Our discourse with Zachary Conover, the esteemed Director of Communications for End Abortion Now, illuminates the profound and urgent imperative to confront the moral crisis of abortion with unwavering resolve and a gospel-centered approach. Recorded at the G3 Conference in Atlanta on September 22, 2023, this episode delves into the genesis and mission of End Abortion Now, a ministry birthed from a fervent desire to advocate for the sanctity of life and to proclaim the transformative power of Christ's forgiveness in the midst of such darkness. Conover articulates the necessity of moving beyond mere theoretical discussions of pro-life advocacy to engage actively in compassionate outreach at abortion clinics, thereby embodying the gospel in practical ways. Through a candid exploration of the challenges faced and the victories won, we are called to reassess our roles as Christians in this societal battle, emphasizing that it is not merely a political issue but a profound spiritual one that demands our faithful action and fervent prayer. Join us as we contemplate the implications of our faith in addressing this critical issue and the imperative of bringing the light of the gospel into the darkest corners of our communities.

Takeaways:

1. The inception of End Abortion Now was rooted in a profound love for the lost and a desire to extend the church's pro-life commitment beyond the confines of its walls.
2. In practical evangelism, we must bring the gospel to the darkest places, such as abortion clinics, to effectively minister to those in need.
3. The importance of equipping the local church to engage in sidewalk ministry cannot be overstated, as it is a direct response to the moral crisis of abortion.
4. Through consistent faithfulness and the proclamation of God's Word, we can be assured that spiritual fruit will manifest, even if it remains unseen in the present moment.
5. As we advocate against abortion, we must emphasize the need for justice and the gospel, recognizing that both the mother and the child deserve the truth of Christ's forgiveness.
6. In our efforts to end abortion, we should engage with legislative processes, challenging local authorities to uphold Biblical justice and protect the lives of the preborn.

Links referenced in this episode:

1. stopandthinkcrewmail.com
2. stopandthinkpodcast.com
3. soulfishingministries.org

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. End Abortion Now
2. Soul Coaching Ministries
3. Apologia Church

Hello?

Hello?

Anybody home?

I don't think.

McFly.

Think.

I'm thinking.

I'm thinking.

What were you thinking?

I'm trying to think, but nothing happens.

D say anything now.

Just think about it.

You're listening to Stuck and Think About It, a podcast for the Christian thinker.

In a day when sound biblical preaching has been replaced by man centered entertainment and the church has become increasingly anti intellectual, this podcast will encourage believers to think biblically and theologically.

So please join me as we get ready to stop and think about it.

We're here with Zach from End Abortion now, an incredible ministry that exists to save the lives of children who are on the chopping block with mothers looking to assassinate their children.

And they think that is the final option.

How you doing, Zach?

How's it going?

From Soul Coaching Ministries.

Awesome.

This is the Stop and Think about it podcast.

Have you heard of us before?

Never.

We just did.

Right now?

Yeah, okay.

Just today.

All right.

It's got to start somewhere.

All right, so you started this ministry.

When did you start it?

What was the impetus that said, we have to do this?

We have to start this ministry because you had a burning to do it locally, like on the sidewalk.

But what made you say we have to bring this beyond the sidewalk to many sidewalks?

I think in general, it was a love for the lost.

Of course, you know, that's the reason behind all evangelism is proclaiming and heralding the glories of King Jesus and this forgiveness that he offers.

In this particular area, though, it was something that the Lord broke our hearts.

You know, we always considered ourselves to be pro life, you know, for protecting little ones from death, helping moms, supporting them, all of those things.

But it never got beyond a commitment in the four walls of the church.

So it wasn't until the Lord really broke us in terms of what was happening in an abortion, getting it out of the realm of theory into something practical, something with application, something with teeth that reach out and grabbed us by the heart and something that we could really make the gospel the center of.

Because this is an issue of sin.

It's an issue of murder.

It's an issue of the human heart needing to be changed fundamentally.

That's the problem with abortion.

It's an issue of false worship.

And the only thing that can displace that is the worship of the true God and a changed heart.

And the only way that happens is if the gospel, the good news of Jesus gets proclaimed and people are raised from death to life.

And so really, the impetus for us being out on the sidewalk was there are babies dying in our neighborhoods, in our communities, every single day.

It's happening all around us next to where we worship.

What's the church doing about it?

What's our response other than vote pro life?

Are we going to do anything?

Are we going to bring the gospel into the darkest places?

Because let me tell you, an abortion clinic is a very dark place, very spiritually tumultuous, if you will.

And so it became, okay, let's go there.

We don't know what we're doing.

Let's go to the sidewalk.

Let's bring the gospel.

Let's offer these women help.

And the first day that we did that, God saved two children from death, first day that we went out, and then from there, we made it a regular ministry of our church.

