Theology in the Raw - How to Disciple Young Kids in Christian Sexuality, Part 1: Laurie Krieg

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Laurie Krieg is the Director of Parent Programs & Discipleship at The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, where she also serves as a founding board member. Laurie has a master’s in evangelism and leadership from Wheaton Graduate School, and she and her husband, Matt, are the co-hosts of the Hole in My Heart Podcast, co-authors of An Impossible Marriage (IVP 2020), and together wrote the forthcoming parenting book, Raising Wise Kids in a Sexually Confused World (IVP 2026). Pre-order our brand new resource: Christian Sexuality: Raising Kids, which releases on Sept 16th! See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rahm. My guest today is Lori Krieg, who is the director of parent programs and discipleship at the Center for Face Sexual and Gender, where she also serves as a founding board member. Lori has a master's degree in evangelism and leadership from Wheaton Graduate School. And she and her husband Matt are the co-host of the Whole in My Heart podcast. And they are co-authors of an impossible marriage put out by IVP a couple a few years ago, and together they wrote the forthcoming parenting book, Raising Wise Kids in a Sexually Confused World, also put up by IPP. It comes out in 2026. I wanted to have Lori come to the show because she also hosted a brand new resource that we've been working on

for a while here at the Center for Face, Sexuality, and Gender. It's called Christian Sexuality, Raising Kids. One of the most pervasive requests we've gotten over the last few years is, can you help us as parents disciple our kids, our young kids in questions around sex, sexuality, and gender and schooling and screen time and all the challenges

facing parents today can you help us navigate this really, really complex world. So that we've spent the last year plus pouring our hearts and souls into this project. And Lori is the host of the series. We also have other people like Jackie Hill

and Preston Perry, John Mark Comer, John Tyson, Dan Allender, Kurt Thompson, and many others who contributed to this series. It comes out September 16th, okay? All the information is in the show notes, or you can go to Center for Faith.com. And if this is something that sounds like a resource you can use or somebody else you know could use, then check it out at Center for Faith.com. So this episode, we're going to dive deep into the content of this resource, talk about parenting young kids in this conversation. And then I'm going to have Lori back on the show

again for the next episode where we're going to drill down deeper into some specifics around how to have these conversations with our young kids. So please welcome back to the show. The one and only, Lori Creed. I call you presto Presto. You do call me Presto. There's a few people that call me Presto. Greg Coles calls me, he just calls me

like pee or something or or homie or whatever. He always tries to imitate because I always say, what's up, dude? He's like, you're the only person who calls me, dude. How excited are you for Christian sexuality raising kids, this new resource that you have put

immense time and energy and thought into producing and I came alongside and helped a little bit with the production of it. But man, you carried this massive load on helping parents disciple, keyword. They're zero to 12 year old kids in this sexual world we're living in. How excited are you for the release? Are you exhausted?

Excited? I am exhausted, but I am thrilled because Preston, you and I have been in this. for 5,000 years. And it's been very reactive work that we've had to do, understandably, like equipping pastors, equipping parents of teenagers, et cetera. What's so fun about this resource is now we get to do the foundational pre-work. And that's what I've been asking myself as a mom, as I've been in this training pastors, training parents of teenagers, and while raising my own young family, is I've been wondering, is there a better way? Are there foundational pieces that we can lay underneath the feet of our kids so that no matter how they experience sexual brokenness

within them or around them, they have the tools they need to choose the way of Jesus no matter what? And I think the answer to that is yes, there is a better way. And it's been really fun. That project is some of our best tools. What are some previous ways that parents have gone about or been told to go about talking about sex and sexuality and all that fun stuff that maybe had some helpful elements? I'm sure there were some good principles that were driving some of these approaches. but we look back and say, I think we could have done better. How would you describe some up, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago

what Christian parents were told to approach this topic with their kids? I think in the last 30, 40 years, which is my life, well, I grew up hearing and then have learned if I didn't hear it in greater Christian culture, is a reactive biblical sexual ethic. In the 80s and 90s, all the divorce stats were coming out. Like, oh, my word, Christians are divorcing at the same rate as the non-Christians. What in the world? And so they saw that.

