*NEW* Not Your Ordinary Senior High Youth Retreat - Read student reactions to the Our Whole Lives resource from a recent Minnesota youth retreat.
Let's Talk About Sex - This widely acclaimed documentary, takes a candid look at American teenager's (and their parent's) attitudes about sexuality. This documentary is available for purchase and many helpful resources are available on the website,
letstalkaboutsexthe film.com First Congregational UCC in Eugene, OR, and their Our Whole Lives ministry is featured towards the end of the film.
5 Reasons to Talk about Sex in Church
Teen Dating Safety - Statistics show that one in three teenagers has experienced violence in a dating relationship. This downloadable PDF is a great resource for use in faith and secular settings.
"To offer sexuality education in a congregation is to acknowledge that human sexuality is simply too important too beautiful and too potentially dangerous to be ignored in a religious community."
- Rev. Lena Breen, Mt. Vernon, WA
For over 40 years, the United Church of Christ has encouraged churches to study human sexuality and has published life-span comprehensive resources for use not only in the faith community, but also in secular settings.
Our resources, Our Whole Lives-Sexuality and Our Faith , Created in God's Image and Affirming Persons, Saving Lives are age-appropriate, medically-accurate, and have both immediate relevance and applicability for later life.
In addition, they emphasize and underscore the values of love, mutuality, self worth, health, responsibility, justice and inclusivity.
We're Changing Lives
"Many, many thanks for the work you are doing with the OWL students. Yesterday, when my child left OWL, he said he learned more during his hours with you than he does in a month of school. I do hope that is a exaggeration and that he does learn at school, but you get the point…Words cannot convey my gratitude....It takes a village and you are some of the village's most positively contributing members."
I think there were some who were less than enthusiastic about bringing OWL to First Congregational Church of Long Beach fearing something - I'm not sure exactly. For us, OWL gave ([my daughter]) confidence to own her body and her feelings and the words/ability to discuss "the elephant in the room" - sex and sexuality."
"I'm so glad I had Our Whole Lives. My friends in college are dealing with things we talked about in Our Whole Lives and I already know what I want to do and my friends - they're struggling with decisions."
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