Resources & advice on talking to youth about sex by Becky Lawrence, Youth & Kids Worker at St Mark’s, Milton Keynes

 

Recently (15 June 2021) national youth charity Youthscape published an article by Rachel Gardner, in response to a recent Ofsted report – “Ofsted’s report on sexual harrassment in schools is shocking but unsurprising”, Rachel explores the normalisation of sexual harrassment in schools and what youth leaders can do about it.   Ofsted’s report shares how many many girls are being sexually harrassed at school by boys (including sexist ojectifiying name calling, being sent ‘dick pics’ and asked to send nude selifes) and so little is being done about it that many girls just don’t report it.  Rachel explores the fact that the very concept of sexual consent is being eroded which is very dangerous indeed for the future of our young people but also is an opportunity for youth leaders to speak a different message. She writes,

“Now is the time for good conversations about sex that seek to build empathy, assertiveness, courage, kindness and hope in young people. If my flourish for lists is making the whole ‘talking about sex’ thing seem too complicated, then forgive me. Ultimately, we lean into these conversations because we long to see each young person we serve flourish into their God-created sexual selves. Whether it’s a young person eager to know what putting God at the centre of their life means for their choices or a PSHE lesson with some Year 10 students on healthy relationships, we have the opportunity to listen to young people in such a way that they know we take them seriously. This can lead us to spaces where we can share some deeper truth about being made in the image of a God who seeks connections. Not only that – we also get to excavate curiosity in young people, not just about what they should or shouldn’t do, but why and how. It doesn’t take much to terminate our willingness to wade into tricky conversations with young people about sex, safety, abuse, sexuality, relationships, love. We don’t want to get it wrong…but when I asked young people if they felt that the Church should talk to teenagers about sex, over 94% said ‘yes’.”

Rachel also has a new book coming out in the autumn ‘The Sex Thing: Re-imagining conversations with young people about sex’.   The article is a good one and is bound to spark some thoughts you can read it in full here.

 

Sadly the sexualisation of youth culture is not hot of the press news, most of us have known about it for a while, but sometimes it just seems like too tricky a topic to cover in youth group and perhaps even harder to package into a session we might deliver in schools work.  It is a tough one to cover but we need to be talking to our young people about it and showing a different disctinctive way to approach it all.  Sexual harrassment, watching porn daily (or even multiple times a day for some young people!) and casual sex are not ok, and we need to speak a different voice into a culture that says it is perfectly fine and normal.

I’m not saying i’m perfect at it either, I had a spectacular fail once after a whole multi-week teaching series to our christian youth group on relationships, sex and self worth – where we had taught over and over the same messages to try and make sure they sunk in, about God making sex for marriage, how far was too far and our pursuit as christians to glorify God  – a couple of months later one of our young people accidentally fell pregnant,  it was a definite face palm moment in my youth work career!  It was definitely an interesting conversation with the parents on what the heck we had taught in our recent series.  She kept the baby, we continued to love her & welcome her into our youth group.  At the time and a little bit still now it feels like a failure moment, but I guess you can take a horse to water but you can’t always make it drink.  Young people don’t always follow our advice but we should still teach and discuss the tricky subjects and not give up.

Regardless of how we think it will go (or how well we think it went in my case!) it’s really vital that we speak to our young people about these topics in a christian context.  Parents are not neccessarily more equipped or well placed to be the ones to teach it, they definitely aren’t going to be taught to they don’t need to have sex and that they can wait to have sex when they have sex education in schools – often the main message there assumes ‘you are all having sex already, here’s how to do it safely’!

Don’t make the mistake of assuming young people who have grown up in church know that God made sex as a gift for marriage, chances are they’ve never even heard that before! There are a lot of things that we can’t take for granted that young people know.  They don’t know that if they ‘come out’ as gay they will still be welcomed into your youth group & the church.  They don’t know that casual sex is damaging emotionally and spiritually.  They don’t know porn isn’t good for them and will skew their perspective on sex and consent.  They don’t know that they don’t need to find their soul mate or ‘other half’ to make them whole – that God made them complete and special just the way they are.  They don’t know that no one will ever love them as much as God does and that their worth won’t change even when they mess up.

