Abortion is usually argued like a courtroom case or a campaign issue. We take a different route: a real story, a practical framework, and a challenge to build the kind of support that actually changes decisions and futures.
I’m joined by Roland C. Warren, author of Alternative to Abortion: Why We Must Be Pro-Abundant Life and President and CEO at CareNet, to talk about what happens when an unplanned pregnancy collides with fear, ambition, and uncertainty, and what it looks like to respond with faith and responsibility instead of panic.
Roland shares the pivotal moment that shaped everything: he and his girlfriend were undergrads at Princeton when a nurse assumed “of course you’re going to have an abortion.” They chose life, got married young, and watched God turn what felt disruptive into a foundation for family and calling. From there, Roland explains his “pro-abundant life” perspective rooted in John 10:10, including the connection between bios (physical life) and zoe (spiritual life). That shift reframes the goal from “win an argument” to “build the conditions for a family to flourish.”
We also get concrete about strategy: why fathers are often the most influential factor in abortion decisions, how pregnancy centers can welcome and equip men, and what CareNet does through a hotline, a national network of affiliates, and mobile ultrasound units. We talk about the rise of the abortion pill, why women need real medical care and real community, and why the local church is designed to provide “life support” through discipleship, mentoring, and loving relationships.
If you care about women, babies, fathers, and a better way to talk about the abortion issue without reducing people to politics, this conversation will stretch you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
To connect with, work with, or purchase any of Roland C. Warren’s books, visit care-net.org
If you represent or work with a church and want to learn more about the training and resources discussed in the show, visit makinglifedisciples.com
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Warsham, will interview elite experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Warsham.
Hey my bringers, it’s a very host and welcome to at least out of real purpose. And today is Roland Warren. He is the author of the book Alternative to Abortion, Why Women of the Pro-Appendant Life. And as a non-denominational Christian, this comes near and dear to my heart. For those listening, you know that I am been a woman of faith for a big part of my life. Ever since I was a child, I was raised Catholic. So I’ve known these topics since I was a little girl. But I always know there’s a story behind the book, behind the mission. And when people are as passionate as Roman seems to be about this mission, about being pro-life, then I know there’s a story behind the man because God does not bring us into these missions just because.
I think he was a surgeon general at the time, and then theologian uh Francis Schaefer, and then uh another theologian named Harold O. J. Brown, uh Billy Graham was involved. Even Jesse Jackson was involved before he uh decided to run for president and actually became pro-choice. But you know, it’s it’s really been focused on focused on that. So God called me from the business world where I spent about half of my career uh to uh to do to do this work, and a lot of it, I mean, just in terms of sort of the theme of your uh of your podcast, I mean, it is tied uh in some ways to you know an experience I had um when I was in college, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I was an undergrad at Princeton, and um, and I talk about a lot of this in the book, but uh you know, I we we got pregnant, and I was a junior, she was a sophomore, uh, and uh she went to student health services to get the pregnancy test, and the nurse administers the test and now says well the test is positive and just assumes that the news is negative. Uh and uh of course you’re gonna have an abortion. And my girlfriend, uh not my wife for 44 years, so give you a punchline early. I says, No, I don’t want to have an abortion, I want to have my baby. Um, and so uh, you know, uh the nurse says, Well, what year are you? She says, I’m a sophomore. My gosh, what do you want to do when you graduate? Well, I want to become a doctor. And uh the nurse says, My gosh, how are you gonna graduate from Princeton with a baby? Uh, you know, become a doctor with a baby seems like abortion is the right choice. Well, anyway, then she came back to the dorm room, we talked about it, and and uh we just said we’re gonna move forward with the plan. So we got married. So I was uh 20, she was 19, and got married by just another piece in in Princeton with a couple of students uh president, and you kind of started our life together, and uh she gave birth to our sir our first son and had the opportunity to have him there at my graduation when I graduated at at Princeton and then um and then she uh continued and um actually graduated with our second son, which she had a couple of weeks before her her thesis was due. So she graduated from Princeton with with two babies, not with one. Uh, and so um, you know, I I think you know, looking back on that, you know, I went into the business world and and and and started you know my career that way. Uh, but looking back on that, like seeing how God’s hand was in the midst of all of that and the choice that we made, because she did graduate from Princeton and then she went on to uh to go to medical school and became a doctor and has been practicing medicine almost 30 years. So I saw that you know, sort of hopeful um picture, you know, of what can happen um when there is an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective, and you take that and you put that in God’s hand and you follow certain principles. So that started to be kind of like I didn’t even know it at the time. I mean, I didn’t I didn’t think I’d ever be, you know, working for uh Karenet as a ministry, but um God, you know, he doesn’t waste anything. So he used all that, I think, in a lot of ways to help me have a vision for how you should be looking at the life issue. Uh, that’s a bit different from how I think it’s presented in the public square and how a lot of folks, even Christians, uh, are looking at the life issue, and that kind of started me down a path uh with that whole story and and and narrative uh which kind of shaped a lot of how I kind of view things.
