SALT LAKE CITY (BP)–True Love Waits will enter the 21st century with an international display of pledges of sexual abstinence signed by youth from countries around the world, according to Richard Ross, TLW spokesman and youth ministry coordinator at LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention (formerly Baptist Sunday School Board).
Southern Baptists learned about “Crossing Bridges with Purity,” the next phase of True Love Waits, during the June 9-11 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Salt Lake City. Messengers and others touring the exhibit hall received buttons featuring the Golden Gate Bridge and promoting plans for a teen crossing of the San Francisco landmark in 1999.
The collection of pledges for the international display will begin in January and February 1999, when students will conduct local campaigns challenging their peers to commit to sexual abstinence until marriage, Ross said. On Feb. 12, schools, churches and local youth organizations will join forces to create a display at a focal point in their city or community. Those cards will next become part of state displays during the spring and summer of 1999.
Cards from state displays then will be sent to San Francisco for a national display at the Golden Gate Bridge on Oct. 2, 1999.
“The great majority of True Love Waits teenagers are moving into a new era of history with their heads held high and a strong commitment to moral purity,” Ross said. “Their signed pledges of abstinence displayed at the Golden Gate Bridge will be a beautiful way to symbolize their movement toward the new millennium.”
From San Francisco, cards will be forwarded to a point close to the International Date Line for an international display Dec. 29-31, 1999.
The Crossing Bridges with Purity emphasis will conclude on Feb. 14, 2000, when local communities conduct celebrations of commitments made to purity during the past year.
Eighty Christian entities have joined forces as cooperating ministries in True Love Waits, which was begun by Southern Baptists in 1993.
For more information call 1-800)-LUV-WAIT or send an e-mail to [email protected].
