# Has anyone done sidewalk ministry outside of abortion clinics?



## Pergamum (Mar 7, 2015)

Looking for tips and hints how to get started and do this effectively (sidewalk ministry outside of abortion clinics). Looking for legal info as well.


----------



## earl40 (Mar 7, 2015)

Here is a man who does this day in and day out here in Orlando.

Who Will Stand?


----------



## Miss Marple (Mar 7, 2015)

I did for a couple of years. I gave a lot of people the gospel.

I had a sign. One side said: Let us help you keep your baby. The other side said something like: If it's not a baby, what is it? Or something like that.

I had the address and phone of the local crisis pregnancy center ready to go in case anyone ever changed their minds.

Witnessed to:

- those going in. I don't know that I helped to change more than 2-3 minds. However you never know. Just seeing us out there serves as a "warning" to someone who might be tempted to go next month. Many may have turned around rather than walk through us. Many may have just been having a test or something and our presence there influenced them. I tried to get a tract with pro-life info, as well as the gospel, into every hand.

- those driving by. Just seeing us there was a testimony in my opinion.

- those walking by. I gave tracts to everybody

- the clinic workers and volunteers. We were a witness to them. Our behavior was always very good.

I think it is very worthwhile to do, and miss doing it. I hope to return to it someday, Lord willing.

It is funny, how it is. You get a lot of hostility but unexpected support, also. Here comes a proverbial l'il old lady and she gets all venomous as she walks by. Then walks by a punk looking man who says, I am glad you are here.


----------



## Steve Curtis (Mar 7, 2015)

My sister is very involved in sidewalk counseling - and has been for years (in Orlando, too, as a matter of fact, Earl!). Regarding the legal aspect, one Central Florida city banned sidewalk counseling, due to an "anti-loitering" local ordinance. My sister and a couple other affected counselors sued the city, but the District court upheld the ban. Then, they appealed that verdict and won in a federal appeals court.

Here are news accounts of both court decisions, if anyone is interested in that kind of thing:

http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/09/14/44/00267/05-30-2013.pdf

http://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/09/14/44/00306/04-03-2014.pdf

I can PM you with her contact info, if you'd like.


----------



## jwithnell (Mar 7, 2015)

With all the craziness over the years, your best opportunity is to support a local "crisis" pregnancy center. Most would love additional volunteers and counselors. This doesn't sound as glorious, but it is likely the most effective. (I am writing this with an eye toward North America. It's hard to say what you might encounter elsewhere.)

I've seen the whole transition in the efforts to curb abortions. Long ago, I'd go by myself and hang around outside a clinic in Savannah where the guys would often stay outside while their girlfriends went in; they seemed glad to have someone with whom to talk. Later we had an activist who would call the media, break the law, get himself arrested and be "persecuted for his faith." After that, no conservative could get near the place, and even if you could, the women were coached ahead of time about how to avoid you.


----------



## Pergamum (Mar 7, 2015)

I need contacts who know the laws for metro Saint Louis. And even better, someone in Saint Louis who does this who I can learn from.


----------



## Pergamum (Mar 7, 2015)

I am willing both to do outside standing and inside sitting to counsel people. I am just here "passing through" for a little while on furlough until I head back to the field and my main calling is different, but it seems hard to ignore this national sin and seems impossible NOT to do something.


----------



## Steve Curtis (Mar 7, 2015)

jwithnell said:


> no conservative could get near the place, and even if you could, the women were coached ahead of time about how to avoid you



This is unfortunate, to be sure, but that is not the case everywhere, thankfully. There are a number of conservative (and Reformed) folks actively engaged in sidewalk counseling (RC, Jr. is out there with my sister quite often in Orlando, and the man Earl referenced is Reformed) - and there are definitely positive results, with a number of abortion-minded women choosing life as a result of the efforts of sidewalk counselors (not nearly often enough, of course). My sister has walked through the whole journey with several women, whose minds were changed by sidewalk counselors, all the way to the delivery room.

