Respect Life Ministry Advice Needed

[WitnessToHope]

Hello,
For the past couple months I’ve been working to revive the Respect Life ministry at my parish. It’s been relatively inactive for the past several years. I’m seeking advice on how to get people in my parish interested in life issues and in participating in the fight for a culture of life. Our pastor and parochial vicar are very supportive of the efforts, a good first step. So far I’ve had two meetings which were very lightly attended, 4 people or less. We’ve joined another parish for a monthly rosary outside of our local abortion clinic. The first time we joined them there were 2 of us from the parish, the second we had 3. Now granted this activity has begun during the holiday season so perhaps I’m expecting too much right now. Plus both times we prayed at the clinic there was snow on the ground and it was less than 30 degrees.

For January I have a rosay and Holy Hour planned for the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and we’re looking into starting a spiritual adoption program during Lent. It would be nice to have an activity such as a diaper/formula drive to help our local pregnancy centers. The parish is very charitable when asked to donate for particular causes. The challenge is that with so few members right now the small team is having to put forth a lot of effort. I don’t mind doing it but I know the other members have other commitments as well.

So with all that said, I’d like to hear from those of you who are involved in pro-life activities in your parish. How large are your groups, how were members recruited, and, more importantly, what activities are in place to promote life in the parish and surrounding community? How do you get people fired up about the most critical issue of our time?

On this feast of the Holy Innocents, I keep all of you who are doing pro-life work in my prayers!

In Christ,
Witness To Hope

 

[1ke]

Start small and build. Don’t try to overdo it all in the first few months. This battle is a spiritual one, and a long-term one.

A few things I can recommend that are pretty easy to do:

(1) Have a “baby shower for baby Jesus” to benefit a local crisis pregnancy center. We did it for Christmas-- but you could do it easily for Epiphany and tie it in with the Wise Men coming. All you need to do is advertise. I made some fliers and did an announcement at Mass. We got some wicker baskets and a play pen to put things in. Our parish is small and yet we got a ton of stuff. I also got some regular envelopes and printed labels designated “baby shower” on them and put them in the pews. Some people who didn’t bring gifts put money in the collection.

(2) Go to www.hh76.com and purchase bulletin inserts for the Roe v Wade weekend. They have a variety to choose from. That’s easy-- just order them and then stuff them in the bulletins or have them sitting beside the bulletins at Mass.

(3) Keep going to the abortion clinic, but don’t expect a big crowd. Most people are fearful of going out there-- they see crazy stuff on TV and think they’ll be in the middle of a riot. It’s fear of the unknown. People will slowly start to go with you. You can also see if any of the local groups offer sidewalk counselor training-- and offer that at your parish. Some people have more courage to go if they feel they’ve been “trained”.

(4) Plan out ahead of time what you will do this year. October is officially “Respect Life” month so plan something then. Also, in an election year, see about getting some of the Catholic Answer’s voter’s guides and/or do a voter registration drive at your parish.

(5) Tap in to anything your diocese is already doing-- like masses for the unborn or rosary processions. Call the diocesan respect life office and get their assistance and guidance.

Continue to focus on things that will not overly tax your small group. Too much too soon and everyone gets burned out.

Awareness is the first step. Start to raise awareness in your parish and people of good will will follow.

 

[1ke]

Oh… I’m a respect life committee of one.

 

[WitnessToHope]

Thank you so much for the good advice! All that you suggested are easily doable in my parish. The web site for Heritage House is extremely helpful. I had no idea there were so many resources available to get the word out. Their products will help.

And the fact that you’re a committee of one…wow, but then that’s better than a party of none! God bless you in your work!

Witness To Hope

 

[1ke]

Thank you so much for the good advice! All that you suggested are easily doable in my parish. The web site for Heritage House is extremely helpful. I had no idea there were so many resources available to get the word out. Their products will help.

And the fact that you’re a committee of one…wow, but then that’s better than a party of none! God bless you in your work!

Witness To Hope

In addition to Heritage House, you can also find very good (and reasonably priced) literature at www.omsoul.com and www.all.org.

 

[puzzleannie]

God Bless You for undertaking this vital ministry.
is there a prolife office or organization or strategy for the diocese? get in touch with those people so you get notified of what is going on around you.
get links to good sites like LifeSite News that can keep you informed of legislation and other upcoming things that voters should be aware of, including voting records of candidates, how to contact your legislators on key issues and votes. you want to be a conduit of this info to your group and the whole parish.

contact 40 days for Life, there are ongoing activities and this is a great way to “pin” your parish group into an existing program. this worked very well for us, as the young college student who got us into 40 days is now the pro-life coordinator for the parish (and doing a great job).

 

[WitnessToHope]

Puzzleannie,
Thank you for the suggestions. I googled (who knew that would ever become a verb!) 40 days for life and that looks like a really good program. I’m going to bring that to our meeting next week and see how we can implement that with our spiritual adoption program.

My question to you is, the person who introduced this program to the parish, did he distribute the daily devotions for the 40 days through bulletin inserts or did he direct people to the web site?

Thank you!

In Christ,
Witness To Hope

 

[puzzleannie]

My question to you is, the person who introduced this program to the parish, did he distribute the daily devotions for the 40 days through bulletin inserts or did he direct people to the web site?

