The purpose of my ministry is to challenge and equip parents, youth leaders, pastors, teachers, and other significant adults as sex educators of the children and teens in their care.

As a secondary school teacher and counselor, a leader in an interdenominational youth work, and a pastor’s wife I counseled pregnant teenage girls who shared their sex lives – as well as their problems and regrets – with me. Then as part of my doctoral study program I conducted a survey of teens in a Christian school in Germany and in three churches – one each in the United States, Germany, and Canada. As part of that survey I asked “Which of the following ten topics do you wish your church would teach more about?” When every teen in all four locations, without exception, chose “Sex,” I knew that would need to be the topic of my dissertation and I began researching this subject. I immediately began to receive invitations to speak to Christian leaders and parents in Asia, Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe in conjunction with my husband’s ministry to theological seminaries in these regions.

For the past 20 years I have been speaking and teaching on teen sexuality, and continuing to do research, which I share with my audiences and on this web site.

• I personally believe that parents are called to be the primary sex educators of their children. But many parents (a majority?) don’t talk with their teens about sex. They say that they don’t know how to begin, or when, or what to say. They need to be challenged and equipped to accept this responsibility, and to realize how vitally important it is.
• I believe that the church has a responsibility to train parents to do this job well, provide resources to do the job, and also to supplement parental teaching. Seminary students, pastors, youth leaders, teachers – all adults working with youth – need to be educated and challenged to do this.

Adults need to give their teens an opportunity to talk about sex.