Your Voice

Pro-life movement not over

The future of the pro-life movement is growing much more complex. We are not merely fighting to protect women and children from a badly reasoned 1973 Supreme Court precedent.

We also are fighting to defend them against international activists, other states, domestic activists and even the current administration.

Addressing the use or expansion of abortion pills and abortion trafficking in all their forms will become essential as we seek to protect human life in the womb in America.

But there is another side to this picture.

Legally protecting children in the womb alone fails to address the very real and pressing needs of vulnerable mothers … who are in desperate need of material, emotional and social support.

We must rally around women as well. We need to find a way to restore motherhood to its rightful status as a role to be celebrated, cherished and protected.

It will take charity, humility and tireless work from all parts of the pro-life movement in order to do so: part legislative, part community based, part spiritual ministry and part prayer.

It is possible, and it is imperative we work to realize it.

Millions of children in the womb and their mothers depend upon us.

Pray in gratitude for each life rescued by existing abortion restrictions, many enacted by the Dobbs decision.

And work fervently to rescue children in the many states where their lives are not yet protected or valued. The very fabric of our society depends upon it.

Chelsea Youman
National director of public policy for Human Coalition

Letters to the Editor

I am a second-year doctoral student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and I want to share how your Cooperative Program giving is making a difference in equipping ministers to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

My doctoral concentration is biblical counseling. I recently attended my third weeklong intensive seminar at SBTS. There were about 15 students in the classroom. What a joy to be in a class that is diverse and representative of the nations.

Your CP giving is helping students from many states and countries receive sound biblical training. I had the privilege of sitting with and training alongside ministers who will go back to Canada, Myanmar, Africa, California, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana and Alabama.

As a small church pastor in southeast Alabama, I am encouraged that our annual CP allocations, together with the CP contributions of over 40,000 plus SBC churches, help send qualified ministers to take the gospel to the nations.

Thank you, Alabama Baptists, for your generosity and investment in CP as we take God’s truth and hope in Christ to the nations. Tell your people of the impact their giving is making!

Pastor Chris Woodall
Pinckard Baptist Church
Pinckard, Ala.

Oftentimes you don’t know where things are going long term. You don’t know exactly where the support is going to come from. But as you take steps, and God confirms [His] call, God shows up. It just builds that faith more and more as you go along.

Kevin Kilgore, founder
Through the Eyes of Our Tribe ministry

Christian leadership is social in nature, for the one who exercises such leadership actually participates with others in the syndrome of human struggles and seeks ways to maximize our functioning within those struggles.

Morris Murray Jr.
Jasper, Ala.

To God, the reckless are courageous; the unclean are forgiven; the foolish are loyal; the victimized are redeemed; the ruined are worthy. Through God’s eyes, we all are transformed.

Addie Lee Frierson
the-scroll.com

We may be unaware of the extent of God’s work in our lives or surroundings, but He is at work.

Professor Douglas Wilson
University of Mobile

Spiritual drifting happens to all of us. Due to our sinful nature, we are all prone to drift from our relationship with Jesus. … Maybe you have transferred your affection elsewhere: career, finances, yourself, worldly substitutes. … These days appear bleak to us. Fear and doubt grip us. Sorrow falls on us like a heavy cloud. But where we stand today is primed for revival.

Bill Brewster, author
“Revival: It’s Time to Live Again”

Exodus 20 reminds us that God Himself rested on the seventh day of creating the world, so shouldn’t we rest every seventh day from cleaning it up?  To switch metaphors, if marathon runners skip the hydration stations during the race, they will not finish it. We need to breathe and hydrate emotionally and spiritually during this [race], or we will not make it through.

Mark Gonzales
Executive director
Royal Palm Association of Churches
Fort Myers, Florida

What I try to impress on my students is that you cannot draw water from an empty well, and you must minister to your own soul. … You are going to make some bad decisions if you start ministering on empty.

Jeff Struecker
Assistant professor
Southeastern Seminary

Ever pull an Adam and Eve? Some things just look too good to pass up? Maybe for you it’s savoring a social media ruckus, thinking unkind thoughts about a neighbor or harboring anger. People around you may have no suspicions of what’s on your mind. But you can’t hide it from God. Why not ‘fess up now and clear it up with Him?

Darryl Wood
“A Personal Word from a Retread Pastor”

I firmly believe that anything we can do to prevent sexual abuse in our churches, anything we can do to aid survivors and help them, is money well spent and reduces our expenses in the long run.

SBC President Bart Barber

Remember, the next great WMU heroine may be sitting … in your GA group!

Connie Dixon
President
National Woman’s Missionary Union

From the Twitterverse

 @chrchcurmudgeon

He took my sins and my sorrows,

He made them His very own;

He bore the burden to Calv’ry,

And suffered and died alone.

How marvelous! How wonderful!

And my song shall ever be;

How marvelous! How wonderful!

Is my Savior’s love for me!

#thirdverse

@jeffwiesner

With some exceptions, a pastor should lead change in his church more slowly than his instincts demand. He does well to think in terms of years, not months.

@JToddL

Large crowds came to Him, including the lame, the blind, the crippled, those unable to speak and many others. They put them at His feet, and He healed them. So the crowd was amazed when they saw those unable to speak talking, the crippled restored, the lame walking. —Matthew 15:30–31

@DrKBlackwell

It is not about me, it is all about Him, for the sake of them.

@desiringGod

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

—Ephesians 4:32

@jeffschreve

“I pity … any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice. In the sight of God, there is no color line, and we want to cultivate a spirit that will make us forget that there is such a line anyway.”

—Booker T. Washington

@trillianewbell

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Nothing and no one can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

I’ve cried a lot lately. I feel weak. The Truth ministers grace to my heart and mind. Maybe you need this too.

@williemclaurin

The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; Your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of Your hands.

—Psalm 138:8