Last week (during the Presbyterian Church in America's General Assembly), we launched and announced our newest division: Doulos Interactive.

With Doulos Interactive, we aim to build web and software tools that will empower church leaders for better ministry. The difference with Doulos Interactive resources from our other tools is that these will be internet-enabled tools that will make use of the highly connected world that we live in, and provide conduits for that connectivity to serve the ministries of the local church.

We have several different tools and directions planned for Doulos Interactive, and the first will be a system we call "Flock."

Flock (and it's companion module, Baxter) will be a system wherein church leaders can communicate and cooperate about their shepherding efforts. Flock will allow for notifications about regular and ad-hoc shepherding needs, quick logging and records of contacts made, and easy coordination with other leaders as the whole team strives together to meet the pastoral care needs of their people.

We think Flock will make a big difference in helping leaders, and hope you will find that, too! We are almost ready for "beta testing" for Flock, and are signing people up as testers now.

If you want to receive particular notices about Flock, keep up with Doulos Interactive generally, and/or are interested in becoming a beta tester for Flock, sign up for the Doulos Interactive mailing list here: http://eepurl.com/bn3lBL

One of our long-standing staff members (and also a member of our Board of Directors) is Adam Tisdale, our Director of Marketing & Promotion.



Adam is a graduate of the University of Georgia, and also from Covenant Theological Seminary. He has served as an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) for more than 10 years, and is currently the senior pastor of North Hills Presbyterian Church in Meridianville, AL.

Adam and his wife Lydia have two children. In addition to his family life, pastoral ministry, and working with Doulos Resources, Adam also enjoys reading, creating mosaic projects, and writing (we had the privilege to publish Adam's booklet, Outdo One Another: Fostering Honor Among Pastoral Colleagues, last fall as part of our "Strengthen The Church" series of booklets).

Adam works closely with the rest of our staff, particularly our publishing teams, in overseeing the promotion and marketing of our resources. We're so grateful for Adam's work with us—thanks Adam!

Earlier this year, we launched a new series of books and booklets: the PCA Position Papers series!

This may sound unexciting at first; what's a position paper after all?

A position paper is a document that is the fruit of careful study and deliberation by a group of pastors, scholars, and elders of the church who have been asked by their denomination to speak to a particular topic or issue. In the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination, there are dozens of these position papers touching on topics as diverse and significant as creation, divorce and remarriage, the Lord's Supper, pornography, and women in the military. Each paper is both theological and pastoral, and offer wise insight into the Scriptural teaching on how they should be understood and addressed.

These papers have been available since their adoption by the denomination, but only online or in a "digest" format, which includes many (but not all) of the papers in a single volume. Because of this, they have been described as "the best-kept secret in the PCA!" We forged a strategic partnership with the denomination to change that, and publish them as stand-alone books and booklets, representing a more accessible and readable format.

Our inaugural title in this series is called God Created The Heavens And The Earth: The PCA Position Paper on Creation, and it was released in January. We will release the second book in the series in June: What God Has Joined Together: The PCA Position Paper on Divorce & Remarriage.

We're delighted to partner with the PCA's Committee on Discipleship Ministries to see these gems come into print in this new format! Check them out for yourself.

Earlier this fall, we welcomed Jessica Snell to our staff as the General Editor of Kalos Press.



Jessica is a graduate of Biola University in La Mirada, CA, where she and her family still reside. She has been published in Touchstone magazine, has multiple novels under consideration for publication, and regularly blogs at Homemaking Through The Church Year. Jessica was also the editor for our series, Let Us Keep The Feast, and is currently editing a collection of essays for Kalos Press.

She and her husband Adam have four children (three girls and a boy). Besides family life and Kalos Press, Jessica writes fantasy fiction, knits avidly, enjoys camping, and is the director of the Altar Guild at her Anglican church.

Jessica stepped in as General Editor for Kalos Press, replacing Jenni Simmons (who has shifted to Director of Poetry Publication for Kalos Press). We're grateful to both Jenni and Jessica for their hard and faithful work—past, present, and future—for Kalos Press and Doulos Resources.

