Resources to Help Church Leaders Equip Their Members to Defend the Unborn

I'll be speaking to pastors this morning here in Southern California. Some pastors fear that bringing up abortion in church will make some church members uncomfortable and may even offend some. Understandably, this in turn makes pastors uncomfortable with the topic. Instead of being silent, though, I suggest that pastors equip themselves to equip their churches in a way that helps rather than harms. This list of resources can help any church leader feel more comfortable equipping their people to defend the unborn:

Connect with Trained Abortion Recovery Counselors
Your local pregnancy resource center usually has trained counselors willing to serve your church after you speak on abortion.

Share Pictures in Sermons and Presentations
- Embryology pictures
- Pictures and video of the results of abortion at Abort73.com

Share Simple Tools for Clear Thinking
- Biblical: “Does the Bible Have Anything to Say about Abortion?”
- Biology: Ten-Second Sound Bite
- Philosophy: The SLED Test
- Philosophy: One-Minute Pro-Life Apologist

Offer Interaction Tools and Outreach Opportunities
- Justice For All Exhibit Brochure (Remember, the Justice For All Exhibit is graphic because it shows accurate pictures of abortion.)
- Common Ground Without Compromise: 25 Questions to Create Dialogue on Abortion
- Justice For All Exhibit Outreach – The JFA team disciples your church members through a hands-on Exhibit project on a college campus. After just a few days, participants have learned to share their faith and values with confidence by engaging strangers who disagree. Participants are fearful and tongue-tied at the beginning and leave saying that a fire has been ignited in them to share their faith with the lost. Contact JFA at 800-281-6426 for information about upcoming missions trips for your church members.

Equip Small Groups, Sunday School Classes, and Teens
- Making Abortion Unthinkable (a plug and play training curriculum that includes five sessions on DVD and a 100+ page manual on pdf)
- STR's bioethics articles (here and here)
- Articles at the Life Training Institute

Read These Articles Specifically for Church Leaders
- Please, God! Give us More Preachers Like This! (Scott Klusendorf)
- The Pro-Life Pastor in the 21st Century (Scott Klusendorf)
- My Challenge to Christian Leaders: Preach AND Equip (Scott Klusendorf)

Comments

[Catherine "Jackie" Mitchell]

We must defend the unborn, no equivocation. We must also protect and defend those who are alive. Expanding the "culture of life" is crucial to us today when facing a pandemic in our near future. Our children are counting on us and they are the most effected by pandemic influenza.

Thank you for this edifying and well written blog. I will post it under my favorites.

[Kyl Schalk]

Stephen Wagner,

I finished reading Common Ground Without Compromise and it is a great book. Thanks for all of the effective pro-life work you do!! You are one of the great pro-life educators of our time. If there were millions of pro-lifers like you that were systematically training people on the elective abortion issue, our world would learn (with the assistance of the Spirit) to respect life. Here is one of my favorite quotes from your book:

You write, “Surgical abortions always take place after 5 weeks gestation (3 weeks post-fertilization), so the image of a ball of cells being removed is factually incorrect. By 3 weeks post-fertilization, the primitive heart is beating."