PROJECT LILY | KAIROS GLOBAL | AUGUST 2022

Author: Jacob Jose

Intro: Jacob Jose writes about Soul Chat, a YouTube series by Project Lily, the Jesus youth chastity initiative. The series offers friendly conversations around human sexuality.

Nowadays, under the guise of freedom and advancement, the very ideal of leading a chaste life is mocked and ridiculed. Individual interests are exalted and physical pleasure is given priority. Degradation of the human individual is the sad consequence. People who have limitless worth and dignity are reduced to objects of use, merely a means to an end. Hook-ups, casual relationships, one-night encounters, pornography, and other forms of sexual perversion have all become widespread. In the end, people struggle with poor self-esteem and worth. They are plagued by guilt and shame day after day.

Yet as Christians we know that true freedom is not absence of rules and boundaries. Rather, they are vital to man's true joy and freedom. God created man and woman, our sexual differences, mutual attraction and love. He instituted marriage, procreation and family. Man finds true joy and freedom only in living according to divine plan. God has a perfect plan for humanity and for our sexuality in particular. 

How will the youngsters of today come to terms with these hard-hitting realities? Who will usher them to the truth? Who is to tell them their true worth and significance despite the mess in and around them? Who will take the good news of authentic, life-giving love that will free them from the slavery of lies and deception?

Project Lily is a Jesus Youth initiative to promote, teach, and help young people grow in the virtue of chastity. The ministry is largely online. Project Lily actively engages teenagers and young people across social media platforms, spreading the truth about human sexuality and authentic human love.

As part of their mission, Project Lily launched a YouTube channel that offers a series of friendly conversations around sexuality, attraction, relationships, and marriage. Its conversational style is proving to be effective in communicating hard truths in a way that everyone can relate to. The people involved in these conversations are interestingly both young and old, who have had their own challenges, yet poised to overcome every hurdle with humility, trusting God's mercy and grace, and disciplining themselves from inordinate attachments and corruptions of the flesh. 

A designer, Jacob Jose is elder to Project Lily, a chastity initiative. He runs catholic.cafe, a website answering questions on faith and morals. He also blogs at myarticulateheart.com.