earlier, the message can get lost in the medium.
Finally, as we address the issue of sex, we better be clear that our motivation is leading people to the freedom that is found in Christ. If we do a series on sex as a gimmick to bolster attendance, we err greatly at the expense of the Gospel. Our call is not to attract crowds. Our call is to proclaim the Gospel. However we do that, whether it be in a hip church that is on the cutting edge of modernity or in a cowboy church that is on the cutting edge of cowboy life, we must do so in a way that makes much of Jesus. May that be the testimony of our lives on that great day when we stand before Him, “they made much of Jesus.”
