Church's sex-ed campaign stirs calls, controversy

An electronic billboard on Monroe Street near Sylvania Avenue flashes a message about CedarCreek Church's sex-ed seminars. THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY Enlarge | Photo Reprints

A local megachurch's campaign to bring Christian-inspired sex education to high school students in the Toledo area is being met with some controversy.

CedarCreek Church, a nondenominational church that is known for its edgy advertising strategies, began the campaign myGodmadesex.com Monday. The church is using billboards, TV commercials, and outreach efforts at high schools to drive students to the campaign's Web site and encourage them to attend two seminars about sex and God.

The Rev. Lee Powell, senior pastor, and other CedarCreek staff say they've been receiving an unusually high number of calls and e-mails about the campaign, some of them supportive but others from people who consider it inappropriate.

"We're getting more talk and more concern and more inquiries from this campaign than from anything else we've ever done," said Steven Whitlow, the student ministries director for the church's campus in Perrysburg. "It's creating a stir."

A stir is exactly what CedarCreek wanted to create when it began the campaign, Mr. Whitlow said. He said the idea is to reach out to young people who don't normally attend church, and draw them into Christianity by addressing a topic that is important to them.

Mr. Whitlow cited statistics that show a high percentage of teens engages in sex. He said students hear about sex all the time in popular culture, and churches need to address the issue to stay relevant to young people.

Almost half of high school students engage in sexual intercourse, according to the most recent figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention. Rates of pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion among teens are considerably higher in the United States than in most other developed countries.

Ben Snyder, student ministries director for CedarCreek, said many parents have responded positively to the campaign because they find it difficult to address issues of sexuality with their children. He said CedarCreek aims to redress cultural messages about sex that oscillate between treating it as a fun, throwaway activity, to handling it as something secret and shameful.

Students who attend the CedarCreek talks this Sunday and on May 1 shouldn't expect anything too radical, however.

The meetings - titled "Sex is bigger than you think" and "Messing up to making up" - will focus squarely on traditional Christian concepts of abstinence, reserving sex for marriage, and heterosexuality.

Mr. Snyder said the point of the talks is to present sex from God's perspective.

"You can only best understand sexuality when you have a healthy Biblical view of who God is," Mr. Snyder said. "I think God created sex to be enjoyed, celebrated, and be engaged in within the confines of marriage."

However, Mr. Whitlow said the talks will reach out to students who may be sexually active, instructing them on how to "restore" themselves.

"There is grace, there is forgiveness, and there is an opportunity always to be restored and move forward in purity," Mr. Whitlow said.

The campaign has been met with mixed reactions from other pastors.

The Rev. Russ Merrin of Monclova Road Baptist Church in Monclova said he had not heard much about CedarCreek's campaign, but that it sounded like a good idea.

"I'm not opposed to it," Mr. Merrin said. "They do a great job advertising, and I would imagine this program's going to be pretty good."

Daniel Bellavia, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church of Greater Toledo, said CedarCreek's attempt to address sexuality is nothing new. Many churches, particularly those with younger members, address the issue in some form, he said.

The main difference between CedarCreek and other churches' outreach efforts is its ability to catch people's attention through flashy ad campaigns, the pastor said.

"I think that's the nature of CedarCreek," Mr. Bellavia said. "That's not a negative or a positive, it's simply that CedarCreek is always going to aggressively market its programs."

Sex is always a difficult topic to address in church because many people have grown up to believe it is inappropriate to talk about it in a religious context, Mr. Bellavia said.

"I think what CedarCreek is trying to do is find an appropriate place to talk about sex with their people," Mr. Bellavia said. "What we have to find in the church is the correct place for everything."

But the Rev. Andrew Edwards, pastor of Northwest Baptist Church in Toledo, said church is not the place to talk about sex. He voiced strong opposition to CedarCreek's campaign, saying that discussing sex with teens would make them more likely to engage in it because it would "stir up their emotions."

The pastor criticized CedarCreek for "letting the world dictate what they do instead of the Bible."

"What they're using is the sensual, not the spiritual," Mr. Edwards said. "I oppose what they do. I don't think what they're doing is going to help. They're just using it to market to teenagers."

Contact Claudia Boyd-Barrett at:

cbarrett@theblade.com

or 419-724-6272.