Join me in praying for our time in the word this morning.
Father, thank you.
Our rock and our salvation, who is like the Lord,
who is like the Lord, strong in power,
who is like the Lord, mighty to save.
I thank you, Lord, that you have done all of these things
and made a way for us to come to you.
And I pray that as we come to you in your word,
as we receive the wisdom of your word,
that you would change us,
that you would transform our hearts,
that you would renew our minds,
that we would know your will and your desire for us
as your creation, and that we would learn to live it out
day by day in our regular lives, in our marriages,
in our family, in our community.
We pray, Lord, that you would change us today,
in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
So it all begins with a flash, a flash.
At the moment the sperm enters the egg,
that's kind of a weird way to start a sermon, huh?
I put that right there, like,
what, I'm in the wrong room, wait.
It's the other class I need to be at.
I recognized that in the first service
when I saw faces go, huh, huh?
Let me start my monologue over again.
I always have a way of ruining my own things, but.
At the moment the sperm enters the egg,
it actually triggers a calcium spike.
And this in turn causes the egg to release zinc.
And the zinc binds to small molecules that emit light.
It's extraordinary.
At the moment the sperm enters the egg,
the spark of life.
I've caught it on microscopic film.
Just extraordinary.
At the moment of fertilization, a distinct human organism
comes into being with its own unique DNA,
different from both the father and the mother,
along with 10 to the 30th power of likelihood
that you share it with anyone else.
21 days later, before most women even realize
they are pregnant, a new heart begins to beat.
At five and six weeks, the baby's major organs
like the brain and spinal cord are rapidly developing.
Arms and legs are well defined,
spontaneous movement begins to occur
between weeks eight and 10.
At 16 weeks, all the fundamental skin ridges
that make up their distinct,
individually patterned fingerprint
that we call the
their distinct, individually patterned fingerprint
are developed.
16 weeks, the same free fingerprints
that they will have for the remainder of their life.
By week 20, the baby can hear
and even respond to loud noises or the mother's voice.
Week 23, it is possible with medical assistance
for a premature baby to survive outside the womb.
What a miracle.
What an absolute miracle.
One Sunday, every January, we spend a weekend service
talking about the sanctity of life.
And today is that day, so welcome.
If you weren't planning on it, here we are.
In the book of Jeremiah, we read about Jeremiah's calling
by God to be a prophet to the nation and to the nations
and that he would go on to be God's spokesman or spokesperson.
But even in his calling in Jeremiah chapter one,
we can learn something about the sanctity of life.
If you have your Bibles, you're welcome to join me
in Jeremiah.
We're only gonna be in one verse,
so it'll also be up on the screen
if you don't wanna turn there.
But it reads like this, chapter one of Jeremiah,
beginning in verse five, it says,
I chose you before I formed you in the womb.
I set you apart before you were born.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
I'll read that one more time.
I chose you before I formed you in the womb.
I set you apart before you were born.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Now Jeremiah, he prophesied in a time of great turmoil
in Judah, the people of God had turned away from God's laws.
They had violated God's commands
and they were facing spiritual decay.
It was all around them and they had turned away from God
and then as a result, all of the,
what we might call the curses of the law,
there's blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
All these things were coming upon them
and it was going to ultimately result in exile.
A foreign nation was going to come
and be the instrument of God's judgment against their sin
and was going to lead them off in exile
away from the land that God had given them.
And Jeremiah is called a prophet during this time.
And the calling of Jeremiah we see in this scripture
is a personal calling.
It's initiated by God for a specific purpose
that God had chosen in advance.
Before Jeremiah was even born, God knew him,
God called him, and God set him apart.
The verb formed in Hebrew is Yatzar, Y-A-T-S-A-R, Yatzar.
Y-A-T-S-A-R, Yatzar.
And it's the same word that's used back in Genesis,
chapter two and verse seven,
for God forming Adam from the dust.
It's like an artist or a potter working to bring to life
the pattern that's within his mind.
And so the psalmist in Psalm 139 captures this
in a poetic way when he writes,
for it was you who created my inward parts.
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will praise you because I have been remarkably
and wondrously made.
Your works are wondrous and I know this very well.
My bones were not hidden from you
when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me when I was formless.
All my days were written in your book
and planned before a single one of them began.
God is the active agent in the creation of life.
Say that again, God is the active agent
in the creation of life.