You know, it doesn’t surprise me, and I’m so grateful that you are sharing this personal side of the story, which I know you shared in the book, but it’s important for people to hear what pivotal moments were the opportunity for you to view it from a different lens, from big lens. And because you’re young and you have your life ahead of you, and you’re thinking, if I have a child now is that disruptive, right? Which of course are are questions that everybody has, they’re fair questions, but I live the life now, right? And so I know I want to have a child, and I know I can do this because with not everything that’s possible. When we do this impossible amount in this scale, for him, it’s no big deal. And when we ask him for help to guide us in these pivotal moments, that is really an opportunity for us to shift the direction of our life in a very positive way. Um, with comment guiding us, I think is what most people miss. They they get caught up in the relatives and the fear. And I would imagine that both of you had your own sort of fear. Can you just kind of describe some of that fear so that it could be relatable to those that will want to get a copy of your book?
Yeah, you know, I think like with, you know, you know, as you were you were saying, what you were saying, I was reminded of something I read years ago, which was, you know, all noble things are difficult. I mean, if you’re gonna do something that’s noble, right, there’s gonna be some difficulty there there. I ignorable things are not all that difficult for most people, but noble things are always gonna be some some challenges. And so, you know, when God presents these opportunities uh where uh you know we face difficulties, it’s how he it’s how he uses you know these experiences to help us grow and to be more like him. You know, like so you’re like you’re most like God when you’re compassionate for the vulnerable. And so um, you know, I think about you know this situation, my wife, and the response there. I mean, you know, the most vulnerable place that any of us have ever been is in the womb of our mother. I mean, it’s a place of universal vulnerability. That’s why Christ came in the womb, right? To be as we and yet without sin. In other words, he shared all the vulnerability that he died on a cross, which again is another vulnerable um uh moment, arms open, vulnerable, that kind of thing. So I think that uh it’s definitely a you know a situation where you know God doesn’t waste any of that. I mean, he’s always using these things, you know, for our good and for his glory. It doesn’t violate his word that all things fall to the good of those who love the Lord and call according to his purpose, it doesn’t violate that. And so I think when you’re in those kinds of moments, uh certainly from a Christian perspective, it’s hard to have that clarity at times, right? But when you have that clarity and say, Well, wait a minute, instead of like, okay, why am I going through this circumstance? The better question to ask is, how is God trying to use this circumstance to help me uh be more like him, right? To be more like Christ. And and uh you see that Christ went through difficulty, pain, all that kind of stuff. And it, you know, that was part of the the message there there for us. But but yeah, so I I think that that’s you know a key thing. And then again, he he also uses these things to give you a different you know, a different perspective on on on issues and on life and circumstances.