It’s difficult to know where to start when it comes to teaching or approaching the subject of relationships and sex with teenagers so I wanted to share a bunch of links to websites and resources that may help.  I’d definitely say preparation on the topic is really important and make sure everyone on your team is on the same page when it comes to what you are teaching.  If you are not sure on the theology of your church on some of these topics – it’s a really good idea to have a discussion with your church leader first to make sure you aren’t planning on teaching the topic in a way that would be contradictory to your church.

 

Tips for What to Include in Youth Group Teaching on Sex and Relationships

Two articles filled with tips about how to teach and form a session, what to include and not include:

Youth Group Collective has 12 great tips for what to include:

1. “Start off by letting your young people know why God loves them
2. Reaffirm that God created sex
3. Dispel the sex is purely physical myth and that there is no such thing as casual sex, as sex is not meaningless
4. Make it clear that sex is for marriage and why Christians believe that
5. Discuss intimacy killers such as the dangerous reality of porn and the dangers of lust
6. Redirect the ‘How far is too far’ question, really our aim as christians is not how close can we get to messing up but how do we glorify God and not do things we later regret and can’t take back
7. Promote healthy dating, how to show love in a godly way
8. Also promote purposeful dating not thoughtless dating – we’re not supposed to treat other people as objects to consume for our own pleasure, we’re called to value others better than ourselves
9. Promote equal yokedness, while its not sinful to date those who aren’t christians we should be seeking to date someone who knows our God, follows our God, loves our God, and encourages/challenges us to do so as well. Having a close partnership (dating relationship) with someone who doesn’t share our faith isn’t wise.
10. Promote Singleness & dispel the myth that God created someone special for them. There is no ‘other half’ we need to find to be whole – God made us whole and made us special just as we are. Singleness isn’t second rate but actually just as godly.
11. Full surrender, above all – we lay down our lives and our wants and desires to follow Him daily.
12. End with a non shaming object lesson – Too often object lessons surrounding sex talks are meant to scare, belittle, shame, embarrass, and degrade Christians (usually christian girls). Don’t use any of these.  We take water and spit phlegm in it and say – no one would ever want to drink this. Or we hold up a beautiful rose and encourage others to pass it around during the talk and at the end we say “where’s that rose?” and at this point it’s been damaged and lost it’s beauty and shine and some petals have fallen off because of everyone touching it. And we say, “Who would ever want this rose now?” Or we have a really sticky piece of tape and we press it against someone’s shoulder and take it off and go to someone else and press it against their shoulder and take it off and we say, “Every time, we lose our stickiness. We lose our ability to bond.” We’ve thought of a thousand different ways to make Christians feel worthless about themselves when it comes to their sexual past.   Try this instead: Take a hundred dollar bill. Ask people if they want it. Then crumple it up and ask people if they still want it. Now stomp on it. Now spit on it. Now tear it in half. Guess what? It’s still worth $100. We’re going to sin. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to make a mess of things. God will still think we’re valuable. God won’t think less of us. Our value isn’t based on who we are or what we do but it’s based on who God is and God is love and God is unchanging and so God will always love us and that will never change.Their website also features a whole free 2 hour sex talk plan with Bible verses, that covers all the themes above – it can be used in one mammoth session or broken down into smaller ones.”

You can read the full article here

 

Church leaders.com also has some tips for approaching the theme of sex with teenagers (its american so where they say students they are not referring to 18-21 year olds but actually teenagers & youth) they’ve got 6 tips:

“1. Be bold. Talking to teens about sex can be awkward. It’s not only awkward for you, but at times it’s awkward for the students. Break through the awkwardness by being bold. Don’t be afraid to use the word “sex” or other words that come up in a conversation about it. Christian teens have heard all the terms about sex and associated words, so you probably won’t say anything they haven’t heard.

2. Keep the Gospel central. When teaching Christian teens about sex, make sure the Gospel is clear. There are a few reasons this is extremely important. First, you don’t want to teach students that just being a moral person in regards to sex is OK…. Second, many students in your group will have already lost their virginity or have messed up sexually in some other way. These students need to hear the Gospel! They need to hear that Jesus still loves them and He wants to forgive them. They may feel dirty, used and broken, but God restores and wants to redeem their failure. One last thing, please be careful with the “dirty rose” illustration. Watch this video for more on that from Matt Chandler.