And in that time, they were like, okay, well, what do we need to do? Well, we need to be realistic about marriage. I heard a lot of lessons. Marriage is hard. So not the beauty of marriage. It was like, marriage is hard. Makes you holy. True.

Don't make you happy. Make you holy. and very like, oh my word, having sex, it's rampant. This was coming out of the 60s and 70s, and so it was very, again, reactive to that. So it's like save sex for marriage. So it felt very rules-based, although I'm sure not every single person woke up in the morning and we're like, let's just create a bunch of Pharisees and rules. But it seemed more horizontal, very like, do this, don't do that.

and less why? Why is that God's beautiful path of flourishing? So there wasn't like the base underneath it, nor was there the trajectory. And then why does God want us to follow these rules? Like, what's the before? What's his preventative work? Why is he saying no to that?

And then what's his yes? So there was less of the vertical, very horizontal, not as much vertical. Yeah. were you raised in for lack of better terms a purity culture era or no you were that I mean chronologically you were but I mean was that in the air in your Christianity growing up and how do you define maybe even as I say period of culture that could mean different things and different people like maybe describe to me what was the what was in your evangelical air about sex and sexuality growing up how would you describe that so this was I kiss dating goodbye was was a huge piece and core which again was reactive, I think, to divorce statistics as well as sex outside of marriage statistics. I heard a lot of pray for your husband starting at age 12 or 10 or 8. So the T-Loss, the trajectory of my life was to get married. And there was no talk of singleness. That was like

for the rejects. And there was no real talk of the kingdom of God, you know, we would definitely like, yeah, your purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, but get married. And sex was scary, although in the purity culture world, and this drove me crazy, Preston, is there was all this like googly-eyed, once you get married, then sex is magical, and it fixes everything in your life. And women, I knew instinctively, like, women were responsible for men's, lust that was very a part of it so even so once you get married sex is bad bad bad until you get

married and then women you better do it and i mean it uh or you are your husband is going to watch porn the end wow now the way was it explicitly said like that or is it just was that just implicitly kind of shouted at you i think some of it was explicit and it wasn't maybe as grumpy but i think Christian culture it was again it was this reaction then we're seeing porn stats so early 2000s I'm in college out of high school

out of college and that was the triple X church you know and I call it the porn and pancakes era so they've incentivized men heterosexual men to come and talk about their newfound

porn addictions because with the entrance of the the internet around 2000, a lot of them, I think it skyrocketed 99 billion percent. So they would incentivize men to come to these breakfasts with pancakes and talk about their porn addiction. And so they drew a straight line from porn addiction to women not giving their husband's sex. And they would talk about that. That would be the testimony Sunday mornings. It's just sad. Like I just, I'm trying to think. I'm sure there was heart in there.

Like, I'm sure it was like, and how else, you know, I'm sure there was heart elements in there. So I, was this preached morning, noon, and night? No, I'm sure some of it was so much of it was implicit and some of it was explicit. And then some of it, my own ears, because of my own trauma, picked up on things more. And so then I was extra sensitive to what was being said. How would you describe as a segue then, this project we've been working on comes out in a couple weeks? How would you describe the biggest difference in what we're doing in this project versus what was intended to be done before? Because there's a lot of shared principles.

Sexes belongs within marriage. Marriage is between a man and woman. Sex is really important. you should and we can maybe get into this like modesty there might be well let's just say

biblical modesty there might be some approaches to modesty that are actually good and healthy so there's a lot under those there's shared principles but I think our approach

I think is quite different what do you see as a big differences in what we're doing versus what has been done before before before I say that I do want to say just the struggle

to say yes to this project for me personally because of how much purity culture has been ripped apart and as a mom who's been in the sexuality spaces so I'm a mom and I've been in the sexuality spaces and I know what people say about purity culture there's a real hesitancy for me to even say yes to this project as much as I was like oh my word we need something I was like Jesus I don't want to be the next purity culture

like I don't want to be the next thing that gets ripped apart. But Preston, maybe you felt this, too, as we were planning it and praying about it. So I'm like, looking around and I'm like, Jesus, we can't just take things apart. We have to be saying something to our kids who are sexual beings. They are developing it as sexual beings, whether we like it or not. And there are beautiful biblical principles that they need to know. So Jesus, have mercy on us as we equip them.