And then once God was blessing it, he was saving lives.

He was bringing people to Christ.

Children that were saved from death, some of them were running around our church, you know, and it just moved out of the realm of theory into something actual.

Some of them are running around your church.

Yeah.

And that's been happening for a while.

Oh, my goodness.

But really the transition point between what made it something that we were doing, something that God broke our hearts over, and something that moved it into more of a public realm, we went out there doing the regular ministry that we were always doing, and we just decided to turn the camera on.

We went out there and we would just record our inner interactions with moms.

We would record our interactions with escorts that would bring women into the clinics.

We would just record our preaching.

And God opened a window for others to look from the outside in the church and say, hey, how do I do that?

Can I take my church and go to the sidewalks of my local abortion clinics and bring the gospel, Bring the proclamation of Christ's forgiveness, tell the truth, be bold, but do it in a gracious way and help these women and these families.

How do I do that where I am?

And so God brought this to us and laid it upon us.

And we felt the burden to try our best to equip the local church for this work.

And that's how End Abortion now came about.

And that has since moved just from the clinics now towards the political realm.

Now God has opened up doorways for us to speak truth to power and bring the gospel to our magistrates and call on them to obey the word of God.

God to of course repent and believe the gospel, but to do justice for the preborn.

Otherwise this is never going to end.

We're just going to be ministering at the clinics, which we'll continue to do, but we need to actually end it and protect these little image bearers of God the way your life and my life is protected under the law.

Wow.

Wow.

So did you show the video to your local church and did they, like, get on board when you initially began?

I think what was the driving force behind it is really Apologia Church has always been a place where the elders of that church, the pastors, the shepherds, the carriers of the flock, have always led from the front in terms of evangelism and ministry.

And once people saw that boldness, once people saw that it could be done in such a way as to exalt Christ, not compromise anything that we were doing, not compromise the truth, and still be kind and gracious and.

And have our speech seasoned with grace and talk to these women and minister and see hearts changed right there on the sidewalk.

I think once the church saw that God broke our hearts collectively and said we need to actually do something, we need to do something outside of talk a good game in our Christian coffee circles about protecting life and about protecting life in the church and sanctity of life Sunday, it needs to go outside of that.

And really, because what we've done, what the church has done for a long time now, is outsource this to other interest groups, pro life organizations, and people doing good work in certain sectors.

But really where we've dropped the ball is it's the church, it's the local Christian church that needs to be on the front lines pushing the issue with the gospel, defining the terms, making it about Christ and his word.

Not about, you know, just political strategy, not about just providing people with information.

It's about Jesus, it's about his Word, and it's about the need for the gospel.

That's what it's about.

So I heard three, we got to educate the saints in the body, hopefully bringing them out, showing them video, letting them see the reality of this.

We have to go to the streets ourselves practically and actually bring the message.

And then we have to go to the magistrates.

We have to speak truth to power.

We're actually trying to do that.

We have A ministry called the Major Ministry.

And we've used your materials on the streets.

We've not seen the great success, if you will, that you have seen.

We continue to go out there.

So we preach out.

We're six feet away from the front door.

In New York City, we're allowed to legally be six feet away from the front door.

We pass out gospel tracks.

And we also connect with a Christian pregnancy center so that we can bring ladies to another place.

There's another church that goes with us.

They've been going for 10 years since that place opened.

They said they've seen six children saved over the 10 years.

But I don't know if you have any advice.

I know you're not God.

I know you're not the Spirit of God.

As far as when you actually go out there on the streets, what pointers would you give to actually.

When your boots are on the ground right in front of that place?

Be faithful.

Be faithful.

Be consistent.

Always make it about Christ.

Always make it about His Word.

Trust that God will protect you and care for you.

I imagine there's some opposition where you guys are.

We've been threatened more than once.

Yeah.

Whether it's law enforcement, whether it's clinic escorts that take the women inside, whether it's angry feminists.

Angry feminists trying to dissuade your word, trying to lead women away, angry boyfriends and all of that.

Don't be dissuaded by a lack of apparent fruit.

And when I say apparent fruit, you have no idea what God is doing in the course of consistent faithfulness.

Whether or not you see it doesn't mean it's not happening.

God and his Word never return.

Void.

When you are speaking the word of God, you are bearing fruit.

And that word that you speak will bear fruit.

It will.

That's the promise that we have no matter where we are, as we're speaking the Word of God.

So praise God for any life that he saves.

That's up to Him.

That's not up to us to do that.

It's not up to us to bring the message to life.

That's his spirit that has to do that.

But stay consistent, stay faithful, and don't lose heart.

Because you'll reap a harvest whether or not you see it.

The Bible presents to us a view of the kingdom that is mustard seed to large tree.

It's like leaven in a lump of dough.

