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Them Before Us Podcast
Them Before Us #064 | Andrew Wood | Empowering Churches to Boldly Engage on Abortion
00:27:42
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back to the Them Before Us podcast. I'm your host, Jen Friesen, and today we are chatting with Andrew Wood. He is senior executive director for Church engagement for Care Net. I've been pretty familiar with Care Net because our church has been involved with our local Care Net where so a lot of you might be familiar with the baby bottle campaigns or they share Amazon lists of how we can support moms and babies. And so we love Care Net at them before us. My church loves it. We're so thankful for all the work you're doing. So welcome. Andrew.
- [00:39]
B
Thanks. Thanks for, thanks for having me. Appreciate what y'all are doing as well.
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, we. Katie has often called them before US Pro Life 2.0, recognizing that the foundational Pro Life movement has been truly trying to defend children in the womb. And we know there's so much work that has been done and needs to be done, not just caring about babies, but caring about moms, caring about dads. There's even, I know one of our local guys who's in charge of Care Net here in kind of the Tacoma area of the of Washington state where they're doing mentoring for men, they're doing Bible study kind of things for the dads of the of unplanned pregnancies and supporting in that way, which is really neat because there's been a lot of focus on the moms and the babies. But recognizing that supporting dads is really important as well. We'd love to hear from you just how you got involved in Care Net and maybe just a little bit about Care Net for people who aren't familiar.
- [01:35]
B
Sure. I would first say as far as the dads go, I mean, what we know is the data shows us when you ask the women that are facing unplanned pregnancies, who's the most influential person in the decision making process, it's not the doctor, it's not mama, it's not daddy, it's not grandpa, it's not pastor. It's the male involved in the pregnancy. And yet for a long time, we kind of took the information given from culture to say, hey, this isn't a man's issue, when in reality the men have a chance to step in. So I love to hear that folks are mentoring guys and showing them how to be good fathers, how to be good husbands, even talking about marriage, giving them permission to do that. But as far as the way I got into this work, I've been pro Life forever. That's all I've ever known. It's all I've ever wanted to kind of talk through and be about. I filled a baby bottle for a pregnancy center when I was younger because of the work they were doing. And my first paper in college was on the abortion issue. And so it's just always kind of held this important role in my life, but it was really kind of focused on the political side of things. So I went into politics, worked in politics in Nashville for a little while before moving to East Tennessee and Knoxville. And just through that process, the Lord just continued to do a work in my life and brought some conviction out. And just we had a friend that went through a pretty heavy situation with her pregnancy. And I just remember looking at my wife and saying, you know, we vote and we put a sticker on our car, but other than that, we don't really do anything to help or to be there or to stand for life. And so I reached out to the local pregnancy center in Knoxville, and I started praying there once a week. I was a bivocational kids pastor at the time and working full time at the University of Tennessee, and I just started praying there once a week. And then we started doing things for baby showers and then loving on their staff, and then they needed an executive director, and I threw my name in the hat for that. When they offered me the job, I just sat down with my wife and I said, you know, one day our kids will ask us, what were you doing while 3,000 babies were being aborted a day? And I said, right now our answer is we vote and put a sticker on our car, and that's not good enough. I said, but if I take this job, we have an opportunity to step in and say that, hey, we're getting up every day to see that lives would be saved, that families would be celebrated. And so that's what got me into the work. I led a pregnancy center for about nine years in Knoxville, and then the door opened for the role that I currently have at Care Net, and we stepped into that and now trying to engage churches across the country to. To build that bridge from the church to the pregnancy center to better serve those that are facing pregnancy decisions.
- [04:41]
A
Yeah. I'm curious what your take is on sort of the posture of the church toward the pro life movement. It seems like maybe there's a pretty wide spectrum of people very, very engaged on the topic and have done some of the things you're talking about. They volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers, or they participate at praying or protesting. And then there does seem to be a little bit of apathy. Whether it's the folks who kind of think it's too big, there's not really anything we can do, or, hey, Roe got overturned. And that's kind of. It is what it is. Now, what's been your experience of is, are kind of most churches in a particular part of the spectrum, or does it really just depend?
