Using Signs to Reach Abortion-minded Women

0:00 I Am Yours, I am yours, I am yours. Send Me, Lord, I am Your Welcome to the Gospel Center pro life podcast. This episode we're going to talk about how to use signs effectively to reach abortion minded women at an abortion center. We're going to look at this from a biblical and practical perspective. So stay tuned. I felt show passish touch your heart. Welcome to the Gospel Center pro life podcast. We, as always, appreciate you guys listening and would appreciate if you guys would share this podcast, this episode, with your friends, with your family, with people you love and people that you don't love so much. Maybe it'll be a blessing to them. And I think this episode we're going to touch on some some pretty practical stuff. I think we always do, always touch on practical stuff, but we kind of get in the realm of theology and some of our podcasts we're going to get into some of that. We're going to dig into some scripture, but we're going to dig into some some real practical things here as it pertains to signs. Yeah, and when we talk about signs, we've seen some miraculous signs, ways that God has spoken to women and men at the abortion center and spoken through us, and praise God for that. But in this episode we're not really talking about that. We're talking about signs, like literal signs, literal signs like what you hold, what you display.

1:33 We actually had a guy reach out to us a couple of weeks ago with why don't you guys do a podcast about signage, and so I thought, Hey, we should, we ask people for suggestions on podcasts and he shot us out of suggestion. So will we're certainly cover that subject. Yeah, and it's not as if we haven't covered this subject before in some measure. If you guys remember, a couple of months ago, maybe three or four months ago, we had the folks from CBR, center for bio ethical reform, that do the gap project right, which is genocide awareness project, where they go in display victim images babies that are victims of abortion. They do it my mainly on college campuses with signs show people what abortion is, what it actually does, to provoke conversation. So you guys can go back and listen to that. We're not going to talk about graphic signs so much.

2:24 We might mention it a little bit, just some of our philosophy as it pertains to that, and I recognize that there are that's a controversial subject right for people who even do ministry at abortion clinics. It's a controversial subject whether or not you should use graphic signs. Will give you a little bit and in that podcast we gave you a little bit of our philosophy behind that, but I believe that is a thing where it's between you and the Lord and just do what you feel like the Lord is calling you to do in that area. Hey, but we're going to talk practically about signage. Yeah, we do our sidewalk trainings. This is one of the things that we touch on the effective usage of signage. We talk about the effective usage of literature.

3:04 Maybe we'll do a podcast episode about that. I don't know if it's enough to really fill up a whole episode and I think maybe this episode will be short. Maybe maybe not. We'll find out as we progress in the episode. But we touch on all these different tools that the lord uses and that we can employ to bring truth to a mother that's coming to an abortion center. So our voices, of course, or a tool that God has given us, amplified sound, which we do use here in Charlotte. That's a tool, right. Yeah, speakers, that's a tool. Literature, that's a tool to get the truth to these MOMS. And and then signage, that's tool, those other tools to the mobultrasound unit that you guys have heard US mentioned, that we have here in Charlotte, ultrasound just in general as a machine, ultrasound machine and just the practical visual they're share. That's a tool. These things are tools for us to bring the truth to a mom's that it's at an abortion clinic. Ultimately the goal is to bring the Gospel to her. So let's jump into that tool called signage. Yeah, and what is the ports of the purpose of signs? Yeah, well, they're they're your planting seeds of truth from the beginning. Yeah, thank you said. And and we have three kind of main areas. We've said this many, many times, three main areas of truth. Yeah, that we kind of focus on. Yeah, it's something we call our are three talking points, three vital talking points. If you guys have been on the sidewalks for life. Website we have an article about this. They're in our trainings here locally. And then as we're raising up sidewalk missionaries under love life throughout

4:36 the entire nation and throughout the world. This is what we're teaching. We're teaching these three vital talking points, and this is just things that over the years we've discovered. Hey, what we're saying fits into these categories. Pretty much everything. Yeah, and the tools that we use, again the literature, are voices and signage plants. These three kinds of seeds of truth, right. And so what are they? Well, okay, so humanity of the baby. Yeah, first of all. Now, wouldn't include just the mere fact that you useeing the word baby. Yeah, I'm showing pictures of the babies, talking about and showing pictures of baby development. Yeah, so that's that's number one. Yeah. The second one is what God says, both about the baby, about life, about taking innocent life, all of those kind of things that that the Bible mentions. Yeah, about this whole prolife subject. Yeah. And then thirdly, resources, and I have an interesting little recent story about signage of resource. So, okay, so resources.

