Care Net's President and CEO, Roland Warren, recently joined Relatable, the podcast hosted by Allie Beth Stuckey. The interview is jam-packed with helpful information related to Christianity and abortion—how believers should respond to abortion, how you should engage with pro-choice friends and family, why pastors are often afraid to mention abortion, and much more.
I encourage you to watch or listen to this podcast featuring Roland. If you're pressed for time, jump in at the 12-minute and 18-minute marks. You can find both videos below. The interview keeps hitting harder and harder as each minute passes. I want to focus on two areas for this post—how you and your church should view the life issue.
Christianity and Abortion: How To View the Life Issue
You may remember Allie Beth Stuckey from an interview Roland held at the 2022 Care Net Conference. Allie Beth was one of our keynote speakers. In the sweeping interview we're talking about for this post, Allie Beth and Roland discuss the history of Care Net, what Care Net does, the bigger picture related to Christianity and abortion, how to engage the pro-life perspective as a believer, and Roland's personal story. But that's not all, there are two things in this interview I want to focus on.
How You Should View the Life Issue
If you watch or listen to the interview starting at the 12-minute mark (see above), Roland points out an important change that needs to take place, that is, Christians need to view the life issue through the lens of discipleship. Roland defines exactly what he means,
"Every good work a Christian does should lead to discipleship. Water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked...Christians understand that the reason why we do that work is not just to do those works, but we want to do them for the same reason Jesus did—to make disciples."
The problem is, many Christians view the life issue primarily through the lens of politics. The example Roland gives is to ask a Christian, "Are you pro-life?" They will often say, "Yes." If you say, "Prove it...," They'll tell you who they voted for in the last election. While voting is vital, the goal of Christianity is to do good works with the end in mind of making disciples.
When believers think of the life issue as discipleship, it anchors the issue in the church as a way of pointing people to Christ. It's why Care Net created the ministry kit Making Life Disciples. It's designed to help Christians mobilize in the church and walk with those who are facing pregnancy decisions because "life decisions need life support."
How Your Church Should View the Life Issue
At the 18-minute mark of the podcast (watch the video above), Roland talks about how people in the church can come alongside those who need help related to pregnancy decisions. Roland reveals exactly how the church can help with specific examples.
- If the guy who's running from fatherhood because he never had a father—maybe a dad in the church has been a father for decades—and mentors that guy.
- Maybe the couple who's pregnant is living together and their relationship is frayed—they've never seen what a godly marriage looks like—you're a married couple who's learned some things after being married 20 years—you can mentor that couple.
- The pregnant woman doesn't have a place to live—you have an extra room.
- She can't get to her pre-natal visits, you're retired. Will you drive her?
These are examples of practical ways life decisions get the life support they need from the church being the church. We know and see the great work that pregnancy centers do every day. But as Roland points out, there are only 1,249 Care Net Pregnancy Centers yet there are over 400,000 churches.
"If just 1% of churches continue to do the practical work mentioned, there are more points of compassion in the culture." It's why Care Net encourages those in the pews to go to MakingLifeDisciples.com to get your small group trained and when the need arises, you can point those in need to a pregnancy center, or, so that someone in your church, who's facing a pregnancy decision, would never look at Planned Parenthood or some other abortion provider as an alternative to the church.
Roland explains, "It's not easy to put a pregnancy care center everywhere, but you can put a pregnancy care ministry within your church."
More Resources
- LifeChat: What the Great Commandment and the Great Commission Have to Say about the Life Issue (Video)
- Find the full interview by audio and video at Allie Beth Stuckey's site
- Visit Making Life Disciples for help with training those in your church to help those facing pregnancy decisions
- Interview Roland led featuring Allie Beth Stuckey at the 2022 Care Net Conference