- [05:23]
B
I think it depends. It depends on what state they're in. You know, I've talked to, you know, some churches in states like where I live in Tennessee, that, that when Roe was overturned, we had a trigger bill go into effect that ultimately outlawed abortion completely in the state of Tennessee. And so you have some folks going, man, good job. It's over. We don't have to do anything else. And that's not true because of the ease at which you can get the abortion pill through the mail. Then you have other states. I have friends in states like Washington and other. Colorado, New York, where, you know, it. Nothing really changed. It kind of ramped up even more. You have bordering states of states, you know, like, for instance, in Tennessee, you got bordering states that folks are driving to. You know, folks are leaving Texas to go get abortions in different areas. And so from a church's standpoint, I think what you have, you have some churches that. And look, anything I say like this, I'm not throwing shade. I love the bride, and I need to always, you know, put our feet founded in kind of the bride of Christ. But I think you have spectrum. So you have some that are all love, all compassion, all mercy, and very little truth. And then you have some that are all truth and very little love, compassion, and mercy. And the reality is Jesus was both of those. So when Jesus met the woman at the well, what did he do? He pulled her from the shadows. He said, where's your husband? Well, I don't have a husband. Yeah, and the one that you and the man currently in your bed is not your husband either. So he pulled her with truth, he brought her out of the darkness. And then he said, what you're searching for here will quench your thirst for a moment, but what I have for you will quench it for eternity. So he then goes into mercy, compassion, go and sin no more. And so that's what Jesus did, and that's what we should be doing. So the way to kind of walk through the issue of life and abortion is to simply stick to the text and what the text tells us, that we speak truth in what it is. And then we say that Jesus went to the cross for us on our worst day. And so for many that have an abortion in their past, that was their worst day. And we celebrate the fact that we have Calvary and an empty tomb to cover not just those sins, but the sins that we all face as well. And so I think we've allowed for. I don't want to get over spiritual, but I believe the enemy, the serpent continues to work today. And in pulling the issue out of the church and squarely placing it kind of in the political rhetoric, we've kind of moved away from talking about what I would say, the sanctities that were created in the garden, sanctity of life, marriage, gender identity, all created pre fall in the garden. We've kind of moved away from teaching and talking through those things. And if you're not discipling on those issues in the church, they're going to get discipled on those issues somewhere by someone. And there are some churches that do it really well. And I've been blessed to be in contact with some of those. And there are some churches just like with anything that we could all be doing it better. I got five kids, there are certainly things I could do better. And so we all have room to grow and work in that.
- [08:50]
A
It was interesting during 2020, you know, the a lot of conversation about race in America that a lot of folks more on the progressive side of things really started pressuring the church pastors in the church to start talking about it. And they would say this isn't political, it's about justice or whatever. And that's kind of what they use to try and convince people to talk about it in a certain way. But some of the same people will say you shouldn't talk about abortion in church because it's political. So it is interesting that kind of to your point, people have seen, have thought this is a political issue. It's, it needs to be handled by voting or by how we talk about it with politics. But we should keep it separate from what the church talks about or what the church disciples on. Can you say a little bit more about why you think that's not true? It's not just a political issue and it should be talked about in church?
