Are Sidewalk Counselors Actually Missionaries?

0:00 I am yours. I Am Yours, I am yours. Send Me Lord, I am yours. Welcome to the Gospel Center pro life podcast. Have you ever thought about Sidewalk Counseling Ministry as a Missionary Endeavor? We really believe that it is, and this podcast we're going to talk about that, so stick with us. Send Me Lord. I felt show passis touch your heart. Use Welcome guys to the Gospel Centered Prolife podcast. Appreciate you guys joining us and just want to encourage you guys to share this podcast and take some time, if this is the first of our podcast you've listened, to take some time to listen to some of the other ones, because we believe they'll be a blessing to you and share those with people. Share this podcast, give us a review on this podcast and reach out to us. We'll share our email addresses at the end of this podcast, so you guys can do that and suggest topics to us that will try to cover. That will be a blessing to you, and this episode we're going to cover a topic similar to what we've covered in the past when we talked about how sidewalk counseling is not protesting and we shared contrasted what sidewall counseling is with protesting and try to dispel some myths there there. This is similar to that, but it kind of brings up a new understanding, I guess, and something that, you know, I've believed for a long time but hadn't really articulated in this way

1:32 until recently, which is the reality that sidewalk counseling is missionary work. When we're in front of an abortion center, we're at a mission field. That's right, and I think we need to understand this, and especially pastors, especially ministry leaders in Churches, and you know, as we're trying to reach out and get them involved more, get the church more involved, there is sort of this stigma that's attached to sidewalk counseling that, you know, kind of makes it look like it's a protest. And these pastors, people that that should be leading their congregations into missions, and some of them are, are not really viewing the abortion clinic ministry as a mission field right. You know, they're happy to send people with their blessing across the seas to China and Africa and Indian wherever else people might go as missionaries across the seas, which is great, not trying to diminish that. That's necessary. Go in to all the world and preach the Gospel. But you know, Jesus does say in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and then the other uttermost parts of the of the earth. So send some local first. This way exactly. Yeah, so our missionary work should start locally. And guys, and many of you listen and you know this, but a lot of pastors don't know this.

2:45 A lot do praise God, but a lot don't realize that just down the road from your church is a mission field and it's called your abortion clinic. That is it is missionary work. The people are standing there doing God's work are missionaries. They're not protesters. That's right. And when we started talking about this I, as I often do, felt okay, it's important to define our terms. Yes, I looked up what. What is missionary work? Am I mean to read? Yeah, what I've found it? It's from Campbellsville Edu. It's an online article that I found, but that is a school that does train missionaries, and so they defined the duty of missionaries. They did the it was a whole article about missionaries, but I focused on one paragraph. The most important duty of missionaries is to teach people about Jesus Christ and his great commandment to love God and to love others.

3:42 This means ensuring that their actions not only fulfill a need but also are sustained after they have left the community. Many missionaries focus on the needs of the community they are serving and integrate those needs with evangelism. So our pro life activists on the sidewalk of abortion centers doing mission work. And according to that definition, I would say without a doubt, so they were. They were kind of two main purposes brought up in in this and maybe then we can discuss those. The the two main purposes of mission work, the two main duties. The first purpose to share the truth of the Gospel and to bring others to a save being knowledge and submission of their lives. Yeah, Jesus Christ, and the second purpose is to love those people in the mission field as we are loved and to bring about change in their community and areas of struggle, to help to write down exactly, yeah, to meet practical needs.

4:43 Right, right. So, so, regarding that that first purpose, do do we do? That? Is that? Is that the role of will call them now, sidewalk missionaries? Yeah, is that their role? To Bring The Gospel? Do we do that? Do we attempt to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Yeah, well, it's what this podcast is all about. It's what I feel like when we began this podcast, what we were trying to influence people who are doing pro life work with was the reality that this is not just activism. HMM, I'm almost hate that word activism. This is not politically motivated activism, this is not humanistically motivated activism, because there's a lot of humanism involved in prolife ministry. But to do it effectively and to do it in a way that honors God, it must be motivated by the Gospel. Right, and that is the main reason why I would say again, this is not activism, but this is missionary work.

