I recently read an article about a community meeting hosted by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Gastonia, NC. Lamenting the high teen birth rates, Gaston County Faith Network’s lunch lecture series discussed the faith community's involvement:
New Testament Church of the Firstborn Pastor Kevin Kellough said churches need to be involved when it comes to teen pregnancy because some of the kids having sex are the same ones sitting in pews Sunday morning.
“You’ve got your head in the clouds if you think that’s not going on,” said Kellough. “This is exactly the type of discussions that we need to be in, and the church does not need to be afraid of it.”
The health department may have a different position on how to teach sex education than area churches, but putting those groups together is important in dealing with the issue, he said.
People fear that teaching kids about ways to prevent diseases will cause a flurry of condoms to fly off store shelves, but Swanson said research shows that kids don’t have sex more when they know more. The group won’t be passing out condoms at any programs, either.
“Kids need to know about how their bodies work. They need to know what healthy relationships are like,” Swanson said.
Read more: http://www.gastongazette.com/
Too often, youth are left to receive information about their sexual health from reluctant parents or schools teaching abstinence-only curricula. This often leaves youth misinformed (or not informed at all) about an issue that is a natural part of their development, yet one that can also have devastating consequences.
I'm not suggesting that churches take over the role of educating about all aspects of youth sexual health, but we can provide an opportunity for those discussions to take place. We can provide parents with tools to facilitate what is often an uncomfortable conversation. In our Resources section, you will find three toolkits for how to talk with youth about HIV and AIDS, as well as other sexual health information. Let's be sure our kids are not placed into difficult, life-altering situations as a result of lack of knowledge.
If you have additional resources, please send them to us at neac@neac.org.
Matthew Ellis is the executive director of NEAC.