This is an excerpt from our forthcoming book by Rob Toornstra, Naked & Unashamed: How the Good News of Jesus Transforms Intimacy.

The book is available for pre-order now! Find it in the Doulos Resources eStore.

What is provided below is the complete introduction, entitled, "Why Write Another Book about Sex?"

Imagine that you have just inherited a vast tract of land in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. And now suppose that the person who has gifted you with this beautiful territory is taking you on a tour of your new property, and you are more than a little excited about seeing all the land that will be yours to enjoy. Since the land is so large, your guide takes you on horseback, and she escorts you along, coming after some time to a barbwire fence.

“Do you see the hills over there?” asks the guide. “That’s not yours; don’t go there because coyotes live there, and they could really hurt you.” Moving along, you arrive at another spot along the fence. “Now, this meadow looks beautiful but it’s not yours, so don’t enter it. If you do, you could be prosecuted by the neighbors,” warns the guide. It goes on like that for hours. Your guide points out dozens of places that are strictly off-limits to you, all with varying consequences. After a while, you can’t escape the fact that there is a glaring absence. For everything off-limits that she has shown you, she’s never once told you to turn around and take in everything that is yours! She’s never had you stare at the mountains that are yours to explore, the foothills that are all in your domain, the meadows, the fields, the rivers, the canyons, all within your land. All you’ve seen is everything that is off-limits!

It’s my belief that the church—and by “church,” I include pastors, Christian leaders, Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders and individual Christians—has been an excellent tour guide when it comes to showing us what is off limits. The church has pointed us over the fence, warning us that sex outside of marriage isn’t God’s plan for us. It has urged us to steer clear of the land of pornography and promiscuity. It has cautioned us that adultery is profoundly destructive, and not at all what God wants for us. And rightfully so, as these are indeed destructive lands through which to wander.

Unfortunately, for all the time spent at the fence line looking at what we ought not to do, the church has spent precious little time turning around and looking at the beauty that we DO have. We’ve spent so much time describing what God doesn’t want us to do, and so little time articulating a rich theology of sex. This is a great loss, and it is what motivates me to write this book.

Two experiences helped me see the need for a book such as this. The questions that I aim to answer were first planted in my mind when I was in college. As a junior at a Bible College in West Michigan, I was taking a course called “The Principles and Practices of Calvinism.” As a student preparing for pastoral ministry in the Reformed tradition, understanding the worldview of John Calvin was a valuable endeavor. Early in the semester we were told that we would be responsible for writing a term paper on any topic we wanted, as long as we approached it through the worldview of John Calvin. We could write on the topic of economics, environmental science, education, agriculture—anything—as long as we brought to bear the theology of John Calvin on that topic.

The timing couldn’t have been better. It was spring of 2001, and I was only a few short months away from getting married—which meant that there was one particular subject on my mind. While my then-fiancée, now wife, Amy was busy keeping track of invitations and flowers and DJ’s and a myriad of other wedding details, I was counting down: “Three more months, and we get to have sex!”

I saw a challenge at hand: Could I write a term paper on John Calvin’s view of sexuality? Particularly, could I apply a Reformed worldview to the subject of sexuality? I set out reading a half-dozen books and articles (and of course, Calvin’s commentaries!) that addressed this subject, and I was fascinated by what I learned (more about that later).

Buried somewhere in that paper, I made an observation (an offhand comment, really): “Adam and Eve could not bear to be laid out before each other in such intimacy…our sexuality, which was created to be open and without shame, has been affected to the core by sin.” At the time, I didn’t think that I had written anything all that insightful. But when the professor returned the paper, he responded with a comment of his own: “You might want to probe that a bit more deeply,” he suggested. “What is it about human beings, that when they trespass their relationships with God, they also damage their sexuality? This seems to be a prevalent theme in Scripture.”

The question stopped me short.