You and I are each uniquely knit together
by the great designer.
And not only are we knit together,
but he foreknows us ahead of time
and he sees our days laid out before him,
written in the book,
planned before a single one of them has even begun.
Now you and I, we live in this post-industrial age, right?
We're really acquainted with the idea of mass production
and assembly lines and cranking out widgets
that all look the same, right?
It could easily be said,
sure, God formed me, God formed me,
but he also formed nine billion other people
who are alive today, along with everyone who has been alive.
And it was more of an impersonal, cold,
industrialized process he used.
And that's why God says to Jeremiah,
not only did I form you, he says I chose you.
And hidden behind the word chose is this Hebrew word,
yada, Y-A-D-A, and yada is not simply choosing.
We're losing something in the translation here.
Other translations will say what it's getting at.
I chose you.
Yada means, it talks about intimacy and relationship.
It has the idea of knowing someone,
knowing of someone.
And the choosing aspect of it that's translated in the CSP
is the idea of knowing you individually.
The intimacy and relationship,
not some cold and personal calling.
It's intimate knowledge
that you are an object of love that he chose.
An object of love that he chose.
God personally cares and intimately knows you.
You were in the mind of God before you were created.
He loved you and desires good for your life, amen?
Amen.
If one of infinite worth has set his affection on you,
what does that say about your worth?
If one of infinite worth has set his affection on you,
what does that say about your worth?
And some of us walk around like God hates us.
Like God wants nothing but trouble and hardship
and bad for us.
And yet scripture tells a very different story
of a God who knows us before we were even created.
That we were in his mind.
That he intimately, in a relationship type way,
knew us, desired to bring us into being,
laid out the life for us.
That he would have us live
as God who was intimately involved.
Does not hate you.
Does not want trouble or hardship or bad for you.
For Jeremiah, God goes on to say,
not only did he form him and chose him,
but he set him apart.
He called him for a purpose.
He exists for a divine purpose
set in motion before he was even born.
You guys know that you have a divine purpose?
And this doesn't mean, oh, you know,
I'm gonna be a great leader or, you know,
I'm gonna be really rich necessarily.
Some of those things come our way
through wise living and wise choices, right?
But do you know what we're all called to?
Know God.
He brought you into being for community,
for communing with him.
God, a being of overflowing love,
more despair, desire to create humanity
so that he might pour that love into us
and have us reflected back to him in our love for him.
We're all called to that.
And so he had you in mind, he foreknew you,
and he desired to bring you into being
so that you might know him
and that you might love him.
And that you might love him.
Every one of us, you can say,
you can look at every single human being
and say, you have a purpose.
You have a purpose.
God has a purpose for you.
While this verse that we looked at
is uniquely addressing Jeremiah and his situation,
I believe that it reveals God's intimate involvement
in foreknowledge, in forming and calling
each and every human being.
We are not the result of random chance,
no matter what your story is.
We are literally bearing the imprint or the image
of a personal loving creator.
Me and my wife, we owned a business for a while,
about a decade down in Bakersfield.
And one of the things you learn
is you best be proud of what you put your name on.
You best be proud of what you put your name on
if you want your business to have any success
or thrive in any way.
And so you're very careful about who you hire
and the products that you sell
because you're gonna put your name on it.
And that means something.
What does it say that the God of creation
stamped his image into all of us?
That we are in mago day, made in the image of God.
It must say something pretty special.
God, in his knowledge and care and purpose for Jeremiah,
it began in the womb before he had done anything.
And I believe from that we can infer a biblical principle,
and that is that human life, even in the womb,
is valuable and known by God.
In Exodus chapter 20, verse 13,
we read a command that most of us are familiar with
from the Ten Commandments, do not murder.
Do not murder.
And murder is the intentional killing
of an innocent human being.
And what does innocent mean?
Well, innocent meaning not guilty of committing any act
that morally justifies their life or killing them.
And there are acts that morally justify someone's death.
The Bible lays it out quite plainly.
But murder is the killing of an innocent human being.
And you might say, okay,
but that only includes those who are already walking around,
those who are already born, not babies in the womb.
And I'll say, just a few chapters later in Exodus,
there's this interesting instruction given in the law.
It says this, when men get in a fight,
do men ever get in a fight?
They do sometimes, right?
The next part's kind of funny though.