And so, I mean I didn’t know this at the time because it took me maybe it was like twenty-something years before I ever came to Kernet, but you know, it was it was this it started to plant the seeds of a perspective that I have, which is you know, I tell people I’m not a pro-life person, I’m pro-abundant life. Um, I’m pro-abundant life. And people are like, Oh, what’s that? Like, what’s what and because you know you’re getting a conversation, which often becomes a debate and sometimes an argument and whatever, a screaming match, and somebody says, Well, I’m pro-life, I’m pro-choice. You know, you know, if you say, Well, I’m pro-abundant life, they’re probably gonna say, Well, what do you mean by that? Um, and and so you can walk them through that process, but it’s really based on you know, John 10 10 in the Bible where where um Christ says that came that you might have life and have that life abundantly. Right. And so um when you look at that, you unpack that in the like the language that it’s kind of scriptures written in that context, which in the Greek, you know, he’s talking about two types of life. He’s talking about physical life, uh, which is which is where we get the word be comes from the word bias, bios, right? Like where we get the word biology, it comes through that same thing, physical life, and then he’s also talking about Zoe, which is a new unique type of spiritual life that only comes from a relationship with God. So he’s basically saying I can’t link your BIOS to my Zoe, then you might be heartbeats that are heaven-bound. So he’s linking those two things together, it’s the fullness of life. And so um when I started, when God kind of downloaded that perspective into my head, I said, My gosh, and I started looking at the the life issue, I looked, I realized, you know, Jesus isn’t wasn’t pro-life, he was pro-abundant life. How do you know? Because he said he was. I can’t do my life and have that life abundantly. And then I started looking at the ministry work and the way the issue is framed in the public square, and I realized, wait a minute, is that actually what we’re solving, solving for? Are we solving for this this fullness of life that’s respect that’s reflected in John 1010? And my view is actually that we’re not. That’s number one. And number two, you know, there’s a central question when you deal with the abortion issue, and and for me, I always frame it this way, like if a woman came to you and she was facing an unplanned pregnancy, and you could change everything except the fact that she’s pregnant, what would you want for her? What should you want for her? And as a Christian, what should you want for her? Now you say, Well, okay, well, I wanted to have the baby. Is that it? That’s it. So be a single mother raising a baby. I mean, I mean, is that all you want you want? I mean, you can change everything. So, okay, well, uh, well, she didn’t get pregnant by herself, where’s the guy? You know, what do you want for him? Well, he’s not a great guy, but you can change that. Like you can change everything. And as you click through, you say, Okay, I wanted to have the baby. Okay, I want the guy to be involved. Okay, ideally, I want that guy to be the husband to her and a father to the child growing inside of her. Okay, check, check. Anything else? Well, you’re a Christian. Well, I’d like that child to be raised, you know, to be a follower of Christ, you know, in the fear of an ad and admonition of the Lord. Scripture talks about like in that context. Okay, so I want them to be a Christ-following family. Anything else? Well, I’d love that family to be connected to a local church so they can be disciples who make disciples who live and love like Jesus. So when I looked at that and answered that central question, I said, okay, when you look at what’s been happening around this issue, does it answer that? Like if you overturn role, does that give you that answer? It doesn’t give you the answer, right? So if you have a strategy, it’s just about helping women and saving babies. Does that give you that? No. You know, so to get that full answer, you have to have a pro-abundant life perspective. And to put a finer point of it, in Isaiah 7.14, where where uh you know it says that that uh uh that the that a virgin will conceive and bear a child, right? So that’s God’s word, he won’t violate it. And then he comes to Mary, and Mary is facing an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective, much like my wife, who we’re getting pregnant, but the circumstances and the consequences were very much the same. Hopes for her life, dreams for her life that did not include a child at this time and in this way. Hopes and dreams for her life with Joseph did not include a child at this time and in this way, and he’s locked into his word. He says, Well, I can change everything in her circumstance except the fact that she’s pregnant. And what does he do? He doesn’t give her a baby daddy with a check or a social worker, he was a husband for her and a father for the child growing inside of her, that they could what be a couple who lives in love like the child she’s carrying inside of her. So when God was faced with the central question, what did he do? He built a family, a disciple-making family to what in to protect the Christ child. So that set me down on a path where I said, wait a minute, then this work has got to be focused on building strong families. Yes, not just on helping women and saving babies, which means you have to be focused on the guy and you have to pursue him in the same way that God pursued Joseph. He sent an angel to Joseph, sent an angel to Mary. Like Joseph didn’t get a smurf or a gnome or some other, he got an angel too. They each got called in their humanity in the role that they should play in God’s design uh for family. So when I put all that together, I said, okay, wait a minute. So this pro-abundant
life perspective, like if you look at it as a like kind of a roof on the house, it’s just pro-abundant life, there are pillars that how that bring that heavenly reality to earth. And what I first is God’s design for family. God’s design for family. Uh, and and and you know, when you look at the abortion issue, 83% of the women that have abortions aren’t married. So you see in the birth of Christ, not just the sanctity of life, but you see the sanctity to marriage and family first, because that’s the first thing the angel told Joseph was do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, affirming the sanctity to marriage and family before he even told them who Jesus was. So I saw that missing piece in how people were framing this, and then I go back to my own situation with my wife, and I, you know, God called me to tap into my inner Joseph and called her to tap into her inner Mary to become a disciple-making family. And when that happens for a woman, she has that kind of connection. Guess what? She’s less likely to abort. That’s why 87% of the women that have abortions are unmarried. So it just caused me to change all the stuff that we were doing here in the context of really making sure at the network of pregnancy centers and the church partners that we work with that we are engaging men, helping them to the best of our ability, be husbands and fathers, because when you have that mechanism, it actually reduces abortion. Why? Because the woman has the support that she needs. Um, because life decisions need life support. And the most durable support any woman can have is a guy better pregnancy. And I’ll be a husband to you and a father to the child growing inside of you.
