Church Tries to Ignite Married Couple's Sex Lives

Feb. 12, 2011— -- It's not often that a video on a church Web site will carry a warning that it may not be suitable for children under 13.

And some people in Joplin, Mo., say the billboards that Ignite Church has put up in the town shouldn't be viewed by children, either.

But Ignite Church's Lead Pastor Heath Mooneyham said the message of both is all about love, and God's purpose for it -- which includes sex.

The billboards -- one of which features a man in jeans and T-shirt, his tattooed arms holding the legs of a woman who has her arms around his neck, and her legs wrapped around his waist -- are to advertise a series the church is doing about sex, and how married couples should be having more of it, so they will avoid being tempted into sin.

A similar image was the first to display on the Ignite Church website, and at the church's related site, MySexLifeSucks.org.

"We're doing a series about sex, and God's intended purpose for it," Mooneyham. "We're hitting things like adultery and pornography."

Mooneyham indicated that in a poll on the church's website, 86 percent of the respondents said they were not having enough sex in their marriage.

"This is really one of the major issues that's ripping marriages apart. They are at a higher risk of adultery, looking at pornography -- that leads to divorce," Mooneyham said.

So he decided to try to do something about it, planning a series of Sunday "experiences" about sex at the church, and creating a series of videos on the subject for the Web site.