That was 13 years ago, and Professor Felch’s question has never stopped tugging at me for an answer. Writing that paper on sex and hearing his constructive question reeled me into this topic. I became fascinated by the interplay between our sexuality, our sinfulness, and God’s work of redemption. I wanted to know more about what God intended sex to be in the first place—and not just the mechanics of what goes where. I began to see that our culture has it all wrong; in fact, even the church has often gotten it all wrong. I think God’s purpose in sex is far greater than most of us realize, and I set out to unpack what that purpose is.

The second experience that motivated me to write was not so much a one-time event as it is an ongoing experience. I was ordained into the ministry in 2006, serving as a pastor of congregation in Salem, Oregon. Almost immediately, my wife and I noticed a significant number of younger people in this congregation, something we viewed as a blessing. It turned out that many young people in our church meant many weddings on the horizon. I had been serving for little more than a year, and I had already enjoyed the privilege of performing three wedding ceremonies.

One of my requirements for couples that I would marry is that they would undergo premarital counseling, usually with me. That meant that I was navigating the waters of premarital counseling. Don’t misunderstand: I consider premarital counseling a perk of the job. It’s just that I didn’t leave seminary with a handbook in my hand on how to conduct effective premarital counseling sessions with young, star-crossed lovers. Sure, I had a great theology of marriage, and I had completed at least a half a dozen sessions on the subject of marriage and sexuality (I had even written a couple more papers on the topic). Yet when it came to planning a handful of sessions to spend with couples, I was on my own.

So, not quite sure of what I was getting myself into, I sat down with one couple after another doing my best to prepare them for married life. Each couple was as different as the next—and they were all a pleasure to work with. Yet, as different as they were in their spiritual background, in their family histories, in their career ambitions, there was a common thread, woven through nearly every couple I counseled.

The church had failed them. We would usually discuss the biblical design for sex in session three or four; I start off the discussion by tossing a few easy questions at the couple:

“Where did you learn about sex?”

“What did your parents tell you about sex?”

“What did the church teach you about sex?”

I got a lot of blank stares. My questions were simple enough, and by then, we trusted each other enough to feel somewhat comfortable conversing on a delicate subject, so I was reasonably sure that shyness wasn’t the issue. It’s just that most of them had had only minimal conversations on sex from the two places it mattered the most: the church, and in the home.

I found that when it came to the home, most of the couples that I’ve counseled had heard “the talk,” You know the one: that’s where parents explain anatomy, and how it works. Parents had usually done a good job teaching their kids what sex is, from a physical point of view. If nothing else, they handed them a book, and then offered the token invitation, “Now, if you have any questions about this…”

But when it came to sex and the church, the message that had been broadcast, loud and clear, was “No!” It seemed that the primary message that the church cared about was pushing abstinence on young people.
Some years later, I suggested an idea to the education committee at the church I pastor: “How about we offer an adult Sunday school class on the topic of sex?” It took very little convincing for the committee to decide that this would be worth a try. As the start of the class approached, I became increasingly nervous; I wasn’t sure what I had set myself up for. I figured that the class would either be very full, or entirely empty. I was pleasantly surprised to find a strong turnout—and a strong interest in a class that set out to explore God’s design for human sexuality.

Teaching the class was great fun. Yet I heard many of the same comments again:

“All I was told growing up was that you shouldn’t have sex until you were married.”

“The church communicates very negative vibes on the topic of sex.”

“I’ve always felt shame about sex.”

I believe that, although well-intentioned, the church has done a great disservice to itself and to the world. For reasons I’ll explore more later, the pervasive “No!” message seriously distorts God’s plan for sex—not just because it is a misunderstanding of some facts, but more importantly, because it robs couples of what they could (and should) be enjoying.

By the way, don’t misunderstand: I think the message of abstinence is a good one—a biblical one. But sexual morality is only one side of the coin; churches (pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth group leaders) also need to articulate a clear biblical theology of sex. That’s what this book is all about. This is not a textbook. You won’t find descriptions of human anatomy, or techniques to make certain parts work better, or suggestions for more creative sex. Such books have their place, and there are many of them on the market. I have included an appendix that includes a list of useful resources to this end. Neither is this a book of advice for solving problems in the bedroom, although what is written here will almost certainly help with sexual conflict between husband and wife. Finally, this isn’t a book aimed at spelling out the differences between men and women—although, incidentally, we’ll touch on some of those differences and how they shape our approach to sex.

