For those of you who are new here, I’m Sheila Wray Gregoire, a speaker and the author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex.
And I want to come and speak at your church or group!
Let me explain. I’ve been speaking at women’s retreats and women’s outreaches for about a decade now, heading all over North America encouraging women. I’ve spoken about loss, I’ve spoken about how to say “God is enough”, and I’ve given women a message of the joy we can experience when our focus is on Jesus, and not on our circumstances.
But as I’ve spoken and written, I’ve found that increasingly what women wanted me to talk about was sex. You see, my husband and I also speak together at FamilyLife marriage conferences, and we tended to do the sex talk because other speaker couples were glad to give that one up. And speaking about sex has never been that scary to me.
Finally, I decided it was time to write a book–but not just any book–on sex. I wanted it to be the kind of book where you feel as if you’re talking to your big sister, asking her all the questions you want answers to but you don’t know where to go. In The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I explain how God created it to bring us together in three ways: emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The problem we face is that our culture has divorced sex from marriage, and thus all they have left is the physical. And so sex has become distorted.
I spend the book looking at how we can find the real joy and intimacy that God intended for our marriage.What I’ve found in writing this book and this blog is that women are eager to have a safe place to discuss something that’s personal, but also vitally important. We know it’s central to marriage. We know it’s supposed to be wonderful. But all too often it’s not.
It shouldn’t be that way, and I wrote the book to dispel some myths and to help women experience real joy.
But now I want to expand that and bring the book’s message to your church, through Girl Talk, a fun evening for women where we talk intimacy!
We’ll open with a 15 minute comedy routine on sex, and then have some practical teaching for married women on how to create a marriage that thrives. After intermission we’ll have a Q&A (don’t worry, the questions will be screened and tasteful), and then some more practical teaching. And the evening will be punctuated with fun video and interesting multimedia with some of the results from the surveys I took for my research. Here’s just one video that I’ve created for the evening:
Why such an evening?
Marriages are falling apart. Even those that are still together aren’t necessarily thriving. And if we want our witness to be strong, and for children to grow up in security, loving God, we need to support families. Sex may not be something that churches normally talk about, but here’s a chance for the church to host a fun evening for women, with great teaching, with little effort on the pastor’s part.
Pastors can’t always preach about sex from the pulpit, because children are present, and pastors don’t want to alienate single people. But it’s too important a topic to ignore. If you think your church would benefit from this night, then just enter!
Here’s how it works.
Enter either with Facebook or your email (that gets you 1 entry). But you can earn 40 more entries just by completing some tasks once you’ve logged in–easy tasks, like entering your church’s name, sharing the “How to Turn Your Husband Off” video on Facebook, or signing up for Marriage Newsletter! And if you already are signed up for my newsletter, or you already follow my Facebook Page, you get points for that, too!
If you really want to win, email friends from your church and get them to enter, too. In fact, you get extra points for emailing them in the first place, but the more enter, the more likely your church is to win.
The contest is running until 12:01 am on April 21. Some tasks, like sharing on Facebook or Twitter, you can repeat everyday to get extra entries, so check back! I would love to meet some of you in person, so enter away, and perhaps I’ll arrive, with my famous flannel nightgown, ready to bring a wonderful evening to the women in your community.
If you want information on how you can hire me to come to speak at your church, you can find more information on Girl Talk here, and information on the rest of my speaking ministry here.
Ooooh! I want to win! I’ll spread the word.
My husband and I watched the new video last night – love it!
PS – I just ordered your book…hope it gets here in time to enter! I asked my husband last night if I could order it, and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “YES!”
Megan, too funny! I think many husbands love me right now :).
Loved the video..hilarious! I hope our church wins…it is just what we need.
Judi, when you get the book you just won in the mail, then you can come back and get those 10 extra entries, too, by entering the right answer! (Judi won a copy from a contest at Karen Ehman’s blog).
Question Sheila, I attend a very small church, probably only 2 or 3 married women in the congregation. I was wondering if you would consider doing the talk for my homeschool support group instead or as a combined thing with the couple ladies at our church? If so what should I put in as my church name, it or the name of my support group which includes probably hundreds of families?
Sure, Cherl, it could be a combined thing. Just put your homeschool group in the group name then.
Every woman needs to hear you, Sheila!!!
Your videos crack me up!!!
Sheila that video was almost too much I was laughing so hard! I know whomever gets picked will be so blessed to have you speak at their church. You are such a blessing to many marriages!
I would love to win this for my church. Perhaps someday you can create a video conference so many many people could hear your material. Churches everywhere need it. I would host a day conference in my home, and another at my church. Thank you for being the voice that many need desperately to hear.
The ladies at my church need this!! I really hope we win!
Woo-hoo! I totally want you to come to Waco and encourage us married women here. I’ll be back each day to do the extra entries… I’m on the second day now.
I did suggest your book to our book club (all women) as we were choosing the next round of books a week or two ago. Sadly, it wasn’t chosen. Yes, it would be an awkward conversation, but I wonder how many of my girl-friends suffer in silence. or how many of their husbands suffer silently because their wives don’t understand them.
I’m writing my review of your book for my blog right now. I want to get it right, to encourage my few readers to give it a try. I think it will be such an encouragement to married women and, of course, hubbies will love the results!
Im passing the word to my church and friends on Facebook. Come visit Hermiston, Or!
What a wonderful opportunity to enter this contest!!! Sheila as I get more involved in women’s ministry the more I hear of the intimacy issues plaguing the CHURCH!!! It’s amazing but within the last two weeks I have heard of 3 cases of couples not having intimacy for over 9 months and one is going on a YEAR! Young couples in thier late 40s. Sheila South Florida needs you so please consider basking in the sun while you help our couples remember what is was like to “have fun” in the bedroom again!! Praying that we will win….LOL Silvia
Visiting your site again today….. South Florida needs you!!! LOL!
Awesome, Silvia! Tell your friends to enter, too!
If we weren’t moving in 3 weeks, I would totally be entering every hour :). I love your blog and I’m excited about reading your book! I agree that it is so so important to talk about sex in a marriage as well as educating our kids about WHY God wants us to wait! Maybe a church in Charleston SC will win so I can come see you!
This would be so fun!
I’m with Susan- Come to Austin
This would be amazing! We are currently planning on putting a Women’s Wellness Weekend together, anyway. We would LOVE to have you speak to our group!
Marriages have always been a target of the devil–now the enemy is working overtime. We would be so blessed to have you come!!
Pick us, pick us…..
You’re funny, Silvia! I’m getting excited to see who does win tomorrow!
It’s me again:-)
I would LOVE to a.) win this for our church to b.) kick off a marriage ministry in our church!!! Here’s hoping…
Thanks, Krissy! Good luck! I’m excited to see who wins, too….