Posted on Sep 30, 2002 | by Polly House

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--True Love Waits lives on.

The sexual abstinence campaign was developed nearly 10 years ago by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention with the purpose of challenging students to make a pledge of abstinence until their wedding day.

The newest theme, "True Love Waits Goes Home," is about taking the commitment back into the home and getting involvement from the entire family, said Jimmy Hester, senior director in LifeWay's student ministry publishing.

"For the past 10 years, students have used True Love Waits to sound a clarion call that it is time to turn away from years of sexual revolution," Hester said.

True Love Waits has been an active part of the change in culture in America and the world, he added.

"We have had the True Love Waits message take hold from Australia to Zimbabwe," Hester said. "Students all over the world are seeing the wisdom of and making a commitment to living a lifestyle of purity."

The pledge is to God -- not to a card or a leader or an organization, he noted.

In just the first half of 2002, the True Love Waits movement has been profiled in specials produced by the BBC (in Great Britain), by another independent network in England and by the Discovery Channel in the United States.

"I believe the inception and the explosive growth of the campaign in 1993 were clearly supernatural," Hester said. "True Love Waits was born in the heart of God and no individual or group has hinted that human ability can explain all that has happened."
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