I love this concept. I cannot tell you how much I love it. I love it because it is going into the whole covenant, into the whole design of marriage. It’s going into his design. I mean, it’s very, I was thinking, you know, Christ came to, Jesus came to throw everything upside down and he came to earth, right? Like he came to all of it around. Everybody that was doing by the rules, you know, back in the day. This is how my mind works a little bit, so bear with me. And it’s part of the same concept here is that he came to you because of your circumstance years before, because you were in the business world before he said, Hey, you need to step out of here and start doing this and look at your life, and this is why, because you’re going to be experienced this yourself. And then you can bring this perspective into this ministry and write this book, and really start discussing the probe and the life concept that is, I think, a much better solution than the one you’ve seen in what I call the following model. Because it is, they have, they make it political, they make it religious. And this is the point that I think turns people off instead of invading conversation about this, around listening what he engaged and how he came into the world, and looking at the unred mother, you know, because we don’t introduce concepts like that. So I’m really curious if you want to for you to expand further on the ministry and how you do help the men come around. Let’s just say yes, you can discuss that more. I’d really, I’m very curious about it.
Yeah, yeah, you know, and I guess it it that kind of goes back to a little bit of a personal story in terms of that, because you know, I um before I came to Kirna, I was president of an organization called National Fatherhood Initiative. Uh, that was the first or you know, I was working for a you know an investment banking firm called Goldman Sachs, which some people may have heard of. But um, so I was there and got called me from Goldman Sachs to the National Fatherhood Initiative. And, you know, and that you know was a call that was really very much connected to um, you know, a an issue that I faced. I grew up without a father uh in my father uh in my life on a daily basis. My mother got pregnant the first time when she was 16, 17. And you know, by the time she was 23, had four kids under the age of aid, my father was gone uh for uh on a day-to-day basis in our house. So I knew that experience, and you know,
I’d seen uh uh you know tangentially how that had impacted my life, but um you know, God called me to that work and really kind of put me on the couch for about 12 years to kind of deal with my father’s absence issues and you know, I’d become a father very early in life as well. Um and so when I came to CareNet, um I brought that that perspective there that you know there’s a there’s a role for fathers, you know, they’re just not nice to have around or superfluous. I mean, they’re essential to the well-being of children. But in the social science research, you’ll see that the kids that grow up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers do better across every psychological, social, economic, and educational measurement of child well-being. It’s the curve when you control for that, control for race or any of the other things, the biggest determinant of all kinds of things is uh the involvement, you know, of fathers, and obviously that support for moms helps, you know, stabilize the family in a way that it’s for much more difficult if you’re a single mom. And I grew up in that environment, so I know how difficult it is that is for mothers and children. I lived it. So, you know, that perspective I you know I brought here, and then it was disconnected from the life issue, which is about women and children, women and babies. And again, as I kind of said, I mean Joseph was central to that picture. And and again, it it’s it’s symbolic in this sense that you know, if there’s any child that was would be well equipped to grow up without an earthly father, it was Jesus. You know, and it’s it’s certainly not that that you know that God couldn’t protect Mary with a with a from a bunch of guys with stones that wanted to stone her because she was a single mother. I mean, come on, he can do immaculate conception, but he can’t do that. I mean, of course he could. But there’s a reason for that because there’s a high idea for his design. And so he brought Jesus into the world in a way that accomplished his purpose to bring a savior into the world without violating his principle, his design. So he found this perfect construct where Mary and Joseph were in a real a marriage that had not been consummated. That’s why he was going to divorce her quietly. And Jesus comes into this construct so that what was written in Isaiah, that this virgin would conceive in there. Well, she did, but she was a married virgin, if you will, which is how that happened, right? It was a perfect construct that accomplished his purpose without violating his principle. So I thought that was incredibly important that God, in his design, sent an angel to Joseph and called him specifically, and I felt like in this movement, in the Pro-life movement, there wasn’t that intentionality around that. And then when you start looking at the data, um, it’s so it, you know, it it shows that even like to not do that is just so short-sighted, and frankly, it’s not even effective. We surveyed a bunch of women who had abortions and asked them who were the most who was the most influential in their decision to abort. And we gave them a long list, you know, their best friend, their mother, this, planned parenthood, all that. Number one person who’s the most influential in her decision to abort was the