Crisis pregnancy centers are vital (my wife was employed by one when we were Stateside), but the women about to enter an abortion clinic are at the last stage in their decision-making process. Unless someone intervenes at that critical moment and directs them to a crisis pregnancy center (or helps them in some other way to make the right decision), a baby may well die.


----------



## jwithnell (Mar 8, 2015)

OK, I may have over reacted.


----------



## Pergamum (Mar 10, 2015)

This Friday morning, instead of going out on my own, I have found a veteran (and gentle) sidewalk counselor whom I can shadow and learn from Friday morning who not only seeks to deter women from entering the doors of the abortion center, but who redirects them for more intense counseling at the Christian crisis pregnancy center right across the street. I will dress in a tie and bring my ten-year old son with me so as not to look menacing to any young lady approaching to enter the abortion facility (but I imagine women may be better fit for this particular ministry). 

Any advice?


----------



## Edward (Mar 10, 2015)

Pergamum said:


> Any advice?



Have someone a half a block away or so with a camera.


----------



## Miss Marple (Mar 11, 2015)

Good idea to bring your son. Let us know how it goes.


----------



## CalvinistProp (Mar 12, 2015)

I am a board member of a St. Louis organization called Defenders of the Unborn. I manage the websites and social media. This is one of two organizations that does sidewalk ministry at the St. Louis Planned Parenthood Clinic on Forest park Avenue. We are actively recruiting people to become Constant Witnesses. The goal of the ministry is to get more people to be involved in sidewalk ministry and then provide assistance to abortion minded women if they want it. We saved 40 babies last year out of the approximately 6000 they killed last year. There is another organization called Coalition for the Unborn which pays college kids $10 an hour to hold signs but they also have volunteers. 

Become a Constant Witness and Help Save Babies | Defenders of the Unborn | St. Louis, MO

If interested please sign up on that less public site. Thank you and may God bless your ministry.


----------



## Pergamum (Mar 12, 2015)

ok, signing up now. Thanks.


----------



## Pergamum (Mar 30, 2015)

Have been doing sidewalk ministry now for 3 weeks in front of the abortion mill. My kids go, too. Today we talked to 8 people pretty substantially and they all took literature. Only cussed at once, and flipped off once. One woman stayed too long with us and the Planned Parenthood security guard came out to usher her out of my presence, but the woman thanked us. 

I was also encouraged this week by a facebook post showing Pastor RC Sproul in front of an abortion clinic as well.


----------



## Tirian (Apr 5, 2015)

By God's tender mercies, hopefully you have had the opportunity to communicate something of His grace to those "leaving" the facilities post-abortion as well.

Matt


----------



## Pergamum (Apr 5, 2015)

No. They have all driven away without stopping (many of the girls are crying as someone drives them away). They look very sad.


----------



## Tirian (Apr 5, 2015)

May the Lord send a ministering angel to them to speak words of Life, truth and healing.


----------



## zsmcd (Apr 6, 2015)

I know they are controversial but I have a friend who works with Abolish Human Abortion and he got me involved. I've only gone a few times but the clinic I go to is in the bottom floor of an apartment complex. I have been asking people if they live in the building and if they knew that children were being murdered in the clinic underneath them. Many of they know and don't care and claim to be Christians so I have been pleading with them to love their neighbor (literally, next door) and stand against abortion. At first I was skeptical about AHA but after talking to many of the guys I have learned that they are 1. Gospel centered 2. a part of a local fellowship of believers and 3. are genuinely concerned about the churches apathy towards the over 3,500 children made in the image of God being murdered every week in America. The Gospel is the only answer to abortion brother, just go and preach the Gospel with sincerity.


----------



## Pergamum (Apr 9, 2015)

My 7-year old daughter Alethea boldly approached an abortion worker last week and asked her in a very gentle and soft voice, "You don't have to work in a place that does abortions. Why would you want to kill babies?"

When there was only a cold look, Alethea got very dejected and depressed.

This week, we just heard of a new resignation of a worker at that Saint Louis Planned Parenthood and Alethea is hopeful that it may have been this woman, or one of the other women we have talked to about quitting employment at a place that kills babies. Maybe not, but it does give hope to Alethea and shows her that her efforts are not in vain.


----------