them. So before I get into how we're different, I really don't want to be like, and we're good and everything from the past is bad, which I know you're not like that because I'm like, I am approaching this with such humility and like fear and trembling and confidence because we've done a lot of study. But it's very like, okay, Jesus, please help this to be gospel centered. So that would be my first response to how is this different? Is by the grace. of God, I pray we put these practical tools on a solid gospel foundation. So it's not the 2020's purity culture. This is hopefully ancient gospel wisdom for today's culture. That is my prayer. And it's in what we tried to have where we, how I view some of the purity culture felt more

horizontal and in legalistic. I pray this is more horizontal where the trajectory of the Bible as well as the foundation of the gospel is there. You begin the video series, right? Our whole first video is on the gospel, right? I mean, that is a very clear foundation of the whole series, and it's also a thread that's woven throughout. You keep coming back and back again to the gospel to show how, you know, when we talk about screen time, it goes back to the gospel, when we talk about why people shouldn't touch your private parts, you know, telling your four-year-old that comes back to the gospel. And everything keeps coming back to the gospel. In a nutshell, how, what aspects of the gospel do you feel like are so important as parents think about navigating sex and

sexuality conversations with their, you know, four and five-year-old? So the gospel is the good news of what God has done through Christ to ensure our salvation and redeem the world and to himself. What does that mean? The gospel is the story of King Jesus. What does that mean? That means that the world was created good. Sin busted it up. Jesus came to restore and redeem and that all will be made new again. But where I find the pieces of the gospel narrative that are so helpful to me, yesterday, today, and tomorrow with my real-life kids who are 12 and under is the mission of God as found in the gospel. So before sin jacked everything up, God had this mission to advance his kingdom until everyone everywhere is living in joyful submission to King Jesus. That's his

mission and he invited us into it before the fall we see that go be fruitful multiply fill the earth subdue it he's inviting us to be kings and priests and prophets to this world so he wants this whole world to be full of his light and where he under king jesus but sin jacked it up so when i think about my kids sexuality it's not just don't do bad sexual sense stuff. It's how does your sexuality fit into the mission of God? Pre-fall. And so how I talk to my kids about their mission, before I say anything sexual is I say the mission God has for you, the purpose of your life to put all that theological mumbo-jumbo I just said into simple kid language that we say all the time. The purpose of your life, kids, is to push back the darkness and usher in the

light. Their purpose is not to get married, make Christian babies tithe and die, which that is what I thought my purpose was. So when I discovered I was a sexual sinner, I thought my life was over. But if the purpose of my life is to push back the darkness and usher in the light or advance the kingdom of God until everyone, everywhere is living and joyful submission to King Jesus for God's glory and my good, then if and when I discover my version, of sexual brokenness inside of me, it's not, oh, my life's over. It's okay. Well, I seem to be a normal sinner.

But my mission hasn't changed. That's really exciting when you're teaching your kids to have this positive vision instead of starting with the fall. We start with the beauty. The challenge, I think most people listen are like, oh, my gosh. I mean, how can you disagree with that? How do I communicate that to my three and four? and seven-year-old.

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simple but also profound truths to our young kids and how do we connect that to marriage and sexuality and sex and all these things it's little conversations all year every year but here's one here's one example here's the principle is don't say when you get married say if god calls you to marriage which that begins dear ones with us realizing okay what is the mission of god and what is my purpose my purpose is to push back the darkness and usher in the light oh my word my kids can do that as married people or as single people if the church is really the church then single people can flourish if the church is really the church then married people can flourish. Okay. Let me think about that. Let me actually believe that. Because if we just regurgitate

