There is a means by which you can support and even expand the ministry scope of Passion Life that you probably have never thought of and that is by having one of the Passion Life stateside staff in your home for dessert. We love pie. We have done these events in people’s homes before.

We call them “storming the stronghold” events. Essentially, this is an opportunity for us to come to someone’s house and they have invited friends, neighbors, church folks, people from their small groups, people from work, people who may or may not know us or the work of Passion Life, provide a couple of simple desserts to talk about the ministry we do. Either John or myself will hook up our computer to a TV screen and we’ll spend about an hour or so explaining what Passion Life does, where we go, why we do it, how it works and telling encouraging stories and showing incredible pictures from around the world. Most people leave these things feeling like they’ve really experienced something uplifting and encouraging and awe inspiring.

That’s uncommon in pro-life ministry. So many times people think of pro-life ministry and they think of shame and they think of guilt and they think of people holding graphic signs on the sidewalk or of people down in the trenches of legal battles, slogging it out and people yelling at each other on the street corners. The truth is, there is a lot of encouraging material to discuss when it comes to pro-life work, and especially Passion Life’s international pro-life work. We have stories that, as John would say, will buckle your knees. They’re not our stories. These are God’s stories and many times we are amazed and weep telling them or showing the pictures, or playing the videos that we pull in from around the world.

It’s a really exciting time. We did one of these things just in my barn here on the family farm last week. Now this was a little more involved. There were about 70 people. We had dinner. I organized the whole thing. It was specifically a fundraiser. John flew in from Atlanta. It was a nice time to smoke a big Boston butt and to have a catered meal and have a sommelier come in and do a wine tasting. Then John and I did a program together showing pictures and telling stories for about an hour. Most of the people who came were certain friends of mine invited from their sphere of influence.

There were some people that I didn’t know as well. These were people that did not know the Ministry of Passion Life. The common denominator is most of them were interested in missions or pro-life ministry or both, but even that’s not completely necessary. The result is that a certain percentage of those people will want to sign up for the Passion Life newsletters, and when they do, they will want to pray for us when we go out on our next trip and they will experience some of these same encouraging results. We want them to pray for us through some of the discouraging stories that we tell of being trapped in airports or stuck on the side of the road in Cuba.

No, we don’t sugarcoat the stories that we tell, but it’s missions. Some of these people will pray for us. Some of these people, either on the spot or over time, will begin to monetarily support the work of Passion Life. That expansion of our donor/support and prayer base expands the scope and the ministry ability that Passion Life has all across the world.

It takes partners for John and I and the rest of our dedicated staff here in the United States and in countries around the world for us to be able to do these events. For you to invite people in your home to listen to stories they have and share on a special evening like this, is a wonderful way for people who don’t know how else to help us accomplish more of what we do to figure out a way that they can do that.

I think you’ll feel good about it if you do it. You do not have to live near us. If you think that you can pull together a good group of people and you live in Maine, John or I will come to Maine. Maybe both of us will be there. If you live in Washington state, we’re coming. We’ll be there. We’d like to be able to figure out a way to kind of make it reasonable and profitable for us to be able to come out there. Maybe you have specific people in mind who would really have a heart for this kind of work. Maybe, at the same time, you would like for us to meet with your mission pastor at your church and share the vision of what we do with your mission’s team or committee.

All of that is to say, it’s something that you should keep in mind. “Storming the strongholds” is a very encouraging way for you to bring people together around a slice of cheesecake and a television screen and share a wonderfully uplifting evening together. This will sometimes lead several people to be involved more deeply in the work of Passion Life that’s a win for the Kingdom.

Please consider hosting a “Storming the Strongholds” event in your home.