Many church leaders are aware that pornography is a massive problem among Christians. According to some surveys, it is one of the most confessed sins and is deemed by church leaders nationally to be the most sexually damaging problem in their churches.
Porn use starts young: over half of boys and nearly a third of girls see porn before their teenage years. In these tender years when sexual beliefs are still forming, pornography serves as a powerful kind of sex education—the wrong kind of sex education.
Parents are the Key
Parents have always been and always will be the best defense. Not only do they have the ability to put up fences to protect against exposure to porn, but they are the ones responsible for teaching their children about authentic and godly sexuality.
Find good training tools
Parents need good instruction about the prevalence of pornography, its impact on children, and how to counter the false messages of our over-sexualized culture.
Many church leaders are starting to use resources like UNFILTERED, a DVD workshop for parents. This workshop offers parents both a spiritual and psychological understanding of why pornography is so damaging, and gives them the rules and tools they can use in their homes to combat it.
Incorporate training into existing meetings
Many churches offer classes or groups for parents. Church often have Sunday School programs for different ages and stages of parenting. Churches that offer catechism or confirmation programs often will have a “parents’ track.” Many churches have small groups, formal and informal, of parents doing life together.
The best way to implement a curriculum like UNFILTERED is to simply integrate it into these existing groups. Churches that try to host a special event—something that advertises itself as a “porn workshop” for parents—might be attended by some concerned parents, but probably won’t be widely attended. Instead of hosting a special event, choose to integrate this training into what parents already attend.
Help parents see the big goal
Ultimately, parents will not be the protectors of their children forever. Kids grow up and become young adults. The big goal parents should have when thinking of protecting their children from porn is preparing them to live in a world without fences, without filters, without guardrails.
The goal is to teach kids to become their own watchdogs, and this is the goal of UNFILTERED as well: to train parents to teach their children discernment and wisdom.