When men get in a fight, I'll take that back, it's not funny.
But it's kind of an odd way of phrasing it,
just out of the blue.
When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman,
that's why it's not funny.
That'll get you in trouble, right?
Don't hit pregnant women.
But when men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman
so that her children are born prematurely
but there is no injury, the one who hit her
must be fined as the woman's husband demands from him,
and he must pay according to judicial assignment.
Basically it's saying, if you're in a fight
and you're swinging and you hit a pregnant woman,
but she gives birth prematurely
and the baby is okay, well, you're not off the hook.
You shouldn't have done what you did,
but you do owe a penalty,
a judicial assignment against them.
And that's their law.
Nowadays you go to jail, right?
But it's the second part that's interesting.
It says, if there is an injury,
and based upon the structure of this paragraph,
it's talking about both the woman and the unborn child.
If there is an injury to either the woman or the unborn child,
here is the assessment of God's law.
Then you must give life for life.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot,
burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.
And so the assessment in this scripture applies
both to the woman and the unborn child.
If the child is killed, the one who punched the woman
must pay with their own life, life for life.
The Bible says that that unborn child has the sanctity of life,
the value of life,
and the one who would take that, owes.
God places value on a human life,
regardless of the stage of development that it's in.
The cultural debate that's around us about abortion
often sidesteps core moral and biblical truths
related to the value of life.
It's so easy to get tangled into a number of side arguments
about what about the care of the child after they're born,
or the circumstances surrounding the initial pregnancy,
or the argument that men just wanna control women's bodies.
And these are all arguments that need answers,
but they're not the core fundamental
moral center of the arguments.
They are not.
They are a sidestep.
They are a work around.
As Christians, as those who put our hope and faith in God
and believe His word to be true, we have to respond to it.
And we have to hold a position in our hearts and our minds.
We have to reconcile.
It doesn't mean that it's always easy.
You guys know when you read the scripture,
sometimes it's hard to wrestle with it.
But a God who always agrees with you is no God at all, right?
And so the word of God confronts us head on sometimes,
and we have to wrestle with our own personal thoughts
and feelings about how we're going to respond to it.
As Christians, we are called to speak the truth in love.
And the truth is, God hates abortion.
The truth is, abortion is murder.
The truth is, one who actively initiates
and participates in the commission of an abortion
is a murderer.
So here, to cut through the noise of the argument,
here is the basic argument for life
as it relates to the unborn.
It's broken down in a logical progression,
and it goes like this.
Premise number one.
It is morally wrong to kill an innocent human being.
We have somewhat of agreement in here on that, yeah?
Yeah? Head nod, shake.
Morally, it is morally wrong to kill an innocent human being.
Premise two.
Abortion kills an innocent human being.
Therefore, conclusion, abortion is morally wrong.
Someone wants to sidestep the issue,
but what about, what about?
This clarifies.
It's morally wrong to kill an innocent human being.
Abortion kills an innocent human being.
Abortion is morally wrong.
We can talk about the other issues.
We can get to the other circumstances.
But do we have agreement?
If premise one and premise two are true,
the conclusion follows.
It focuses, it clarifies the argument.
Of a preacher man, it's just a clump of cells.
It's just a clump of cells.
And I say, call it what you will.
You will not be able to do it.
And I say, call it what you will.
You can call it a zygote or a blastocyst
or an embryo or a fetus.
Whatever term you choose to use,
do you even know what you're saying when you use those?
The fascinating thing about the terms
that are thrown around as a sidestep
to not acknowledge the humanity of the baby
is every one of those terms that I just used
that are often spewing out of people's mouths
are simply just developmental states of a human being.
You guys ever heard of an infant,
a toddler, a teenager, and an adult?
Developmental stages of a human being.
Well, so is a zygote.
It's the single cell organism that's formed
when that spark of life happens, that fertilization.
That's a zygote.
A blastocyst, it's an early embryo
about five to 10 days old.
An embryo is 14 days plus from fertilization and a fetus.
Well, that's from the ninth week on to the end of pregnancy.
Developmental stages.
Developmental stages for a human being.
That's all they are.
And many will hide behind these terms,
but these terms themselves betray those who will.
For if it continues infant, toddler, adolescent, teen, adult,
at what developmental stage are we allowed to kill human beings?
Innocent human beings.
