Premarital sex may be all too commonplace, but to thousands of teenagers across Utah and Colorado, now it's cool to "not."
The Assemblies of God Rocky Mountain Youth Conference unveiled its "True Love Waits" campaign to an enthusiastic response Saturday during its annual conference at the Little America Hotel."It (premarital sex) is a problem, but we are saying not everyone is doing it," said Ray Smith, district youth director for the Assemblies of God. "We're saying virginity is not a dirty word, and that the ultimate safe sex is one man for one woman for one lifetime."
Many of the 800 or so youths from Utah and Colorado who attended the conference will be signing pledge cards that affirm their commitment to abstain from premarital sex. Those pledge cards will be taken to Washington D.C. in June 1994 and "planted" around the Washington Monument along with hundreds of thousands of other cards from around the nation.
"Believing that true love waits," states the pledge, "I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, those I date, my future mate, and my future children to be sexually pure until the day I enter a covenant marriage relationship."
The pledge - typed on a 3-by-5 index card - came from the Southern Baptist Convention's yearlong "True Love Waits" campaign, which started nationwide last spring. The project challenges teenagers and young, unmarried adults to say that "abstinence is OK," says Richard Ross, youth ministry consultant with the Southern Baptists' Sunday School Board.
The Assemblies of God initiated the program at this weekend's youth conference. About 10,000 youths in Utah and Colorado could participate in the program through local Assemblies of God churches, Smith said.
"If we make the commitment now, we will stick with it the rest of our lives," says 14-year-old Vanessa Hubbard of Mountain Green.
Her friend, 13-year-old Amanda Young of Syracuse, agrees. "I had already planned on saving myself, but this is a way of showing it. It's a way to be a witness for my friends."
Smith calls the program a "common sense" reaction to prevailing attitudes that teenagers are going to have sex anyway. "It's tied very strongly to religion," he said, "but it doesn't have to be. I know people who are not religious who have made the same commitment for common-sense reasons."
When the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board initiated the program last April, it had the goal of securing 100,000 pledge cards nationally. When that goal was achieved within a couple of months, the goal was raised to 500,000.
With the total number of pledge cards now nearing 500,000, the goal has now been raised to 1 million and the program expanded to other denominations, including the Assemblies of God, Pentecostal Church of God, Campus Crusade for Christ, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Youth for Christ.
In addition, some of today's most well-known Christian pop artists, including Michael W. Smith, Petra and DeGarmo & Key, have backed the campaign, teaming up to record a tape of songs focusing on "God's original design for sexuality." "True Love Waits" caps, T-shirts and sweat shirts are also available by mail.
Under the True Love Waits program, each youth orders a packet of information that contains, among other things, a pledge card. Also included is a "commitment ring" which symbolizes the youth's pledge to abstain from sex before marriage. "The idea is they will give that ring to their marriage partner on their wedding night," Smith said.
"It will be well worth waiting for," said Young.
"It's neat," added Hubbard.