Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener. So glad to have your company today. I hope you're doing really well wherever you are. And uh today on the podcast, I'm so glad to be able to uh introduce to you Dean Guevaris. Uh he has become a number of crisis pregnancy centers in the US and he has so much uh wisdom to offer and uh practical experience in how to minister not only to the crisis situation of uh an unwanted pregnancy, but also how to minister Christ in that situation. He has seen thousands of babies saved, but also thousands of lives transformed in the name of Jesus as people have turned to Christ. He has brought together those two things. He's been pro-life and pro-evangelism. Wouldn't you want to be both those things, uh pro-life and pro-evangelism? I was looking at some figures uh just today about coronavirus. We have lost 175,000 people to that uh awful disease, and uh that is a great tragedy, and we are doing all we can to limit the losses. 175,000 people. But I also consulted the World Health Organization, which told me that we have lost 13 million people to abortion this year. Just this year, 13 million. Every day, 125,000 lives are lost to abortion. Is that a statistic that will wake you up? Will that wake up the church to be for the cause of the marginalized, the weak, the oppressed, to be for life? Because Jesus has said, I have come that they might have life and have it in all its fullness. How can we stand for the life of the most vulnerable in our society? Dean Guevaris is really gonna help us, uh, both theologically and practically, and also evangelistically. How can we speak of protecting the unborn as part of the good news that Jesus wants to bring to the world and which we are commissioned to herald to the world? Dean is gonna give us uh a lot of great advice on that. And uh stay tuned at the end of the episode. We'll let you know about some more resources that Dean Guevarais has for us. And uh just this Thursday, Thursday the 23rd of April, there is an opportunity uh for you to tune in, hear more from Dean Guevara, and more from others in the pro life movement about how to be a hundred percent pro-life and a hundred percent evangelistic. Uh, you can go to brefos.org slash events. Brefos is spelled B-R-E-P-H-O-S.org slash events. And uh this Thursday afternoon, British summertime, uh, you can tune in and hear more about how you can stand up for the unborn. But that's enough from me for now. Let's tune in and listen to the interview which I so enjoyed between myself and Dean Guevaris. Welcome, one and all, to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener, and it's our great privilege to have with us the Reverend Dean Guevara, who is the executive director at Gateway Pregnancy Centers. He's going to be talking to us today about how we can be 100% evangelistic and 100% pro-life, both at the same time. It's uh really exciting to have you with us, Dean. Thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Glenn. It's my privilege.
SPEAKER_00So you're the executive director at Gateway Pregnancy Centers. Uh, tell us a little bit about Gateway and and some of the methodology and some of the the philosophy behind uh why you've you've uh begun these centers.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I I believe it was uh it might have been Churchill, uh it might have been Rosewell, I'm not sure, who said that when we fail to look at history, we inadvertently or consequentially uh continue to repeat history. And the history of the pro-life movement began scripturally, it began with the scripture, with Billy Graham sharing that we need to reach women for Christ and actually help them as the Good Samaritan would help. And it evolved and broadened into a political issue, and then it began into a social issue where it's been so squeezed out that uh pastors in my country and perhaps in yours don't see it as a biblical issue, and that's the key. Gateway was founded in 1985. I was in Bible school in the 80s, and I learned that uh the pro-life issue was biblically based, and I learned the scriptures not only to defend, but to share with the women the compassion, hope, the grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ. It's a pastoral issue. And once we do that, uh we can meet people that God sends as divine appointments. So we've been doing this for 37 years. We've seen 37,000 people. Uh, some people say, well, does anyone come to know Christ? Yes, about 4,500 people. And then the next question would be, well, are you doing anything about a baby that might be aborted? Yes. About 5,500 women have chosen that we know of, even more, to carry their children to uh full term. So it's holistic, and without the gospel, it's not.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Well, we'll we'll get on to how it is that you can maintain that hundred percent focus on Jesus as well as that 100% commitment uh to the lives of the unborn as well. But let me ask you, Dean, was there a moment for you um where you thought to yourself, this is such a burning passion for me. I I must commit myself to the cause of the unborn. Was it was there a moment for you, a scriptural truth, a conversation? What was it that really kind of converted you to this cause?