guy who got her pregnant. Number one. Number one. And then we surveyed the guys who guys who were post-abortive and had participated in abortion, and we asked them who was the most influential in, you know, the woman who got pregnant who had the abortion decision to abort. Guess who they said? He was. So the guys are saying, I’m the most influential, and the women are saying he’s the most influential, but you build an entire movement that excludes him from that equation. So that’s really what we started building into the ministry, very practical ways to start engaging fathers. And the first thing is you welcome the father. Like when you when the woman calls in um that wants to come uh for the services that are provided through the pregnancy centers, you say, We’d love you to bring the father, we’d love you to bring the guy. And the reason that’s so powerful is that once you do that, like a lot of times women are in that in that situation there, it’s already you already have a sense of rejection anyway, to some degree, because you’re you’re in a very vulnerable state. So it might be powerful. You say, I want you to come with me, but if you go to them and say, Hey, they want you to come, it changes the dynamic. And then once he comes, then we have uh in so many of our affiliates, we have um guys who are there um as as client advocates to work with the men. So while we’re working with her and providing her the support and everything, the guys are working with him, uh, trying to help him tap into his inner Joseph, and then we get them in to see the ultrasound so they can see the life growing inside of her, and men are very visual. Like when a woman becomes pregnant, everything changes. She knows she’s pregnant, her body changes, everything changes. But for the guy, nothing changes. So when he sees that life on that screen, then all of a sudden he can’t say, Hey, I don’t I don’t want to be a father. I want to be you already are a father. The question is, what kind of father are you going to be? You’re going to be one that with a living child that you help, you know, bring into the world and support, or you’re going to be a father with a dead child that you help kill. So we started that process, and then we have the practical skills uh that we try to develop in them. Like I’ll give you another kind of neat story. So one of the resources we have in our pregnancy centers, and you can actually use this if you’re not uh connected to Karen because it’s a resource that I’m that you can find online, but Dr. Dad, and it’s a resource uh for fathers of infants and toddlers, um, focuses on the well child, the sick child, the safe child, and the injured child to help fathers develop those skills early on uh to basically support their children and the mothers of their children. Um it’s just an amazing uh resource, and we have dads go through that, which really helps them prepare so they can start. Because fatherhood for men starts in the mind. Like you start that kind of a thing, it gives them the practical things to do. And the irony of all that is that my wife, who’s a physician, actually wrote Doctor Dad. So God used that experience and then her her role as a doctor to um to write doctor to write this Dr. Dad uh uh resource. Now because she said, My gosh, you know, when when she sees moms for well child visits and stuff, you know, um they generally don’t even talk, they generally weren’t trained to really even talk to the father. And she realized that that was a a big miss. And you know, again, if when the more engaged he is and supportive he is, the easier it is for the mom, the better it is for the kids. And so it’s again, it’s a family-centric way of doing that. So so we just and there’s other stuff that we do, but you know, just in the interest of time, but that’s one of the key uh resources. So to basically to make a practical give him practical skills so
that he can start preparing to be a father uh in the way that she’s preparing to be a mother. And there generally aren’t things that a lot of things out there to help guys prepare to be dads. There’s way more stuff, like you know, what before you, you know, what’s expect what you’re expecting? Yeah, you know, I I used to when I worked for National Father Initiative, I used to always kind of tell this joke that you know, um, the father and mother, they’re going into like the parenting super center, right? And so they have a they have the he has his cart, she has his cart, and she goes in and people just start putting stuff in her basket. Just all kinds of stuff, all kinds of resources and this, and all kinds of stuff. And he’s just tooling along, he gets to the end, he’s got nothing in his basket, and they just hand him the check. You know, I mean it’s it’s really we don’t do a whole lot to prepare men to be fathers, and then we’re surprised when they aren’t the kind of fathers that we haven’t prepared them to be, right? So, so um we’ve really felt that you know our ministry is ground zero for that, and that’s my own kind of personal experience from coming through that, growing up without a dad, working through that ministry platform and national fatherhood initiative, and then bringing that to CareNet, which is the first pillar of a pro-abundant life perspective, is God’s design for family, which is in the first chapter, the first book of the New Testament. And that’s how we bring that sort of heavenly reality to life. How do you get that abundant life? Well, God’s created an institution, which is the family, a father and mother united in marriage, loving each other, loving their child, and loving God, which is designed to have that abundant life that Christ wants uh manifests itself in families and obviously in the lives of kids.
