CONSEQUENCES
10 minutes
Get the group to brainstorm all the different consequences of sex they can think of. Write each consequence on a different strip of paper. Encourage them to think abut positive and negative consequences, but aim to have as many ideas as possible. Ask your young people to think about whether there are more consequences of sex in wider society. Discuss how sex is used in music videos, advertising, gossip and celebrity headlines and add these consequences to your strips of paper. These might include: STIs, pregnancy, babies, love, rejection, hurt, getting a reputation, sexual experience, empowerment, disrespect and objectification of women.
Ask: Do you feel like society is mainly positive or negative about the consequences of sex? Ask the group to divide the strips into two columns of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. It’s probable that the negative column will be longer than the positive. Keep hold of the paper strips for a later activity.
SEX IN THE BIBLE
5 minutes
Ask the group to do a spider diagram of what they think the Bible says about sex. Allow this to be open-ended: they might have heard lots about sex within marriage, sexuality, rape in the Old Testament, or they might not think the Bible talks about sex at all.
SONG OF SONGS
10 minutes
Explain that sex is not a new idea, in fact God created sex and so the Bible is full of stories where sex is mentioned - in both positive and negative ways. In the Old Testament there is a whole book called Song of Songs which is a rather erotic love story between two (married) people.
Divide the group into pairs and allocate them a chapter of Song of Songs to read. Get them to count how many body parts they think are mentioned… it’s ok if there’s lots of giggling!
Highlight how the relationship in Song of Songs shows that God doesn’t hate sex at all – in fact, he created it to be enjoyed. But God also cares about us and wants us to not get hurt physically, emotionally or spiritually. That’s why God created sex to be something within a committed, loving and respectful relationship, where both people are celebrated and happy. Often in society, we can see a bad version of sex portrayed (refer back to the list of negative consequences). This isn’t what God intends for us, and that’s why he tells us to treat sex as something special and important.
THE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP
20 minutes
Break the group into twos and threes to ‘design’ and describe the perfect relationship. Be as creative in resourcing this as possible. Provide big sheets of paper, magazines to cut out, coloured pens, scrap paper to stick on and key words printed out to encourage them to think about every aspect (words like ‘honest’, ‘committed’, ‘loves Jesus’, ‘encourages each other’). Allow the young people to interpret this activity in anyway way they like; they may want to draw an outline of a couple or they may want to keep the physicality vague. Allow young people to think about looks (they might draw or cut out people from magazines), but encourage them to also focus on what they think makes a relationship work. While making these pictures, ask the group questions to help them to to consider commitment (they may think marriage or just a mutual promise or understanding) ,faithfulness, loyalty, trust, deep friendship etc. Keep reminding them that this is an absolutely ideal relationship so to dream big.
Get the groups to feedback what they have designed to the rest of the group. Some of them may be funny and have forgotten the values and qualities so bring that out by the questions you ask them as they feedback. Lay out the consequences again and ask the group to pick the strips of consequences which would apply to each ‘perfect’ relationship if sex was introduced. Hopefully only some of the positive consequences will apply. Ask the group if seeing sex in the context of these relationships changes their overall view.
As an additional activity, you could spend five minutes discussing and designing the opposite relationship: the absolute worst they could imagine and see which of the consequences would apply to this one.
Key point
Bad relationships make it easy to assume that God isn’t keen on sex but good relationships lead to sex at its best. God didn’t intend to create something rubbish that comes with all kinds of emotional, physical and societal problems: he created something amazing. If we strive for our relationships to be amazing, we will be much closer to understanding sex the way that God created it to be.
ROLE MODELS
15 minutes
Ask the group to identify three relationships that they think model a good, respectful relationship. Ask the group to share about one or more of the couples and highlight one reason why they think that relationship works. These relationships may be parents, grandparents, friends, youth leaders, church leaders and so on. Remember to be sensitive to the fact that some young people may come from backgrounds where they’re more used to dysfunctional relationships. Encourage the young people to spend some time talking to the people modeling good relationships, asking them why they think they have had a successful relationship.
To finish, lead the group in praying for those they have identified as having good relationships: that God will bless their relationships. Bring before God those who may be in abusive relationships: asking God to intervene in those situations.
Beth Stout and Mandy Toombs are respectively chief executive and creative director of Golddigger Trust, an award-winning charity working with vulnerable young people around issues of self-esteem, healthy relationships, mental health and aspirations.
