BY MARCUS ELLIOTT
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ANNA, Texas – Texas Star Bank in Anna has yet to see a big rush in people looking to get $1 bills, but if Pastor Andrew Werley of First Baptist Church of Anna’s message from last Sunday rings true in the hearts and minds of his congregation, there will be soon.

Werley, author of the book Epic Marriage: Every Marriage has a Purpose, Discover Yours, is in the middle of the sermon series “Conflict and Marriage.” Over the past few weeks, he has covered the topics “Who’s Winning” and “Money Bouts.” This Sunday, he will tackle the issue of parenting, but this past Sunday is the message that has people around Anna talking.

Sex, a topic that many believe is the pink elephant of our society, was the subject of his sermon on Sunday. In that sermon, he challenged the married individuals in his congregation to have sex with their spouse at least twice a week, or around 100 times, during the next year.

He further challenged the congregation to put aside a dollar each time the marital relations took place. He asked them to put the dollar in a jar – which he provided to those in attendance – and in a year, take that money out and use it to spend with the spouse on an expensive dinner or night out.

In the message, Werley likened sex in America to the small toe on your foot, drinking water and to cars; things that he believes most people do not truly appreciate and often take for granted on a daily basis. Yet, if they were gone, they would greatly impact people’s daily lives. He added that 92 percent of the world population does not own a car, and 1 billion people in the world do not have daily drinking water. However, in America, these things are so common that most people do not even appreciate having them.

“Sex. We hold it in such low, low view,” Werley said during the message Sunday. “The same way, it’s just water, it’s just a dollar and it’s just there. It’s dirty. You don’t do it. You don’t talk about it in church for crying out loud. Call the media. The problem with sex in marriage is that we hold it in a low, low view. Every single day there is a sermon on it (sex) in music, on television, on a billboard, on the Internet. Everyone is preaching about it, and nobody is right. If anyone has the right to preach about it, it is the church.

“God created sex, we’re the ones who should be talking about it in church,” Werley continued. “It should be an issue. They (the world) have no right to it, it is not theirs.”

Werley used the statistics to drive home his point stating that 25 percent of all Internet searches are for pornography, 89 percent of all pornography is made in the United States, a “Christian nation,” and that same nation spends $3,000 a minute on porn in America. He told the crowd the nation has a bad view of sex and his goal was to raise the view of sex “out of the pit” that today’s culture puts it in. He also added that the children and youth in the congregation needed to hear this message because they are immersed in this culture every day.

“My purpose was raising the low view of sexuality that we have and how we carry that view of it into our marriages,” he said. “And we accomplished that.”

To listen to the message in its entirety, visit the media page of the church’s Web site at www.firstanna.org.

Some question whether the nursery department at the church is capable of handling the growth that a message like this could cause. Only time will tell his congregation to have sex with their spouse at least twice a week, or around 100 times, during the next year.