I’m getting emotional, as women tend to do, uh, because this is something that is very near to my heart.
The God-centered marriage, the design. The I find this timing is really interesting. I always love how he sends me people on the podcast at just the precise moment he needs to send me a message, right? The importance of the design of marriage and the way to marry. You’re right, they often miss the guy. The way it’s kind of put into the side, even um as we’re pregnant, at times we are always too busy. And sometimes the guys don’t even make time, even when they’re married to the boys, you know. But the more involved they are, the more hands-on they become. And kind of guided their their journey into college, and this is in Louisiana. And so, and his relationship with this to Edison was fine, and there’s reasons for that, right? But I find there’s a good redemption that works, you know, especially when you start talking to him more and you allow him to transform your heart and transform the way you view situations. I looked at what he did with you, because despite you not having an adult father, the redemption piece came when you had that choice and made the choice to stay and marry and raise your boys, raise your children.
Um that’s the piece that you see is hint when you reflect and have to write a book.
And you’re thinking of these things because plenty of journey through our life. We don’t see it in the moment, we see it when we reflect, and we are thinking about how we’re gonna put this book together to what makes sense, right? And very cool for you to read a book and talk about the pro-bund life, which I hope takes like it just spreads, like, in the beginning, like it needs to spread because the world has taken such extreme views on these on these topics, and that’s why we’re so lost, and we can’t even compromise with each other. We can’t even see eye to eye on these issues because we’re seeing such extreme views when in reality the answer has been right in front of us the whole time. You know, like the book, the scripture, we always tell people, how do I tune into the wisdom within me? Am I get into his book? A lot of these answers are in there because as you read his word, he is the one that comes in and gives you the ice to spiritually see that you need to see in that circumstance you’re currently facing. He’s the only one that can do that through with your reading and how you’re turning to him. Because I imagine your wife in that moment where she found herself to be pregnant, turned to him, and you turned to him for guidance. Right?
And when he came in, and that’s why we see this story unfolding in the way it has. And I know that you said it’s Care Now, is that what it’s called?
Kernet. Cairnet. It’s in Virginia. Okay. Yeah, so we’re headquartered in Virginia, not very far from Dulles Airport and a kind of suburban community called uh Lansdown. But yeah, it’s it’s yeah, that’s that’s where we’re headquartered. But we have people sprinkled all across the country. We have about 70 staff and they’re uh different places working on. We have a a uh yeah, we have a you know a hotline that takes calls from women and men uh facing uh pregnancy decisions, and then uh we have a whole uh focus on trying to help them when we take those calls get connected to um pregnancy centers. As I said, we have about 1300, 1,330 or so uh across the country that are affiliated with us, and then we have a uh a mobile medical ministry. So it’s think about an R an R V, but it has an ultrasound on it. Uh so we go into communities um uh to offer free ultrasounds uh to women who um you know uh need them and many who are at risk for abortion. And you know, if you um the abortion pills now close to 70% of abortions are through the abortion pill. And um, you know, one of the things that’s happened over the years is that you know they made they made it basically male order in 2000, for example, a woman would have three doctor visits before taking the abortion pill. Uh, you know, come to confirm your pregnancy, then you get your ultrasound, and you have a follow-up. Um, because you know, one to two percent of pregnancies are ectopic, which are pregnancies in the Philippian tombs or outside the uterus, and uh that can kill a woman. And now women are uh doing these DIY abortions, they’re not even getting ultrasounds, they’re not getting medical care. So um that ministry uh platform, which we um integrated in it was another this ministry about ICU mobile, we integrated into Kernet uh at the beginning of last year, is really designed to get these mobile units into communities so that um a woman can get a free ultrasound. Because you I know better than I do that if you called up uh you know your OBGYN and say, Hey, I want to come in and get an ultrasound, they’d be like, uh well, it’s not you can’t get that free, A, and you