5:46 Is because our goal is to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to dark places, and it gets no darker if we if we take the reality of what's going on in right, but they're actually, you know, just where we came from today, right, I don't know how many abortion patient showed up when there were twenty five, twenty five twenty so twenty five little babies. Right, we're murdered. Yeah, I don't twenty three actually, because they were two that chose life. Praise God he's got yeah, right, but you look at that. Twenty three little babies were murdered inside of that building. I don't think you can get any darker than that. I mean you can't get any worse than taking an innocent person, dismembering them and throwing them into a medical waste bag, sent it all to an incinerator and be you burned. Yeah, with medical waste. Yeah, that's a dark place.

6:33 That's the the darkest place. But of course you look at where. I mean you read, not if you have, but I have biographies and autobiographies of men and women of God in the past who've gone, no a cross seas to to India. So you know, I think of Hudson Taylor, who went to China. And these men and women went to dark places. That was kind of the goal, if you read their riotings, it was to shine the light of the Gospel in dark places. Yeah, and they gave their lives to that mission work. It's the same thing in front of an abortion center. That's now, of course, we look at the awesome fruit and of course many of them labored for years and didn't see very much fruit, and we know that feeling right, laboring here day after day and sometimes not seeing fruit, and then praise God, like you just shared, two babies were saved. So you're looking at, you know, something terrible. Twenty three babies died, but something awesome. Two babies lives are saved from certain destruction. MOM's heart was shifted in such a way that she turned away from death and turned to life. Now have they fully turned to the Lord? No, but I mean maybe, maybe, but definitely in our missionary endeavor there, we're going to follow up with them, we're going to disciple them, and any mission work does that right as we're going and we're meeting practical needs, and that's what we're doing here. We're talking about practical needs. If you guys haven't, you know, really cued into our three points that we share in front of the abortion center, it's what God says about you, what God says about the baby, you know. So what God says the humanity of the baby in the practical resources. And so

8:05 those are our three talking points that we teach people. We teach side all counseling and of course, the practical resources of one of those things, and it is a big thing, right, but it's always coupled with the Gospel. MMM. Doesn't mean people have to get saved for us to practically help them. You know that. That lies been told and that's not true. We help them whether or not they turn their lives to the Lord or not, but it's all motivated by the Gospel. That's missionary work. If you read again biographies and autobiographies of missionaries that have done the mission work since the beginning, you look at the book of acts, right, they're Paul. What's Paul and Barnabas doing? What we look at it? We look at the maps in the back of our Bible and you see Paul's Missionary Journey Number One, two, three, and so anyway, I say all that to say if you read about missionaries doing mission work, you're you're reading exactly what's happening on the sidewalks in front of an abortion clinic and beyond. By the way, it doesn't just happen on the sidewalks. It happens with the follow up, it happens with a connection with churches, mentors, baby showers, all that stuff well, and going back to that that initial definition. Yet you it becomes we become immersed in the community in a sense. We may not move be moving into their community as as sidewalk missionaries ourself, but we are in meshed in their community and help them with the resources in their community, and help is a big part of what a missionary does. Now, why do we help? For? There's many reasons. For one thing,

9:37 we are commanded to to love our neighbor as ourself and to help those who are on a path of destruction. But if our primary focus is the Gospel and spreading the Gospel, helping, missionaries discovered right away that the easiest way to gain the trust of the communities, that that was their mission field, that where their mission fields, was to help them to find out what their struggles were. To right, if we're like to bring fresh water togemnities, and Africa has a huge mission field and that opens people's hearts to then hearing what you have to say, yeah, that the Gospel. Yeah, it's not that. For example, like you're talking about bringing fresh water. Are So digging these whales. It's an awesome testimony of the love of God.

10:26 The practical love of God, that person that's digging whales, that ministry, that organization that's digging Wales. They're not just digging whales to dig whales. I mean it's a humanitarian effort and praise God for that. But the ones are certainly that our Gospel Center, are digging those whales to show that there is a source of living water and that's Jesus Christ right now. Of course, like we we're not meeting every need. We don't. We don't, you know, just give cash money to women who are suffering financially. We have, but it's not we don't cover every need, but we do the best we can with the resources that we have. We pour ourselves out as best we can and if you can read these missionaries around the world now and in the past, they're pouring themselves out. They're not meeting every need practically, but they are meeting the practical needs that they're able to and that the resources allow for them to. But the most important thing they're doing is bringing the Gospel, bringing to bear the truth of who God is, of Man's guilt before God and what God did in order to bridge that gap, to bridge that divide by sending Jesus Christ to die on a cross and arise from the grave, defeating death on behalf of those that will put their trust in him. Yeah, and so thought that just came to me, which isn't in my outline at all. But today the heat index was over a hundred.