5:40 No, just so you guys who are listening kind of understand where we're going with this, is we're talking about. These are things, these are nuggets of truth, these are seeds of truth that can be put on displayed own signageect to reach a mother, to reach a father going into the abortion center. So yes, and we're going to talk about how you might put those images to convey you to these truths. Yeah, as we talked more about types of signs, but in the resources. I was just thinking of this as you were starting this introduction. Very recently I had a very, very strong urge, following my work on the sidewalk, my time on the sidewalk, to go get a chick fil a salad. Oh yeah, man ti fully as Christian chicken. It's good. have it is it's so good and I passed by right on my way home all the time and it's been probably a year since I have stopped for a chick fil a salad. I love them, but you know they're a little bit pricey. I shouldn't, I've got salad at home, but the urge was overwhelming. So it was the Holy Spirit. Clearly, tell the holy spirits. There was the holy spirits a stop at chick FIL A and, by the way, I saw the signs of chickfilater directing me, which which encouraged me even more so to pull in. So I pull in long line, but I'm waiting in line.

6:51 I give the young lady my order and then I'm still waiting in line quite a while and she knocked on my window. Okay, after I'd give my order, I'm thinking, what did I forget, and she said I see in the back of your car you have a sign free ultra sound. We can help you. And then she looks very serious and a little bit scared and said I'm pregnant. I just found out that I'm pregnant and and just was kind of you could tell she just didn't know what to do. We see this all the time Sun. So it was my sign, just stuffed in with my stuff in the back of the car she saw and then I instantly gave her a pamphlet with my name and number on it and told her please call me. We can help you, and then went on and enjoyed a very delicious, Holy Spirit filled South Amen. So your sign myself was a sign. My sign was a sign for for her. Obviously she had clearly this was still new. She had you could tell she had just found this out. She's still overwhelmed, she doesn't know what to do and here God uses an actual sign to point her to help. Yeah, and God uses signs, he does. Yeah, I would say as far as tools are concerned, now, different scenarios lend themselves different things. Like, for example, here on the trobe drive, and we're recording right now in our studio office. That's just right off of La Trobe drive, a hundred

8:22 fifty yards or so away from the busiest abortion clinic in the southeast, right, and it's tucked back into a business park. Yeah, so most of the people that make it down to the abortion center here on the troube drive, that make it down in that area of the Business Park, are going to the abortion center right right. So Our signs, and we do use signs, are are going to reach those moms. That's who is going to be seeing it, primarily, of course, the workers that are pulling in and stuff like. They that are going to be seeing these signs and they're effective in that way. Yeah, however, on the just half a mile down the road from here, maybe a little more than that, on windover road, there's another abortion center and it's right on that main road on windover road, and there are probably, during rush hour, thousands of cars that pass by. Yeah, and Sign Ministry there is very important. It's very difficult to reach the abortion center. You're a hundred fifty feet on the public sidewalk from the abortion center itself. The abortion center is actually located in a business complex and there's other doctors offices and things that are there. So it's hard to even know who you're reaching. So signs they're calling out. You can call out to the people if you can kind of figure out who, if you see an older couple walking in, and if you can talk out over the noise because the traffic. Oh, yes, that it's really hard.

9:35 Yeah, but you know, if you see an older couple walk in there, you're not going to call out to them about going in for an abortion because they're probably going into the orthopedic right guy or right maybe to the dental office that's in there or whatever. My point is that signs there are very important. In some scenarios, different abortion clinics, signs are more crucial than another scenarios. Like I could do actually without signs here at La Troupe. There are times where we don't use signs. Yeah, and we'll talk a little bit maybe about how signs can sometimes hurt. What you're doing if you're not strategic in the way that you signs. And actually there's an article on our sidewalks for life website, sidebox thumb before life calm, and it's an article that talks specifically about signs and some of the effective usage of signs and some of the things look out for and signs. So you got to check that out. But we're going to touch on some of that. As matter of fact, we're kind of using that articles a framework for this podcast, right and will link that article in the notes on this podcast. But I say that to say that signs are powerful tool and we need to employ them effectively. But as we're talking about signs, let's give a let's give people an understanding what types of signs, because you might have, as you're listening, some ideas in your mind and maybe they're good ideas, maybe they're not, and so we're going to give you just some practical tips of what would be good to put on a sign, yeah, but would not be good to good to put on a sign. But what are the types of signs that we're talking about? Before we get into the types of signs, something that I thought about as you were describing what's happening at when over and with that busy that busy road. Yeah, and one of, I think,