And yes, it is a clump of human cells,
just like you.
But at a different stage of development.
Should we kill you?
Because you also are a clump of human cells.
Because you also are a clump of human cells?
No.
The Bible lays out a different plan.
So what about these different circumstances?
Well, I believe as Christians,
we are called to be full of compassion.
We are called to be full of compassion.
We should acknowledge the difficulty
that surrounds many folks in their stories.
So many different stories related to this.
We should weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.
We should come alongside many people
who are going through it right now
and be with them as they walk through the process
of figuring out how they're going to move forward
and what life is like.
This is what believers should do,
but in doing so, we are not allowed to set aside truth.
We are not allowed to set aside.
There is grace and forgiveness for all who want it.
The gospel is so great and such good news
that it extends to every sin, even murder.
Abortion is not unpardonable.
But grace and forgiveness are available
to all who will confess their need for it.
Grace and forgiveness is available to anyone
who will confess their need for grace
and forgiveness, who will call sin what it is
and will trust fully in Christ's saving work.
Those who say, I did it when I was a lot younger
and I made the best choice for myself at that stage of life
are not positioning themselves to receive the grace of God.
Do you see that?
See, they're deflecting from the sin of it
and they're saying, well, I made the best choice
for when I was that age or my life circumstances
and now I'm in a different one
and I can see how that probably wasn't that good.
But the Bible says that thing that was not that good
was murder, the taking of an innocent life,
a life treasured by God, foreknown by God.
And unless our sinfulness weighs down on us,
then we don't understand the depths of the grace and mercy
we can receive in Christ.
It must weigh down on us first
before we can fully appreciate and give thanks.
The one who has sinned much and been forgiven much
loves much.
And it does us no good to deflect and sidestep.
Our brother, the apostle Paul, abused, murdered,
endorsed the murder of believers,
those who had put their faith in Christ
before he was converted.
Grace of God was enough for even him.
The grace of God extends to any and every sin.
And is available to those who will confess their need of it.
Those who are not grieved by their sin with a holy grief
at the offense that they've committed against God
for disobeying his law,
for not living according to his way,
those who will not be grieved
by the sin of their sin
at the offense of their sin,
those who are not grieved
are not in a position to have the grace and forgiveness
applied to them,
though the invitation is extended to all the cross,
the extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ
is for the whole world.
It is powerful enough to cover the sins
of all of humanity, past, and present, and future.
The extent of the atonement is only available
to those who will repent and believe.
And therein lies the difference.
When we want to extend grace and mercy,
it's through the door of repentance and faith.
It's not by saying, no, no problem.
It's not that big of a deal,
or that was a different time.
It's again, we fall into that trap of thinking,
time erases sin.
If time erases sin,
well then we all have a hope of saving ourselves, right?
Just outlast our sin and hope we don't die before
enough time has elapsed.
But time does not erase sin.
The only thing that erases sin is the atonement of Christ.
And the only way the atonement of Christ
is applied to a person is through repentance and faith,
putting their hope in Christ.
And so when we go to minister to folks
who have struggled with this or dealt with this
in the past and in their life,
it is not loving to say, it's all right,
but to say, you know what?
Well call it what it is.
But the cross is big enough.
The atonement is big enough.
And it can cover the most heinous of sins.
And we all have all sinned in some way.
And all of our sin, whether great or small,
deserves hell, separation from God.
And yet the blood of Christ is sufficient
to cover for all who will come.
There is value for every person.
God so loved a world of his image bearing creation
that in Christ he took on a human body.
And here's what blows my mind
about the incarnation of Christ.
He took on a human body and that,
sometimes our image can immediately blast forward
to the latest episode of The Chosen we watched, right?
We watched The Chosen and we see that beautiful Jesus
walking around with his nice hair,
walking the countryside and we're like,
wow, there's Jesus right there, man's man,
or whatever, or beautiful man.
But here's the amazing part of the incarnation,
is that he experienced humanity
from conception to death.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit,
that's what our creeds tell us,
conceived by the Holy Spirit, right?
That's what the New Testament tells us is
the Holy Spirit was the active agent in his birth,
conceived by the Holy Spirit.
But in the womb of Mary, the spark of life,
and Jesus' experience from conception all the way to birth,
he experienced every stage of development in that process
and then all of the stages of development into adulthood
and then he experienced the grave.