this, your kids are going to pick up on your fakeness. So do I really believe that? Okay. Now, how's that practically play into talking to my kids about marriage and singleness and sexuality? Here's a real life example. My daughter Juliet, seven years old, eating cereal, probably lucky charms full of garbage. Like, hey, Juge, what's going on? Mom, why do I have to go to church? Not, do I have to go to church? That's another conversation. Why do I have to go to school? Now, old school in 1999 Christian culture would say, well, might say, I don't assume everyone, might say, well, you need to go to school in order to become a marketable spouse, and because you're a girl, become a marketable spouse, and get married someday. But the gospel doesn't say that. The gospel says that she is a light

bearer if she has Jesus in her and her mission is to push back the darkness and usher in the light. So why does she go to school? I have to sit there a minute. I'm like, okay, well, that's the mission of God and then her mission of her life might be to, I mean, part of it might be to get married. They'll be part of how she does the mission of God. Might be to be single. So what do I say right now? You know, Juliet, you got to go to school because God has given you such incredible gifts. And when you go to school, you sharpen those gifts. Because what has God called you to? I know, to push back the darkness, usher in the light. We say in a lot. I know you're an amazing light bringer. And when you go there, you like sharpen those gifts so that you can do this mission

of God. She's, yeah, goes back to eating her lucky charms. That, though, sets up the conversations later for God's design for marriage, singleness, sex, but I'll pause there and let you respond. No, so you're these, you know, we often say, you know, rather than one hundred minute conversation, you're having a 101 minute conversation. You're just baking these principles into just everyday life, everyday conversations. And these conversations are sort of building it off each other, right? Like you can't communicate the whole gospel and the whole God's whole vision for marriage in one conversation to your four-year-old. But you are just chipping away at reconstructing or constructing their foundation that, you know, we'll take years to do.

Exactly. That's exactly true. And I think, you know, the language of it's not one 100 minute conversation, it's 100 one minute conversation. Even as a mom, a mom who teaches on sexuality. I'm like, okay, but what do I say in those one minutes? It's like, this is genitalia. Done. like what? What do we say? These gospel conversations count. These gospel conversations are part of the whole and they actually make the like genitalia conversations way less awkward when they're put inside this gospel context. Well, you know what? We should have done this earlier, but why don't you give us an overview of the project? Okay. So how many videos? We already said, you know, the first video, 20, 25 minutes is really laying a gospel foundation. and how sex and sexuality relates to that. Give us an overview of the flow of the series as a whole.

Yeah. So we start with the gospel, and each title is really questions kids would ask. So the first one is, who am I? So instead of it being like, let's show off the gospel down their throat. It's who are you? Because that's a question that our kids are going to want to know. Shame shows up, which affects our identity around 18 months old. So we really focus on that.

Then we ask questions about, like, can two girls get married to each other? So the positive theme is on marriage and singleness and that we need to talk about both in the context of our mission to advance God's kingdom or push back the darkness, usher in the light. Then we talk about gender, how, in the question that kids ask, am I, what makes me a boy, what makes me a girl? Then we talk about how do we engage systems? Now, then we talk about sex. How do we talk about sex? Yeah. That's the longest video I think.

video. I want to come back to that in our next conversation. I want to drill down deep into when and how to have the quote unquote sex talk or sex talks. So yeah, that that does occupy I think our longest video. Right. Right. At least so. Yeah. So gospel, marriage and singleness, gender, sex. And then, you know, as we were planning this, the questions that we often get at the center and I get as I'm out on the road is how do we engage? engage systems, so schools, libraries, governments with which we disagree. How do we engage people with whom we disagree? So this would be aunts and uncles. This is people who are transitioning and we're like, how do we engage that? How do we talk about that? How do we, so it's a macro level,

like the systems and then the micro, the interpersonal level with people that we know and love. And then the last episodes, there's eight episodes that we really, each subject I've been saying has been a different episode. And then the last one is on screens and really, no, the last two, the last one is on screens and how to prevent porn. And then the very last is on how to keep our kids' bodies safe, which as parents, I mean, that's our first terror bringing them home from the hospital is how do I keep this kid. from harm. And the statistics are brutal as far as keeping them safe from sexual harm. But we're going to talk about some ways to prevent. And even if you have experienced that with your

kids, we have Dan Allender, we have Julius Siddiske, we've just got these tenderhearted people on there who can give us really practical care. Yeah, how excited are you about all the people involved? I should make clear that Lori is the host, but we have lots of other voices. and experts that are also integrated in the series. I know. It was, I mean, everyone who said yes. So, you know, we've got John Mark Homer and John Tyson and Kurt Thompson and Jackie and Preston Perry and, you know, Julia Sudowski and I'm so many incredible.