It's that small stone that gets cut out and it grows into a whole mountain.

And that mountain fills the whole earth.

What we are doing now.

We need to be preparing to pass off to our children and grandchildren if necessary.

We pray and we act urgently for the end of abortion in our generation.

But if God doesn't choose to grant it, we are ready for the long term and we're ready for that transference of the faith to the coming generation and to pass off a glorious inheritance to them.

And they may see it, or their grandchildren may see the end of abortion.

God may choose to bring the harvest then.

He may choose to bring the harvest now in our day, either way, we're ready, we're prepared, and we don't lose heart.

For if we continue to do good and not give up, we'll see it.

And we see it.

We may see it through the eyes of faith now.

But it's clear that Christ is on the throne and he's going to put his enemies under his feet.

You spoke about speaking truth to power.

Are you familiar with aoc?

I am that name.

So we went to one of her rallies and we were going to present a question to her, but of course, our question was never read.

It was a long line.

Yeah, exactly.

It was a long line to get onto, to take pictures with her.

So we got online and we gave her the gospel, talked to her about Romans 13, gave her a Bible, gave her a gospel tract about the biblical version of life and everything like that.

It was one of her town halls.

And so we're trying to figure out how more and more we can get into the arenas to speak truth to power.

What advice would you give us for that?

Keep doing what you're doing.

I think that's great.

The fact that AOC got a gospel tract and a Bible.

How many people can say that they have that opportunity, you know, faithful Christians going to do that.

You don't know what that does.

You don't know how the Lord's going to use it.

We in Arizona asked ourselves, okay, what can we do?

How can we begin this process?

We were praying that God would raise up a state legislator somewhere that would put in a bill.

Righteous, just law, no compromise, no partiality, all protection for all life, image of God in the womb from conception, protect all life, Equal justice for the preborn.

We were praying for that with just one godly legislator.

And now this past year, we had bills in 11 or 12 states.

So God didn't just give us one, he gave us 12 in the last few years.

God answers prayer.

Do what you can in terms of the legislative realms and channels that he's given.

You are there city council Meetings that you can attend.

Are there meetings that you can schedule with legislators where you can challenge them with the lordship of Christ on this position and bring exactly the message that you have that they're a minister of justice.

They serve the one true God, not some other God.

They serve the God, and so he'll hold them accountable to their office and the oath that they took to uphold the Constitution as well.

So continue to do that.

That's what we did in Arizona.

We just started going to our city council, and we would just line up with citizen comment cards, and the times that we were allotted, they'd give us three minutes.

Christ, the gospel, abortion.

Do your duty, whatever it is, even if your jurisdiction is here, do your duty to create an environment where life is protected.

Even when the issues that they were discussing weren't related, we would still bring it to their conscience and bring it to the forefront and say, you need to obey the Lord.

And then we were given further opportunities when that was actually.

That actually was the issue they were discussing.

We were right back there, and God gave us the opportunity to speak it directly to what they were addressing at that time.

So just use those.

Any channel that you can.

Those opportunities to bring the gospel.

Yeah, that's what we're trying to learn, that aspect of things, because we're going out already.

All three pastors of our church all go out to the streets.

So as far as leading from the front, that's happening.

So thank you.

That's encouraging to just hear the pieces of the puzzle in the way you put it, to see the big picture of things.

So that actually is very helpful to me.

I learn by talking just the way I'm wired.

Maybe you are, too.

But this aspect of speaking truth to power, we want to dive more heavily into that.

And so I just got an email that AOC was having a town hall meeting, and I said, let's just go.

So me and one of the pastors, we just went to see what would happen, and we prayed that we'd find other believers there.

And we did find another family of believers there.

And we almost got interviewed by Jesse Waters, guy who goes out, John Belisario, who kind of does, like, what Ray Kumber does out on the streets with interviews.

So we didn't know we're gonna get any kind of connection at all with that.

But who knows?

Like, I guess if you put yourself out there, you don't know what can happen.

Yeah, just be faithful.

I mean, next time there's a town hall with aoc, maybe there will be two Churches there maybe three, you know, who knows?

This breaks my heart.

There are not a lot of churches.

I find we've went to other churches and said, join us, and none of them came on board.

Do you just kind of go with the ones that will?

Do you try to speak to them again, to come again?

Let me tell you, in Arizona, you know, we've had pastors meetings where we try to pull communities of believers into this, get them informed, get them up to speed on who the opposition actually is to what we're trying to do, all of these things.

And although it has grown, it is nowhere near what we would love to see in terms of, listen, this is happening in your state.

This is an issue of justice.

It's an issue of the gospel.

Where is the church, like, rise up church and actually do something about this?

Because if we did, it'd be over.

It would end.

Abortion would end.

And so I understand the frustration.

Pray, pray, pray.

