God as Sex Expert?

[chev1958]

Brownsburg church promotes God as an expert on sex

By Josh Duke
Indianapolis Star
Feb. 21, 2011

Posters, banners and even drink coasters are popping up around Brownsburg showing a picture of a man with eyes and mouth wide open and asking: "What happens when God gets between the sheets?"
New Day Church is finding sex helps sell its message of faith. The edgy marketing campaign promotes a sermon series starting today focusing on the link between sex and religion.
During the next four weekends, the year-old Hendricks County congregation, which meets in an elementary school, will hear Pastor Denis Roy discuss God's take on topics such as intimacy, pleasure, sexual preference, pornography, adultery and even sexual healing.
Though churches are always evolving to meet the needs of parishioners, New Day's efforts are part of a larger outreach trend nationwide, said Philip Goff, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
A growing number of mostly startup churches are trying increasingly creative approaches to appeal to people who have either strayed from church or had no interest in organized religion, Goff said.
"One of the things many of these new churches are trying to do is imitate culture to bring in people, instead of sitting back and critiquing it," he said. "This is a trend that is going to be with us for a long time, because preachers are realizing they may have to turn to nontraditional means to attract younger members."
According to the Massachusetts-based Institute for the Biocultural Study of Religion, U.S. churches need to do more to attract new followers.
It cited a recent Public Religion Research survey that found the number of "nonreligious Americans" -- those who report no formal religious affiliation -- doubled from 1990 to 2008, reaching 17 percent of the population. About 40 years ago, that number was 5 percent.
The Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center's Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a poll of 35,000 Americans in 2007 that found 16 percent described themselves as "atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular."
The sex sermons aren't New Day's first provocative attempt to reach out. An earlier series called "How to Live with Idiots and Morons" focused on the Bible's advice on how to get along with others.
"We knew that when you bring up the conversation of sex, the knee-jerk reaction is shock and awkwardness," Roy said about his upcoming sermon series titled "Sex . . . Not in Church."
"Often there is a disconnect between people and church," he added. "Sex is one of those issues that people are dealing with, and we believe God has the answers."
Regarding his offbeat efforts to raise his church's profile, Roy said, "Everything we do is focused on reaching out and not waiting for people to come to us."
Other churches have gone other ways.
Some have services or events at nontraditional locations, such as tattoo parlors, music venues or even bars. They may host heavy-metal concerts, skateboard competitions, motorcycle shows or even body-piercing events to spread their message.
Churches have begun to emulate popular aspects of society, Goff said, as a way to attract and appeal to people whom they may eventually want to convert.
Brownsburg resident Bill Payne, a parishioner at New Day, said he and other members support the efforts to draw people in, although he hopes they don't go too far to stay relevant and lose sight of the ultimate goal -- spreading the word.
"It has become more necessary to show nonbelievers we are just regular people with the same problems they have," Payne said. "We aren't here to judge you or look down on you but to share the love of Christ."
Nontraditional Christian churches are not unheard of in Central Indiana.
The year-old Drowning Fish Ministries, tucked into space behind a tattoo shop in Avon, also in Hendricks County, has built a reputation by drawing a nontraditional Sunday night crowd with a worship service more akin to a rock concert.
"We have everybody from professionals in suits to the extremely pierced and tattooed to Goths, hippies and ex-cons," said Drowning Fish's Pastor Scott Miller. "The problems are the same for our congregation as for other churches. The packaging is just a little different."
Miller thinks most of the nontraditional churches arise from those within that fringe culture who feel left out.
Miller encourages parishioners to host small group sessions in places that would be nonthreatening to nonbelievers, such as bars, coffee shops and tattoo parlors. Drowning Fish's staff even promotes the church with business cards featuring fake blood smears that read: "Hate religion?"
Other churches have begun to draw younger crowds with rock music and a come-as-you-are message.
Gene Feasel, founder and pastor of Current Church in Franklin, said his congregation has evolved into a mostly 25-and-younger crowd since its inception five years ago, because the old downtown storefront building housing the church also doubles as The Gear music venue.
Though services feature loud rock music and a preacher wearing a T-shirt and jeans, Feasel -- who used to sing in Christian rock bands -- doesn't pull any punches with his message. He preaches straight from the Bible, a tradition he and most other ministers at alternative churches refuse to sacrifice.
Unlike New Day, Feasel doesn't actively promote his Johnson County church or sermons through advertising because he doesn't want anyone to feel tricked into attending.
"The best way people can experience the love of Christ," he said, "is on their level where they feel comfortable, so our music venue is our greatest outreach."
Bradford Smith, a 29-year-old tattoo artist in Franklin, said he needed a place like Current Church to give his spiritual journey more meaning.
Smith attended a large Indianapolis church as a child but rebelled when he became a teen. When he decided to go back as an adult, he felt something was missing at his old church.
"I had to quit focusing on church as a religion or as a building to go to and instead discover (that) it needed to be a lifestyle that consumed my life, and that is what Current offered me," he said. "That is when I, for the first time, became a true believer."

[trc123]

I didn't read this article and therefore I am only responding to the thread's title, "God as Sex Expert?" I'm assuming that since the Lord God created us and gave us sexual relations within a marriage that he is indeed an expert on the matter.

From just glancing over the article it looks to me like some churches have gone off the deep end of worldliness (if not worse).

[no name joe]

Song of Solomon confirms that. Wowza!!!

[John81]

While God is an expert, the church using this approach is unbiblical.

Aspects dealing with sex should be taught in church, but in the respectful, edifying manner in which Scripture gives it; as is put forth in Song of Solomon where sex is an intimate part of marriage, and other areas of Scripture.

To use sex as an ad ploy, which is bound to elicit lust and perverse conversation among the unsaved and cast a poor light upon Christ, is wrong.

With regards to those outside the church, the job of the church is to build up its members to take the Gospel to them; not to try and excite them with sly mentions of sex in hopes their lust will drive their curiosity so they will want to hear more.

What a sad state Christianity is in today.

[JerryNumbers]

Blasphemy!