11:43 Yeah, and our councilors were out there all day. Our missionaries. Will call the missionaries. Now you're out there all day. It was. It was brutal. Who is just so hot? And so many missionaries do Labor under difficult conditions. They're often going into difficult situations. I think that's another commonality, because we are certainly out there and terrible weather and for long hours sometimes, and with a great deal of adversity. Yeah, and that is what missionaries often face, because something much more important than their own safety or comfort is is being dealt with, and that's yeah, that's people who don't know the Lord, who are in a place of great darkness and babies that are going to die. Yeah, absolutely, See. Yeah, yeah, you have missionaries dealing with issues very similar to what we're dealing with.

12:35 You know, you have missionaries that do things overseas. You know, I think of some folks that I knew of they did mission work in the Philippines. Yeah, and some of that mission work was involved in getting children out of sex trafficking situations. That would be hard. Yeah, and you're literally saving lives and that you're literally going in Handsone, saving lives, rescuing these children out of the bondage of these these wicked men and women. Yeah, and but of course it's seasoned with the Gospel, right, and you're bringing the Gospel to these kids because this, this Gospel, this Jesus that came and died for them, can take away any of the shame that they're feeling, any of the trauma that they felt. And you know, there's numerous testimonies of child and rescued out of sex trafficking, right, who turn their lives over to the Lord. God was able to take that whole situation, things that were done to them. And yet still in that there's shame that's put off on them, right, and they bear the shame even though it's not there's to bear. And yet Jesus turns their lives around and use their lives as a testimony. So they've been rescued, they've been physically rescued.

13:39 Well, that's what's happening at an abortion clinic to these children are about to die and we are physically now we're not going in and grabbing them out, because we can't do that, obviously, but we are physically. They are physically rescuing. Of course, we're rescuing the MOMS from that decision they're going to make that's going to bring more guilt on them, guilt that they, of course, do incur themselves. Yeah, but we're trying to save and rescue them from that and then save and rescue these babies from certain death, right. And but it's always motivated by the Gospel and we ultimately we want these MOMS to come to know the Lord, and that's why we sees and everything we do with the Gospel, so that they would lead that child, when that child's born and that child grows, into a knowledge of the Lord.

14:20 And we've seen that happen and we have and hopefully the end resalt is that a community gradually grows more pro life and less inclined to choose the disastrous path, yeah, of abortion. So I was as I was thinking over these these key areas, that that there's a commonality between what we do on the sidewalk and what a missionary does. I came up with just for there's probably many, many more. Yeah, but Um, but maybe we could run run through those and kind of think about how they are very similar, the similarities between, you know, sidewalk counseling or side missionaries to foreign missions.

15:00 Correct. Yeah. So, so the most effective missionaries are those who enter into relationship with people in the sphere of their ministry. They'll spend a lot of time with the people. oftentimes they move, almost always, and they move to the area where that mission field is, the target people group. And so think about that, maybe talk about that. How how about how are we similar in in building relationships with our target people group? Yeah, well, I mean first I will say that it's not like we have to move to that area because we're in that area. I told my wife a couple of months ago, just in thinking about this and how we're missionaries and I just encouraging her because she's missionaries. He's kind of like a medical missionary. Wants it sure is her skills as a nurse, and she does.

15:48 Mean if you guys haven't listened to the podcast about the abortion pill reversal, exactly these listen to that, because she's involved in that and that's missionary work. That's saving lives. Yeah, she's also involved on the sidewalk here and using her skills as a nurse to give free pregnancy tests, as ultrasound, that sort of thing. So she's a missionary in that way and I encouraged her the other day a couple months ago and I said, you know, what reality is, we're missionaries. We just get the amenities of the United States. You know, we don't live in Africa where, you know. I mean, listen, I can get down the street from my house, even though we're missionaries and we're in the community, we're involved in people's lives. I can get down the road to Walmart and get things that, you know, you can't find in some places miles and miles away in Africa, are India, you know. So we get some of the amenities.

