Porn and Christianity

Would we have any ministers if it were stated “if you looked at porn you could no longer be in ministry?” This question came up a couple of year ago, I interviewed a head Human Resources (HR) person of a large church. This Church had over 25,000 members across multiple campuses.

I was interviewing this lady about my master’s extended research paper (Like a thesis but this was only 68 pages long). The subject was hiring practices in the Church. They had a core philosophy in hiring of Character, Competency and Chemistry. They said different people interviewed the different C’s. With her being apart of HR, she asked a lot of hard personal questions in regards to Character. They did a great job asking all sorts of questions. One of the questions they said they ask is do you look at porn?

The conversation around porn was interesting. I asked what if they were honest and answered yes, would they be instantly eliminated? She said no. I was surprised and asked why? She said depending on the study, about 60 percent of ministers admit looking at porn, if we said no, we couldn’t fill half the positions in the Church. I said how do you handle this answer?

She explained, we appreciated the honesty and have our follow up questions: When was the last time you looked at porn? Do you have accountability partners? Do you have software on your electronic devices to help protect against porn or to hold you accountable? If they answer yes to these questions and give us explanations to the questions we continue on with the interview. If they answer no or say they are able to hold themselves accountable then we stop the interview and no longer pursue the interview. She said porn is a problem and mention as of that day, she was going to have to let two members go because of porn being sent across computers. Porn is a problem and is nothing new from biblical times.

Paul shares about porn and Christianity in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4…

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable.”

The Greek word used for sexual immorality is porneia meaning: to engage in sexual immorality of any kind, often with the implication of prostitution—‘to engage in illicit sex, to commit fornication, sexual immorality, fornication, prostitution.^[1] 2,000 years after this was written and it is still a struggle we have. Living for Jesus is living above and trying to live a life pleasing to God.

Honestly of out of all the sins, this is a huge temptation to me. I grew up with my mom leaving my dad because he had a drinking problem, I haven’t really been tempted to drink as a result. I don’t believe alcohol is evil or a sin unless you indulge in way to much of it. For the most part I stay away from it. I don’t smoke and I have never tried an illegal substance of any kind. Porn is a temptation for me though and I have fallen into temptation in the past. I have to make sure as I am trying to live a holy life, I have different steps to keep me accountable.

I am a firm believer in www.xxxchurch.com, every electronic device I am on has their accountability software. I have my wife as an accountability partner (I usually have another person in my life as an accountability partner too, and am looking for a new one). I want to live a life that is holy and honorable, this doesn’t mean that I am perfect by any means, but as I live for Jesus I have times I fall short of this. I am still trying and working on being a better person all around everyday.

How about you?

Have a great day.

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^[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 770.

Can I be a Christian and continue to struggle with the same sin?

With my blog, I pray before I write something along the lines, “God help me learn more about you and help me share what I have learned with others.”

This sermon by Perry Noble at NewSpring Church is wonderfully done. I have been asked this question multiple times and this was an amazing take on it.

Can we be Christian and struggle with the same sin?

The Sermon starts at about 16 minutes.

http://newspring.cc/watch/you-asked-for-it-2013/can-i-be-a-christian-and-continue-to-struggle-with-the-same-sin

Proverbs 23:18…There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.

I trust everyone. It's the devil inside them I don't trust.

Sunday morning can be so peaceful compared to the rest of the week. Everyone puts on a smile and is happy. I often wonder how many people are not happy or not doing something good? Everyone can do so much good and yet have so much bad going on. Even those with the best of intentions can mess up.

Paul goes into an interesting couple of verses in Romans 7:21-25…

“It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.”

Pornography, gossip, lust, hatred and all the seven deadly sins pop in my head when I think about what Christians struggle with. I don’t know of one Christian that truly loves to sin but it feels like we are our own worst enemies. Part of me is working against myself. You can love Jesus, go to Church every week, try to live a good life and still be a screwup.

Through the devil inside us there is a cure, Jesus Christ. We don’t have to be wrapped up into the person we were. We were made to change through our deepest struggles and that is because of Christ. Sin will always be there and at times it overcomes us.