And the only thing he's experienced
that we've never experienced is the resurrection
that we all hope for in the future.
The new body, the glorified body,
and the new heavens and earth with the Lord forever.
But he's experienced it all.
In fact, there's a story, a pretty neat story of,
who was the first one to acknowledge
the specialness of Christ in the womb, right?
The first one to acknowledge the specialness
of this Messiah who was born to Mary
was John the Baptist, who was in Elizabeth's womb.
It said he left for joy when Mary entered the house.
A preborn baby left for joy,
acknowledging that he was in the presence of the Messiah
one door over in Mary's womb.
That's extraordinary.
He developed, he experienced all the developmental stages
with his earthly mom, Mary.
And this highlights God's high view of human life
from conception to the grave.
As a congregation, as village,
we must see the unborn as God sees them.
We must be a voice for those who cannot voice
their situation.
We must be unapologetically about life
from conception to the grave.
But we also must be people of grace and forgiveness
who extend the love of Jesus and tell them
the cross is big enough, he saved me,
he can save you from anything
if you express your need for his salvation.
And in our particular context, our day and age,
our society, our culture,
with this issue being such a forefront,
we have to take concrete actions
to support the cause of life.
Fascinating, you guys know who Elon Musk is?
He's kinda in the news a lot right now.
Elon Musk is a pretty consistent,
he's consistently sounding the alarm
on the plummeting birth rates in America,
worldwide, but America specifically,
that our birth rates currently stand right on the edge
where if we drop any lower,
we will not have enough children born each year
to compensate for those who pass away or die,
and that we'll begin to see population decline
among at least those who are currently in America.
And that this is a worldwide phenomena,
some areas definitely are seeing positive birth rates,
but a lot of places have seen a plummeting birth rate,
and he sees it as an existential threat to humanity.
And I think he's got something, the data seems to show that,
but in this particular context,
I've got an idea for at least step one
of the process of reversing that trend.
My idea is we stop murdering one million babies a year,
and we let them live first,
and we come and we support the moms
and we support those children,
and we make sure that we're not killing them,
and we support those children,
and we make sure that they are raised
to know and love Jesus Christ,
and we fill the world with the glory of God through them.
That's at least the first step,
anyone on board with that idea, yeah?
Let's start there.
And one of the ways that we as a congregation,
as a ministry, take concrete action
is through an organization called
Alternatives Pregnancy Center,
maybe some of you have heard of it.
Alternatives Pregnancy Center is a gospel-centered
alternative to abortion.
It's a great facility run by some great folks
just off of Folsom down the way, Folsom Boulevard.
They provide free care to those who choose to not abort,
but instead have their babies,
and it's all that list of care right there,
but in addition to that,
for the grace and forgiveness side of it,
they also offer post-abortive care
for those who have had an abortion
and need to hear the truth of the gospel,
to have a place to heal from the effects of sin
in their life, and to receive the life-giving support
that they need into the future.
They care for them whether they choose
not to have an abortion or whether they just came
from the doctor having had an abortion.
They will receive them and care for them
and offer all kinds of services.
And we've partnered with them now for over a year
and a half, I think, or so.
We've partnered with them.
We regularly give to them on a monthly basis,
committed to give as a part of our culture initiative
to bring the gospel to the culture.
But each year on Life Sunday,
we also do a baby bottle drive.
And today is that day, and so as you leave today,
someone will be standing out front
with a basket full of baby bottles.
And all we're asking is for you or you and your family
or a couple of you to grab, you know,
if you want multiple in your family,
you're gonna put one in each car,
whatever you wanna do, grab a couple baby bottles.
And all we're asking is for the next few weeks,
fill it up with money.
Fill it up with money.
Fill it up with cash, coins, a check, whatever you want.
Talk to people that you know who might wanna give toward it
and fill it up with money because we're gonna gather
that all together in a couple of weeks.
Do we have the dates on that?
Throw that other slide up.
There it is.
On February 9th, we're asking everyone
to bring those bottles back,
and we're gonna get all that money together.
We'll announce how much we're gonna go
and give to Alternatives Pregnancy Center
to help support them for another year,
offering this Gospel Center ministry.
So make sure to grab a baby bottle.
We want to do, I think last year we gave $800,
but I think we're in a better position
to do a lot more than that.
And so it'd be awesome if we could double that.
Let's double that 800.
