"Sensitive Preaching to the Sexually Hurting" by Dr. Sam Serio. A Review

 

Many years back I was working with teenagers from all over a west Texas city. After giving a Gospel presentation, talking about the Father’s love for his people, and so forth, I dismissed the kids. But there was one teenage girl left in the room, and she was weeping. I asked an older couple to stay in the room at the back while I talked to her. When I sat down to see why she was crying and maybe how I could help, her situation unfolded before me. My talk about a Father’s love left her cold and crushed. Her father left her as a child, and several of the adult males in her family (stepfather, uncle, etc.) had abused her, both physically and sexually. I was face-to-face with the outworkings of evil, the lasting damage it causes, and the way it keeps hearts away from God and his love. With that experience in the back of my mind I was delighted, and keenly interested, when I received “Sensitive Preaching for the Sexually Hurting,” a 208-page softback published in 2016. The book is penned by Dr. Sam Serio, an award-winning author, speaker and Christian minister. It is straightforward, hard-hitting, and extremely practical.

 

Though it is not a counseling book, but a preaching one, it still has ramifications for pastoral counseling. Serio has strong words to say to preachers that made me squirm but were very fitting. The whole aim of the work unfolds in one direction: “The purpose of this book is to help you communicate both warmth and wisdom when it comes to any and every topic relating to sexuality” (17). Part of the author’s approach to equipping preachers is to show how miserably we have failed in this area. Yet he doesn’t leave us to wallow in our failure. Instead, once readers have gotten beyond the initial soreness, he then shows how to address the sexually hurting, and the hurters, in proper fashion. “You don’t have to say a lot, but you do have to plan a lot” (44).

 

Serio works preachers through touchy subjects with skill. He shows how to address the hurters in our pews. But then also how to offer hope to the repentant. Then, with decisive care, how to approach the sexually hurting with the balm of Gilead. “Your job is to make the offender feel bad, not the victim. The victim should not be placed in the same sentence or category as the victimizer” (113). The author gives how-to guidance when preaching about sex, casual sex, abortion, sexual assault and rape, child sexual abuse, pornography, same-sex attraction, and sexless marriages. It is packed with Scripture, and how-tos for preaching these passages with the sexually hurting in mind, as well as the predator. And the thoughtfulness of the writer, the wisdom in how to approach these subjects and how often, is clear all along the way.

 

“Sensitive Preaching to the Sexually Hurting” is a book that should be read by every seminarian and minister under the sun. I’m grateful that the author sent me a free copy to review. He offered me no brides and made no demands. This evaluation is freely made and freely given. I highly recommend the work, and truly do wish every Christian preacher and pastor would take it up.