11:05 the big purposes, if we can still just kind of focus on the purposes. That were those three talking points, but also, I think, very effectively at whend over we often have a victim image sign being displayed and you're showing in one picture the horror Ye have abortion. So you're exposing an evil. That and that, I think, is a major purpose of absolutely times to expose the evil. And we also put a usually a a mom and baby, showing a baby saved, yeah, from abortion, and so you're also showing the stark contrast, the difference between the two choices of the evil of abortion and and the choice for life. So I wanted to add that in there and that'll, you know, segue nicely into the different types of science. And of course that's that's a biblical concept. It is Ephesians chapter five tells us have no fellowship with the hum fruit for works of darkness, a rather expose them. So we're supposed to expose darkness. We do like to, when we show a victim image, though, have a contrast we might. We like to have a balance there, because I do think that they're we need have some concern. Yeah, if we're just throwing victim images out there, and there's some, I think, and I'm not the judge of people that use these, but I'm just saying from my perspective, there are some really overthe top graphic images that are not helpful, where we're just kind of gratuitously showing the violence of abortion, and I think it can serve to maybe innoculate people to the evil of abortion if we just throw that out there constantly. Right, but I do think if we use victim images,

12:41 I won't say tasteful, because none of them are tasteful, but victim images that are designed and the implication is to show the evil of abortion, not in some overthetop way but in a way that's appropriate, and then contrast that with the baby is save. Then you get that contrast between life and death, light and darkness, and that is a biblical balance and we see that all through the scripture as God's contrast good from evil, light from darkness, life from death. Yeah, exactly, and that's that is the spiritual battle at every woman driving into that abortion center is going through. Yeah, the choice between good or evil, death or life, abortion or birth, and and and so I think to to be able to show that in a second, in a split second. You have such limited time and that's why signs are so important. Yeah, you have your words are very important.

13:33 There's no doubt. We are commanded to use our words, no doubt, absolutely, but you literally have sometimes second. Yeah, absolutely, these women and a sign is speaks volumes. Yeah, and an immediate visual is yeah, absolutely, Mitch. So let's talk real quick then, about the types of signage that we use. I've been doing this ministry, this type of ministry, for about fifteen years and I've learned a lot. Yeah, I don't say that to say that I'm great and I'm faithful by God's grace, but it would be faithful. There's something right, sperience, those count for something. So I've seen over the years and just thinking through, praying through, I've seen some effective usage of signs. Yeah, and I've seen some pretty ineffective us of signs. So the types of signs we're talking about is images. Right, pictures are powerful, but they say pictures worth a thousand words, right, and that's true. So what we use here on the trobe drive often times is pictures of MOMS holding babies. And another shameless plug in for our website, sidewalks for life calm is. There's a whole section that's called a printable downloads, I think it is. Yeah, and you can go on and you can actually we have the files for three by four, so three foot by four foot, so four foot high, three foot wide, signs that you can take those files to your local print shop print them out, and their pictures of MOM's holding babies, right, and they say things like we're praying for you and your baby. Your baby is a gift from God. So again we're talking about God, what God says.

15:03 Your baby is a gift from him. Your baby's not a Birden, your baby's not a curse, but a gift from him. Stop for resources. So pictures, I think, are primarily and, by the way, most powerful thing. These are all free, right there. Are are all free and they're all of actual moms who have actual and those are actual babies. Who has her mom chose life here in child yes, so the very they have a lot of meaning and they can be a great tool if you do get engaged in a conversation with a mom to say look, here is an actual mom who chose life and her child, and look at does she look happy? Yeah, I'll do. They're beautiful. I mean signs in one sense can empower people. Yeah, they can empower we have one sign that we use here locally that says it's a mom that chose life here on the trape drive actually holding her baby, and it says I chose life, so can you. Yeah. So it's empowering US saying, Hey, I did this, I was in the struggle that you were in. A short message conveys a lot of truth and just a few words. Yeah, and it's empowering that young lady to say, Hey, I chose life, not because I'm better than you and it's that's I don't think that's the implication at all, but I chose life, so can you. If I did it, so can you. And I think the implication is I'm not better than you, I'm just a regular person who is scared and struggling, but I chose life and you can too. I think you touched on a really important point.

16:23 In all of our signage, some are pictures, but some are words. Yeah, but not a lot of works right. Yet they need to be short to the point. Yeah, phrases. Yeah, if you try, and I've had folks come out as while I said, I've seen some some effective signage and some ineffective signs. I've had people come out with like a whole verse of scripture, maybe even like a whole chapter, and I think scriptures good. Bring out scripture, yeah, on a sign but I do think that you need to limit that scripture to a few words. I mean I'm talking like three, four, maybe five words. Right, if you get into whole sentences and that I chose life, so can you, that's that's a lot of words and I do think that message is effective.