3. Define sex biblically. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people define sex as just intercourse. According to Scripture, sex is more than just intercourse. In Ephesians 5:3 the Greek word for sexual immorality is pornea, which covers all sexual activity outside of marriage… Those are things that most students don’t consider sex… God says sex is any form of sexual activity outside of marriage. Define sex biblically when teaching students about it.

 

Other Useful Links

You’ll find some books and resources on Ministry Links – especially some on welcoming LGBTQIA+ youth into your youth group & ministry.  “The average lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual person comes out at the age of 16. This guide will help you care for those youth.” The church has generally come across as very judgemental on LGBTQIA+ people in the past and there is a lot of hurt there from those who feel discriminated against by Christians.  If we believe that God is love, he loves us all regardless of gender or sexuality and the church needs to be a place that welcomes everyone to the table with open arms and into the lavish grace that God offers us all.  There is a high chance you will have an LGBTQIA+ youth in your group – potentially even more than one, they may be scared to ‘come out’ due to fear of being judged and kicked out of your group and so it’s really important that we apporach the topic carefully and lovingly.     https://www.ministrylinks.online/sexuality.html

 

 

Youthscape also have some great resources on sex, relationships and gender including parents guides which can also be good for youth leaders to glean from, they also have a book on self esteem identity for teenage boys ‘The Man You Are Made To Be’ , a game to help approach the topic of sexting ‘#IsItOk?’, Romance Academy playing cards to faciliate healthy conversations on sex and relationships and a couple of books ‘Just Sex?’ and ‘The Dating Dilemma’ to help equip you on the topics https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/themes/sex-relationships

 

For more info and help covering the subject of pornography specifically there is general info on xxxchurch.com who are church whose whole ministry is to create safe community for those struggling with porn addiction or fightthenewdrug.org who are a non religious non profit raising awareness and tackling the porn culture or UK based christian charity who inform, educate and equip schools, churches and individuals to talk about and tackle the damaging impact of porn https://thenakedtruthproject.com

 

Lovewise christian UK charity has a website with resources for schools, youth groups and they’ll even give advice for covering the topics. Their resources include personal testimony videos, books, Bible studies on the theme and more. There may be something on there useful for your context on this subject.

“Lovewise seeks to help churches by providing resources on the subjects of puberty, relationships and marriage for parents (to use with their children), youth leaders and young people. Lovewise offers a biblically faithful message on a sensitive subject. All our resources are produced by Christian health professionals with input from teachers and parents. We are also happy to support parents or ministers who wish to discuss ethical or practical issues covered by our resources or raised through school sex and relationships education.”

https://lovewise.org.uk

 

Acet UK is a Christian charity with a mission to equip and inspire individuals, schools, churches and organisations, in the UK and internationally, to transform culture by promoting healthy self-esteem, positive relationships and good sexual health.  I actually did the accredited training with these guys when they were called Esteem Network – and it equipped me to better teach sex and relationships in schools and in my church youth context.  This is what Acet offers:

• “Educating young people through our Esteem programme
• Sharing our expertise on these issues through delivering Esteem training and providing resources to those who work with young people and communities, including youth workers, teachers and health practitioners
• Providing support to parents on how to talk to their children about relationships and sex
• Training and mobilising churches to facilitate conversations around relationships and sex
• Working with and training international partners who share our vision and mission and who are committed to mobilising the church to promote healthy relationships, improve sexual health and respond to the HIV pandemic
• Providing a channel for donors to support the work of our international partners in delivering education and training, and care for those whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS”

You can check our ACET’s full offering here

 

Get in Touch

If you know of any other great resources or links or if you’ve written your own resource on this let us know – we’d love to feature it in our library if we can.

If you would appreciate some advice, encouragement or just a chat to talk through how to tackle the topic of sex and relationships or any of the surrounding big topics (porn, LGBTQI+ etc. ) we’d love to meet you for coffee or on Zoom – contact us