The Safe Church Ministry of the Christian Reformed Church has produced an accessible, story-driven resource to help parents—and especially teens—better grasp and live out biblical teachings on sexual temptation, gender roles, intimacy, and the overall topic of human sexuality.
The booklet highlights the reality that God created humans to be in relationships and to be members of a community. In addition, God created people “with a longing for intimacy, with him and with others,” according to coauthors William Veenstra, a Canadian pastor, and Gayla Postma, news editor for The Banner.
Titled Driver’s Training for Dating: Sex and Intimacy in Healthy Relationships, the resource aims to educate young people on how to travel the tricky road of sexuality in today’s sex-saturated society.
“You need to know the rules of the road, and you need a GPS system to guide you where you are headed. You need to know where the potholes are and how to drive defensively, even if the cultural traffic lights are askew and the other drivers aren’t paying attention,” the authors write.
The authors intentionally chose a narrative style that uses stories as a way to talk about this so-human and so-complicated topic.
Teaching the path to healthy sexuality is one of several tasks that Safe Church Ministry undertakes. Supported with assistance from CRC members through the Ministry Shares program, the ministry grew out of the need several years ago to address the problem of sex abuse by church leaders in the denomination.
The online resource is available by visiting crcna.org/safechurch.
About the Author
Chris Meehan is a freelance writer and commissioned pastor at Coit Community Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.