17:10 But the way that it's laid out there needs to be things that stick out, like life, like the word life and in the word you. These things can stick out. The words help and hope. Really short phrases, really short words. I mean we have one sign that we use free resources. Stop for help or just stop for resources. Really quick to the point. It's got to be enough where they can get what's being conveyed in just a glimpse, right, because there's zooming by. Quite often there's Zim and by their zooming by they're they're afraid they're coming to a scenario. And if you've ever been to an abortion center yourself to minister, you know it's a battle zone anyway, the spiritual warfare. But even with pro abortion opposition there can be a lot of confusion. Here on the trobe drive we've got a a lot of pro abortion advocates that are out here with clinic parking signs and they know this dynamic right. They don't say clinic parking is over here, turned this way, right, it's just clinic parking with an Arrow right, because we understand just practically. It's got to be short, it's got to be to the point that anyway. The point is there's a there can be a lot of confusion. So we need to get right to the point.

18:15 If you're trying to convey a message and you lay out a whole chapter of scripture, a whole verse of Scripture, oftentimes that message is not going to be seen right, as good as your intentions are. It's got to be short, it's got to be to the point and also, practically it's got the letters have to be big enough for someone who's driving by to see. Yeah, yeah, so so we have the the actual images pictures that are, you know, of MOMS or whatever, a picture of a baby or a picture of an aborted child. We have words and the words usually have something to do with either resources or help. Right, help or hope.

18:55 Those are kind of the two main either either resources, you either again the humanity of the baby or what God says, or that kind of interwoven into the whole message. That's there some effective signs I've seen to and we do have some here. We don't use them very often. I think Elijah does use them on windover road there, as I just explained earlier, where it's babies that are in utero. So it's depictions of babies, what a baby looks like at nine weeks, ten weeks, twelve weeks. Those are effective signage right, because those convey to a mother, here's what's going on in your womb right now. Yeah, this baby, your nine hundred and ten, twelve weeks along. Your baby looks like this, and I think those served. It's very effective and I also think extremely important because there is such an attempt to lie, yeah to the mother's about what they carry in their womb and the size and development of those babies, and I think they're often shocked, yeah, by how develop such a little, young baby is in the womb. So you're you're conveying truth with those pictures of the babies in them. Yeah, absolutely dispelling the lies that the abortion industry says, that it's just a blob of tissue or clump of sales. And you can do that with signage. Yeah, and it's an effective way to reach mom's going into the abortion. So even dispelling the lie, when I when you look at the picture of the mom and the baby, this was a baby saved here. Yeah, it is showing that their minds are not made up.

20:19 That is a lie. Ye, your minds are not necessarily made up. Even at that late date. There are many women who are still experiencing conflict and sometimes that just that reminder that could be me. Yeah, holding that baby is enough to tip the balance towards you don't choosing life. Absolutely now, I know I have seen some signage and we at one time did use signage to this effect close to the mobile unit where we had listed out the resources that we offer. Yeah, and what are they? Not that sign was effective? I'm not really sure, but within that signage, so we had like bullet pointed the resources that we offer. Free Medical Care, free ultrasound, free baby shower. So we had those things listed. Yeah, but above that we had really short phraseology that was we're here to help, something like that, and then that was designed to grab their attention. So if you're going to go into an explanation of resources and things like that, you really got to have wording that's going to catch their attention, give them reason to pause and then look at the rest of it. Yeah, I mean there might be for some of you guys that are listening, maybe you minister at an abortion center and just down the road is a pregnancy center that you work with, that you send MOMS to. So you might have a sign that says free ultrasound and then maybe under that you have some wording that maybe gives directions to the pregnancy center or some of the other resources that are available. If you're going to use a sign with with more wording, you really got to have some of that wording that's right to the point, that will catch their attention, that will draw them in to want to find out

21:53 more. Yeah, the more now, in this day and age, more is less and less is more. Look at billboards. There they don't really have a lot of words. If you look at a billboard that has more than like even one sentence on it, most of that contents not even being not even being right accessed. Yeah, yeah, and and so we, I'm sure we've mentioned this before, we had done a little bit of research about some of the words that are most going to catch an abortion minded woman's attention, and probably the top one was help. Yeah, hope is pretty pretty far up. Yeah, lest these empowering words you pulled. I mean you've got what how many? A hundred, like a hundred fifty, something like that, women on an email list and and we pulled them. Yeah, so these are moms that you had met out here at the abortion center that chose live. Yep, that said, hey, I wouldn't mind if you sent me a scripture verse. And you do that. You say that every morning, every mood, and we take the opportunity from time to time to just pull them and say, Hey, we're thinking about this. Is What we did with our T shirt design a couple of years ago. We're thinking about changing our t shirt design and we gave them a couple options.

