Connections: Guest post by  Stuart Carver

Birth of a Family: Life Saving Connections  Available on Amazon @  https://a.co/d/iN46j8O

Everyday

• You make the same two choices hundreds of times.
• Treat the symptom or solve the problem.

Perhaps you’ve heard it before. The story of the riverside village. One day a villager noticed a baby floating down the rushing river and quickly swam out to save the baby from drowning. The next day the same villager noticed two babies floating down the river. He called for help and both of the babies were saved. Day after day, more and more babies were carried downriver in the turbulent current. The entire village organized massive rescue efforts involving watchtowers and around-the-clock rescue teams. Eventually they were overwhelmed. There were too many babies caught in the river current and not enough rescuers. Finally, someone asked, “Where are all these babies coming from?” When several villagers volunteered to go upstream to investigate, to their dismay, they were told they could not go because every person was needed to rescue as many babies as possible. The volunteers said, “If we go upstream, perhaps we can stop the problem and no babies will die.”

The number of pre-born lives lost to abortion has increased to over 50 million annually.

Just like the babies in the river, threats to pre-born lives is a symptom of a greater problem upstream.

The leading root cause of threats to pre-born lives is the hearts of fathers toward their children.

The predicament is the same. While as many pre-born lives as possible must be saved, eliminating the threat will require going upstream and solving the root cause.

James said it best. James successfully procreated children, but his heart wasn’t turned toward them. During his experiences with Birth of a Family, that changed. James said, “Birth of a Family turned everything around and helped me see things in a whole new way.

Where do the extra hands that are needed to reach the root cause of threats to pre-born lives come from? The Body of Christ. Here’s how it works.

When together, the Body of Christ and life affirming ministries can make a shared decision to go upstream to reach the root of the problem, the development of new Birth of a Family communities begins.

• Dates are set for regularly occurring Birth of a Family relational discipleship activities to occur.
• People of the Body of Christ are enlisted, equipped, and engaged to serve as Birth of a Family volunteers.
• Pregnancy-center clients and co-parents are invited to participate in recurring Birth of a Family

relational-discipleship activities.

• Birth of a Family relational discipleship activities begin.
• Relational discipleship happens.
• Hearts of fathers turn.
• Families unite.
• Pre-born lives are saved.
• Cultures of life replace cultures of death.

“178 couples have been mentored. Many made decisions for Christ, and the future of their families has

been significantly impacted.” —Karen Brooks, Executive Director, Choices Pregnancy Center, Brandon, Florida

Like those villagers going upstreams, reaching the root cause by connecting the Body of Christ to life-affirming ministry the way God wants them to be connected is so ambitious and innovative, only the bold and brave do it.

• No agency on Earth is more expressly commanded and expertly equipped to address this specific root cause than the Body of Christ.

• The life affirming ministry movement is stronger than it ever has been.  Never before has the world witnessed champions for life on this scale. Life affirming ministry is one the most cohesive and effective “para-church” ministries of all time.  But is “para-church” the connection God wants?

Birth of a Family makes two urgent and challenging connections the way God wants them

to be made.

• Fathers’ hearts connected to their families and children.
• The Body of Christ connected to life-affirming ministry.

Stuart Carver is a pastor, speaker, author and relational discipleship engineer. Since 1993 he has pioneered relational discipleship platforms that have successfully reach rooted causes of our most troubling issues including:

• Threats to pre-born lives
• Adverse childhood experiences
• Poverty and addiction and recidivism

Stuart can be reached at (813) 388-7819 or by email at [email protected]