Shepherd your church into this

Ezekiel 33:6 · Acts 20:27 · Proverbs 31:8

DRAFT — awaiting editorial review.

God set the watchman on the wall and told him what happens if he sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet: the people die in their sin, “but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand” (Ezekiel 33:6). Around 299,000 children a year are killed in this country, most of them within walking distance of a church. The sword is not coming; it is here. The question for every pastor is simply whether the trumpet has sounded in his pulpit.

Paul could tell the Ephesian elders he was innocent of the blood of all, because he “did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). The whole counsel includes the image of God in the womb, the shedding of innocent blood, and the command to “open your mouth for the mute” (Proverbs 31:8). A church that has never heard this from its own shepherd has been left to learn its ethics from the television.

But a shepherd preaches to sheep, and some of them are wounded. In most congregations there are women and men who have had, paid for or advised an abortion, and who have never once heard it named from the front. That is why the first move is not the sermon but the care: have the gospel ready for the guilty before you preach the law to the comfortable. The cross that condemns the bloodshed is the cross that washes it away, and your people need to hear both in the same breath.

Abolition is the work of the local church, not of a campaign office. It proceeds out from pulpits like yours. Here is where to begin.

First, as everyone

Pray Sign the Declaration Write to your church Email your MP Give

Then, your part

Prepare care before you preach
Work through the shepherds' training first, so that post-abortive members hear mercy on the same Sunday they hear the truth.
Put the toolkit in the elders' hands
Take the toolkit to your next elders' meeting and ask them to adopt the Declaration as a church.
Send the open letter to your elders
Use the letter page to put the case in writing to every elder, with your own note at the top.
Invite a speaker or send a team
Ask for a visit, or send a few of your people to be trained and bring it home.

Go deeper

Get in touch

This form is not open yet. It will be here soon: please check back.

Not your calling? See where every gift fits or ask Wilberforce again.