- [09:46]
B
Well, yeah, I mean I think again we discipleship is not, you know, when we look at the Great Commission, it is go and make disciples baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we tend to stop there. That's evangelism. Verse 20 is teaching them all that I commanded you. That's the Deuteronomy 6. That's wearing it on the frontlets of your eyes, putting it on the doorpost, putting it, that is saying this is what we have been instructed to do. And life at its beginning, intrinsic value is a gift from the Lord. And so again, I don't think we have the luxury to shirk the responsibility or say this is a culture war issue or to say that this is an issue that should be dealt with in Washington or our state capitals. It certainly has a role there. But we'd like to say that politics is downstream from culture. Well, culture is downstream from the church. And so the church is the driving force. That's where if you go back to even Francis Schaeffer days, it was a biblical worldview mindset. And a biblical worldview involves all of these things. And so how do we as God fearing, gospel believing Christians to navigate the culture that we find ourselves in? And so we have to speak in those terms. And the reality is if you're preaching the word of God, you're going to step on left toes, you're going to step on right toes and you're going to step on independent toes. Because the word of God is not partisan. The word of God is the word of God. And so it gives us a chance to point people to truth. And I think what we found is when you've told a country for almost 50 years that this was a right and Americans love their rights, but you know, we know that. So when you're, when you're told for 50 years that it's a right and then a court decision is made and then you're told a right is being lost, it's hard to navigate that even within the context of a church. And so that's kind of what we're dealing with. And that's where some people are like, I don't know how to address it, I don't know what to say. I don't know how best to handle it. You have some men that believe it's not their place to say, and again, I just think we preach the word of God, we disciple people to Jesus and we're going to say hard things in that process. And that makes some people uncomfortable. But again, the truth will set you free. I think in terms of the life and abortion issue, the enemy, when I say enemy, I mean spiritual has been pretty successful at pulling this and making this issue a non church issue. And when you see that, it does make it a little bit harder for depending on the context and what state you're in and what you know, here in the south you may see more pastors preach on it because, again, they feel like it's, know, wider accepted at a wider rate versus, you know, some other parts of the country.
- [13:02]
A
And I think there's something unique about the unborn or we talk about this at them before us when we're talking about children. I think in a lot of ways, people with different kinds of special needs or developmental disabilities, many of them cannot advocate for themselves. That's a difference than an adult who is of a different ethnic or cultural background who says, hey, I'm facing injustice. But at some level, some level, they can advocate for themselves and express, this is what's happening to me. An unborn child cannot do that. And we had a conversation in a previous episode with a guy from another pro life organization, and they were talking about why they show the images of aborted children. And he said, they cannot speak, but they can be seen. And we've had a conversation about, you know, some people really recoil with the imagery of aborted children for good reason. But he said the problem is they recoil at the image of it instead of recoiling that this is happening to, like you said, over 3,000 children a day. So. So that is an important thing for Christians to consider. We talk about this when it comes to justice for the widow and the widow and the orphan. Christians aren't really given the option of whether or not you get to fight for justice and for people who are vulnerable. That's just an expectation of what it means to follow. Christ is self sacrifice and advocacy and love for our neighbor and caring for people who can't care for themselves, you know, so it's not really an option.
- [14:35]
B
Well, in James 1:27, you know, where it talks about pure and undefiled religion. I got a buddy that's a pastor, and the way he broke it down for me is he said, James 1:27 is not command language, it's reality language. If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, you will do this. You will care for the orphans, you will care for the widows. And so again, like you said, it is not a. Well, I might. I might or might not do it. And I feel the same way about when you put the armor of Christ on, it goes on. You don't then take it off when you go in the voting booth. You don't take it off when you, when you go to the grocery store. You don't take it off when you clock in at work. No, it's who you are now. And so it requires something of us, I think, too, when we look at culturally. And this is the thing that always blows my mind. We've lived in Knoxville for the last almost 15 years. And when we would go to Dollywood and we'd wait in line, it says, if you are pregnant, don't ride this ride. Now, who's that protecting the woman or the baby? Well, it's protecting the baby. If my wife is breastfeeding, and she currently is, and she goes to get a prescription, they ask her, are you breastfeeding? Who's that to protect the mom or the baby? Or are you pregnant? Who's that to protect the mom or the baby? So we naturally, in our culture, even a secular culture recognizes, hey, if I do something right now, I'm going to harm this baby. If you see a woman out smoking and she's pregnant, that's going to cause something inside of you. Even if you are adamantly pro choice, that's going to cause something inside of you. And so we do that in a lot of different areas of our life. But for some reason, if someone steps up and says, hey, but is abortion okay? It's like, well, yeah, that's fine. To me, it's the upside down, you know, and just longing for Jesus to come and turn things right side up. That's what we're longing for.
