In February of 2008, a cutting edge Christian church in Florida launched what they called a "30 Day Sex Challenge." This was supposed to help members improve their relationships. "When you talk about sex, everybody expects the church to say God hates sex," said Pastor Paul Wirth. "That's just not true. I really believe that God wants us to have great sex."
Married couples are to engage in sexual activity for 30 days and unmarried folks who are sexually active, even if they are in a committed relationship, are to abstain.
Pastor Paul Wirth of Relevant Church says, "We thought if we could challenge our married couples to really engage in intimacy for 30 days and really focus on each others needs for 30 days it would revolutionize their relationships and if we could get single people to remove sex from the equation for 30 days and focus on what really makes their relationships really work it could revolutionize their relationships the current ones that they're in and maybe their future relationships with their future spouses."
It must have been a slow news day, because at one point you couldn't get away from the from the 30 Day Sex Challenge. One of the church's websites even seemed to crash from the overload. I grew up granddaughter and great granddaughter of church Deacons. And I know that organized religion is a big business. If you look at the church's home page, you see links to MySpace, Facebook and YouTube, which are Internet marketing staples. What you don't see, is any kind of scripture, instead, you see a picture of an iPhone.
Wirth had tried to tie his church into sex in 2006. It's a marketing ploy that failed him then, but is succeeding now. Is the congregation of the Relevant Church, (you have to love that name,) going to get anything positive out of the challenge? That's the real question.
Pastor Wirth, 39, delivered the challenge to married couples, citing the statistics that half of all marriages end in divorce.
"And that's no different for people who attend church," he said. "Sometimes life gets in the way. Our jobs get in the way."
"At the end, the teacher isn't going to grade the homework," Wirth said. "But if you can get a couple to be intimate three days a week, their relationship is going to change. Of course, all the guys say its genius," said Pastor Paul Wirth. "The married women think we're out of our minds."
As a married woman, I can soundly endorse Wirth's analysis.
Wirth chose 30 days so people would build sex into their daily routines. He wanted to create habits that would spill into all areas of their lives.
My husband of 17 years says, "it tells you a lot about where we've gone as a society."
Once I explained that I wanted his response to the challenge, so I could get a man's point of view, he said," it's a nice, non-judgmental way for people to get back in touch with each other."
Although it's geared toward helping couples whose sex lives have become lacking, the 30 Day Sex Challenge might be problematic for older couples.
Partners of older women who are menopausal or peri-menopausal must take into consideration that their wives may have insufficient hormone levels. Sex may be painful if precautions are not taken.
For older men, how many days in a row can you safely take Viagra?
Now that the challenge is over, and the press has moved on to other stories, all of us married couples can safely tiptoe past the idea of 30 days of sex and put away our Bolero, Barry White and Marvin Gaye CDs.
I think my husband nailed this down when he said, "it's a way for couples to get back in touch with each other." And for that, you don't really need a sex challenge.