Yet there is Jesus who overcomes sin. Jesus was put there to take care of our sin, no matter how much we are tempted we can still rely on Jesus to overcome. Will you trust in Jesus today?

Have a great day.

Porn......and Pancakes

Dirty Little Secret

We hear about it but we don’t talk about it.

We see it, but we don’t.

It’s all around us but it’s not.

What is it…..

 
Porn.
 
There is not a lot of talk in general about sex in the Church and for teens the most obvious answer is just don’t do it.

We are called to handle the situation more than just this.

Sexual Immorality covers every sexual sin possible, examples, porn, adultery, masturbation, lust, prostitution and well you get the point.

If you think this is a matter that is dealt with outside of Church, think again.

On average…

The average age a student first looks at pornography is 11.

90 % of teens 8-16 have viewed a porn site (most while doing homework).
Christians who said pornography is a major problem – 47%.
Regularly 40 million adults visit pornography websites daily.
If you think this is just men….
1 of every 3 visitors to adult web sites are women. (All of these stats are on xxxchurch.com)
This is a huge issue nobody talks about.
It can get even more dangerous with the fact rather than looking on computers, it’s easily accessible by Ipods, cell phones and other hand held internet devices.

As Christians we are told…

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4.

The problem is sometimes we need help to make this happen and it’s a subject we don’t want to ask for help on.

So here is some help…

As a Church we are hosting an event on Sept 17^th.

It’s called Porn and Pancakes and is through the organization xxxchurch.com

XXXchurch.com was based by Craig Cross to answer the need to help people out of the film industry and to help people struggling with all aspects of porn.

This is a breakfast in which we bring in two nationally known speakers on this subject in Jake Larson and Brian McGinness.

They will talk about the porn industry, how it affects the Church and what we can do about it.

We all need accountability if we are moving towards being more like Christ.

Check this out and pass it along, it could save, a teen from making wrong ideas or thinking of sex in an ungodly way (Sex was meant to be great for a husband and wife), a future marriage, a marriage or a single person trying to live a pure life.

If you need help, there is help, it doesn’t have to be a dirty little secret anymore.

Even if you don’t need help, this is a great breakfast to give you resources that will help you, your family, your Church, your kids or your grandchildren.

Have a great day.

Porn and Pancakes

We hear about it but we don’t talk about it.

We see it, but we don’t.

It’s all around us but it’s not.

What is it…..

Porn.

There is not a lot of talk in general about sex in the Church and for teens the most obvious answer is just don’t do it.

 
We are called to handle the situation more than just this.

Sexual Immorality covers every sexual sin possible, examples, porn, adultery, masturbation, lust, prostitution and well you get the point.

If you think this is a matter that is dealt with outside of Church, think again.

On average…

The average age a student first looks at pornography is 11.

90 % of teens 8-16 have viewed a porn site (most while doing homework).
Christians who said pornography is a major problem – 47%.
Regularly 40 million adults visit pornography websites daily.
If you think this is just men….
1 of every 3 visitors to adult web sites are women. (All of these stats are on xxxchurch.com)
 
This is a huge issue nobody talks about.

It can get even more dangerous with the fact rather than looking on computers, it’s easily accessible by Ipods, cell phones and other hand held internet devices.

As Christians we are told…

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4.

The problem is sometimes we need help to make this happen and it’s a subject we don’t want to ask for help on.

So here is some help…

As a Church we are hosting an event on Sept 17^th.

It’s called Porn and Pancakes and is through the organization xxxchurch.com

XXXchurch.com was based by Craig Cross to answer the need to help people out of the film industry and to help people struggling with all aspects of porn.

This is a breakfast in which we bring in two nationally known speakers on this subject in Jake Larson and Brian McGinness.

They will talk about the porn industry, how it affects the Church and what we can do about it.

We all need accountability if we are moving towards being more like Christ.

Check this out and pass it along, it could save, a teen from making wrong ideas or thinking of sex in an ungodly way (Sex was meant to be great for a husband and wife), a future marriage, a marriage or a single person trying to live a pure life.

If you need help, there is help, it doesn’t have to be a dirty little secret anymore.

Even if you don’t need help, this is a great breakfast to give you resources that will help you, your family, your Church, your kids or your grandchildren.

Have a great day.