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Live Pure a radical approach

by Marisa Zeppieri-Caruana | The Good News | March 3rd 2010
Tags: Craig Gross, live pure, Local, pornography, xxxchurch

It’s been a bold and risky endeavor since day one. Not one to take the easy or safe road on the issue of pornography, Craig Gross, co-founder of xxxchurch, has proven over the years that sometimes a radical approach needs to be implemented in order to lead souls to Christ.

Originally a youth pastor in Fullerton, Calif., Gross came up with the idea for xxxchurch after seeing how many people around him were affected by pornography. His mission was to “give people a safe place to get help and let them know that they are not alone in this struggle.”

The part-time venture began years ago, when Gross decided to set up shop at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, promoting his organization as an alternative to pornography.

And the reaction from those attending the show?

“Surprisingly, we had a very favorable reaction from people. I think they were quite shocked that we even came to the show in the first place, but I feel that they were respectful towards what we were doing because we were respectful towards them,” says Gross. “From day one, we treated them lovingly and we didn’t point fingers at them or judge what they were doing. This is a big part of why we are liked among people in the industry.”

Gross’ website, xxxchurch.com, was launched on Jan. 9, 2002, the same day that he manned his first booth at the expo. Over the years it has become one of the biggest sites on the Web, helping people to deal with pornography and sex addiction, as well as helping them set up recovery plans and working alongside those who want to get out of the industry.

With the fan base growing over the years, the site now averages between 200,000 and 300,000 hits per month and has approximately 500 people per day downloading the site’s X3watch software, free accountability software that logs any questionable website the computer user accesses. The software is programmed to then send a report to a specific accountability partner chosen by the user. With more than 400 million pornographic Web sites currently out there, X3watch helps people reach their goal of becoming more open and transparent with one another concerning their daily Web surfing.

It was while Gross was working as a youth pastor that he discovered that “pornography struggles went way beyond just men and teens.”

“As of right now, the statistics show that pornography is a struggle that is 72 percent male and 28 percent female. The statistics concerning women may be surprising at first. 17 percent of all women struggle with porn addiction, they favor chat rooms twice as much as men, and women are more likely to act out on their behavior because sex is more of an emotional thing for them, opposed to men who have more of a visual need,” states Gross.

For the curious, here is a quick glance at surprising statistics regarding pornography and the different groups of people that it affects:
• 42.7% of Internet users view pornography (familysafe media.com/pornography_statistics.html#webpages_country).
• “At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in divorces in the past year, with excessive interest in online porn contributing to more than half such cases. Pornography had an almost non existent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago” (www.divorcewizards.com).
• A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that more than 50% of the men in attendance had been involved with pornography within one week prior to attending the event.
• 51% of pastors say cyber-porn is a possible temptation: 37% say it is a current struggle (Christianity Today, Leadership Survey, December 2001).
• Roger Charman of Focus on the Family’s Pastoral Ministries reports that approximately 20 percent of the calls received on their Pastoral Care Line are for help with issues such as pornography and compulsive sexual behavior.
• 57% of pastors say that addiction to pornography is the most sexually damaging issue to their congregation (Christians and Sex Leadership Journal Survey, March 2005).
• 100,000 Web sites offer illegal child pornography (U.S. Customs Service estimate).
• There are more than 116,000 daily requests on search engines for child pornography (www.family safemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html#webpages_country).
• As of December 2005, child pornography was a $3 billion annual industry (Internet Filter Review).

“Statistically, the average e-mail user receives 4.5 pornographic e-mails a day, and currently the average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old,” says Gross. “It is time to take a different approach. I don’t buy half of the garbage that I see in the supermarket, but that doesn’t mean that I am not going to go to the supermarket. I have to make a choice. You can’t avoid this [pornography]. You can’t avoid the Internet. The whole thing [the Internet] is not bad. You just have to make a conscious and deliberate choice.”

When asked his opinion on the recent media frenzy concerning sexual addictions and issues regarding celebrities and politicians, Gross explains, “Recently, Time magazine did a feature on sexual addiction, and now that people are seeing celebrities and others in the spotlight deal with this stuff, we have a lot more people talking about it openly. We can’t keep these issues hidden anymore. It is time to get them out there. I think what is going on right now, as far as openly discussing it, is good.”

Even before the recent barrage of well-known figures and their public sexual mishaps, Gross’ ministry has had people debating and openly talking about the issues for some time, thanks to their revolutionary approach and the help of some very well-known bible covers. “The ‘Jesus Loves Porn Stars’ cover originally started out as a postcard, then it went to a shirt, and finally we decided to put it as the cover of the Bible,” explains Gross. “Yes, it attracts people’s attention, but ultimately many of those people are going to open up that book. They want to see what is inside. ‘Jesus Loves Porn Stars’ isn’t about shock value. It takes things on a broader scale – the gluttons, the crooks, the disconnects. We are trying to break the stereotypes and go after the fact that Jesus loves all of these people. I think, so far, it has really pushed and challenged some people to not look and see those in the industry as ‘awful‘ people and focus on what they do for a living, but instead realize that we need to love one another, no matter what the other person does for a living or who they are.”

With pornography so deeply embedded in our culture, Gross wants to continue his mission of bringing the issue out into the open and getting those who want help the resources and support they need. And he is doing just that, by speaking publicly throughout the United States, doing regular “porn debates” at universities with well-known porn star Ron Jeremy, holding live podcasts from his website, and faithfully showing up with his famous booth and Bibles at adult entertainment expos.

“The reality is that most people don’t realize the negative impact of pornography until things are really bad.

People don’t focus on the preventative side. Every day we are seeing the destruction that this is doing to people, families and marriages. Just recently, a good friend of mine, who fell back into it after so many years of staying away, took his own life. It’s just devastating,” says Gross. “For xxxchurch, I know God has His hands all over this ministry. Whether it is speaking to Ron Jeremy, other people in the industry or families that are being devastated by this, we don’t take any opportunities of sharing what we believe lightly. You have to bold about your faith. 2 Peter 3:16 says to live your life in a way that, when asked, you will be able to give reasons for how you lived your life. Our plan is to continually show up in people’s lives, and give God’s message to as many people as we can, so that lives can ultimately be changed.”

For more information, please visit: www.xxxchurch.com and www.craiggross.com.
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