SPEAKER_01There were two events in my life. The first, I was a bellhop in a hotel. I was a young man, and I noticed in New York in the late 60s, early 70s, people coming into the hotel for just one night. Uh, there was a gentleman that I would see that would bring women in, and he would uh have them at the hotel, he'd feed them, the next day they'd go someplace, and then they'd leave. They'd go back to another state. And I inquired. I didn't know anything about abortion. I inquired, and what that was, people coming to New York for an abortion. For $400, they got an abortion, they got a night stay, they got a meal, and off they went. And I noticed the proprietor or the director of this uh work that he had in abortion provision was always uh sad. He was always drinking, and I noticed that that was that couldn't be good, and it couldn't be good for the women that were there. And I put it to the back of my mind for about 10 years, went off to Bible school, and I was challenged in Bible school that what we see in Scripture needs to be put out into the flesh. You could learn about Exodus 21, 22 to 25, but you cannot put it into practice. Same with the Good Samaritan, etc., etc. The woman at the wealth. What do you say to the woman who has had an abortion? We find that in John 8. Jesus gave us the answer to that. I don't even need to look for counseling and training on that. Everything I need to run the pregnancy center is right here. So that emboldened me to say that as a Christian, this is a missional work. This is not a parachurch work. I don't like that term. We are not offering an alternative. This is the standard. We're going back to the standard. And you asked a minute ago, what keeps you going? I get up every day and I ask myself, how can I share Christ? How can I live as a Christian? And then I go about my job trying to fit that in. So whether you're lay people or whether you're clergy, whatever you do, you need to ask yourself, why am I here? What is God saying to me in terms of sharing this message? How can I share my faith? How can I bring people to Christ? Because that's the only thing that we're going to take to heaven with us, is people who have been laid to Christ, nothing else.
SPEAKER_00So you're very clear that it's all flowing out of the scriptures, it's f flowing out of your Christian commitment already. Um we'll we'll get on to the culture and why why the culture seems to be so pro-choice. Um, but let's let's start with the church, because I I guess that's an even bigger problem. Um there are there are Christians who identify as pro-choice themselves, um, but they say that their authority is the scriptures, perhaps. They they they might say that their authority is Jesus Christ. What would you say to a Christian um who says that they are themselves pro-choice?
SPEAKER_01Uh the problem doesn't lie in the scripture. As a pastor, I believe that the problem really, the buck stops here, as our President Harry Truman once said, uh, with the clergy. If the Christians that go to church hear that it is problematic, if they hear that the pastor cannot speak of the subject for fear of upsetting a certain segment of people, if they never or once a year hear a message about life, and it isn't central, if they don't hear what the Bible says, they can't come up with that. So they go to cable TV, they go to their friends, and they learn what the culture says. And basically, the culture is one that allows for choice, one that does not want to be as specific as the scripture, because the central issue is will Jesus Christ be my Lord? So I think the problem with our clergy is fear, and the problem with the laity is that they haven't examined this themselves and really delved into some of the questions, like the save the life of the mother question. We dismiss it simply by saying if it's the mother or child, it's better to lose one than to lose two. That's very basic, and you need to go further and examine what people like Alan Guttmacher said, Here to Planned Parenthood. Never is there an issue where the mother's life and the child's life is in jeopardy where you have to abort. It's like a lifeboat issue, a triage, where you're saying, we have to save someone, so which one do you want? And it's asking the question, already having the answer in front of you. Christians need to think. He says to choose life, except if there's a rape, except if you fear that she took something that would harm the baby and would have spina bifida, except if her life is in danger. God is the one who cares, and there's never a need for an abortion, but our church needs to be told that, and told that clearly, and a pastor is one of the most perfect people to do that.
SPEAKER_00So you're saying that uh so many Christians um are looking to the culture in order to inform them on these kinds of moral and social issues? What is it in the culture, do you think, that that is making the pro-choice position so attractive? I mean, in the United States, abortion has been legal there for the past 48 years, in the UK for the past 53 years. Um, the tide seems to be flowing entirely against you. Why do you think abortion has been legal in our countries for so long?