Instead, this book aims for a theology of sex. That may sound like an oxymoron, or it may kill your interest in the subject—but don’t let that word scare you off. “Theology” is just a God-word. What is God’s viewpoint on sex? Why did God create sex? When I say that I aim to cultivate a theology of sex, I mean that I intend to recover a vision of sex from God’s perspective. After all, if we can see the design from the perspective of the designer, we will be well on our way to enjoying sex as it was meant to be enjoyed.

When Professor Felch assigned that paper to me on our chosen topic for “The Principles and Practices of Calvinism”, we were told to frame our paper around three questions:

“How did God create it?”

“How does sin distort it?”

“How does God bring renewal?”

These three questions have shaped the thinking behind this book. What did God have in mind when he created sexuality? What was His purpose, beyond pleasure? How does sin mess up what God invented? And most importantly, how can we regain what God designed?

As we move forward, these questions will frame the chapters in this book. Each section in this book will articulate one key facet of God’s purpose for sex. We’ll go to the Bible to learn the positive aspect of what God created sex to be. After that, we’ll explore the ways that our own human brokenness damages and hinders God’s design for sex. How does our human nature take what God pronounced “very good” and mess it up? Finally, each section will conclude by showing how the work of Jesus on the cross can restore and repair what has been broken by sin.

If it sounds odd to suggest that the gospel of Jesus effectively renews our sexuality, consider this: Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian and statesman once famously declared that “[there] is not one square inch in all of creation over which our Lord does not say, ‘Mine!’” I am convinced that his statement applies to the bedroom as much as it does to the boardroom, the family room, the dining room, or the classroom. God cares about our sexuality—and not just (or even primarily) as a police officer who patrols and enforces our behavior or misbehavior. Rather, He desires that we might embrace and enjoy what He created for us, so that as we do so, we might know and experience Him better.

I will consider this book to be a success if you, as a reader, come away with two things. First, I hope that you will come away with a richer and more complete understanding of what sex was created to be. I want to help you turn around from the boundary fence in order to see the vast expanse of positive territory that the Bible gives us on sex, and I want the church to be able to articulate a positive theology of sex.
Secondly, to be quite frank, I hope that after reading this book, you are able to enjoy a deeper and more fulfilling sex life with your husband or your wife—one that is enriched by your understanding of how the gospel of Jesus comes to bear on our sex life.

Keep in mind that a book like this is most effective when both husband and wife are committed to meeting the needs of one another. The journey towards vulnerability can be risky, and the risks are amplified when a husband or a wife is not committed to the tenderness required to care for the naked self of their spouse. Sometimes there are wounds preventing intimacy—in you or in your spouse—and in such a case a book such as the one you hold is best used in tandem with other resources within the Christian community. Your pastor or a trusted counselor can be a vital resource to help you address some of these concerns.

Additionally, you may be wondering if a book like this has anything to say to you, particularly if you are or have been sexually active outside of marriage. You may be (understandably) hurt by some of the messages you have heard from within the Christian community. If so, please read on. While this book does come from a Christian worldview that maintains that sex is at its best when it honors the one who created sex, this is not a series of sermons. It is my goal to present a compelling vision for sexuality that will at least help you consider the grandeur of sex as God designed it.

You may be 50 years into your marriage, or just coming up on five. You may be a single person who has not yet met the person you want to marry, or you may be putting the finishing touches on your wedding plans. You may be a parent, a pastor, a church leader, wondering how to think or talk about sex to your kids, your youth group, or your friends. Whoever you are, I want you to have a robust and biblical picture of sex that allows you to enjoy a rich and fulfilling sex life with your spouse in the context and for the purposes that God intends.


You can pre-order a copy of Naked & Unashamed through the Doulos Resources eStore! Click here to find it.

Tasha joined our team in 2014 as General Editor for curricula with Doulos Resources.