23:00 I think we had like four or five options right, and we use our logo. Then we used help for you, then we use hope for you or something like that picture of baby in the womb. Yeah, and so we use a couple of different things and the help for you, above and beyond, was the one that they said this, fie, this would be most likely to reach me if I was going into the portion center, thinking back to when I was going in, if you people had this shore on, it will be most likely to catch my attention. And and but beyond a shadow of a doubt, when I have the opportunity to speak with the women, they will come over and talk to me. It's because they will. They will say what kind of help? What help do you have? It the word help. They need help. They are there because they want to see what kind of help you can provide, if they're willing to come and talk with you. There are some who aren't at that point. They're not even willing to come and talk, but the ones that are are, I think, oftentimes looking for a way out and that word help to them is saying there is a way out. Yeah, yeah, now, and this is in contrast to what I would naturally want to do, because very much I believe, as our ministry beliefs that God is central if we're going to change abortion. Yeah, but I'm not sure that verbiage talking about God is necessarily what is going to most often hook them to come and speak to you. We always bring it up super fast and and I think one of

24:32 our he isn't with us but he's on the sidewalk with us, carries a sign that shot not murder. Yeah, and actually I think that is an effective sign. It does make people it usually angers them, but it does catch their attention. Yeah, and makes them think about God's word. But in general I find that what they really want to see is a positive image, a positive image of vision of what could be and the word help. How will you help? Yeah, yeah, in a sense, of course, that's it makes sense to us right, right in our human minds, that the word to help, the words, yeah, things that would would appeal to their current situation. Yeah, will be most likely to get them to come over and talk to us. Yeah. I do believe, however, that using messages, again, short messages that talk about the Lord, to talk about his love for that baby can can be effective and I do think it's important if, if you've got the the the boots on the ground to use signage out there on the sidewalk. Yeah, it's a thing, and I say this in the article that I wrote about signage. It's a really unintimidating thing that people can anyone can do that. Kids can do that, right. Yeah, families with kids can write. My kids come out and serve and I have them hold signs. Yeah, I have kids that are nine years old, my nine year old twins. They hold a sign we love you and your baby. That's another simple message and say they've held

26:03 that sign before. Your baby is a blessing. There's another messages of signage that can can really reach mom's but yeah, again, anybody can can hold a sign right. Yeah, yeah, now, there's effective ways to hold signs and I won't go into that. You guys read the article, but I'll talk about how you need to smile and make eye contact. One of the things that we will warn about, though, and one of the reasons why we don't use signage really at the driveway here, is assigned can be a barrier between you and someone going into the abortion center. So if you're trying to give out literature, I mean practically speaking, it's not good for you to have a sign in your hand, right, because it's hard. I'll get yeah, you got to have a hand free to be able to wave and yeah, and then you of course want to smile and make eye contact, but also a hand to offer the literature. Right. But signs can be a little bit of like, a little bit much when you're when you got a sign that you're looking at and someone's trying to offer you literature, it could just be too much. So we found that signs can be a barrier between someone taking literature or coming over and talking, no matter what that sign might say. Right. So we kind of use the signs away from the driveway and we don't want to indicate where the driveway is either.

27:08 So I don't want to have good put on my sign on each sides of the driveway. Here, turn here, exactly the robable toronament boards want to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so the families can hold signs and your signs can indicate kind of, I think, who you are also in terms of the signs that you predominantly use. And I do think that there is we've talked in past podcast about different types of sidewalk counselors. Yeah, more the evangelistic voice, more the prophetic voice, more some of them that have a gentler or coach some that are just more hard hitting into the Gospel. And I think the signs that you choose can kind of given an idea of who you are, yeah, as a ministry, and be either comforting and approachable or maybe sometimes just convicting. Yeah, and which do you want to be? Well, I think you show that sometimes very clearly by the signs they so choose. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why, when we use the victim images, we use them away from areas where we would engage with a mother going into the abortion center.