Jay, the stringers. There's just these incredible voices and psychologists and then regular parents who I'm like, you are not normal. I wish, you know, I'm learning from them who are really just leaving this out well. But what excited me in their yeses is I think we're ready for this. Like all the yeses we got from people with significant platforms in Christian culture, Christian culture right now. But it's more about, I think that they see it. And I think our world is like hungry for no more breaking down the past.

what can we build? All the interviewees were really fantastic and brought in so much. I would say there was something particularly unique about Dan Allender. I mean, this is, you know, a guru in this conversation. He's been talking about Saxon, even especially sexual abuse and trauma before it was a thing. I mean, he really is kind of like the Carl Bart as pertains to the theological. well some people may not like collar bar but i mean dan ellander is he's just a father in this conversation

what is it about him and the stuff he says it's just so gold it's just every word out of his mouth is just like you just like wanted to right i mean you know our interview is like over an hour long we typically take a few minutes of each interview and you know take you know the best of the best but him we're like we could just bake this whole thing into the series it's so good Well, he was like one of the only ones that were like,

and we don't, no notes, no edits, just play it raw, which for people who take by the series, you're going to get his whole interview. And it was, we were laughing and we were crying. But an answer to your question, what is it about him? He's just done his soul work. You can tell. Like, he's just been through it.

And he doesn't take himself too seriously. Yeah. Which I feel like so many of us. Yeah, we just take herself so seriously. And like, I asked him, I'm like, what do you do? Like, what shows do you watch? And he's like, you know, the only shows I need to watch. This was not in the interview.

This is just like deleted scene. He's like, are the eight clients that the Lord has given me? I just like to sit and think about them and pray for them. Oh, my gosh. Who are you? I want to be Dan Allender. I want to be like him when I am his age where he's so generous with his time. But he also has scars on his heart, which Preston, you get this.

There's something about having been through battles for others. That if you take those scars to Jesus, it really does do something real beautiful in you. He's been working with survivors of sexual abuse for decades. I mean, that, that etches into your bones. Yeah. Yeah. Well, how would you respond to somebody who might question, like, well, maybe it's a, it's probably, usually it's a legitimate question. Like, gosh, should we be, you know, the age range is zero to 12. Yeah, yeah. If it was like nine to 12, I think people would be like, all right, yeah, we should probably start maybe think about having these conversations with a 10 year old, you know, but gosh, why start so young? And what is it? Zero, one? Like, what do we say to a one year old, two year old? Like, why is it important for Christian parents to start disciplining their kids in this conversation at a very young age? Because we are born sexual beings.

Bear with me. Because the pornification of our minds makes that sentence sound very sexy and predatory. No. when I say sexual beings it's like we have weird sexed beings male or female and we have these private parts women have all the ovaries you know the eggs that they need when they're born like it's they're not sexualized in the sense that you know they're going to be hormonally turned on by something but we're created sexual beings and that is a good thing not with the googly eyes that how I interpreted the googly eyes in the 90s of so that you can have sex and save your husband

and, you know, have a thousand babies. It's more, what is it telling us about God that he created us in his image as male and female? So I think there's an awe and a reverence, not a fear that we parents need to begin with when we bring our kids home. That brings tears to my eyes because there's so much fear for moms and dads, like so much fear. And it's like you watch five reels and you're like terrified. You're like, oh my word, everyone's sexually hunting my child right now. Maybe that's true.