Tasha is dean of academic services and adjunct professor of educational ministries at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, MO. She has more than 20 years of ministry experience that has focused on children, youth, college students, the disabled and women. She also holds a PhD in Educational Ministry from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Tasha and her husband David (also a professor at Covenant Theological Seminary) have two children.

She's hit the ground running, and already we have several new projects in the works and another half-dozen potential curricula being considered. We're looking forward to Tasha's wisdom, experience, and expertise as we seek to support the local church with good curricula.

Welcome, Tasha!

I (Ed) was speaking with a member of our Advisory Council recently about a tool that we have in development—something that will support church leaders in shepherding their people.

He asked, "What about churches that have struggles with leadership that isn't interested in shepherding their people well? What will Doulos Resources do for them?"

This is a great question—and the simple answer is, we don't offer anything for them; at least, not directly.

As I explained this to my companion, I used this analogy: We can go down to Home Depot and add some new tools to your toolbox. I can help you pick out a good hammer, a nice hand saw, and a drill. I am happy to do this with you. So imagine that now you have a hammer, a saw, and a drill. But even having the nicest hand saw in your toolbox won't guarantee that you can cut a straight line. Having the top of the line drill won't ensure that you know how to make a hole where you need one. And even possession of the best hammer does not assure its user that it will successfully drive a nail in without bending it.

Doulos Resources is, in a sense, a forge for ministry. We make tools. Our goal is to equip the church with some excellent tools that are needed. (Because many of the tools that we need are more specialized, we are less like Home Depot than we are, say, Lee Valley.)

But we cannot guarantee that our tools will be put to good use, and we certainly don't claim that simply having and using them will ensure that a church is healthy! No tool (or even collection of tools) that we offer is a panacea or a fix-all.

This is one reason why we are actively seeking to forge strategic partnerships with other ministries. We believe that our partnerships will allow us to better equip the church, because our partner ministries will have better tools to do their jobs of training and fortifying the church as they are doing.

We cannot fix all of the problems in the church, and we don't promise to fix any of them; rather, we aim to give you, and your church's leaders, the tools that are needed.

There has been a lot of talk lately about child abuse in the church, and the need for better measures for protecting our children. In the denomination I am a part of, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the General Assembly (which is the annual gathering of ruling and teaching elders for the governance and oversight of the church) will discuss an overture today about adopting a resolution that says that PCA churches should look more closely at their own policies and evaluate what steps they might take to better protect the children under their care.

The leadership of Doulos Resources asked each other recently: Where can churches and church leaders go for trusted, reliable information about doing this? Surely we all agree that there is a need for protecting our children! But how might churches go about doing so?

We are delighted to offer a resource that fills this need. Faithful Protection: Developing Your Church's Child Protection Plan is now available for free through our "Other Resources" section. Whether you are a pastor, an elder, or a concerned parent or member, we believe that this resource will offer much to advance the discussion in your congregation about how the local church can and should put plans and policies in place to protect our children from abuse and danger.

Please download this vital resource! And feel free to pass along the link to others that you know who are also concerned about this issue.

Friends, we have some great plans for what 2014 and beyond might hold for Doulos Resources!

To accomplish our goals and do all that we believe God is equipping us to do for His church, we need your support. Would you take a few moments to read this letter from our executive director, Ed Eubanks, about our ambitions and how you might join in helping us meet them?

Thanks for your time and support of any kind.

Will you be attending the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) in Houston, TX on June 17–20? We will!

Doulos Resources (and all of our subsidiary imprints) will have our first booth at the PCA GA this year. We will have books for sale, materials about our ministries and services, and staff in place to meet with you.

One particular aspect of ministry that we are greatly looking forward to presenting is our Pastoral Transition ministry. If you are a pastor who is considering a transition, a seminary student who will be graduating in the next couple of years, or a church that is seeking a new pastor—we want to talk with you! Come by our booth and see how we may be able to serve you and/or your church through this difficult process.

We're excited about this opportunity to connect with many of our readers and other constituents, and we hope to see you there.