28:17 Right. So I don't typically like to use them at the driveway. Yeah, because they they are really they confront the mine, they confront the heart they're supposed to. So we will use them on the peripheral as the MOMS are coming down and as they get closer to where we are stationed at, we use the more inviting signs. Yeah, baby is a gift from God. I chose life, so can you. MOMS that have chosen life holding their babies. So that's just kind of a strategic thing that we do and we think it's pretty effective and I was thinking about that. We had, of course, this we always do. Talked about this a bit before we did this podcast and I was thinking about the strategic use of signs and thinking about God used signs clearly, and I was thinking about how Jesus used signs and I was specifically when we're talking about like miracles, sign Cole signs, not necessarily visual signs, although there certainly are visual signs in the Bible.

29:12 But but I was thinking specifically about the story of Elijah after he defeated the Prophets of Bale and and then he's terrified because Jezebel is threatening him with his life and he just runs and he and he wants to die. Yes, he's curled up on a mountain saying take me now, Lord, and and the progression. I don't have the verse right in front of me and maybe you can remember the exact progression, but the progression of how he was expecting God to come there at there was a very heavy wind, like almost a hurricane. Well, God was not in that. God was not in the storm. God was not in the heavy wind, he was in the gentle breeze and I was thinking about that progression, which at what point did Elijah crawl out of his funk and see God and relate to God? And it was when God was in the gentle breeze, the soft whisper. So I was thinking of that because I think again the progression of assign the strategic progression of Science, as a car is moving down the road and maybe you put some people with a certain type of sign up at the top of the road and then you're progressing them to your message through your signs. Yeah, and I'm not sure what would be best. We've tried both but, like you said, sometimes we put the victim image up at the top, that's like this is the horrific truth of what is at the bottom of that road.

30:42 But then we play strategically the messages of hope and help and the MOM's holding babies that were saved from abortion, so that as they approach us, they're seeing the softness, and I was thinking it's like God coming to Elijah finally in the gentle whisper and they're more willing to pull over because it's so much less threatening. Yeah, absolutely, and so we look at things. I think we should practically been here in Charlotte. We look at things from a biblical, right also strategic perspective. Yeah, and we're trying to tweak things and just be most effective to give those babies a voice without compromising the truth of the Gospel. Right course. The one thing I will say, just looking at it from a practical perspective and as you guys are thinking more about signage and what sign is to use. God has made human beings as visual creatures, and so all throughout the Bible you'll see God gives the children visrael signs. Ultimately, God gives the signs to Israel during the time of Jesus, of course. Yeah, so God knows that we're visual creatures.

31:47 You think about I'm skipping a little ahead of the framework that we had. Yeah, but it brings to the mind to me is Ekiel. This is the example I give a lot of times. Yeah, and in Ezekiel, chapter four and verses one through eight, God deals Ezekiel to basically be in. The picture I get from this is like Ezekiel supposed to lay siege to Jerusalem. HMM, in like this model. So he's to make out these models and to lay siege and almost like with maybe if you were to and today's Legos Age. Yeah, take some legos and really give a model for enact the battle and be enact the battle or re enact it really re enacted. Right, here's what's going to happen if you don't repent. And so God gives Isekiel this charge to give this sign, and he's supposed to do this in the public squares that the people see. And then later on, as Ekiel, for versus twelve through fifteen, this is where God tells Ezekiel to cook his food, his food on human poop. Right, to lay on your side for I don't know how many days. He tells me to lay on one side. Yeah, that's for Judah and God's judgment on Judah.

32:50 And then he's still lay on his other side for Israel and for his judgment that's going to come on Israel. And during that time he's supposed to cook his food on Human Poop. Yeah, well, was with the Lord deal with that, because that's defilement, right, it is. And so he played with the Lord and said, Lord, I don't wanted to file, never file myself. And Yeah, and so I don't want to defy myself, which you at least let me cook it on, think cow Dung. Yeah, and so the Lord allows him to do that, right, and so he's summersive. God. The point is that's a sign. God knows that we're visual creatures. God knows that human beings an image says a lot of pictures, worse, a thousand words. And so that's why he gives his profits these signs to perform in front of the people. Right, you're not just like miraculous signs, and we do see those throughout. I mean the story, like you mentioned, of Elijah, right, this sign of fire coming down from heaven and consuming the sacrifices happened right in front of all the children of Israel and all the prophets of bail. That sign, which was a miraculous sign, ultimately encourage the children of Israel to side with Elijah and slay the prophets of bail. Now, later on, Elijah runs and, like you guys described, he has that sign from the Lord.