16:33 But also, you know, if you think about it, with foreign missions, there's a time that people who are far missionaries can fly back to the United States and get a little break from that mission work and they'll maybe come to a mission conference here in the United States, maybe take a little bit of a sabbatical from that we can't do that because we're in the community. Yeah, and so you know, some of the ways that we're in the community is in building those relationships. You know, me and my wife, some months ago there was a mom that chose life. This is kind of an example of us pain in the community and I won't share all the details because it's kind of a difficult story and I don't want to give anybody's personal information away. But this was a mom that chose life here at La Trabe abortion center and she had some struggles, some mental struggles. Now she was certainly for life. She'd chosen life. She wanted to keep the baby.

17:22 She didn't even want to have an abortion to begin with, just the circumstance dictated to her that. She felt like she needed to ultimately praise God. She chose life, but she had some mental struggles and she had ultimately ended up trying to take her own life. Yeah, and so me and my wife went to the institution where she was at and she, you praise God, didn't take her own life. She was not successful. I think it was more of a cry for help than anything, and so we went and visited her in that mental institution encouraged her and made ourselves available to help her in whatever she needed. A couple of months after that and she got out and she was, you know, on her feet and doing well, we went to her house and we took our baby shower ministry team and actually threw a baby shower for yeah, so that's one of the ways. And I actually built a relationship with a guy who was living with her in her house and try to influence him with the Gospel and all that. So just practically building relationships now, you know, and kind of a, I guess, frontline way. So that's sort of behind the scenes things, but in a front line way and a very, you know, pointed way. We're trying.

18:26 We're in the community, were there on the sidewalks and we're trying to meet people where they're at right we're trying dark as place. Are there we worst moment really, which is right there in front of that abortion center. So we're trying to be relatable. You know, if you think about our the missionary, one of the things that missionaries do, foreign missionaries do, is they try to learn the language, you know, and they try to speak the language that the people are speaking so that they mean they don't go into a village and make everybody learn English right. They meet people where they're at right and we in the same way. Now, of course I'm not going to stand on the sidewalk and use the language of the people going in because a lot of times it's foul language, not the language that God would have us use. But I will sometimes because, if you think about it, we use our Christianese a lot of times and we use terms that a lot of just normal everyday people don't use, like the word repent. Yeah, it's a biblical word and I've talked about this in the past. I think it's a word we should use, but if we're going to use it, then we need to use it in a in a real way that connects with them. So if I use the word repent, I'm going to describe what it means, but more often than not I'm going to speak the language.

19:34 So I'm going to talk in everyday terms. I'm not going to use like all these big biblical terms and all this other stuff. Right, I'm going to talk in the terms that people know because, you know, let's face it, we're dealing with people who are just everyday people coming to the abortion. We're not dealing with, you know, the super educated people. Some people are coming to the abortion clinic are, but mostly it's just common people that speak, you know, everyday language whatever, not using these big terms and, you know, getting into the Latin and the gree on these other things. Yeah, and so fact is, though, a lot of the people that we encounter at the abortion clinic do at least claim to believe in Jesus. Most of them do here in the south. So when we're talking the Lord, we're talking about the Lord, we're talking about Jesus.

20:17 I mean, I'll quote John Sixteen, and probably ninety percent of the people going into the abortion center to have abortions can finish the quote for me right. So I'll connect with them on that level too. Yeah, I'll remind them use some of their language, which, you know, here in the south is Biblical language, by the way, and I'll remind them of some of the truths that they had known when they are raised in church and they were brought up in Sunday school and that sort of thing. That's kind of speaking the language. Yeah, it is. It's relating to them on a spiritual level that they certainly had at least at some point in their life, most of them. Yeah, and and understanding the culture, because we do have some minority groups, that certainly a lot of minority groups actually, that come to have an abortion and understanding, for example, that adoption is seen as foster care in in, for example, in the black community. Quite often they equate. Well, if you understand that, you're going to speak to them more carefully. Yeah, about that issue. And so I think we you do need to be trained in the culture of the people that you are going to encounter. Yeah, absolutely, add in our mission field and and we make an effort to do that. But I love your example of going and visiting the Young Woman that that you had counseled. And that actually does happen quite often in different ways from our sidewalk missionaries. For example, many of them visit the mom when she has the baby in the hospital.

