More than 200 teen-agers are expected tonight at a regional True Love Waits rally that will be held at Bethany Baptist Church, 1712 Randol.

True Love Waits is an international campaign designed to challenge students to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. This is the first time the Cape Girardeau Baptist Association, made up of 30 churches, has organized a regional youth rally, said the Rev. Mike Dugan, pastor at Fellowship Baptist Church.

"Individual churches have held True Love Waits events in the past," Dugan said. "But this is the first time one has been sponsored by the association." The idea, he said, is to show young people that sexual abstinence until marriage is "cool" and that many teens have made that commitment.

"It's a type of positive peer pressure," Dugan said Sometimes teens feel isolated when they have chosen to make the decision to postpone sex until marriage, he said. This rally will let them see that many other young people have made the same decision, he said.

The rally, aimed at junior high and high school students, will feature rock praise band Samson, skits by members of the Baptist Student Union at Southeast Missouri State University and speakers Ted Burton of First Baptist Church in O'Fallon and J.D. Davis from Park Avenue Baptist Church in Nashville.

The band and the skits will be high energy entertainment. Then the speakers will deliver a serious message, Dugan said.

The rally should draw those who, through their churches, have studied True Love Waits materials, which present the Biblical and social arguments for abstinence, as well as those who know little about the program.

Those who want to make a commitment to abstinence until marriage can sign commitment cards, pledging to save themselves for marriage, Dugan said.

He said the number of teens who sign such cards grows each year.

"A growing number of teens are seeing that is it feasible to curb theirs desires and save themselves for one mate," Dugan said.