SPEAKER_01Without doubt, Glenn, this is a spiritual issue driven by Satan. Satan is behind the issue. And often all Satan does is stand back and allow people to try to think through things unbiblically, and what happens is we get ourselves in trouble. 30, 40 years ago, we began with Billy Graham preaching and speaking about pregnancy centers, salvation through Christ alone. We then got into the culture of loving both the mother and the child and changing society and breaking the back of the pro-abortion industry and plant parenthood or Maurice Stopes in your country is the problem. The problem is spiritual, it's not a particular group. And why are we marginalized? I think it's the same with the coronavirus. We see people saying, I must be in church. I cannot practice my faith without being in this building. And the world is looking at us and they're saying, That's the faith that you want me to have? You want me to come to your building? Do you have anything more? And perhaps God is encouraging us, perhaps He is enlightening us to reach out of the walls, to get into the culture, and to have what I've called less angry Christianity, where we are righteous, we're righteous in what we say, but uh right, but we're not acting righteously. And we are to be righteous people, we're to speak love and truth, yes, but to speak it with compassion and grace and mercy in the words of Jesus. He spoke very directly to that woman in John 8. He said, Don't sin anymore, but he didn't condemn her, and they were both in the same message. I believe we have a problem in getting that complete message between judgment and between wisdom that speaks the truth but speaks it in love.
SPEAKER_00How do you seek to embody that uh at your own pregnancy centers? There's there's there's truth and there's grace. How do you how do you love the woman who's coming for the abortion? How do you tell her the truth with with with the grace of Christ? How do you embody that in your own pregnancy centers?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'd even go beyond loving her, loving the abortionists, praying for the abortionist. When you're challenged, the abortionist is your problem, then you need to be able to pray for them. In my hand is a copy of The Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger. Your comparative person is Maurice Stopes, one of her disciples. This is an original signed copy worth $500 or so. Margaret Sanger is not with us. I cannot pray for her salvation. She died 65 years ago, but I can pray for the abortion. I could abortionists, I could visit the abortionist, I could challenge the abortionist as we have, being right there in his abortion facility with alternatives, and at the same time I can love him from the heart. And that's what it is. It's seeing that woman as a person in need of Christ, just as your pastor in your country sees the woman who's caught in adultery or in uh confusion or in a bad marriage or in addiction.
SPEAKER_00Addiction, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Whatever it is, it's abortion seems to be the only subject that is taboo, and if we talk about it, it's in the light of we are condemning, we can't speak about it. Of course we speak about it. And who is the one who's energizing that muzzle really on pastors? That muzzle is Satan. There is no other subject that a pastor who really truly loves the word of God and knows the word of God speaks on. So when you have the doctrine of the humanity of man, when I was ordained doctrinal statement, I had to present my case. Part of that is the doctrine of man, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of the incarnation. All of that is theological, and yet the number one theological body that stands in the pulpit of many churches fears that he can't do that. Sometimes it's because he'll lose some people in the congregation, other times because he has been told that he's ill-equipped. Instead of seeing that he's not only equipped theologically, but he's also being equipped by the Holy Spirit to minister life to people. So our counselors, they're not pastors, but they are people who are saints, people who are sharing their faith. And they feel very comfortable doing that if they know how to do it. And in the last 15 years, my biggest struggle, my biggest struggle, has been that people do not know how to share their faith. We had to put together a hundred-page manual on how to share your faith at the pregnancy center because people come to us and they say, I'm pro-life, I know it's wrong, I know that I need to reach out in compassion and love to the woman. I don't know what to say. So we are guiding them through the evangelistic approach as well as the approach pro-life. And I believe that's the job of the church.
SPEAKER_00Now, obviously, that that kind of training that you do takes hours and days to kind of uh to communicate to people. But could you could you just give us a sense of what it is that you would say either to the man, because sometimes the partner comes along as well, and and perhaps you know you would be with the man and perhaps somebody else would be with the with the woman. What is it that you say to a couple who are who are considering abortion and and how do you make that an evangelistic encounter?