And God has his people.

Obviously, you're in a context a little different than we are.

Arizona, New York.

So obviously there's political realities, there's differences.

You know, we might have a little bit different in terms of a foothold, in terms of conservatism and Republican, all of those things, but you just don't know what God's going to do.

And people and Christians, especially during this time, are looking for leadership.

They're looking for courage.

And if you're being courageous, people long to follow it.

And God has his people and he will bring them.

We see that sometimes the problem with the pro life movement are the pro life people.

They're not really.

They're not abolitionists.

They just want to see the heartbeat Bill or incrementalism, I think that we refer to it as.

What's the problem with that?

Well, the main problem with it is a.

It's not biblical.

It's not the justice that God commands.

He doesn't allow us to take certain paths and certain methodologies in our ending of abortion.

So wherever he has said no in terms of an approach, we need to obey him and do justice.

It doesn't mean that we don't still take steps to get where we want to go.

That's unavoidable.

We're human beings.

We're limited, we're finite.

It's going to take steps to get to the end of abortion.

Here's the question.

Are they just steps?

Are they righteous steps?

Are they steps that God doesn't hate because he says in his word, don't show partiality, don't pervert justice in terms of, well, let's protect these group of people, but not these group of people over here that are a certain age or a certain gestation.

He says, don't acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent.

He says, don't use unequal weights and measures in terms of judgment.

These are things that God has commanded us in terms of how we pursue justice and legislation that we have to be obedient to.

So there are certain ways of ending abortion that are closed off to us if we want to be faithful.

The problem, and this is really the heart of the matter again, I told you, it's about the gospel.

Yes.

The pro life industry, the pro life establishment as it is, has a doctrinal commitment to the idea that any woman that intentionally and voluntarily takes the life of her own child in abortion is never guilty.

She's innocent, she's a victim always.

And because of that, abortion will never be ended, it'll never be over until that falls.

And tragically, they've robbed women of the gospel because the gospel is a message for guilty people, not innocent people.

And so it's a message for those who confess and repent and turn away from sin.

But if she's a victim, what is she confessing?

What is she repenting of for her abortion?

And so the problem is ultimately gospel related, and it's pastoral.

How do you offer the hope and forgiveness of Christ and his forgiveness to this woman?

And if we deny her the gospel, we deny her baby justice.

That's the connection.

If you deny the grace of God and the gospel to the woman, you deny the baby that she killed, the justice that God says that that baby is due.

I can relate to that because we went to Abby Johnson's talk.

You familiar with Abby Johnson, and everything was really about the victim.

I know she wants to rescue people out of the abortion industry and get them out and help them get jobs.

So, I mean, that's good.

But I was just grieved.

She changed course on that too, though.

Really?

No.

She adopts now a perspective that says no, everybody has to face due process under the law, even the woman.

So she's since shifted on that perspective.

She's adopted a more biblical outlook.

She denies the victim, mother.

Oh, okay.

Because I was grieved, I said we should have brought all kinds of gospel tracts with us and handed out to everybody here because the gospel was missing.

She was a little bit.

But it's not to say that she's not still Roman Catholic or has that background.

But in terms of the position of justice.

She's on the right course.

So we praise God for that.

And she's not alone.

What we're finding is these groups at a national level.

What we notice is as we putting these bills in of legislation, you notice something.

The middle ground in our culture is rapidly diminishing.

You have the pro aborts on one side being even more evil as the day grows longer.

Yes.

And then you have us on the other side that are trying not to compromise being faithful to the truth, that are actually calling this murder and asking and commanding the state in God's name to abolish it once and for all.

Where's the room for the middle ground?

It's kind of shrinking.

And what we're finding is a lot of people are moving the direction of equal protection, full out criminalize abortion because God says it's murder and we need to treat it just like the murder of a born person.

Right.

There's no distinction.

If we say as people that are for life, life begins at conception.

You cannot take the life of an innocent human being in an unjustified manner.

And then we allow for it to happen in the laws that we write.

We're liars.

We don't believe what we're saying.

We need to stop saying that.

So we need to be consistent.

We need to be consistently biblical and we need to have a consistent ethic for life.

And so, Lord willing, the Overton window is shifting in a good direction.

The status quo is being challenged on this and God is raising up the church to actually do this.

Amen.

Well, appreciate your time.

Hey, would you pray for us in this ministry that we're doing as well at this time?

Yes, Lord.

Thank you so much for these brothers and the work that they're doing.

I just pray that you bless them and all that they set their hands to.

Let the gospel go forward from where they are at.

Raise up other faithful believers to come alongside them.

And Lord, let your will be done In New York and in our nation for the plight of the preborn.

We pray that you establish justice and that the gospel of the kingdom would go forth and raise many who are dead to spiritual life in Jesus.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

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