So It's Kind of a Touchy Subject...

A couple of months ago, I sat down with some of my leaders and talked about what kinds of events we wanted to do over the course of the semester. They mentioned offhandedly that it would be great to have an event focused on sex and dating relationships because they had lots of questions and thought their friends would have lots of questions as well. So we put a date on our calendar - November 22nd - and decided that would be our night to talk about sex and dating. Sounds innocent enough, right? Just an InterVarsity staff worker trying to help some students piece together their thoughts on a confusing and sometimes painful subject. No big deal.

Then my mind started going. Wow, sex is a pretty touchy subject, I thought. It's not just Christians who have questions and opinions - everybody has questions and opinions about sex and dating. Wouldn't it be great if we could get lots of people who aren't following Jesus into the room to talk about it as well? Oh wait...what if we could somehow do some evangelistic conversations based on sex and dating and then invite people to come to the event to hear what Jesus thinks? That would be fascinating. How would that work exactly?

Well, we probably would want to gather some hard data about what our campus actually thinks about the subject so we should probably do a survey. But it would be fun if we could also do something that was a bit more of a spectacle to draw attention to the controversial nature of the topic. Then, the image of the poster you see in that picture above came to mind. Oh wow, I thought, wouldn't it be great to make a bunch of these posters and put them up in random gathering places on campus where a few of my students could engage people in conversation? But who would be willing to do that?

Turns out, about 15 of my students would be willing to do that. Their eyes got really big when I told them about my idea, but they signed up all the same. So we held some training and spent some time talking about Jesus and now they are heading out this week to intentionally get themselves into some pretty sensitive conversations about Jesus, Sex & Dating. They're going to ask some tough questions. They're going to tell some tender stories. They're going to talk about the healing they found in Jesus. And they're going to invite people to come to an event where they can find that same healing. Big week, right?

Here's where you come in. We need your prayers. We've never done anything like this before. Would you pray that God sets up fantastic conversations for myself and my students? Would you pray that He opens our eyes to see exactly the right people who need to hear from Him? Would you pray for a staff friend and I as we write a talk that both explains what sex was originally designed for and how Jesus brings healing to the ways we've abused it? Who knows what might happen when that many students dedicate a week of time to engaging people with the Good Story? I'll keep you posted.