21:41 Yeah, many of them go to the baby shower. And then we also connect them with people to through love life, Charlotte, to to have a mentor, and that mentor often does literally live in their literal community, right. Yeah, we know their favoritors that are close to their neighborhood. They can be involved in their lives or we try to find people we don't but love life. The mentorship director tries to link them with people who who have similar life story, similar background, similar struggles. So that is all because of this number one specific area in which are are to be either a foreign missionary and a sidewalk missionary collide. That are the same as that. The attempt is to build the relationship. Yeah, absolutely, and that's for the purpose, as always, the overarching purpose of all of these is that so that ultimately we can share the gospel. Yeah, you can bring them to the Lord. So that's that's the first way in which I think there's a lot of similarities. Missionaries understand that it is critical to build trust with the people that they serve, and we've even done a whole podcast on how we needs. Two episodes that we does about building trust or helping us a mom convey her trust from the abortion clinic to ultimately the Lord. Right, right.

23:10 So the way to you can go back and listen to that podcast, which I think would be very valuable. But but the way that a missionary on a foreign mission field builds trust is through meeting practical needs. Yeah, first identifying them and then seeing how can they meet those needs, and not the needs that they think that those people might have, but they actually speak to the people, they live in the community, they find out what those people express as their needs. Well, I think that is very analogous. Yeah, with what we do out on the sidewalk. Absolutely. Yeah, what we have as far as resources, and we we've got a resource guide that's several several pages then. Yeah, and that's not something we just came up with overnight. Right, we can pile that over years of speaking with people finding out what their needs are. I mean, you think about the childcare resource. Right where we're we've basically got a volunteer that is called churches, because you know a lot of churches here in the United States, especially here in the south, and I don't know how it is across the nation, but I imagine it's probably the same. Churches have daycares. Yes, and especially these pro life churches that claim to be, you know, against abortion and want to help woman. We'll call him up and say, Hey, you've got a daycare, they're in your church and we've got a mom who needs daycare. She didn't have the finance. It's use a single mom to pay for daycare. Will you give her a scholarship? And we've had

24:40 churches say yes, we'll give you a scholarship right. And so that's one need that we had through conversations with women. It's a common thing that a lot of us might not think of. We might think of well, she could use a baby shower and we certainly need housing ministries and those are important things, but we might not think of the practical like child care. Like she's worried if she has another kid that she's not going to be able to work to provide for the other kids because she doesn't have childcare. She can't afford Chianti for each so even if we can she can find child care here, she can't afford it. It's an and yet add one more kid. It's just child care is so unbelievably expensive. So that was finding out what an actual need was meeting that need and that built the trust. That helped.

25:22 It's helped so many women to choose life. I had this sadly didn't end in the woman choosing life. But but just this past weekend there was a mom who had multiple needs, severe and significant needs, and instantly I thought what this mom really neat. She needs the Lord, of course, but she really needs a social worker. Yeah, and praise God, we had just had a volunteer who called me and said she just graduated from Social Work School. She had started work as a social work or one of the very few. Well, I don't know if I can say that, but she was certain. She herself is very strongly pro life. Yeah, but with training and social work. And it struck me this that's what this mom really needs, and I was able to offer that. And this was a mom who said I she didn't even want to really discuss she said I have to abort, I have to abort. But she ended up talking to me for over two hours. Yeah, and I think it was because I was able to to discern, because of everything she told me, this was a desperate need and this social worker could help her in one of the most sorrowful parts of her story. So she was then willing to open up to me and talk with me. Yeah, so that it. You have to build trust and we have found that we build trusts most easily by showing we're willing to help. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, okay, so missionaries also, we talked about this a little bit. Learn the culture they're entering and they

26:56 try to meet the people with an understanding of their culture, but as well as emphasizing the commonality of their humanness, of their human experience. So cultural differences are important to know, but additionally human commonalities. Yeah, and all of us, the Bible tells us what the most basic commonality is is that every one of us has made in the image of God. Yeah, and so that is so important, not only for our missionary to express to the people that they go to, but it's certainly is one of the the basic issues that we bring up as sidewalk missionaries. YEA, and one of the ways that we do that, that we share our common experiences and common struggles, is by sharing our testimonies. Excellent point. I mean, if you think about it, you know we all have struggles. Doesn't matter what culture you come from, doesn't matter what background you come from, it doesn't matter what color your skin is. Right, we all have struggles. We all struggle in various ways. Yeah, and we can share out of those struggles.