Thank you!

In Christ,
Witness To Hope

he met with various parish organizations to get their (name removed by moderator)ut on how we could implement this in our town. he organized a nightly rosary for life during the 40 days in our parish, and we did the Fatima rosary on Oct 13 as part of this, for our whole part of the Valley, organized by one parish group, CCD got each Jr Hi and HS class to come up with an activity for one of the days, so we covered all the weekends. We could not do the whole full blown vigil and novena since we could not find an appropriate gathering space (city turned us down on use of public property, so did the state university and school board). We began and ended with Eucharistic processions.

The point is for the first time we got parish groups and leaders working together on this specific priority, got a communication network set up for publicizing pro-life concerns, including lobbying about a key issue in our state legislature that was up during that period of time, and we got people active who have never participated before. Most important from my POV is that the speakers our coordinator brought in who presented to CCD and other parish gatherings made a huge impact. He also participated in a Valley-wide pro-life panel discussion, sponsored by CUF, who also actively promoted 40DFL in the parishes of their members.

the daily devotions were available in all 3 Churches in town, either through bulletins or pamphlet racks, websites posted the links, and were distributed at the rosary and other gatherings. we put together from those materials a packet for families which went home from CCD. He did something similar on campus, where he is also the pro-life rep for campus ministry.

 

[puzzleannie]

oh I forgot all about what else transpired either because of or coincidentally with 40DFL, which is finally we have sidewalk counselling in front of the clinics. the woman organizing that connected with the 40D people, started training for counsellors, and through 40D, started a prayer network so that every active person counselling, praying, or active in front of the abortuaries has a prayer team praying specifically for them.

the point being that for the first time in our diocese, various individuals and small orgs who have been doing pro-life work on an ad hoc, localized, sporadic basis, are coming together as a united front and making this a diocesan wide priority and continuous, planned activism, for something besides just the rosary in january.

IMO the pro-life witness, single-minded dedication, and evangelization of our Benedictine Sisters at the monastery are largely responsible for this, and their years of work and prayer and sacrifice are paying off.

whatever you do plan, make prayer teams an essential part of the ministry.

 

[CARose]

Witness,

I too am a Pro-Life Committee of one, who has also found 40 Days for Life to be a campaign of miracles! I highly recommend you consider bringing it to your town. It’s too late to be an official campaign city for the Lenten Campaign, but that shouldn’t stop you from laying the ground work now, so you can participate fully in the Fall when the campaign will be rolled out again.

In the meantime, you may want to do what we did during the previous 40 Days for Life campaign. Because the local Pro-Life leadership was quite leary about going out to the sidewalk of the abortion center, we took our prayer to the regional churches, family homes and even a couple of businesses joined in. We kept our campaign low-key, again, in keeping with the request of the Pro-Life leadership that had seen some vandilism associated with protests at the abortion center approximately 15 years ago. The actual individuals guilty of the vandalism have never been determined (I suspect it may not have even been a Pro-Life person, but I don’t know).

What we found, through the coordinated prayer effort and e-mail updates sent daily to anyone we could find who was willing to receive pro-Life updates, is that our community is now more than ready to hold the vigil at the sidewalk for the Lenten Campaign. There are still some in leadership who remain apprehensive, but with the reports from the 89 cities across the country, where babies were saved and there were no reports of violence, we’re ready to give it a go.

Even here, where we’ve only had a sporadic presence at the abortion center, we’ve received reports of babies being saved. God is willing to work miracles if we simply step forward to do His will.

Get on the distribution list for 40 Days for Life updates, also, Feminists for Life, Susan B. Anthony List, National Right to Life Committee, LifeSiteNews, LifeNews, and see what local committees are already in existance. I found that the ones here in town were somewhat hard to locate, so help shine a light on them so folks can get involved where they are called to participate.

I found that the BEST thing we did, by way of prayer, was to have as many parishes in the area dedicate hours of Eucharistic Adoration to the cause. This helps increase Adoration and directs this most effective prayer towards Praying to End Abortion.

God bless you in your endeavors,

CARose

 

[Jon_in_Charlott]

There are many resources at your disposal.

The 40 days for life campaign is growing rapidly. I believe they had nearly 90 cities participate in last falls vigil.

In Charlotte, last spring, we coordinated an effort to have vigil participation for at least one hour a day for 40 days. We had approximately 70-80 participants during the spring vigil.

We then coordinated a fall vigil with the ambition of having participation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the 40 day vigil. I would estimate that we had about 85% of the time slots covered and had nearly 300 participants.

What many first time participants have discovered is that many of their perceived fears where unfound and that many blessings and graces have come as a result.

If you haven’t already consider it, coordinate a meeting of all the respect life coordinators in your area (I’m sure your Diocese respect life coordinator could assist) and share the efforts of each parish for the past year and discuss plans for 2008.

See if anyone is making plans to participate in the National or State March for Life. I’ve seen very small parishes able to send 2 buses up to the National March.

Speak with your Pastor about consistently including a prayer in that Mass that our country’s leadership will embrace the importance of protecting the sanctity of life.

Last year our Parish respect life leader coordinated a spiritual adoption program.

There are many, many, resources at your disposal.

God bless you for answering His calling.

For Life, Jon