The Works of God

Christian Turner is one of my favorite works of God, and it is his birthday today (Wednesday)!

See pictures and a delightful, God-honoring testimony from his mother here.

The handsome man in the pictures is his father.  Kempton is one of my pastors at Bethlehem, and a man I deeply respect.  He loves Jesus, and knows how to preach – you can listen to him here!

Thank you, Father, for this boy and for his entire family.  They are a precious gift to me and to Bethlehem!  Amen.

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Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for Choice and Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post a week before what is now known as the Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad was aired.

Titled “What Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad can teach the pro-choice movement,” they seem to believe that the leaders in the pro-life movement are just better at messaging than those who support abortion.  For example:

People want to be inspired, and abortion is as tough and courageous a decision as is the decision to continue a pregnancy. But the conversation is being led by Focus on the Family and its quarterback ambassador. It’s a high-profile example of the savvy way the antiabortion movement has tailored its message. . .

Women’s and choice groups responding to the Tebow ad should take a page from the Focus on the Family playbook. Erin Matson, the National Organization for Women’s new vice president, called the Tebow spot “hate masquerading as love.” That kind of comment may play well in the choice choir, but to others, it makes no sense, at best; at worst, it’s seen as the kind of stridency that reinforces the view that pro-choice simply means pro-abortion.

Yes, I would agree it reinforces that view.

The editorial struck me as odd.  Without any sense of irony or even acknowledging a difference in principles, they talk about the abhorrent practice of partial-birth abortion, the numbers of abortions in 1989, the advances that science has allowed in watching the development of a baby in the womb, how Americans increasingly consider themselves pro-life, and even quote an African-American football player equating Roe v. Wade with the shameful Dred Scott Decision of the Supreme Court in 1857.  And Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman are for legalized abortion!  Talk about a problem with marketing.

They close their editorial with this paragraph:

So here’s our Super Bowl strategy for the choice movement. We’d go with a 30-second spot, too. The camera focuses on one woman after another, posed in the situations of daily life: rushing out the door in the morning for work, flipping through a magazine, washing dishes, teaching a class of sixth-graders, wheeling a baby stroller. Each woman looks calmly into the camera and describes her different and successful choice: having a baby and giving it up for adoption, having an abortion, having a baby and raising it lovingly. Each one being clear that making choices isn’t easy, but that life without tough choices doesn’t exist.

Of course life includes difficult choices; that isn’t even an argument worth raising.  This is not a marketing campaign.  And I notice there are some important female voices not included in the above suggestions from Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman: the more than 500,000 baby girls who were aborted last year.

Part of the controversy, though it did not end up in the ads that I saw, was the fact that Pam Tebow chose to continue her pregnancy with Tim even though there was a risk of fetal deformity.  Pam Tebow chose the better, harder path – and ended up with a Heisman Trophy-winning son.

Now, 23 years later, doctors can diagnose more accurately and at earlier stages of development many types of disabilities in the womb.  Going forward, more women will know with greater certainty that the unborn child they carry has a disability.  And we must still make the case that having that child is the better, harder path to take.

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February is Black History Month in the United States, so it seems appropriate to point out a common evil: abortions are disproportionately carried out on babies with disabilities and babies with black skin.

Abort73.com reports what this means in percentages and actual numbers of black children being aborted:

According to the most recent census data, black women make up 12.3% of the female population in America, but account for 35% of all U.S. abortions – that according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The Guttmacher Institute (AGI) puts the percentage of black abortions at 37% of the U.S. total. . .

Not only are black children being killed at a far greater percentage than white children, they’re being killed in greater numbers, period. Is that not shocking?! Though the white population in the U.S. outnumbers the black population five to one, abortion kills more black children than white children, every day.

And what should our response be?

John Ensor provides this endorsement of one strategy:

African-American Sylvia Johnson created a “best practice” pregnancy help clinic in Houston starting in the 1980’s. For nearly 25 years she has been quietly cross-bearing for the child-bearing. By 2033, I expect the Black Church to have opened similar clinics in the most abortion-targeted neighborhoods of our cities. Where they open, abortion businesses close (emphasis mine)—because most women resort to abortion more than choose it; and when they are provided help they choose life.

Let us find many more ways  to help women and men choose life.

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”  Matthew 19:14

Let the little children come – all of them, including the babies with disabilities and the babies who would be born with black skin.

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Lord willing, Krista Horning’s book, Just the Way I Am, will be ready in March for distribution.

It is one of the most important books on disability and the Bible yet written.  You will understand that is not an exaggeration when you see it.

Pastor John has been wonderfully supportive of its creation, and you can listen to what he had to say about it a couple of weeks ago.  This clip is about 90 seconds long:

John Piper on Just the Way I Am by Krista Horning

He made that statement during his January 24, 2010 sermon, Born Blind for the Glory of God.  If you have been touched at all by disability, this is a sermon you will want to watch.

Please pray that the book will be ready soon!  I will provide more details as I have them.

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The Desiring God Conference for Pastors is over and all the messages can be found here.

I met some incredible men over the three days.  Some of those men have dealt with extraordinary personal pain:

• The murder of a daughter two years ago
• The sudden death of a wife due to an illness
• A premature baby still in the hospital

There were others, and judging by attendance in the prayer room and after the Tuesday evening session, the pastors experiencing deep waters outnumbered those who are not.

There were two consistent things I observed in and heard from these leaders who are experiencing joy in God in the midst of serious trials:

1. They are God-centered, Bible-saturated, and aware of their need to fight for joy and against their sin;
2. God has given them people who love them and serve them and pray for them.

I want to be part of that second group for my pastors!  I’m not entirely sure what that means for me as I write this.  I know it includes prayer – and I love praying for the many men God has used in my life at Bethlehem.

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 1 Timothy 5:17

I have been ‘ruled well’ by my pastors and want to give them double honor. What can we do for these men who carry so much as they faithfully serve their churches?

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