SPEAKER_01One thing I don't say is um that I'm not gonna tell them the truth. So I begin by saying I'm gonna be directive, not indirective. And directive does not mean uh objectionable or intrusive. Directive means that you're gonna share truth and you're not gonna be afraid to share their truth. And then you're gonna share it in love. So our counseling session would be about 45 minutes. We would introduce ourselves and get ourselves acclimated to the person. We ask a number of questions, not to be intrusive, but to gather information as to where her focus is. Uh, our manual talks about who is her God, or who's at the top of the pyramid, or which is the biggest piece of the pie, whatever way you want to describe it. What's important to the person? And what's important to one person is often important to the 37,000 that have come to us. And then, if they don't know about abortion, we show them a video about abortion, first asking their permission, encouraging them to do this, because uh it's your own Greg Cunningham, who created CBR, has said, if you can't stand watching it, why do we tolerate it? So we lovingly share that video, and then we're ready with post-abortion, should she have already had an abortion. We challenge the man that he may not marry this person, but he doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't want to be one of the 75 uh percent that struggles with abortion 10 years after the males, the males who struggle with abortion, right?
SPEAKER_00So mentally, kind of emotionally after the facts, 75% of men who have encouraged their partners to have abortions regret that or yes, and and and you say, well, oh, that must be a right to life group in America.
SPEAKER_01No, no, that's Arthur Schostack, Drexel University. He is pro-choice to this day. I wrote to him, I asked him if he would endorse us. He said, I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-abortion. And yet he wrote the definitive model that's right in the back of me, 500 pages. Lessons, loves, and losses, men and abortion. How abort, and that's the one that I use. I'll use Alan Goodmacher of Planned Parenthood, who spoke about saving the life of the mother. I won't use people who are political or partisan or who are on cable TV. I'll use the experts. In fact, this is uh right in front of me. It's a great book. On Thursday, I believe we're we're uh talking with Vaughn Roberts. It's called Abortion, the first book uh written in your country about it. And what many of the quotes here are by people who are pro-abortion, and they've said, it is a baby. It is a baby that is often worthy of life, but it's the mother's choice, etc., etc. So when we speak to the client, we speak to her culture, we speak to her need. None of our clients care about politics, they only care about the future and the present. And I personally often ask, where will you be when you're my age? Are you just looking to have a child? Are you just looking to go through a relationship? What if this is the only child that you would have? And by telling them the truth of what an Abortion is by giving them the actual tools to make it during this virus, as simple as I'm looking right now. Piles of diapers that I could give. But I will not give just diapers because that's a temporary. I will give them the word of truth and the diaper as well to show them that we care. Some people they want to see that you really care. They don't really care about your theology. So our volunteers speak as women and as men, as young people, as older people, as people who've had abortions and people who haven't. And in our training, we look at that and we identify that there are spiritual gifts they have. And we try to employ those spiritual gifts, but all of them are focused to meet the greatest need that this person has.
SPEAKER_00We will get back to that conversation in just a minute. But can I ask you a question? Do you enjoy the Speak Life podcast? Is it something that you look forward to? Uh is it a part of your regular podcasting diet? If so, we'd love you to support us. Uh, can you support us financially, perhaps? You can go to speaklife.org.uk slash give, and there are lots of opportunities to give either as a one-off or as a monthly donation. We exist only because of the generosity of people like you. But you can do other things to stand with us as a ministry. Perhaps you could just share this podcast or share our Facebook page, share one of our YouTube videos. Will you like, share, and subscribe to our media channels and make sure that the message goes far and wide? Well, thanks so much for listening, and now back to the interview. So, how do you how do you bring that round to the offer of Christ then? So you're you're you're speaking to them about their life situation. How do you how do you and you've talked to them about what is spiritually most important to them, what's the biggest bit of the pie, what's at the top of the mountain, or whatever. Um, yeah, how do you how do you then offer Christ in that situation?