- [16:37]
A
Yeah. The dissonance of our culture seems to be if a child. Well, if. If you want the unborn human inside the womb, it's a child. It. It has these protections. It would be natural for you to ask those questions because you want to protect it if it's unwanted. It's a fetus. So let's kind of change the language a little bit so it doesn't sound as close to being a baby or a human or a child. And then you can justify so many different kinds of atrocities against the human. So. And we've seen that. Yeah. In previous conversations we've talked about, you saw dehumanizing language when it came to slavery, when it's come to treatment of the Jews. You have to dehumanize humans to justify mistreating them. That that's kind of universal in all the different atrocities that we've seen in history. I'd love to transition a little bit to talking more about church involvement or engagement, which is your position for Care Net. What are the big things that maybe we should start with? What are the things you try to help equip churches to do? And then I'd love to hear sort of what the big, the most successful things churches can do to help move the Needle on this topic.
- [17:50]
B
Yeah. Well, the, the best thing that we, the best way to sum it up is we're seeking to prepare and equip the church to receive women and men that are facing pregnancy decisions or that have abortion in their past. Now, what I mean by that is when I took this job at Care Net, I called my dad, who, you know, is a farmer in Tennessee, and was telling him about the new job and his response to me, and I don't want to throw shade at my dad, I love my dad. But his response to me was, what are we supposed to do with them? What? When they come to church? And as crass as that sounds, that's a really good question for the church to ask. What are we supposed to do with a young lady that's facing a pregnancy decision, A young man that got his girlfriend pregnant and doesn't know what to do, or a young family that's just struggling, don't have insurance, maybe in between homes or dealing with addiction? What are we supposed to do with them? And so what we're trying to do is prepare the church to answer that question. And so to us, it's discipleship that may look different. That may not mean that, hey, they walk out of a pregnancy center and straight into a church and they're going every Sunday and they're there on Wednesday nights and their kids are in. It may not mean that. What it may mean is it starts as mentorship, it starts as a meeting at a coffee shop or just going through a Bible study together, getting connected. But ultimately that's what we're trying to do, is prepare the church to meet the needs of the folks in their community. The pregnancy center is designed to serve and care for folks short term. That's how the pregnancy center is designed. You can do the nine months of pregnancy, maybe up to 18 months after baby is born, but the long term care, that's what the church was designed to do. And so often when a young lady or a young family's making that decision process, they're not making the abortion decision based on the next nine months, they're making it based on the next 18 years. And so how do we fill in the next 18 years? And the church can come into that situation and say, hey, when your baby's a toddler, we got you. When your baby, when your child is now in middle school, we're here for you when they're in high school. And so that's really the decision making process. I think sometimes we think it's this urgent and it Is. It certainly is. But I think sometimes we just stop there. If we can just get them through the next nine months. But often they're looking way down the road. How am I supposed to do this for the next 18 years? And so the church can be that family that they may not have, that support system that they may not have.
- [20:32]
A
I love that. And that's what the design, God's design for the church was. It was supposed to be a family, especially for people who, in a lot of ways, had lost everything else. People were converting out of all different kinds of cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic situations and maybe losing everything else. They had to join this new family. And when I've gone to the Care Neck banquet down in our area, I love hearing all these very practical stories of how it would be. Things like a young woman would, you know, didn't have the best family situation, didn't have really that much support. They told kind of a supernatural story. It was the dad of this girl that got pregnant, said, you cannot handle it. You cannot be a good mom. So she was like, I'm going to abort the baby. I don't know what to do. And she's working at a FedEx or something. And she had prayed, if God. If you are like God, I don't even know if you're real, but send someone to help me. And a guy comes in with a package, and it has, like, the name of a church on the side of the box or something. And she thinks, okay, I'm going to tell this guy that. And he was married to someone who worked for Care Net. So again, kind of a supernatural, a little bit different story doesn't happen all the time, but it was as simple as this. This dad, when he learned she was pregnant, said, I think you'll be a great mom. And that was enough for her to be like, okay, I can think of something different. Envision something different. Then they help with the. Who's going to take her to doctor's appointments? Who's going to show up at her house and help her put together the baby, the crib, you know, these very practical things. But when you're part of a family and people just show up and help each other, that can be the difference between life and death for children.
