WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GA
YOUTH FAMILIES LUNCH & PRESENTATION W/ OPTIONAL TOUR
By Heidi Briley
The Youth missions ministry of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, GA sponsored a luncheon for youth and their families to equip them to understand, support and articulate the prolife cause.
This is a brief explanation of what we did and I prayerfully share this with the hope that you and many others will do something similar with your churched youth. You may want to do things very differently, so this is just a basis for you to start from. Please print and mark it up! The purpose is not political, not about activism or volunteerism, but to give our youth deeper roots in the Gospel and the value of innocent human life.
The idea is to help youth be more knowledgeable and familiar with the prolife viewpoints, within the context of the Gospel, to be more prepared. As they go out to work and go through college some of them will meet, Christians and others, in a crisis situation. If they are able to help save a life or share the Gospel their faith will grow stronger from the experience!
We chose to have our event on Sunday after worship service which seemed to encourage attendance but we also needed to work out childcare for a few younger siblings. We kept it simple for easy clean up with pizza, fruit, chips and cookies.
We invited both a female and a male speaker through a pregnancy resource center our church supports. Any pregnancy center would be happy to provide speakers and a tour and will be open to any concerns or requests from your church. Although they didn’t ask we did send them an honorarium gift for their time.
Our presentations were age appropriate for both Middle and High School. We also put together a parent package to hand out with additional resources to look through at home.
1. Prayer for meal
2. Food self-served and everyone seated
3. Youth pastor prayed and lead in devotional teaching with a Gospel focus.
4. Guest speakers, part one, to everyone.
5. We watched two short video testimonials from women who decided to keep their babies.
6. Moms and girls left for tour and service project at the pregnancy resource center while
7. Men, dads, and boys stayed for further teaching directed to guys and clean up. Yes, this is a guy’s issue also.
Other notes:
We hope to follow up with a boys’ tour of the pregnancy resource center for a service project better suited to them (painting, etc.) so they can be more familiar and comfortable with ministries like this.
We want to do something more at least once or twice each year in this vein.
Consider periodic prayer vigil with youth at an abortion facility. Check: https://www.40daysforlife.com/
Other resources we found helpful:
Story from Kevin DeYoung about (and from) his wife's Christian college roommate:
John Piper:
'Pro-Choice: What Does It Mean?' from Ligonier Ministries
Excerpt adapted from Abortion by R.C. Sproul.
STUDENTS FOR LIFE made a great list of pro-life affirming films to consider:
For the young men: Brian Fisher's story, podcast (4 min):
Men & Abortion resources:
Educational: For older youth, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino explains 1st, 2nd and 3rd-trimester abortions using simple diagrams and showing actual tools, available on youtube. These have been shown to pro-choice college students who have consequently changed their position to pro-life.
1st trimester: https://youtu.be/5THDmys8z30
2nd trimester: https://youtu.be/jgw4X7Dw_3k
3rd trimester: https://youtu.be/r5Af8vIym2o
A resource that is closely connected and helpful to parents and their youth /children understand sexuality in this culture. True North Freedom Project website: Truenorthfp.org