Let's give $1600 to Alternatives Pregnancy Center,
along with what we've given every month.
That would just be an awesome goal
and an awesome way for us to say,
hey, this is one small way
that we're gonna get behind life,
and we're gonna say life matters.
And every one of those dollars goes
to partnering with Alternatives to Care for Young Women,
just like this one in the video we're gonna watch now.
I did, I felt like having a child would stop me
from being able to complete my goals and my dreams.
So when I did find out I was pregnant,
it was, I was devastated.
When I first felt like abortion was the answer,
I was laying in my bed, I was crying under the blanket.
I was crying, I was crying, I was crying,
I was crying under the blanket.
Something just deep down inside told me I can't do it.
The backlash that I would have got just for having a child.
I've never had that real support system.
I was considering getting rid of a blessing
behind other people's thoughts
and other people's emotions
of how other people would feel.
When I first walked into APC,
my first thought was, this is cute.
I like the set up, I thought everything on the walls is cute.
The little ball, how the chairs and everything were,
to me, it was all cute.
It was warm, it was comfortable.
It didn't feel like a pregnancy office.
When I did go back and I talked to Katie,
she truly, truly showed me what an abortion was
and the process and how it is.
That really, I'd say, was an eye-opener for me
because when I went to Planned Parenthood,
I didn't know what an abortion,
I knew what an abortion was,
but I didn't know how it was going to happen.
I didn't know, let alone how far along I was,
I just knew I was pregnant.
While we were in the room talking,
I remember telling her, I think I'm only a couple weeks.
It couldn't be that much.
We were expecting to see a little peanut or something,
something small,
but when we got in the room and we looked on the screen,
it was a peanut, but it had little arms and little legs
and you could see the little bony fingers
and everything, like my baby was there,
my baby was developed, my baby was happy,
it was moving, it was like jumping around,
it was spinning, it was the whole thing.
And then on top of, I was further along
than what anybody expected.
It broke me, it did.
I started crying.
I couldn't believe that this is what I was considering doing
to my child less than 30 minutes ago.
When I first found out I was pregnant
and I went to the ultrasound,
APC was my support system.
Like I said, you guys really showed me the blessings
that were in front of me.
I feel like that's what APC really did,
was really showed me how much of a blessing that it was.
One, to have the people around me
and then for my baby to be so happy and healthy.
Yeah, you guys showed me that I could have a relationship with God.
You guys made me not only feel comfortable talking to Him
when you guys asked me to pray,
but the way you guys were praying
and how you prayed for me,
I just felt like even in that moment,
a weight was being lifted off my shoulders.
I did, I felt like having a child would stop me
from being able to complete my goals and my dreams.
But now I feel like having a child
is what's actually motivating me
to complete my goals and my dreams.
That's just one of countless stories that you can hear
or check out on Alternatives website.
Far more to minister to,
and hopefully through our bottle drive
and other churches who do the same thing,
we can make sure that that ministry continues
and be a part of it.
They love to have folks come over and visit.
They do a tour ever so often that you can sign up for
and they'll walk you through and show you the whole place
and talk about what they do there.
She talked about it at the beginning of the video
about loving the decor and the place
and how it made her feel.
If you like pink, you're going to love it there.
Because there's a lot of pink.
A lot of pink.
But it's perfect and it is very warming.
It feels like they were prepared, very hospitable.
They prepared for you and we're welcoming you there.
And so great place to stop by.
We'll do the bottle drive.
If you want to go further with your support to them
beyond the bottle drive, they do have,
you can go to our website and I believe there
on one of the tabs you can see are the ministry
that we support there at Alternatives.
You can give to an Amazon wish list that they have
for supplies for the babies.
So like diapers and blankets and other things that they give.
We can also, if someone's heart has moved and you're like,
I want to do more here at the church for them,
we can plan a, they call it like a baby shower.
And you do a baby shower for one of the moms.
The mom won't be here, but we throw the baby shower
and we get all the gifts together and we bundle them all up
and we take them over for that mom.
And so we can plan those out too.
If someone wants to spearhead that,
we would love to have, do more things
for Alternatives Pregnancy Center than just this.
But this is a start.
Take a bottle on your way out.
I'm gonna invite the worship team to come up.
They're gonna lead us in a song
and then we're gonna receive communion
and then go out with our benediction in just a little bit.