SPEAKER_01That's where our theology has to uh we need to stop in terms of the theological approach to abortion and look at the power of God's word, actually sharing the word of God and what it says, and relying on the Holy Spirit for a teachable moment. Uh, in those 30 years, I can't tell you how a conversation begins or ends, because it is like John 3. We can't tell where the wind comes. But it's the Spirit of God that works through the people of God to share the Word of God, even if they don't know much of the Word of God, to reach the hearts of people. And this is all about the hearts, not the mind or the social status, not the theological or political or social view, not just simply being compassionate, but being uh so involved with grace and mercy and truth that you could not share grace, mercy, and truth through the scripture. And God creates, I can tell you this, Glenn, God creates for years and years opportunities. Someone will say, I've been praying that I'm not pregnant. Or uh we simply ask uh in our questions, uh, what do you think of abortion? Do you go to church? Just simple questions that people ask. And then we work on that. We say, gee, Bob, you said you didn't go to church, but you grew up in the church. Yes, my grandmother was a believer, and she said to me, You need to come to know Jesus Christ, but I never have. And that's a true story. A month ago, that person in that room, 20 feet away, came to know Christ because his grandmother had been given that information to set that seed, and all we needed to do was ask Bob, would you like to receive Christ? Yes, I would. And he did. The coronavirus is a perfect opportunity. Had a man in there two weeks ago, I guess. He said that his grandmother and his uncle died the same day, one in the morning, one at night, because New Jersey is number two in America with the coronavirus. And he needed hope, he needed a solution to the fear, the anxiety that even you and I, if we're to be honest, feel. But we feel it from the other side, and we know Christ, but he did not, and he was open to hearing. These are teachable moments that we do not engineer, we simply walk that path and allow him to walk with us.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's amazing, and and I hope people are getting a sense of as you speak how you are able to keep the pro-life cause and the pro-Jesus cause uh entirely together to treat the issue as a spiritual issue and to offer the remedy in Christ, even as you offer all the practical help that you can to those who are involved. Um you've just um spoken of Vaughn Roberts, who's written this book about abortion, and it's it's quite unique in this country for a pastor to nail their colours to the mast and to be pro-life and to publish this kind of book. Um and I I I'm guessing that the the issue is I think where Christians might be tacitly pro-life, in effect, um, they they don't raise the issue, but they don't want to rock the boat. And many people will say this is because I I want to be evangelistic, I want to I want to lift up the name of Jesus, and I don't want to get distracted by this this other issue called the pro-life issue. How would how would you recommend that regular Christians engage uh in this issue in a way that that lifts up the name of Jesus and that doesn't see the pro-life thing as a distraction, but could could we even see it as a as a gateway to a deeper spiritual conversation, do you think?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it is. And if if we can see it as a doctrinal issue, that's important and that's good. But if we could see it, for instance, Bonhoffer was speaking about compassion mixed with action. We could have all the compassion in the world, but do nothing. And that's the same with this issue, and the same with our faith. We could have all the head knowledge, we could have all the steps, we can even learn how to share our faith one step after another. But unless one it's Holy Spirit energized, unless its focus is on getting out of God's way and allowing him to work through us, and unless that compassion leads us to action, we become ineffective. And that's where we are. I think the greatest problem is fear. I'm convinced God has not given us the spirit of fear, he's given us a sound mind, but he's not given us that spirit of fear, and we need to boldly share what we know in the context that we know. There's no other issue that I know that doesn't that comes up every single day in almost every single context, even coronavirus. The issue is up, elections, the issue is up. We're talking about marriage issues, the issue comes up, and we have the platform. We have the platform. This is something that is for such a time as this. We quote the scripture, but are we aware that uh this issue is part of that in our day?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01God would want to use us, he wants us to join him as he seeks and he saves the lost.
SPEAKER_00And you you mentioned about coronavirus. I mean, it's it's so salutary to think that in in this country um the the coronavirus deaths have peaked at around 800 or 900 deaths in a day, which is pretty much the same number as we lose to abortion every single working day. Um in this country, about 800 every single working day in this country. I know it's something like 3,000 in the in the US.
SPEAKER_013,500, yes.
SPEAKER_003,500 are lost.
SPEAKER_0160 million people. You have nine million, we have sixty million people in less time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Stunning. And and and therefore, when you say that Satan is behind this, it's it's hard to argue when you when you when you think of the statistics. If you were to say that Satan was behind the Holocaust, in which six million were lost, why is it uh shocking to say that Satan is behind this kind of holocaust? Um well over six million.