28:07 But say we've got a mom who, and we encountered this, who's this is our first baby and she's anxious about having a child. She just doesn't know what to expect. She doesn't have a lot of people around her that's going to support her. Right share support system is gone, or maybe they're the people that are encouraging her to have the abortion. There's a lot of anxiety there. Any woman who's had a child can identify with that. That's right it. You know, that cross is really cultural boundary. So, yeah, you got to learn the culture, you got to learn the culture that you're speaking into. You've got to learn. I mean there's some things that you can say that are just not helpful when you're speaking of particular cultures. Right. So you learn that. You learn to just avoid those things and and really speak again of the common experiences. So again, I'm mom who has had a baby in the past. Can speak to a mom who's now pregnant, who has anxiety about having a baby, right. Yeah, you know, I'll share all the time my testimony. Yeah, when I speak to young men who have anxiety about being a father at a young age, I share my testimony. I share and again, it doesn't matter whether they're black or wide or Hispanic or whatever. I can share my testimony and the same God who brought me through that situation can bring them through and I'll share that. And that's what missionaries do as well. You know, we go. If you think about it, people are called to the mission field and it's part of their testimony. They're calling is part of their testimony.

29:30 As they share their testimony, what God has done they're calling is part of their testimony, but also as they're going in the mission feard filled, part of their message is their testimony. God brought me. I mean, you think about it. You're an American who a lot of countries, and I'm speaking about foreign missions, view America is just a rich country like in really in comparison, if you look at Third World countries and you compare the poor people in America to some of the middle class and Third World countries, the poor people in America are filthy rich right in comparison. Yeah, they are. So you think about that and when a missionary comes to a country like Nepal or something like that, just kind of random, you know, thinking about you know, the country where missionaries go and they wonder why did this rich American come here to live among us? Well, let me tell you why. And they share the testament. Here's what God did in my life and here's the message that God wanted me to bring to you. And so, yeah, it's knowing the culture, it's being in the culture, it's speaking from your own personal experience. That commonality there. Missionaries, do that, subbalt missionaries. Yeah, again I have I want to brag on your wife, Courtney, who was so wonderful when I was having this extended counseling session with with a mom this this weekend and the mom felt that her baby was better off dead because the baby was going to be born into a life of struggle, very severe struggle, and she felt even abuse because she was very concerned what was going to happen to this baby at once the baby

31:03 was born. And that's that's common. We hear that a lot and Cordney was able to share her own dad's struggles, that he had grown up in a pretty, pretty rough, rough beginning and very deprived and ended up in an orphanage and and he had significant struggles and suffering. Courtney said it would make her cry when he would tell her the stories of what what he went through. But Courtney shared with this mom what if he had been aborted? Yeah, I wouldn't be here. Yeah, my eight beautiful children wouldn't be here. He was not better off dead, and so that sharing that story, it her testimony, part of her testimony. So expose the common fear that suffering means that you shouldn't bring a child into the world because they're going to suffer. And she said, well, that is false. That's not what the people who have been brought into this world who did suffer report.

32:02 Yeah, they still would have wanted to live. Yeah, almost overwhelmingly. Yeah. So, so you do need to be aware of the culture that you're dealing with, but you don't have to take a course in cultural studies, I don't think, to be in front of an abortion center, because you can always share your own testimony and you can always share the commonalities that that all human beings can can share. Yeah, absolutely. So a fourth thing that missionaries do, for missionaries to a foreign field, is they share the Gospel. We've already mentioned that a little bit, but it's probably the single most important thing. Yeah, absolutely, talk about is that they feel called to the mission field to bring the love and the truth of Jesus Christ, and they do that bit by becoming a trusted member of the community and sharing needs and then they have access to share the gospel. But but talk about that a little. We certainly do share the Gospel. Yeah, well, you know, one of the traps, I think, with some modern missionary endeavors is to become, like I said earlier, humanitarian effort towards meeting then we're all you're doing is meeting the needs. You know, your feeding the hungry and your digging whales, and none of that is bad. Please don't misunderstand me. We should be doing those things. But even in prolife