- [22:16]
B
Oh, 100%. I mean, when we had our fifth child, a few doors down, was a young lady that was a patient at the local pregnancy center. She had nobody, no support. A pastor's wife was watching her two other kids. A staff member from the pregnancy center was in the delivery Room with her the entire time, being her advocate, talking with the medical staff for her. She took her home because she lived in an apartment complex with no elevator and she lived up multiple flights of stairs. See, that is the church being the church, it's hard, it's messy, it's not convenient. But again, that's what we've been called to do. When we were having our fifth child, we had family that was watching our four other kids. We had people supporting us, being there, pitching in. And sometimes we just take that for granted and think that everybody has that scenario in their life. And often we have a chance. What we like to say is, you can't be what you don't see. So we have a chance to give them that which they don't see. And so when they start going, oh, who's watching my kids? The folks at the church, who's providing these meals? The folks at the church. Something is different about these people. And then that gives us an opportunity to say, hey, here's why we're different. And it's because the Lord has transformed our lives and we believe he can transform yours.
- [23:43]
A
That's awesome. Andrew, for anyone listening who is thinking they want their church to get more involved in care net in the pro life movement, what are some things they can do to get involved?
- [23:55]
B
Well, there's a couple things. We have Making Life Disciples, which is a curriculum that again is preparing the church. So it's a Bible study that folks within the church can go through. And it's very much like if you were going to prepare for a short term missions trip. You're just getting to know the demographic, the culture. And so that's what Making Life Disciples is. It's kind of teaching you, hey, here's what folks are dealing with. It walks through what they're dealing with, it walks through what abortion is what it is. And it kind of takes us through where Roe was and now after Roe, what that means. But ultimately it's preparing people within the congregation to be at the ready. As a first responder, the best illustration I can give is my buddy is an actual first responder, works at a fire department. He went to my niece's graduation. He was in plain clothes, just there to watch the graduation and somebody that was standing on the wall just fell out and flat lined. And my buddy sprung up, went over, saved his life. Pretty amazing story. And what I tell people is no one called my friend and said, hey, tomorrow night be ready, be in uniform, have your bag? No, no. But he was willing and at the ready for when that time came. So we need folks at the church that are just willing and at the ready when that time comes, when a young family needs assistance, are you willing and at the ready to step in? And Making Life Disciples will help equip them to do that. We also have. And you can learn more about that@makinglifedisciples.com we also have abortion, recovery and care. So for those that have abortion in their past, we have a Bible study called Forgiveness Set Free. That's for females that have abortion in their past. And then we have a Bible study called Reclaiming Fatherhood that's for men that have abortion in their past. And oftentimes men kind of, you know, if they paid for an abortion or drove someone to an abortion clinic or maybe they didn't even support the decision, but they didn't have a say in the matter. And they're carrying that burden and that weight. We believe that only healing comes through the gospel. And so that's what those studies are designed to do. And then if you're thinking, well, I don't know, I just, I'm a prayer warrior and I just want to pray. We've recently started Abundant Life Prayer Network, and you can join our prayer network and pray with us in the work that we're doing. And again, you can learn more about that@makinglifedisciples.com awesome.
- [26:21]
A
We'll make sure we put those things in our show notes for folks to find. I love that idea of getting prepared, being prepared and ready for when God brings those folks into our church. That's going to be such a different posture than being a little bit on the back foot when someone shows up. And then it's kind of the scurrying around. What are we supposed to do to help? And that's sometimes when people can kind of fall down, fall through because we're not ready to support them. So I love those suggestions. Thank you so much, Andrew, for your time and all the work you're doing with Care Net.
- [26:52]
B
Well, thank you and thank you for the work that y'all are doing. I mean, I'm just. I'm just grateful that folks are out there and. And willing to take the darts and the arrows. I often tell people, you know, it isn't that we're seeking them, but we're willing to take them when they come. And y'all are certainly doing, doing the Lord's work, fighting for children and fighting for life across the country. So thank you for that.
- [27:17]
A
You're welcome. Yeah, we love it. We love yeah. Stacking hands with all the organizations doing it across all the different, the different ways we can protect children. Everyone, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Check out makinglifedisciples.com for more information. And thanks everyone for listening and thanks for joining the movement.