With that as background, let me tell you that the highest percentage estimated in the responses was that 15% of the people in a ministry of some 600 single adults were sexually pure (something the church leadership did not want to hear). That's right, by their own calculation the Christian singles in the ministry estimated that 85% or more of the single people they were in church with on Sunday morning were in someone else's bed the night before.

I wish I could tell you that I had evidence to the contrary. I don't. My wife, who has a powerful but quiet behind the scenes ministry, had a standing agreement that if the light in our downstairs was on, any of the young women in the ministry were free to knock on the door and she would lend her listening skills. Sad to say, we rarely missed a weekend when a young women wasn't pouring her heart out because she had ("Oops. I don't know how it happened.") slept with a guy she had just met. This kind of counseling was one of my wife's most high impact ministries.

Why was this happening? I believe that the evangelical church in North America has succumbed to what Robertson McQuilkin calls "the idolatry of family" (in his An Introduction to Biblical Ethics). If you don't have the requisite 2.4 freshly scrubbed children, you don't feel comfortable in most of our churches. What evidence can I offer? Think of your own pastor. How many (by percentage) of his illustrations center around family issues? You know the kind "Little Billy looked at his daddy this week and said....." In consulting with singles ministries across the US, I always get vigorous head nods of response when I ask singles leaders this question.

I could go on, but I think we're going to have to talk more about sexual purity. I think we're going to have to take it SERIOUSLY, especially for those of us who are married. No double entendres, no lingering looks that violate the "covenant of the eyes" (Job 31:1; Psalm 101:3; Psalm 119:37).

You might have other thoughts but I hope I've furthered the discussion.