Dr. Michael Brown on How Christians Should Pray for the Presidential Election
In each message, we must be considering how to make a difference in our community. Sometimes it means having someone from a pro-life ministry come in and speak, which is great. Lay out the options in some way. One of my colleagues put together Cities4Life, which gives a template as to what can be done in many cities. Where there are abortion clinics, groups like Bound4LIFE and 40 Days for Life are engaged in prayer and ministry outreach.
Often these ministries volunteer and serve in crisis pregnancy centers. I've seen support groups that help couples facing decisions about an unplanned pregnancy, then they host a baby shower when the couple chooses to have their baby. We can encourage a culture of adoption in the church. There are many, many different things that can be done and should be done — all are a part of the Gospel. Every Christian should have some involvement in pro-life outreach.
Bound4LIFE: We'd love to hear more about your role with the FIRE School of Ministry in North Carolina. How does the school integrate Christian worldview topics like understanding the sanctity of human life, with other disciplines?
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Dr. Michael Brown: The school is a three-year intensive program born out of the Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Florida. Since January 1997, the FIRE School of Ministry continues to raise up and send out laborers around the world into ministry and the missions field. We have other branches — an inner city branch in Chicago along with schools in Holland, the Philippines and Cameroon, Africa. We're about to open FIRE Schools of Ministry in Sicily and in Serbia; it's exciting to see God multiply this vision.
Professors with solid academic backgrounds teach the students, but the heavy emphasis is not on tons of academic work. Our emphasis is on really knowing God, on knowing His Word and getting involved in practical ministry. From day one, students understand they are there by God's grace to be world changers — to make an impact on as many lives as possible in a holistic way.
Part of the school is being involved in local ministries. They have to commit to two ministry activities each semester, many of which are about being active as a pro-life voice in our community. Every student will take my class on Jesus Revolution, exploring how critically important it is for us to interface with moral and cultural issues as followers of Jesus. It's very natural for them to have a strong pro-life consciousness.
What we've been struck by is how many who've left our school have gotten involved in rescuing people in human trafficking, starting orphanages in third world countries, feeding the poor, and also launching pro-life ministries in the various countries where they serve. It's interesting to see how many different ministries our grads have founded, even beyond what they learned in the school, because they have a holistic pro-life mentality.
Bound4LIFE: In an article earlier this year related to pro-life issues, you said near the end: "This battle is spiritual more than anything." Can you unpack that?
Dr. Michael Brown: I was commenting on a ridiculous comment by NARAL, a national pro-abortion organization very upset over a silly Doritos commercial in the Super Bowl. They claimed the ad humanized a fetus. How absolutely horrible, humanizing a baby in the womb!
Ultimately, we have to recognize that the blindness is not just natural, it's also spiritual — and we should engage on every level. We should engage in ministry in front of abortion clinics. We should engage in voting in pro-life candidates as much as possible. We should engage in the whole gamut of social action as followers of Jesus who care about justice for the poor, needy, and innocent ones.
Perhaps the greatest text reflecting pro-life ethics is Proverbs 24:11, which calls us to "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter." This is part of what we do as believers, spelled out plainly in the Bible.
We've got to remember that there is a real devil, a real Satan, who wants to destroy. He is the ultimate murderer. He's the one that wants to destroy men, women — and children in the womb, before they have an opportunity to take their first breath. The enemy is behind this larger culture of death in our society.
Therefore, we need to give ourselves to prayer for the opening of eyes of Christians, for a pro-life consciousness, and for repentance in the nation. We pray for the fear of God to come back to America, for God to intervene and turn the tide.
Many times, with social issues, we forget these are ultimately spiritual battles. We do a lot of good things, but we don't bathe them in prayer and I believe that is essential if we are going to see a change come.
To connect with Dr. Michael Brown, visit AskDrBrown.org for articles and more. The views of Dr. Brown are not necessarily those of Bound4LIFE International, which takes no official position for or against individual candidates.
