A pastor I’ve known for 30 years now ordered a bunch of our replicas of what babies look like at various stages of development within the womb because he wants to speak on the Sanctity of Human Life Sunday in January. We sent him a small box of these replicas and they come in this little bag with a card that reminds people about the development of the child.
Many churches use the third week in January to talk about human life. The Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is usually that third or fourth week, depending on the schedule, and if your church is having a sanctity of human life celebration, I just want to remind you of a couple of resources. Certainly, we can send you one of these little tiny babies and are happy to do so. Just let us know. Go to our website and order it and we’ll send it to you free of charge. If you want to buy a box of them, they cost about $1 per pack. We would charge you what it costs us if you wanted to order a couple hundred, for example.
I also wanted to take this occasion to remind you about a book called Answering the Call. It was published by Focus on the Family 21 years ago now. I just looked at the version I have and it came out in 2010. So it’s been updated. I wrote this book with Focus on the Family 20 years ago, primarily to help pastors, elders, deacons, home group leaders, etc. have something that they could read in about an hour and a half and have enough scripture, history, stories and data to be able to talk to any group of people.
If you have a copy of this, I would encourage you to give it to whoever is leading the charge on your Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. If you would like a copy of this book then please contact me through our website at passionlife.org. I will send you the updated version of this book.
We also wrote pretty much the same book for young people in high school and college and it’s called Stand for Life. This book includes more of the apologetics, led by Scott Klusendorf, and the goal here is to make sure that our young people are learning how to make the case for life in a secular and hostile culture. I can’t think of anything more valuable today than teaching young people on how to defend their own biblical view on the sanctity of human life without needing to necessarily quote scripture when the people they’re talking to may not see the relevance of the Bible. They can use science and they can use moral reasoning to make the case for life.
Nothing excites young people more than knowing that they can defend their own view. It really radicalizes them in the best sense of the word. It gives them confidence, gives them assurance, it helps them see that all of these great issues that we’re fighting over today can be defended in intelligent and compassionate ways.
As you’re thinking about training other people and contributing to the cause of life, I would suggest getting started as soon as possible. It is a great time to get started as any other. There are many political votes coming up in this coming year that are going to involve abortion and whether it’s morally right or morally wrong. We are going to need everybody articulating the case for life.
If you are doing anything during the Sanctity of Human Life month, feel free to grab these resources Passion Life provides throughout the year as you may need. We would like to be your partner as you go out and make the case for life because you are sending us out all over the world. This is an opportunity for us to invest back into your life. Keep these resources in mind. We would be delighted to send them along with you and hear any stories of impact that you want to share back with us. I would love to hear it. Thank you so much.