The Great Turnaround

   A while back Life Services, my Practical Christian Ministry for school, began planning an event that was called "the Great Turnaround" that was going to raise money to end abortion in Spokane. I was really excited about it and was helping out in the office to promote it to churches and past volunteers by calling homes... a total of 270 homes to be exact, and talking on the phone is not my strong suit.
   Dr. Bruce Wilkinson, the author of The Prayer of Jabez is the promoter of this ministry and he was the one who had begun to organize these fundraisers for pro-life clinic across the US. The goal was to raise 100,000,000 at 100 of these events. The speaker at our event was a business woman who's mother had gotten pregnant at 19 and was coaxed by her family to have an abortion. She ended up not having one and raising her child without the support of her family.
   I was really excited to help out at the event and see all the people from the local church come together and support this clinic within the community, and to see the body of Christ stand up and say, "This isn't okay" when it comes to abortion. I invited all of my housemates and guys from my brother house.
   At the event, a story from Dedrich Bonhoeffer's book was read about his life as a pastor in Germany during WWII. The story was of the churches that were very close to the train tracks that led the Jewish prisoners to concentration camps. The Jews would see the churches and would cry out to them for help from the Christians worshipping inside. The Christians would hear these cries and couldn't bear them so they would turn up their organ music and sing louder...

I couldn't believe it

   Here i was in a modern day Holocaust asking myself, "What will i do when they ask me 'What did you do to speak out against abortion?'" At that moment i was getting text messages from my housemates saying that they were tired, had some reading to do, or didn't feel like coming. It was like God was placing a picture in my face and saying, "Look! This is you! This is the Church today!!!"

   I came home feeling SO convicted.... convicted about the millions of children killed because of selfishness and convicted about the way the Church has timidly sat by and even secretly participated in. Why do we still consider the church the place for perfect people to come when it's the place for broken sinners to be forgiven and encouraged??

   The next night a guy from my brother house was having a prayer night and i REALLY didn't want to go. I was tired, it was late, and i wanted to just watch TV and sleep. 

BUT then i thought...

   This is something that my brother feels convicted about... i do have as strong a conviction as him but in the end, he is right! I should be praying more often and going to God with everything! I should be praying with my brothers and sisters! I should do this EVEN though i don't really want to right now.

   At the end of the day i was feeling convicted about the actions of the Church and how we need stop letting our timidity, shame, and silence keep us from doing what is right!