But I think there's a reverence like, God, you're telling us something about yourself through how you made us. Thank you for that. But then as we think about these bodies at zero, we're not telling them the birds and the bees. But we are saying you have a good body, including when we give them a bath. a good penis and this is not a pornified sexual sexy thing this is a wow god made you so good this is telling me something about him through how he made you and you have a good elbow and you have a good face so that's at zero and then there's also these preventative means that we're doing you know even

my naming you have a good penis is me declaring what's good along with your cheeks and your tummy and all of it. And it's also doing some preventative work because we do live in a post-fall world where there are people hunting our kids. And so my teaching them anatomical biological language for their body parts, including their private parts, is helping to prevent abuse because my child, if someone tries to, uh, tries to groom them, often groomers use pet language for private parts. Okay. So if my kid is using strange words to describe their private parts, that's going to be a

signal to me that something's going on. Another thing is if my kid knows anatomical language, that actually signals to predators that they are. They're cared for kids. I've watched some of those spooky reels where they interview like predators, child predators. And, you know, one of the things they look for is like neglected kids, someone who are not, you know, being attuned and cared for. And so if my kid knows this anatomical language as going to signal to a potential predator that they're not an easy target.

And then two, if God forbid something does happen, our kids, if they know all of the language for their private parts, which is not sexy, it's biological, but they can tell a caregiver with specificity where they have been harmed. There's a couple other reasons we've given this series, the anchoring bias and porn, really. Can you talk about both of those? Like, what is the anchoring bias? And then we'll talk about the prevalence of porn or the age in which porn people target kids and why that's important to start this conversation early. Ugh, porn makes me want to barf because it's so getting worse. Let's talk about anchoring bias. That's a positive one.

So you heard me start even thinking about my kids at zero with this beauty, with this good, with this Amago Day blessing. When we parents are the first ones to bless our kids' bodies, we are feeding into a good, what psychologists call anchoring bias. An anchoring bias is a psychological term for the first place or person you hear something from. So you hear about a topic from an individual. That becomes your anchor or the gold standard to which you compare everything else. always goes back to that. So if I am declaring this blessing over my kid's body, that's going to be the anchor. So their basis for their sexuality is not going to be porn that they stumble across. It's not going to be some teachers saying something negative or some kid on the

playground. You and the gospel through you as the mom and the dad are going to be the gold standard or the anchor for your child every time they think about their body and their They're going to hear whatever blessing, whatever gospel beauty you said, you're going to be the gold standard or the gospel through you will be the gold standard. So I want to be the anchoring bias. I want the gospel through me, their loving parent, to be the gold standard for them. So that's why we begin at a young age. Because especially in this day and age, I mean, they're going to hear about stuff in kindergarten, first grade, sometimes from their teacher, right? Or at least little Johnny on the monkey bars is going to say stuff.

And you can't control that. And the fact is, for various reasons, kids are talking about this younger and younger and younger. So is it safe to say? I mean, if you wait until they're seven or eight, they probably already have had a year or two or three years of exposure to sexual conversations directly and directly. it depends on your your context so Matt and I have a general rule of thumb as my husband if I haven't said that yet that we like to talk to be able to be that anchoring bias we like to talk about things with our kids six months to a year before we could think they're going to be exposed to it so that we can you know take Q&A in the car and we can really lay that foundation

So if you're in, you know, particular school setting or in a particular cultural context or they're very exposed to screens or, you know, they have to go to daycare. And so that is you, it's a daycare where kids talk a lot about random things. I think that's a fair thing to say, Preston, that at 7, 8, they're going to have some sort of something. I mean, we could do a rabbit trail on sheltering good or bad. But that's, you'd have to consider your context. and your child's ability to process in order to know when. This episode is brought to you by Midepure by timeline. Midepure is the only Eurylithion A supplement on the market,

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Timeline are offering my listeners a free sample of the new Might Appear Gummies. Just head over to Timeline.com forward slash theology gummies to get started. That's timeline.com forward slash theology gummies. Your sales will thank you. All right. Talk to us about porn. When are, can you give us some general stats on when kids are typically exposed to porn? Again, it could be indirectly, directly. They're looking at it or it's shown to them. What ages are we looking at here? Yeah. So 15% are exposed by the age of 10. And that might be a low number. There are, I mean, I remember when my daughter is three years old, we're watching a Daniel Tiger. video and then the next suggested reel that starts playing is like no it was suggested it didn't play automatically praise god but it was like Barbie porn so oh yeah i just was so appalled so that's when we mixed youtube forever uh without my hyper control over it um so which i know everyone is read

anxious generation at this point or a lot of people have we need to hyper control online And so that's a good thing. So about 15% by age 10, 50%, 40 to 50% by age 12, and the majority by age 17, or see porn. You'll kind of funny to note that in a common sense media study, kids saw more porn at school in private schools than at public schools. Really? 41% versus 20%. Most private schools are Christian schools. Yeah, Christian Catholic.

