NEWS MEDIA CENTER

Just the Facts: True Love Waits

True Love Waits is a ministry of LifeWay Christian Resources (Nashville, Tenn.) of the Southern Baptist Convention.

True Love Waits was developed by Jimmy Hester and Richard Ross on a napkin in the LifeWay cafeteria.

The True Love Waits ministry observes its 10th anniversary in 2004.

In the past decade, an estimated 2.5 to 3 million young people have signed a pledge to be abstinent until they are married.

The pledge reads: “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.”

An estimated 500,000 commitment cards from young people around the world will be displayed in Athens.

More than 85 other organizations—secular and religious—have adopted the use of True Love Waits to promote sexual abstinence.

The American Journal of Sociology published a study in 2001 that reported teenagers who pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage are 34 percent less likely to have sex than those who do not pledge.

True Love Waits has been introduced to more than 70 countries.

True Love Waits is credited by government leaders in Uganda for a remarkable drop in the HIV/AIDS rate—from 30 percent of the population in the early 1990s to less than 10 percent today.

"Religious organizations played a major role in prevention [of HIV/AIDS]. When we adopted the True Love Waits slogan, we found that the most important thing was focusing on our spiritual foundation and values."-- Janet Museveni, first lady of Uganda, speaking at the The Medical Institute for Sexual Health’s annual meeting (Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington D.C. June 17, 2004.)

Museveni cited a 2000 report in which 95 of 100 Ugandans were either abstinent or only had one sexual partner. She added that 99.7 percent of the population in Uganda is aware of HIV/AIDS.

LifeWay Christian Resources one of the world’s largest publishers of religious materials, producing 180 monthly and quarterly products and more than 210 new undated products annually.

LifeWay was established in Nashville, Tenn., in 1891. The company owns and operates 118 LifeWay Christian Stores throughout the United States, as well as two of the largest Christian conference centers in the country. LifeWay is a religious nonprofit organization that receives no funding from the denomination, and reinvests income above operating expenses into mission work and other ministries around the world.