33:59 Yeah, the Lord speaks in the steel, small voice. However, God, throughout the scripture, HMM, there are signs that God gives. Some of them are miraculous signs and some of them are just like this. Is ekil story, this sign of the Prophet. Yeah, also Asaiah. God gives Isaiah the sign. And who is kind of weird and I don't want to encourage you guys to do this. Of course, that was old testament times, right. Yeah, and so he was supposed to walk through Drus on the streets of Jerusalem naked and barefoot. Wow, I don't remember that. Once I remember that. Yeah, I'll dig for that, that passage before we wrap this this podcast up. But yeah, so he's supposed to walk through Jerusalem naked and barefoot. To think the implication is to show the slavery that the children visa are going to be brought into if they didn't repent.

34:44 And so there was a sign. Now I don't think that's an effective sign to use that an abortion center. Nor do I think a cooking your food on poop on the sidewalk in front of the abortion center would be an effective sign. The point is, God knows where visual creatures and God used signs in the past and God will use signs now. We're assigned. Honestly, we are assigned. We have heard that how many times when a mom chooses life and we asked her why and she'll say, I prayed for a sign. We are people that that seek signs of what we should do. Some people seek it through very ungodly means, but I would say a good number, maybe a majority, of the women that show up at the abortion center are praying for a sign of what God would have them do. And when they see us, I've had so many people say this, you were that sign, you were the sign of what God would would have me do.

35:44 So signs are are just critical in in what we're doing at there and they can be us, they can be our clothing, they can be the the signs that we actually hold. So so don't neglect the power of the use of signs. One of the signs that I was thinking of as I was thinking of the Biblical Use of signs, was the rainbow, which has been now stolen from us, or attempted to be stolen, by the LGBTQ movement. But the rainbow was was our sign given to us by God's covenant side. It was a of an and sign that God would never flood the world again and and that he was he was our salvation, he was our hope, and so he puts that rainbow in the sky to give us hope that he is there. Yeah, yeah, so Isaiah, Chapter Twenty.

36:51 Okay, this is the naked Isaiah. Yeah, this is as as AIAH walking around naked. And it says in the year that Tartan came to Ashdod when Sargon, the King of Assyria, sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it. And that same time the Lord spoke to Isaiah, the son of AMZ, saying go through the sat remove the sackcloth from your body and take your sandals off your feet, and he did so, walking naked and barefoot. Then the Lord said, just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia. So it wasn't against Israel, but it was against Egypt and Ethiopia. So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as priven prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. So there's a sign that God used.

37:45 Now, I don't recommend that people do that at the abortion center, but the point is God used Isaiah as a signed while ground, naked and barefoot for three years. That's a long time. That's a long time to be a sign in that way. But God uses visuals because God knows where visual creatures to to speak to our hearts. So he knows that the way to our hearts is through her ears and through our eyes, right, and so he uses signs. And you guys at the abortion centers can also use signs. So let's jump into real quick as we wrap this thing up, and we already kind of have talked about some of the placement of signs and things like that, but I touched on this, so I won't won't tearry here long. But, as I said, anybody can use a sign.

38:34 Yeah, but if you just look as you're holding a sign, just like a angry gruff, people are not going to engage with that sign. Yeah. So a practical thing that I've learned just looking at some of the ways that the world operates. If you think about it, sweet frog, for example. Ever been by a sweet frog? Yeah, and there's other places, yeah, and other cities that they hire someone, they pay someone whatever minimum wage. Yeah, maybe ten bucks an hour, I don't know. Right to hold a sign yeah, to smile, to wave, to make eye contact, sometimes to twirl and twirl the sound around, flip the sign around. Why? Why do they do that? Because they know that people are more likely to engage with a message that a human is connected to.

39:15 Yeah, yeah, rather than just a message is propped up now strategically. If you don't have the manpower, and we don't want to a lot of times I don't want to take some of my really effective sideball counselors and put them on sign duty. Right, right. So I will put a sign on the back of my vehicle. I have a way to Bungee court a sign on the back of my vehicle. There's other ways to do it and you guys would have to different cities have different ordinances and different laws, and we actually fault with the city of Charlotte here to get the ability for us to play signs in the right of way, as long as they're not hindering traffic or whatever, and so we use like speaker stands to place them on right and you can. You can do that. But if you can, if you've got the manpower to do it, have a person holding a sign.

39:57 If you can do that, it's a lot more effective. They're smiling, they're making eye contact. People are more likely to engage with that message, yeah, than they are with just propit a sign against right whatever. And if you have a human being holding this sign, you can turn that sign to a very targeted audience. For example, I know that one of our councilors does have an abortion victim sign and when the pro abortion crowd is so loud that they just can't hear us, yeah, she'll hold that sign up and it's a big sign, so the people walking in can see that, yeah, and they see at that last critical moment, that's the image. Yes, is what you're about to do. I want to point out another kind of interesting fact about the signs that are in the facility where we use. Think about this sign that advertises the abortion center. Yeah, it's tiny, it's the initials. It's not the name, unless they've changed it.

