To Build Life Chain Attendance: Use the Pastoral Letter

How we Coordinators announce our Life Chain can increase attendance dramatically, by several hundred percent or even more. Please announce your Chain through a Pastoral Letter (below), with “Lead Pastors’ signatures” (see the setup on p. 32 of the Life Chain Manual but use the letter copy below). If you have a large number of clergy (20 or more) who have agreed to serve as Lead Pastors and your time for obtaining their signatures is limited, you can list their names, churches, and phone numbers (without signatures) after  your letter. The Pastoral Letter requires significant effort, but ultimately it saves much Coordinator time and greatly increases Coordinator success and joy.

To prepare your Pastoral Letter, simply adapt the draft below to your locale and then recruit 7, 12, or 24 influential “Lead Pastors” to sign the letter. Include their church names, phone numbers, and signatures, as shown in the Life Chain Manual. Then duplicate the letter and signatures and deliver a copy to each of the other pastors in your area. Hand delivery tells pastors you care deeply about your Chain’s mission and that you are asking them to care deeply, also. The same Pastoral Letter may be delivered a second and third time to reach unconfirmed clergy during the months preceding your Chain.

Please do not omit the Pastoral Letter—It can increase Life Chain attendance dramatically, as stressed above. Catholic Coordinators who may struggle to win Protestant churches will find the Protestant pastors’ signatures of enormous help, and the same is true for Protestant Coordinators who struggle to build Catholic attendance. Lead Pastors who sign the Pastoral Letter pledge their participation, and they will inspire other pastors to lead their congregations and parishes to your local sidewalks on October 5. Omission of a Pastoral Letter is a primary reason for low Life Chain attendance. Your letter for 2014 is as follows (edit as is necessary for your local circumstances):

Dear Pastor Owens:  (a personal greeting to each pastor)

We the undersigned pastors of Little Rock write with firm awareness of the tens of millions of preborn (unborn) Americans (or Canadians) slain by abortionists’ cruel instruments or  deadly birth control chemicals, and we are also aware of the accountability that bloodguilt imposes on a church community, state, and nation. God does not ignore the innocent shed blood of voiceless victims. Both biblical and secular history confirm that enduring truth.

How should we respond to the powers sustaining America’s Holocaust (or Canada’s Holocaust)? Among our many reliable resources, we believe and are confident you agree that prayer is an essential weapon; and we respectfully ask you and your fellow worshipers to join us on October 5, from 2:00 – 3:30 PM, when National Life Chain Sunday 2014 calls our nation to  90 minutes of intercession and public witness on local sidewalks. Please, if you will, mark that
date on your church calendar and help us build a devout prayer vigil that God can use to change hearts and save lives and families in our local area.

Life Chain is not a calloused public demonstration, with frivolous conversation and errant interaction with motorists. To the contrary, we must first humbly invite God to minister to us the Church in the true spirit of 2 Chronicles 7:14, and then reverently ask Him to anoint and minister through our solemn public witness. To that end, let us as pastors prepare our church

families for sincere prayer and self-assessment during a critical period in our nation’s history. The attachments will be of help, and additional materials will be available for participating churches.

Regarding our pastoral duty and the deceptive spiritual powers sustaining the abortion holocaust, Afro-American pastor Clenard Childress reminded us in his sturdy little book No Shepherds Cry that “The pew cannot do what the pulpit is suppose to do.” A key for us is to look beyond the “abortion issue” to the unborn child’s humanity, where its likeness to Jewish humanity of 70 years ago speaks forcefully to the Church in our day. The need for our leadership is urgent because God does not see local Preborns as statistical non-persons.

Kindly direct your reply to Life Chain Coordinator		, (address)	(phone)	and (Email)
 	). The Coordinator will remain alert to our questions, concerns, and needs. Also feel free to contact any pastor whose signature appears below.

We thank you, friend in Christ, for reading our message, and we pray for God’s abundant blessing on you and your ministry.

Your fellow servants in Christ,

NOTE: Before delivery of the Pastoral Letter to local pastors, attach quality pro-life literature, including “Seven Reasons Why Christians Should Attend a Local Life Chain” (available at www.NationalLifeChain.org). A few days after delivery, call your pastors to make sure they have seen the letter and to answer any questions or concerns they may have. If some pastors express no knowledge of your letter, deliver another copy to them, and they will not likely forget your perseverance.

February and March are good months for alerting your local pastors to National Life Chain Sunday 2014, on October 5. For help with any aspect of your Pastoral Letter and its local delivery, email Royce@NationalLifeChain.org or call 530-674-5068 day or evening.

Royce Dunn, Director of Life Chain