Teach your children godly sexuality (part 1)

Today, we begin to blog the workshop that we offer to parents.

We have already talked about how the world's view of sex has been reduced to the physical act and sexuality has been reduced to orientation.  There is little to no recognition of anything beyond this, despite the obvious obsession people have with "finding someone" and then the hurt caused when it goes sour.  Repeat.

As we saw in our brief history of Christian sexuality the church currently takes one of three positions:

At one extreme we have the "free grace" movement who believe that Christ has forgiven us so we can do what we want.  This is the modern equivalent of the Corinthian view.  This "cheap grace" means that they are no different from the world and devalue the gift.

At the other end we still have those churches who see the immorality in the world and preach a "gospel" (though it is not good news at all) of sex is bad, sex is dirty, save it for the one you love.  This is the modern equivalent of the ascetic/stoic view and leads to Christians feeling condemned, guilty and marriages in trouble.

And then in between there are those churches who sit uncomfortably in the middle and say nothing.  They simply bury their heads in the sand and hope it goes away.  But it doesn't and then we, and our children, are vulnerable to a world that isn't shy about presenting its opinion forcefully and seductively.  In the end, the church just ends up conforming to the world but keeping it out of conversation of the church family.

Why do I mention this?  For two reasons.  Firstly, we need to recognise that the environment we were brought up in at home or in church shapes our beliefs and our feelings about this topic.  For example, if we were brought up in a silent environment then we will naturally find it very difficult to talk about it with our children.  Or if we were brought up in a "sex is bad" environment then we will have issues of shame that need to be addressed before we will be able to communicate the beauty of God's gift to our children.

Secondly, we need to recognise the environment our children are growing up in.  As much as we try to shelter our children, the world has a message it is pushing and if we as parents and/or the church respond with silence then they will go elsewhere to find answers.  And if we respond with the ungodly view of "sex is bad" then either they will grow up rejecting God's good gift or rejecting our opinion in favour of the world who seem to have more fun.

This course is an attempt to impart a godly view of our sexuality - a beautiful gift that reflects glory of our Three-in-One God - which is neither to be rejected, is simply too good to keep quiet about and is better than anything the world has to offer.


This is not a finished product!

I don’t have all the answers and a lovely step by step method that will work in every situation.  Life is simply not like that.  If it was then the bible would have identical stories of how God dealt with different people.

But what I can do is share what I’ve learned (often the hard way) and provide a forum to discuss issues/share ideas to help you come up with an approach which suits both your personality and your children.



To help you do this the course is presented as a workshop with (not so hypothetical) situations that will will enable you to practise applying four general principles to.


I will be sharing my personal experience and interactions with my children and in discussions others may also share personal details – I'm hoping that you will also share what has been revealed to you so we can all benefit and encourage each other onwards.

Obviously this requires a safe place so I ask that you respect each of our journeys and remember when responding to any comments that we are all children of the same heavenly father and are only saved by grace.  And so I will only publish such comments that adhere to these guidelines.



If you would prefer to ask a question privately, then please use the form on the godly sexuality website.

Much love.

Some defintions

You’ll notice that we will use the word sexuality on this blog in preference to the word sex. I think this video sums it up pretty well:

The word “sex” (late 1500s) comes from the Latin sexus: “the state of being male or female”. The origin is uncertain but is commonly taken with seco as division or 'half' of the race", which would connect it to secare “to divide or cut”. That is our race has been cut into two separate halves that can join back together.

In the 1920s D. H. Lawrence was the first to use “sex” to refer to the act of sexual intercourse (a phrase that first came into use in the 1700s). And that is what anyone would think if we to say it. The only exception would be if we said “what is the sex of...?”.

Is that all there is to being male or female? Our genitals and what we do with them? That would indeed be like saying a rainbow is just sun and rain or a mountain is just a triangular shaped rock. How far we have fallen from the beauty, mystery and majesty of who we truly are!

So we will use the word “sexuality” instead (the “action or fact of being male of female”). Whilst this word has also degenerated in its meaning (referring to “capability of sexual feelings” from 1870s and “identity” by 1980) at least it still retains some semblance of depth.

Dictionary definitions of sexuality tend to focus on the characteristics of the sexes and of physical sexual activity, and often miss the relations between them. But in In Gen 1:27 we see that:

God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

Our human sexuality is so much more! It is grounded in the imago Dei (the image of God) and so it is transcendent – it reflects/reveals something of the very nature of God (Rom 1:20). Hence, our sexuality is theographic and as such is deeply spiritual.

What we will be looking at in this blog is what our sexuality reveals about the nature of our Three-in-God and thus how our sexuality is both good and holy.

This message will be redemptive – by seeing the true nature it will help us be who we truly are and not the distorted image we get from the world.

Secondly we will then look at how we can convey this message to our children.