40:58 I believe it's just the initial yes, yeah, it is AP. It's not even a sign to advertise the abortion center. It's a sign that says no. Trispassing right now, soliciting very bad no sign. Yeah, announcing the name of the abortion center. That to me speaks volumes. Yeah, about what is happening there. Yeah, it is something that is so shameful that even the abortion center knows that to put up a sign advertising this as an abortion center would be detrimental. Yeah. Yeah, I've often asked the question with these pro abortion people that are out there and they have their clinic parking signs. Yeah, they're holding up just pink silence. Is Clinic parking with an Arrow. Yeah, and I say what can the clinic like?

41:47 They make a lot of money. Can't they just get a sign and put it out front when that kind of nullify your presence out here right, maybe take away your purpose? Yeah, and of course they maybe haven't thought it through like that, but I do wonder. Why don't they just put a sign up right, if they want people to know where the clinic parking is? Yeah, they just put a sign up. We see people lot of time getting lost. Why? Why? And they must know that. They know people get lust they pull into the wrong parking lot all the time. Yeah, they know that, and so here's an opportunity for us take advantage of the fact that they don't have a sign. I think it is that shame factor that people want to come to the abortion center and be hidden. They don't want people driving by. No one that it's an abortion center, right. Fact is a lot of people that drive by, believers that drive by. We've had people come just going to the pharmacy down the road from the abortion center, not even though it's an abortion center there, and they've been driving by there for years. Yeah, and didn't know until they saw us out there and of course we were assigned to them. Yeah, and we've gotten people to combine and encourage us and even some people. One lady came in volunteered for a couple of weeks with us because she drove bond, saw us out there and saw some of Our signs. Yeah, couldn't see that it was an abortion clinic because they didn't have a sign out there right advertising their services. But she's all that we were there and the signs that we were using and started to engage with the abortion patients. Yeah, some guy last week drove by and gave us a boatload of money for a donation and because he knew who we were through our signs, through our shirts and through our words also, and and wanted to contribute to the cause.

43:22 Yeah, so absolutely, signs are powerful. Bottom line, they they are a very powerful their biblical and they they can be used wisely or not, and we hope that kind of we've been giving tips about wise use of signage. Absolutely so we hope this podcast was a blessing you guys. Hope that we answered some of the questions that you guys may have had about signage. I do want to encourage you again to get to that article. And what's the name of the article? Effective signage? Yeah, and so it talks about just the effective use of signage. It talks about some of the points that we touched on, and so check out that article, share that article with your friends, go on to the printable resources tab that we have on the sidewalks for life website and you'll be able to print out some signs.

44:12 They're free for you to use. We've have a literature there that you can print out. It's free for you to use. Some of that stuff will be updating as we've transitioned into with love life and right so some of that will be maybe the colors will change or something like that, but we're going to try to keep that up to date as much as possible. But Hey, shoot us out some more ideas. We did this podcast because of a request from someone who shot me an email. Shoot me out an email. If you guys have other subjects he wants to cover, we'd love to cover those subjects. Were going to encourage you guys as you're out there working on the sidewalks and offering help and hope. In the name of Jesus, we want to keep you guys encourage. So if if you need some encouragement, if you have a question about ministry at the abortion center, if you want to come on board. Maybe you've got a burden to do ministry on a sidewalk, on the sidewalk at your abortion center full time. We want to equip you. We're doing a sidewalk training this week with folks that are coming in from all over the country. We're calling on our sidewalk missionary boot camp.

45:09 Were raising up sidewalk missionaries across the nation and across the world. People have a burden who want to do this on a regular basis and we're equip people with some of what we're talking about, but a lot of other stuff in depth teaching of how to reach abortion minded MOMS, how to get churches on board with the ministry, how to get them out there praying and that sort of stuff. So we cover a lot of subjects. So if you guys want to get trained to do that, we'd love to get you into that loop and you can actually go to love life dot org slash America to start that, and I'd love to hear from you guys. But whatever questions you might have, whatever subjects you want us to cover, however you want to reach out to us, please reach out to us right now. A D parks at cities for lifecom. She you can reach her at Vicossi Oregant, cities for Lifecom, and we look forward to hearing from you guys.

45:58 But until next time, God bless give me o love for love, give me our loft for gratitude. I know it will cost me my life. Nothing's too precious. And some met you