MIAMI - It's Sunday morning in the heart of Ybor City, Tampa, Fla.'s entertainment district. The streets are quiet, the nightclubs shuttered. In one ornate building, though, a crowd is gathering in a dark ballroom.
MIAMI - It's Sunday morning in the heart of Ybor City, Tampa, Fla.'s entertainment district. The streets are quiet, the nightclubs shuttered. In one ornate building, though, a crowd is gathering in a dark ballroom.
They're 20- and 30-somethings, single, married, wearing skinny jeans, short-sleeved T's over long-sleeved T's and Vans tennis shoes, sporting spiky hair and sipping Starbucks. They file past a peaceful-looking man watching the doors, and they bob their heads to the music of The Embassy, a rock band jamming on stage. Screened silhouettes bookending the bandstand show men and women in flirty poses. And one ultra-hip-looking guy tells the crowd that having a lot of sex is good.
This could easily be the scene Jimmy Buffett imagined when he sang "there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.''
But this is a worship service at Relevant Church Tampa and Day 21 of Relevant's 30-day sex challenge, aimed at helping married couples rekindle that sensual spark and helping single people strengthen their romances through nonsexual contact.
Beneath pastor Paul Wirth's provocative message are traditional themes.
"Sex is a good thing within the confines of marriage. And it's meant to be enjoyed,'' Wirth says. "There is a 50 percent-plus divorce rate in the United States. And some experts say it's because of money. But I really believe a large part of it has to do with a lack of intimacy in marriages.''
At the start of the challenge, most men at Relevant were thrilled and the women horrified, Wirth says with a laugh. Then both sexes caught on that the campaign was as much about emotional intimacy as intercourse.
"I didn't know where it was going,'' says Lisa Mann, 37, who attends Relevant with her husband Tim, 38. "But I think once we realized it was more about married couples learning to better focus their attention on one another, then I thought it was a great idea.''
Tim Mann says that while he was not as worried as Lisa, he did need affirmation that their pastor's challenge had substance.
"We've been married 11 years, and we've had a great marriage,'' he says. "But there's always room for improvement. And what we figured out immediately was that this was about your partner's needs.''
George Engleton, 39, liked the concept from the start. "But I thought it was going to be a sex challenge, just sex,'' he says with a grin. "And I remember thinking, 'This is not going to be received well by the women.'"
Enaye Engleton, 36, nods wryly and says she was won over because she and George embraced both the physical and academic elements of the challenge.
If God made those ultra-suggestive Axe Deodorant Body Spray commercials, with only minor changes they might look like a Relevant Church service - minus the "boom-chicka-wah-wah.'' Last Sunday's challenge-themed sermon was sex, physical attraction, intimacy and more sex, in that order.
Wirth, 39, had the congregation alternately laughing and seriously musing over G-rated stories of his and wife Susie's first sexual encounter on their wedding night, God's order to "get it on,'' and admonitions to men to not be fooled by illusions of pornography.
Wirth, a pastor for 15 years, four at Relevant, draws on personal experiences. When he and Susie - now married 17 years, with two kids - hit the nine-year mark in 2000, the relationship was rocky.
"We knew we loved each other,'' Wirth says. "But it just wasn't there anymore.''
Susie Wirth, 39, says they set out to fix the problem and discovered His Needs, Her Needs, a book by Willard Harley, a minister and marriage expert. "Dr. Harley's book helped save our marriage by helping us reconnect and fall back in love through intimacy,'' she says.
MIAMI - It's Sunday morning in the heart of Ybor City, Tampa, Fla.'s entertainment district. The streets are quiet, the nightclubs shuttered. In one ornate building, though, a crowd is gathering in a dark ballroom.
They're 20- and 30-somethings, single, married, wearing skinny jeans, short-sleeved T's over long-sleeved T's and Vans tennis shoes, sporting spiky hair and sipping Starbucks. They file past a peaceful-looking man watching the doors, and they bob their heads to the music of The Embassy, a rock band jamming on stage. Screened silhouettes bookending the bandstand show men and women in flirty poses. And one ultra-hip-looking guy tells the crowd that having a lot of sex is good.
This could easily be the scene Jimmy Buffett imagined when he sang "there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.''
But this is a worship service at Relevant Church Tampa and Day 21 of Relevant's 30-day sex challenge, aimed at helping married couples rekindle that sensual spark and helping single people strengthen their romances through nonsexual contact.
Beneath pastor Paul Wirth's provocative message are traditional themes.
"Sex is a good thing within the confines of marriage. And it's meant to be enjoyed,'' Wirth says. "There is a 50 percent-plus divorce rate in the United States. And some experts say it's because of money. But I really believe a large part of it has to do with a lack of intimacy in marriages.''
