JourneyOnline
SEVEN YEARS ago Pastor Craig Gross and Pastor Mike Foster decided that part of their ministry to young people needed to deal with the issue of pornography and addiction.
“I just noticed this common theme amongst kids that they were caught up in this and there was no outlet, no place that told you the other side of the story, but there were a lot of places to go to if you want to look at porn,” said Mr Gross, fresh from speaking at the Gold Coast Schoolies festival.
“It was like, let’s create a place where people can go to get help. It wasn’t, let’s shut down the industry.
“We wanted to show the other side of the coin – that this hurts people, this destroys relationships, this won’t satisfy you long term.”
They started XXXChurch.com, a name Mr Gross said is a combination of the “seedy and the sacred” and by using one of the most searched for terms online (XXX) have found themselves where people needed them most.
“Our target market was young men. Then we realised that it doesn’t just affect young men, it affects women, married couples, senior citizens.
“Eleven is the average age someone sees [pornography]. About a third of the people who look at porn online now are women. Ministers aren’t immune; they are caught up in this as well.”
This month Mr Gross and his team are back on our shores to attend sex industry trade shows (or Sexpo) in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
No stranger to such trade shows, Mr Gross has been doing this for the past seven years and has been to 24 shows across the world. His first was in 2002 at the Las Vegas expo, the American sex industry’s largest.
“To a lot of people it made no sense, why would you go there? Are you supporting this?
“No, we’re not supporting this.
"We might as well go to where the people need the most help.
“We figured we would go for a day and we’d get kicked out. Instead they asked us back.”
The team doesn’t give out anti-porn literature though; they give out Bibles.
“The most fun thing for me over the past four years is when we changed our approach from talking about porn to getting down and talking about the answer to that. We know that it can be found in Christ.
“From our Bibles to our approach, we are not your typical pastors that come in on a moral crusade.
“We are not judging people. We are trying to engage them in conversations… and give them something they can take away.”
The Bibles are a special edition with a cover that says ‘Jesus loves porn stars’, a cover that proved very difficult to get made.
“No one has asked to do that before, no one had given out Bibles in this environment so the Bible publishers were going, ‘wait, that could be misinterpreted!’
“It is right on that edge, but we have seen that it works.
“No matter how many we take, we run out of Bibles within a couple of days into the show.”
One of the aims of Mr Gross and his team is to integrate the church in their work.
“We have tried to help the church realise that this is a problem that even church people are dealing with.”
Steve Davies of the Bible Society of Queensland agreed.
He initiated a program for young men at Easterfest and brought Mr Gross out to Australia to talk about porn addictions.
“I have done hundreds of camps around Australia and it is the common theme and the thing that pushes young men away from God. They think they are scumbags and that they have this dirty little secret that they can’t get over,” said Mr Davies.
The Bible Society of Queensland has gone out on a limb and printed Mr Gross’ ‘Jesus loves porn stars’ cover on the New Testament Bibles for the Australian sexpos.
“The title is quite controversial, but it actually gets people to open the thing,” Mr Davies said.
The special edition copy also has a ‘help’ section and includes testimonies.
“It is a great thing to give people (particularly people outside the church) some answers.”
Both Mr Davies and Mr Gross have been impressed with the number of young people who have offered to help.
“It is exciting to see young people who see there is a problem and they want to be part of the answer,” said Mr Davies.
Not surprisingly, most of the backlash Mr Gross has encountered over the years has been from churches, but he lives by the principle that Jesus said to take his word into all the world.
“Our team goes in with a whole wealth of knowledge more than most. We have seen first hand this [pornography] affect people in a horrible way.
“When we go in we are not going shopping, we’re going with a mission.
“You have to be smart about it. A lot of people pray and fast while we are at these shows, we don’t take it lightly.”
Mr Gross said we need to see the people in the sex industry as people, not popups on a computer screen or a girl to pose with at a photo booth.
“When you see a girl that is half naked in front of you… the guys walk away and they get that picture of her, but she remains at that booth and you see that underneath she is this broken girl who looks like she just left youth group.”
Mr Davies said one of the most important things for the church to do about pornography is to start talking about it.
“It is about starting the conversation,” said Mr Davies. “Just do it. I think you will see some great things happen.”
Visit www.pornsunday.com for Craig Gross’ 30 minute message on the issue and an 80-page manual. Both are free for churches to download and use.
Photo : Bible Society of Queensland director Steve Davies (left) and XXXChurch founder Craig Gross. Photo by Mardi Lumsden
