Part 2: Everyday Life
Dear Friend,
In my February letter ("5000 Conversations in 2017 - Part 1: Outreach Events"), I suggested a few ways you can help us reach our goal of 5000 conversations in 2017, including joining us for a mission trip and connecting us to groups who can join us for outreach.
There’s another way you can help us create more conversations: start your own conversations in everyday life. Let’s be honest, though: discussing abortion in everyday life is scary. We fear harming relationships with the people we love most. We fear not knowing what to say. We don’t know how to start the conversation. Let’s talk about each of these challenges.
Starting Conversations with Friends and Family: Let’s Make Abortion Conversations Common
Instead of talking to strangers as we do at JFA outreach events (difficult enough!), the people with whom any of us are most likely to create conversations in everyday life are friends and family members. Our cherished relationships are on the line. Yet, in many cases it’s precisely because of the relationship that each of us can make a great impact on what our friends and family members think during a conversation. Given the stakes, making a commitment might help. Would you join me in setting a personal goal to create seven conversations about abortion in everyday life this year? We can pray together for God’s help, and our team will do what we can to help, too. If you report back to us, we’ll count your conversations as we assess our progress toward the 5000 target.
We also fear we won’t know what to say. JFA can help with this. Every JFA presentation and workshop equips audience members with the ideas and arguments they need to be able to defend the unborn in a winsome, persuasive way. Our online resources do as well. In fact, that’s the main reason we devote time to these activities even when we’re not able to follow them up with an outreach event. We know that many pro-life advocates will never join us for campus outreach but nonetheless can create conversations on their own with friends and family. We want to prepare them.
In many cases, the most difficult aspect of having conversations with friends and family is not the ideas and arguments—it’s getting the conversations started! Many of you who support us would be willing to defend unborn children if the opportunity arose. But the opportunity rarely arises! Even as a full-time pro-life worker this is true of my experience in everyday life, so I am guessing it’s probably the case for many of you reading this letter, too.
To meet this need, we’re experimenting this year with ways to turn our exhibits and other resources into conversation starters. You’ll always find one new conversation starter in our monthly resource bulletin, “Making Abortion Unthinkable with JFA” (click here to see all of our resource bulletins). In addition to ideas for starting conversations, you’ll also find new ideas each month in two other areas critical for making abortion unthinkable: praying for conversations and preparing for conversations. Let us know what you think of this resource.
Each of our trainers will be working to personally create conversations during outreach events this year, and we’ll train hundreds of Christians to join us. The result? Thousands of conversations. What we’re missing from this equation is you and thousands of other pro-life advocates who may never join us on campus, but who can nonetheless create conversations in their everyday lives. Won’t you join us?
In Christ,
Steve Wagner
Executive Director