33:36 ministry, you know, we can fall into that trap to where it becomes just humanitarian effort. And this really goes back to something I think we've covered in several previous podcasts and we'll cover again and again and again, which is what is the motivation of our ministry, right is it? Because I don't say just to minimize it, but I say just to help maximize the real point that. So it's it's not just that babies are dying again. I'll minimize that. It's a terrible thing and that should really that should be a motivator for us, but it shouldn't be our only motivator. And up and I'd argue it shouldn't be our primary motivator. Our primary motivator is God. Is Glory for him, because if the like I've said in the past, if your love for your neighbor is the chief motivation, then you've got the cart before the horse. We're supposed to love God and then love our neighbor.

34:29 So our love for our neighbor flows out of our love for God. And so many missionary endeavors. You know foreign missions and even he know local missions. The motivation is like this, this humanitarian love, this love for people, and again we should have that right that sounded all about. It's got to be motivated by look for God. There's there's a sermon out there and I've encourage you to listen to I encourage everybody I encounter listen to that. Talks about this very things from a brother back, some some years back, back in the S, I believe, when that was recorded Paris reet head, and it's called Tin Shekels in a shirt. HMM. Now, if you have not listened to that message, those who are listening here, you need to listen to that message because he talks about this very thing.

35:10 He talks about how God called him to Africa and then when he got to Africa, he found out that people there didn't want to hear what he had to say, didn't have any interest in God, and he got really frustrated. He got deflated and he's crying out to God and he shares this. I'm crying out to God and saying, God, why did you send me here? And he says this is like the Lord responded to his heart. You know, God just speaks to stuff, to your heart. It's like wow, it's almost like an audible voice. Yeah, and he said, I didn't send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen. He said, I sent you to Africa for my sake. Do not do I not deserve the reward of my suffering. And he goes on. The Lord, speaking to his heart, gives on to share. Yes, these people are wicked and yes, they're going to end up in hell if they don't repent, but I suffered for them so that they might be saved. And it's not the motivation that you have in your heart for them is not the motivation that you ought to have. You are there for my glory, whether they repent or not. You are sent there for me, not for you, and not for them. And so that is the focus that we've got to have as sidewalk missionaries, is that we're out there for the Lord, we're out there for his glory, we're out there for his namesake. We're out here, out there motivated to bring his Gospel. It's not our Gospel, it's not their Gospel, it's his Gospel, and we're motivated to bring that Gospel to those that are lost. Amen. Well, and and you made me think of a fith area. That's a major commonality between missionaries in a

36:42 foreign field and sidewalk missionaries, and that's that we're called. Yeah, I think we receive a call from God. Now, I believe that there are many who have been called who have not responded. Yeah, absolutely. They would rather have a life of ease and comfort and maybe throw a little money at a pro life movement, but to actually go and suffer on the on the field, the mission field of an abortion center, no, not so much. Yeah, but I know that that the people who really persevere in sidewalk missionary activity are people who feel God told them go. Yeah, that is where I am sending you for my glory. Yeah, now, this issue of calling is a little bit of a complicated one, and I'll say this to some people and they think they say, you know, you're incorrect, and I say this other people they're like, you're correct, but they taken in another direction, because I will say that not everyone is called to be out in front of an abortion clinic. Now again there be people that say, yes, they are in the killing babies right. Well, yes, I get that, understand that, and certainly there should be no mistaking that. I believe this is an important call and that there are far more people that are called that are not doing it right then, you know, than those who are doing it that are called and so forth. But I mean somebody has got to do the foreign mission stuff right. I mean God is sending people around the world and strangely enough, he's even sending people from