SPEAKER_01And in the Holocaust, we now look back 60 years and we say the word that we use is not knowledge, the word is action.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01Is the reason for an action. Well, we do know. We do know, and we're uh maybe our hands haven't participated. In fact, that's Old Testament, I believe it's Deuteronomy. Uh, in order to be judgment-free, our hands did not participate, and neither did we assist in this. The early church had one provision for people who would assist for abortion, they were excommunicated because they were assisting in the evil. And we're saying, well, I'm not assisting in that. No, but we're sitting by. And Satan, throughout this whole process, just like we have a process of sharing our faith at the pregnancy center, Satan starts by limiting the gospel being preached, whether it's in our churches or at our pregnancy centers, 90% of which say we can't confuse the issue of pro-life with the gospel. And he's already gotten a foothold. That all we're sharing is everything else, our compassion, but not his word, which speaks and is eternal. The second thing is once a person has decided on abortion, the view is that we condemn when the Christian faith is the only faith that allows people to walk free from sin, and it shows that Glenn and Dean and Sylvia, who have the abortion, are equal, worthy persons made in God's image who sinned. The world doesn't know this, the world can't comprehend this. So the world came up with a word I will tolerate what you do wrong, your inner demons. We don't do that. We say this is sin that is inherent for me and you and everyone else. And this sin has been paid for by Jesus Christ. And just simply preaching that simple gospel in the context of the pregnancy center, I am so excited that God has brought me to this point and has made my life, I believe, useful because I always wanted to share the gospel. And I found something, or something found me, that the gospel is so needed at. And yes, we learn about how to speak to people. We're going to take a training next week and do all the sonograms and all the things that we need to be professional about. But then there's the added feature where God is rescuing people, and that's what we're a part of. It's a rescue mission, just like the pastor's job is a rescue mission. I ask pastors to join us in that, to welcome that. We're not opposing the church, we're with the church. We want to help the church. The 40% in your church that have had an abortion, we want to help those people come to full forgiveness. And we are assisting, but we need to be assisted as well.
SPEAKER_00So we don't want to be if we don't want to be a part of the problem and we do want to be a part of the solution. Let's let's sort of finish with this issue. Um, Dean, you can you can start as as broadly as you like, and then perhaps we can get on to um uh Thursday and uh some of the things that people can can participate with uh on Thursday. But if I'm a Christian, I'm listening in, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, um Dean's right, um, we need to do something. What what can what can regular Christians do about this issue?
SPEAKER_01Well, one of the things that comes to mind immediately is there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So the fact that many people have sat on the sideline means uh means nothing in terms of what the future holds. For me, I sat on the sidelines uh as a bellhop. And then as I learned about this, I was given that light to share. So we need to move from the past, and even Vaughn Roberts talks about that, the present and the future. And then work in the present knowing that there will be a day when there won't be this issue, there won't be sin, and there will be Jesus Christ coming back. And if we truly believe that, and I believe that born-again Christians believe that part of the message, then we are in it's our responsibility to reach out with that message, and we need to ask what is the vehicle, what is one of the vehicles that can be used, and look beyond the political, the social, the guilt, and say, here is a group of people that God has brought to us that we could share our faith with, and it is something that they will listen. People come here, they're already ready to listen because they're already in a crisis, and this crisis is one that's all around them. They don't want to abort, but they don't know that there's another way, they don't know the scripture, and who else will speak? Who will speak up for the little ones and who will speak up to the bigger ones to share the gospel? And if your listeners can do that, put aside the past guilt, put aside the politics, put aside the angry Christianity, put aside that it's not about me, put aside that it's not happening in my church, and say my job is to go into the world. I think this COVID was a wake-up call. We have to have this conversation via this medium, and my church has their service that way. And we're in the world, we're not going back in the building for a while, not here in New Jersey. So I can practice my Christianity by not being in the building, and maybe some other of my brothers and sisters will join us in that.
SPEAKER_00And so uh you were going to be coming uh over to this country and helping with the Center for Bioethical Reform, CBR UK, and uh Brefos is one of its uh spin-off organizations with Dave Brennan. And um on Thursday, there's an opportunity for people to uh join in with a conversation between yourself and myself uh and Vaughn Roberts, who has um uh written this new book uh on abortion. We're also gonna um hear a testimony of a woman who uh had an abortion and has found forgiveness in Christ, and um she's uh really committed to this pro-life cause as well. It'll be a great kind of afternoon um on Thursday. Um can you tell us what people can expect uh on Thursday if they if they want to tune in to this uh online conference?