I believe so. Is there a correlation? Is that just correlation? I mean, why would it be more at private? I mean, maybe they didn't say, but, you know, maybe there's more control at home, so then they bring it to school. And so then it's like, you know, that's a question. But if people think that sending their kid to private school is going to fix everything for you,

I don't think so. So we need to have these conversations before. Yeah. Some level these conversations before they hear stuff from Johnny on their playground. They possibly are exposed maybe through no choice of their own to porn because that could be a, isn't that categorized as a sexually traumatic experience for a eight-year-old, nine-year-old to see porn, especially if it's like hardcore, violent stuff? I don't know. It's traumatic for everyone. The first time you're exposed to pornography, your brain cannot process that.

Like, it's not supposed to. And since anywhere between one and three or nine out of ten pornographic videos celebrate violence. Really? Yeah. The studies show anywhere between one on three or nine out of ten. Or it's at least depicts violence. So my adjustment, yeah, those are, you can find those studies everywhere they're in. We cite them in the film project and in our book.

So their first exposure to pornography to sex is violent. And your brain cannot process that. And then Preston, like, think about it. Like, that's a really good question you asked. Is it abusive? It is categorized as trauma for kids. Is it traumatic only for kids? It should be traumatic for ever.

everyone. Because sex is supposed to be a covenant renewal ceremony that produces fruit to the glory of God. It's supposed to be this sacred space telling this other person. This is how much God loves you. That's not supposed to be filmed. That's never supposed to be online. So there's this deep grief I have that 54% of Christians are regularly watching porn and those who are regularly watching it. This is a study that came out last fall with Pure Desire Ministries and Barna, I believe it was Barna, yep. Fifty-four percent of Christians are regularly watching porn and 62 percent of those 54 don't think it affects them at all when statistically there's no way it cannot affect you. So when I think about helping kids, I just start grieving because

I look at those initial stats of us as adult Christian. shins and we're so caught up in it that I'm like afraid we're not going to even care like we're not even going to work that hard to help our kids because like well everybody does it and I don't even think it affects me when that's impossible the oxytocin dopamine hit that you get from the screen it's just it just grieves my heart so that's why when you're like in pornography and I'm like I know pornography we just help us God start with us as parents because I'm I'm grieved that we don't understand the gospel. We don't understand marriage and singleness. We don't even understand what sex is for. And we're all so addicted to so many things that I'm concerned, Preston. I'm concerned that we're

actually not going to do the hard work to raise up this next generation. It's so good. Gosh, it's discouraging, but it's also all the more motivating, right, to if you're a parent with young kids or you're about to have kids or you might have kids one day to start thinking about how can we start disciplining the kids from day one so that we have a foundation laid, not that that foundation is going to 100% protect them from all these things out there, but if maybe when they end up seeing porn or if they do experience unwanted sexual contact, they have that foundation laid that can much in a much more effective way produce healing and forgiveness and being able to move on and not be so crippled by trauma if you have a category to come back to.

One last question and then we're going to come back for another episode and I want to drill down deeper into how to talk to your kids specifically about sex. But on a general level, I can hear some people question legitimately. It's a great question. If we bring up this stuff too early, are we destroying their innocence or relatedly? Are we putting things into their mind that they didn't otherwise have? and therefore nudging them to explore at an age when they otherwise wouldn't have if we just avoided the conversation until they were older.