38:14 around the world here to be missionaries. But that's a whole other subject, and so somebody's got to do that stuff right. There there are other missions, there are other ministries that God has that are other than abortion clinic ministry, and I do believe that. However, again, there are far more that are actually called that are not stepping into that calling right. So I think again it's a tricky thing because I don't want to let people off the hook and be able to say, because that is a common it's a fig leaf, you know, like Adam and eve and they try to cover their sin and their disobedience with a fig leaf. It's a fig leaf for people to say, I'm just not called to that. Really, what they're saying is I'm not comfortable doing that. I want to do it. Yeah, I don't want to do it. I want to maintain, you know, my comfort level in my comfort zone. And Listen, I can guarantee you this. You are not called to comfort. I promise you that. If you were, if the Lord truly is in you and you are called to walk with him, if you're a Christian, you were, then you are called to discomfort. You are called to take up your cross and follow him, and a cross is not a comfortable place to be. You know, we're used to in America, we're used to wearing our crosses, showing our Christianity. If you want to show your Christianity, forget about wearing your cross.

39:29 Your Christianity is born out in whether or not the cross wears you right. Jesus was warned by a cross. He was nailed to that cross. Yeah, and so we want to wear our crosses around our neck, feel good about ourselves and not make ourselves uncomfortable. Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me, and maybe you think about it, the modern pixture of that. Take up your cross and follow me, is what it's an implement of death, it's implement of torture, it's an implement of execute Shan it was a heavy, heavy burdens that crushed him, he he, you know, remember he creees, crushed under the weight of the crosses. He's carrying that cross. Think about what he's saying maybe kind of similar modern terms. Take you, take up your electric chair, follow me. Yeah, this is an implement of execution. Yeah, be willing to lose your life.

40:17 Right, and you know, I want to give you folks this charge before we wrap this thing up, because we're about to. Is that we are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus, if that mean, and that means losing your life right, losing your life the way that you like it, the way that you the comforts that you enjoy, the amenities that you enjoy, whether that means taking up your cross and going to India, taking up your cross and going to Africa, or taking up your cross and go on to your local abortion center. You are called to lay your life down for the sake of the Gospel. Amen. And out there on that sidewalk, that's what we're doing. That's right. We are motivated by a love for God, a love for our neighbor, and we're getting into the nitty greedy, we're getting into the ditches and we're getting into people's lives and we're discipling and we're mentoring and we're leading them to the Lord and all of that. It's missionary work. It didn't be anything other than a missionary indefinite. Right. Well, I think we answered the question. Yeah, right, there's no doubt. Sidewalk counselor's no more. We are now sidewalk missionary, US missionaries, Amen. And so we're called to it. And Guys, if you're listening to this podcasts and maybe you are already a sidewalk missionary, maybe you're already out there in a lot of folks that listen to this podcast are. Hopefully this is an encouragement, do you guys, if nothing else this stuff. We've already told you what you already know we're preaching to the choir for some of you guys, but understand that a lot of pastors and just Christians who may ever even thought about things in these terms don't

41:47 think about it in these terms. Maybe this will help you to articulate to them so that they understand what you're doing is missionary work. Right do you're a missionary in your city at the sidewalks at your abortion clinic, and that will help your pastor maybe you're frustrated by your pastor's response to what you're doing because he just, for whatever reason, believes it's a protest and protesting is not bad. We talked about that again another podcast. But he doesn't really connect in his heart with the fact that you're missionary. Because I really believe this. I believe that in every city which abortion clinics exist and those abortion clinics are surrounded by churches, there should not go a single day. Now abortion clinic should not exist in this country, but as long as they do, there should not go a single day that there is not a Christian witness there in front of that abortion clinics every day, at least every day they're killing babies, but even every day they're open if they're not doing abortions other days. Yeah, yeah, and we need to, as those who are out there, for lack of a better term, pitch this to the church and to our friends as a missionary endeavor so that they understand, they connect what we're doing, because we're not activists or not protesters, we're missionaries.

43:00 Right. So hope this was a blessing to you, guys. I'm really just excited about this and just what the Lord is doing. Will share in the future some of what God is doing here with the Ministry of Cities for life and our partner ministry love life, and just hopefully encourage you guys and and all that the Lord's doing. We really are motivated to raise up missionaries and help folks like you who are listening to be effective missionaries at your local abortion mission field. And so there be more coming out in the future about this and we'll cover this topic and some things similar to this topic in the future. But you just hope again this was a blessing you guys. Hope that you will share this podcast and until next time, God bless give me our love for love, give me our love for gratitude. I know it will cost me my life. Nothing's too precious. And some met you