SPEAKER_01From what I've read in reading his book and speaking to him and writing to him, etc., uh Vaughn Roberts brings the theological, he brings the practical and the theological and brings it to the table for Christians uh from that perspective. What uh the young lady brings is the personal, the finding of forgiveness through Christ. But somebody needed to share that with her, needed to share that, and what hopefully I bring to the table is the experience, not in myself, but in 37 years, more than a third of a century, of thousands upon thousands of people in the same condition that is there in the UK and in America, who have found freedom in Christ, have not aborted or found freedom after an abortion, or who have carried their child to term and have become responsible people in their community, grown up to be leaders. One of the leaders, Tom, came to us as a young man, and now he's the vice president of a company. He has begun a group for uh adoption and for foster care in Pennsylvania from 25 years later. These are the people that are shaping the discussions, the ones that were in the crisis, because God's behind us.
SPEAKER_00So uh we really hope that people will uh tune in. They can go to brefos.org slash events, and brefos is spelt b-re-p-h o s dot org slash events, and they can uh hear from Dean, hear from Vaughan, hear from Laura Mann, uh, this woman who's gonna share her testimony, hear a little bit from me as well. Uh it's gonna be a great event. And uh because we're in this time of lockdown, uh, there's no difficulty with parking, uh no difficulty with transport. Uh you can tune in from uh wherever you are around the world, and you'll hear uh some great uh wisdom. And uh, if Dean has piqued your interest uh in what he said here, uh there's lots more to share on Thursday. So I really do recommend that people uh join us for that. Um Dean, thank you so much uh for joining us uh this afternoon. Um any any final words for us uh here, especially in the UK. Uh we're a little bit behind the church in the US, I think, uh, in terms of waking up to this issue and owning it. Uh any any final charge you want to give to us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I do. I I'm thinking of uh John 17, 18. I'm also thinking of Mark II, where uh Jesus had compassion. We need to have compassion. But John 17 and 18, where uh Jesus said uh where we read, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. And that's the heart of God. That is the heart of God's people or should be, and that can be our motivating factor, that it is not condemnation, but we are bringing reconciliation, we are bringing transformation and not simply a change of behavior. If we can get our minds around that and do what Jesus wants us to do in these last days, we'll do very well.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful, a wonderful message to be 100% uh uh pro-gospel, pro-Jesus and pro-life, uh, and to deal with it as the spiritual issue that it is that has a gospel answer. Um, Dean, you've inspired me, and I'm sure you've inspired uh many people. Thank you so much for your time.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, my brother. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00That was Dean Guevara, executive director of Gateway Pregnancy Centers. And if you want to find out more about his work, you can go to gateway.org. And just this Thursday, the 23rd of April, you can come and listen to more of his story and more of how we can catch the bug, about how we can stand up for the most vulnerable in our society. Go to breathbox.org slash events.org slash events. I'll be there, Warren Roberts will be there, many others will be there whenever you join us. Thanks so much for joining us this time. If you were tuning in wanting to uh hear the adjusting to the new normal podcasts, well they are coming. Trust me, they are coming. Uh, you can watch them already on Facebook. If you go to facebook.com slash speaklifeuk there, you can find our webinars on adjusting to the new normal, or if you go to our YouTube channel, uh if you search for Speak Life Media, that is our channel there, and you can watch those videos. They are soon to become podcasts on this channel. Uh, but we thought we'd keep you up to date with Ding of Ass and all that he was doing, especially because this conference is happening just this week. Coming up soon on uh the Speak Life podcast, I am speaking to Becky Manley Pippett. Yeah, I know Becky Pippett, I know the one from Out of the Soul Shaker. So a best-selling author and evangelist who has hags of experience in sharing her faith all over the world, and she will teach me, and I hope through me, she will teach us so many of us as we think about reaching out with the good news of Jesus. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the Speak Light podcast, and see you next time. Bye bye.