Great question. And that was my super concern. When I started studying this, I was like, are you kidding me? You're telling me I have to talk about sex between seven and ten. I looked at my kids and like, they're playing American girl dolls. They're like reading, they don't even want to read Nardia yet. That's above their heads. So I don't, it felt like too intense.

So this is why. Like, I don't just use the word gospel because it's like a fun little buzzword that gets me into Christian circles. This is why we need to place these conversations in the gospel because it takes the, like, sexy and the terror out of it. It's like, okay, God made us good. So let me tell you how I talk to my kids about porn, for example. And we have this in the film series. One day, I was like, okay, all the experts are telling me, I got to talk about porn. porn. Okay, how am I going to talk about this without traumatizing them? Because my kids are

five, eight, and ten. And here's the thing is it's not like, well, I'm just going to take one by themselves. It's like, everybody needs to know because everybody has access to screens at some points. So one day I was like, Lord help me, and I dove in. And this is what I said. Hey, guys, do you know that there are some people who take pictures of private parts and they put them online. What? Now, that sentence was baked into a relationship with my kids, where we are talking about private parts in a way that we honor them. We're talking about the mission of our life, not to get married and make Christian babies a tithe and die, but about the mission of God to advance his light, where we are talking about the gospels, that it was created good, it was

fallen, Jesus routine, it's all going to be restored. So this is in a context. So this is not just mom's gone, dad's gone, and now I'm saying these random, intense words, because it would be intense, Preston, if there was no relationship, if there was no understanding of how sin falls into our world. Why, Mom, that's so not good. Do people really do that? I know it's so sad. Isn't that sad? Because that's also the context. We talk about sin breaking God's heart and that it keeps, that it separates us. So that's another contextual clue that you're getting from that conversation. It's so sad. It's so not right. That's bad, Mom, it is. Now, guys, I want you to know that if you're online and you're just like searching and something pops up, it shows you a picture of private part or it says some words in a book that you're reading that talk about private parts or something that makes you feel icky or gross,

I want you to shut the screen, come find me, you won't get in trouble. Yeah. That's key, right? You won't get in trouble. You won't get in trouble because I'm telling you, I'll tell you once, I'll tell you thousand times is that shame and sexuality are best friends after the fall shame just loves to get right there so immediately all right guys what are you supposed to do if we see a picture of a private part online we shut the screen and we come find you then i ask right away literally 10 seconds later

will you get in trouble already shame has snuck in and this isn't a context where we talk about shame will you get in trouble no you will not get in trouble i literally said this conversation to my kids yesterday. I said it yesterday because something popped up in a book they were reading and they told me and I said right away, thank you so much for telling me, you guys, you are not in trouble. And I see their faces are literally red. They're feeling anxious and there's no like context clue that they should be anxious that they get in trouble. But I said, you know what? You're not in trouble. I said, you didn't write that. If you see it online, you didn't post that it is not your fault but that is how shame works as it makes it feel like you saw this you're in trouble that's what happens with sexual abuse you got abused it's your fault so we have got to get ahead of it and we have got to put it into a relationship with mom and kids and in the greater gospel narrative we're going to come back in the next episode talk specifically about that more specifically the sex talk I want to talk about schooling home school private school public school no school

and and also screen time and some of these other really nitty-gritty things in how to navigate. If you want to check out the resource, you can pre-order it now. It comes out on September, is it 16th or 15th? 16th. You can pre-order it now, centerforfaith.com. If you are a parent who has young kids, I mean, this is such a foundational topic for people's faith as a whole. Sex isn't everything, but as Lori said, and as the Bible says, we are. sexual beings, and one of the main ways in which I think people's faith is being disrupted

is through the lens and avenue of sexuality on so many levels. So highly encourage it, or if you know somebody who's looking for a resource and how to raise their kids, well, check it out. Center for Faith.com. Do we have a discount for pre-orders, or is that only available to certain privileged people? I know a guy who could get us a discount. There is one today at the recording. I'm not sure if there's one still on the posting, but you can make it available. I will look into show notes for a possible discount. We will figure that out after. So, Lori, thanks so much for being on the show. And let's, yeah, let's regroup. And we will have another conversation where we drill down deeper into some of these tonic conversations.

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