Georgia – www.ajc.com – When it comes to parenting, Jack and Joanne Brown like to keep it real.

The Decatur couple have candid chats after dinner with their two sons, ages 11 and 14, about the challenges of school, the pitfalls of peer pressure, and the trappings of TV and the Internet.

“It’s about being proactive,” Joanne Brown said. “That means putting on the table topics that need to be talked about.”

One of those topics on the table: pornography.

“We know this is an issue that’s becoming more and more pervasive,” she said. “We’re trying to get ahead of something before it becomes a problem down the road.”

The Browns and about 1,500 other metro Atlantans, both adults and youngsters, are descending on the Victory World Church in Norcross this weekend for “The Porn Talk,” a three-day dialogue about porn’s effects on families, marriages and children.

“The reality is it’s really destroying homes,” church pastor Dennis Rouse said.

Statistics show that the average child first views pornography at age 11, that 40 million U.S. adults regularly visit pornographic Web sites, and that 47 percent of families say pornography is a problem in their home.

The Porn Talk, the first of its kind for the nondenominational church founded in 1990, comes amid its Elephant in the Pew series, which targets sex-related topics such as sex outside marriage and alternative sexual lifestyles.

Speakers from the nonprofit group XXXchurch.com are conducting sessions tailored to specific groups: Porn & Pastries (women), Porn & Pancakes (men), Porn & Parents (parents) and Porn & Pizza (middle and high school students).

Since 2002, XXXchurch.com has delivered its anti-porn message worldwide at churches, colleges, community centers and even porn conventions. The last one in metro Atlanta was at Duluth’s Perimeter Church in August.

Craig Gross, 33, [pictured] founder of XXXchurch.com and the featured speaker, said when he was growing up, pornography wasn’t ubiquitous.

“Now you have to work really hard to avoid it with the Internet in every home in America,” he said. “We are sick of watching people lose everything to porn. Marriages are being destroyed. Jobs are being lost. Families are being torn apart.”

In Porn & Pastries on Friday night, speaker Michelle Truax shared her story about how porn nearly destroyed her five-year marriage.

“It became such a mind-set that he couldn’t function in many areas of his life,” Truax said before the session. “As a wife, I believe [pornography] is a stronghold, but I do believe it is a choice.”

Truax, who has been separated for a year and a half, said she uses “the pain that happened in my marriage to reach out to other women to stay strong … but not get sucked into the whole dysfunctional mess.”

Donny Pauling, a former porn producer for nine years, will share his story today and Sunday to men and young students. The son of a pastor, Pauling grew up in churches but said he despised Christianity. He started producing porn for Web sites in 1997.

After XXXchurch.com made contact with Pauling three years ago, he started traveling and speaking, sharing what goes on behind the scenes in the sex industry.

“What I went through personally and put the girls through are definitely regrettable,” said Pauling, who has spoken to more than 30 churches. “But one thing I’ve learned is that God can use all things for good.”

Beyond life stories and question-and-answer sessions, the forums will teach adults how to set up Web filters, have candid conversations with children and establish accountability measures.

For the Browns, the message won’t be surprising. The couple already use filters and monitor their oldest son’s Facebook account. They even block TV stations such as MTV and VH1.

“[Our sons are] in an environment where everything is kind of an open book,” Joanne Brown said. “So it lets them make better decisions.”