(The rest of this post is about the church, and sex, and stuff. The pic at left is to make your kids think you're looking at a lengthy post regarding dogs who balance cups and saucers. Which, come to think of it, may make for a better post, but I didn't know what else to say except, "Cool, here's a dog that balances cups and saucers." but the picture already kinda gets at that. Yep. Thank you.)
I got a kick out of the responses to the "30 Day Challenge" thing. I thought the challenge kind of a bad idea. May make you "relevant" -- we all want to relevant, by golly -- but isn't it kinda awkward, on a few levels? I was thinking that.
(BTW: I was at a Christian-themed singles event last night, with hundreds turning out, at the Improv. It should have occured to me, on stage, to issue a "1 Year Challenge": "I sexually challenge my sexy married self to enjoy some very sexual sex five times a day for the next year. And I challenge you single people to not do anything. Cool? Cool.")
Anyway, I got some fun objections to my hesitation about the attempt at "relevance" via comments and email: "But the church has to talk about sex, and...but we shouldn't act like sex is gross and...but we can't stick our heads in the sand," etc.
But this points out a problem, doesn't it? Nowhere did I write, or intimate, that the church shouldn't address sexuality. Nowhere. But it's presumed, in some quarters, that addressing sexuality means having some guy in a pulpit talk about sex to everyone, en masse, right before everyone leaves to go to the Golden Corral.
Er...why? And what does it say that people think this is the means of teaching?
We can't fathom other ways to teach? Are we this limited? We can't, in our rich imaginations, possibly envision any other way? Teaching = a guy doing an oratory on Sunday morning? You really think that's the best place the church can teach about sex?
Obviously, the church has to teach about sex. And I'm all about that, mister. Heck -- and, let's face it, I really meant "hell", there -- for me, once a day for a month seems like a lowly goal, to be honest. Make it 100 times for the month, and we're talking. How about them apples, chump? This here hunka accordion-playing love makes Mark Driscoll look like Richard Simmons. Yessir.
So never for a moment did I think protesting the all-church, from-the-pulpit Sex Challenge, as bad idea would be taken to mean that the church shouldn't deal with sex. But perhaps I should have.
I was just thinkin' maybe...I don't know...maybe other people could do it. In other venues. Our group of guys takes our teenage guys out for dinner on their birthday, and sits around them, out on the back porch, and advises them very, very frankly on sex, porn, and how to treat women. It's just guys, challenging each other, talking about their own traps, their own failures and successes, telling the younger ones (and each other) how great and perilous this gift is.
Seems fair, to me. And more than appropriate, too. It involves sustained relationships. It teaches not only about sex, but how it's not strange to talk to older men about it. It teaches not only about sex, but how other guys let Jesus actually matter in their most vulnerable places. It teaches not only about sex, but about how these young men are to be the church, and not leave it to the paid guy.
Yes, the men in our country, and our churches, are porn-soaked, and yes, we better talk about it. Perhaps we could find ways of talking sex that don't involve everyone, en masse, in the sanctuary on Sunday morning, from a guy not everyone can really know, and can't know them...? Maybe...?
And perhaps -- let's be honest here -- it's MORE dangerous to "deal" with the issue that way, because you may not have really "dealt" with anything...except your need to feel relevant.
