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Christianity Today, March (Web-only), 2008 |

Speaking Out

I Knew I Wasn't Alone

The recent study findings on STDs confirm my experience—and my conviction that churches can do more to help young women.

Jennifer Oxford | posted 3/17/2008 10:00AM

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Open our hearts. Sometimes in the church we begin to assign levels of "badness" to sin. Remember that sexual sin is no worse than any other, and that people suffering from an STD haven't committed a sin worse than the ones you've committed. We all have one thing in common — our sin could only be cleansed by a wonderful Savior. Ask God what he'd like you to do to help these women, and ask him to bring some of the hurting teens (and their parents) into your life to be listened to and loved.

Talk about sex in our churches. If you are a church leader, address the topic. Share the statistics. Offer God's love and grace. Tell local radio stations that you're going to be addressing the topic of STDs and that you're intentionally reaching out in love to those who are secretly suffering. Make it known that you want to walk down this road with them. Keep in mind that there's a high likelihood that members of your congregation have STDs.

Schedule a 'thankfulness revival.' Here's a crazy idea: Ask your pastor to include in the Sunday morning service a time for people in the congregation to share publicly the ugliness from which they've been redeemed. Members will be encouraged, and visitors will feel more at ease knowing that they are among fellow imperfect people. Those with STDs won't feel singled out, and their hearts may be opened to the possibility that God can love and forgive them, too.

Educate teenagers in your youth group. Help them to wrestle with the difference between our culture's bombardment of casual-sex messages (from movies, TV, MySpace, Facebook, and just about everywhere else) and God's plan for purity until marriage. Purity isn't even on many teens' radars. They need to know that what they hear about sex from their schools and the media isn't the full story. On the other side of their favorite movie's "happily ever after" ending, which included sexual promiscuity, there is a high potential for sexual disease.

Every day across our country, Christians pray for the opportunity to serve those in need. The results of this STD survey show us one possible answer to that prayer. There aren't many outreaches that can touch 20 to 25 percent of the people both inside and outside of our churches' walls. I sense in this survey an incredible opportunity for Jesus-followers to reach our broken world with God's story of redeeming love.

Jen Oxford is a freelance writer in Illinois and the founder of a ministry to people with STDs. To see a video recounting her full story of redemption and healing, visit www.DeepDarkSecret.org.

Related Elsewhere:

The CDC has a press release about the study.

In a Christianity Today article last year, Gina Dalfonzo told the story of how politics got in the way of telling people HPV causes cervical cancer.

A 2007 Christianity Today editorial examined whether HPV vaccines should be mandatory.

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March (Web-only) 2008, Vol. 52

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chris

Posted: March 29, 2008 10:59 AM


i'm not sure why she had to "go through" anything. After all, she contracted an infection, and probably an easily treatable one at that. what a sad story.

RME	Posted: March 29, 2008 9:56 AM

I appreciated the honesty and vulnerability of Jen's article and especially the video. I am thankful that the Father has drawn you into His loving forgiveness and given you a husband who models that love in human skin. I pray that others who do not know Him will ask you questions and that those who do will put down the condemning stones and offer a hand to help. I have not had your experience with sexual sin, but most of my friends have. Thank you on their behalf, as well, for your testimony of a big and sufficient God.

MB	Posted: March 29, 2008 3:51 AM

This article is so encouraging. I didnot know that there are other people who is suffering the same shame. I am in a similar situation right now. I am at the age where alot of my peers are getting married and starting their families. Everyone just finds it so odd that someone like me, who would be considered attractive, is not married nor in a relationship. How do you disclose the shame? I was 12 years old when my uncle had sex with me and infected me with venereal warts. I never had sex even when I was a teenager. I am now 28 y-0 and I often wonder if there was any chance of me getting married and have a meaningful relationship. I am so happy for your testimony to know that I am not there only one going through this. I am just happy that there is a God, who despite my history of sexual abuse, still "has plans to give me hope and a future".

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