At the start of the challenge, most men at Relevant were thrilled and the women horrified, Wirth says with a laugh. Then both sexes caught on that the campaign was as much about emotional intimacy as intercourse.
"I didn't know where it was going,'' says Lisa Mann, 37, who attends Relevant with her husband Tim, 38. "But I think once we realized it was more about married couples learning to better focus their attention on one another, then I thought it was a great idea.''
Tim Mann says that while he was not as worried as Lisa, he did need affirmation that their pastor's challenge had substance.
"We've been married 11 years, and we've had a great marriage,'' he says. "But there's always room for improvement. And what we figured out immediately was that this was about your partner's needs.''
George Engleton, 39, liked the concept from the start. "But I thought it was going to be a sex challenge, just sex,'' he says with a grin. "And I remember thinking, 'This is not going to be received well by the women.'"
Enaye Engleton, 36, nods wryly and says she was won over because she and George embraced both the physical and academic elements of the challenge.
If God made those ultra-suggestive Axe Deodorant Body Spray commercials, with only minor changes they might look like a Relevant Church service - minus the "boom-chicka-wah-wah.'' Last Sunday's challenge-themed sermon was sex, physical attraction, intimacy and more sex, in that order.
Wirth, 39, had the congregation alternately laughing and seriously musing over G-rated stories of his and wife Susie's first sexual encounter on their wedding night, God's order to "get it on,'' and admonitions to men to not be fooled by illusions of pornography.
Wirth, a pastor for 15 years, four at Relevant, draws on personal experiences. When he and Susie - now married 17 years, with two kids - hit the nine-year mark in 2000, the relationship was rocky.
"We knew we loved each other,'' Wirth says. "But it just wasn't there anymore.''
Susie Wirth, 39, says they set out to fix the problem and discovered His Needs, Her Needs, a book by Willard Harley, a minister and marriage expert. "Dr. Harley's book helped save our marriage by helping us reconnect and fall back in love through intimacy,'' she says.
Spreading that message came up last fall during a Relevant creative team meeting, and someone suggested a sex challenge. "Everyone laughed,'' Wirth says. "But it was a great idea. So we pushed ahead with it.''
In addition to the physical element, the program includes a downloadable guide and journal at RelevantChurch.com for couples to track their progress toward greater understanding.
There have been bumps in the road.
While RelevantChurch.com has received more than 17,000 new Internet visitors since the challenge started, some couples have written on the site's blog that it was difficult to deal with the early days of the challenge.
"Couples have said they argued at first, because it was tough to answer some of the questions and realize that they hadn't been meeting their partner's needs,'' Susie Wirth says. "But all of the couples who have shared their challenge experience with us have said it has helped them break through barriers and open wounds that needed to be opened, and in the end heal and grow stronger together.''
Justin and Renee Little, married 3 1/2 years and parents of an 8-month-old, were both enthusiastic. "We loved it,'' says Renee, 26, whose husband is 30. "It was interesting, and the idea behind the challenge was exciting, we thought.''
Although the challenge to singles is to not have sex, those parishioners seem to have responded.
"Personally it has helped me get to know my girlfriend better by making us talk to each other and really pay attention to one another,'' says college student Ryan Stryzelecki, 21.
Stephen Sapp, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Miami, applauds Relevant's sex challenge as unique and practical.
"What this pastor is advocating violates no biblical sexual norms insofar as he affirms sex between married partners - as did the Apostle Paul, despite the popular view to the contrary, as did Mohammed later - and counsels that the unmarried refrain to get to know one another better,'' Sapp says.
Still, Sapp says old-school tradition is entrenched enough that he doubts Relevant's sex challenge will become a national church trend.
Even though only one church member has openly declined to participate in the challenge - largely because that member, a single person, isn't dating right now and thought the challenge would be pointless, Wirth says - the blogosphere is rife with criticisms that the challenge is naive and even sacrilegious.
Last year in South Florida, conservative religious groups criticized Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, Fla., over a three-week lesson series called "The Bare Naked Truth on Sex,'' which was less about sex and more about promoting abstinence for singles and monogamy for sexually active adults.
"There are just too many forces and too many centuries of discomfort militating against that,'' Sapp says. "In case you hadn't noticed, an awful lot of people are pretty uncomfortable with the whole notion of sex, even in our sex-saturated culture.''
Even if no other churches follow Relevant, Wirth intends to keep telling married people "giddy-up,'' he says.
"In our church culture, we have created a real illusion about sex,'' he says. "Husbands and wives need to learn to satisfy one another with the same wholeheartedness that Christ satisfies the church. And when you become satisfied with each other, that's when sex becomes incredible.''
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