can’t get it immediately. So um uh that’s a ministry platform, and then you know the focus there is in to help clients uh not just uh go back into the community but get them connected with local churches so that if you’re facing an unplanned pregnancy, we want to mentor that couple, uh hopefully to help them see what a God’s design for marriage is. Uh and even if she’s a single mom, we want to provide that kind of support uh through uh the uh the relationships of the church. Uh, because life decisions need life support. And that’s and that’s the second pillar of this pro-abundant life perspective, which is God’s call to discipleship. And it’s really seeing the life issue through the lens of discipleship. In other words, um for most for many Christians, if you ask them, Oh, are you pro-life, and they say yes, and you tell them exp they come convince you, tell me why, and they’ll say they’ll tell you they voted for, right? You know, how prove it to me. Like I voted for this person. Well, don’t get it wrong, there’s a political component to abortion, but it’s not primarily that. I mean, that’s with the you know, the scriptures say they’re gonna know us by our vote, they’re gonna know us by our love. In other words, they’re gonna know us by our ability to make disciples and right and to love people. So so our view is that, you know, this good work uh that we do should lead to discipleship, which means that the issue becomes a central issue but of of the church, in other words, so that the instead of the the podium, which is where the politicians spend their time, you actually uh transfer the to the to the you know the pulpit, um, where it should have a more consistent perspective and then mobilizing the body of Christ so they can come alongside someone who’s facing you know a pregnancy uh decision and to help them uh choose life for their mother and children and abundant life for their families. Uh and so we really want our clients to go from the pregnancy center to the church for ongoing support and discipleship. And when that happens, guess what you get? You get Zoe. So linking BIOS Zoe, it’s like God says a line for family, bias. When she has a guy who says I’ll be a husband to you and a father to the child growing inside of you, the child’s more likely to get bias. And when that family gets connected to a local church to be disciples who make disciples who live on the life of Jesus, you get Zoe. Uh, and so a pro-abundant life perspective is linking those two things together. So you can be an atheist and be pro-life, but you can’t be an atheist and be pro-abundant life
because in atheist we just focus on bias, physical life, but it’s not focused on Zoe. So our work is for the not yet born and the not yet born again, is what we’re already trying to try to focus on, linking BIOS uh to Zoe, and then that’s the role of the church. And so a core ministry platform we have is helping local churches develop ministries in the church so that someone who’s facing a pregnancy uh decision has folks in the church who will come alongside them. So that’s what our Making Life Disciples Ministry does, it trains small groups in churches. Lots of churches have small groups, right? Our small groups often are about us loving us. What if your small group was there so that if a woman in the church was facing a pregnancy decision, there’s a group of folks in the church who said we’re gonna walk alongside you and provide that missing support or that couple, we’re gonna, you know, look, hey, you know, um, you you guys have been living together for a while. Can we show you what a godly marriage looks like? Or you want to have an abortion because you didn’t have a job? Well, somebody in the church got a business, you could hire the guy, or shouldn’t have a place to live, got an extra room, could like in other words, life decisions needs the life to support, and the local church is designed uh to basically to basically uh provide that life support. So that God’s desire for family, God’s call to discipleship. These are the two pillars that hold a pro-abundant life perspective. And when you have that, you link BIOS and Zoe, right? Heartbeats that are heaven-bound. Uh that’s a comprehensive way in a biblical context of looking at the life issue that takes it out of the realm of primarily politics and puts it in the realm of the ministry of the church.
I I am like blown away. I have never heard this concept before. That’s why I’m like hoping and praying that it takes off. And I’m gonna do my job with through this podcast to like put it out there for all to see, become this. It is an important, it is part of what I my mission is to help people see the relationship with God versus the religious aspect of it, you know. I I I take the religion part of it out of it and I say, well, you know, he really is interested in your heart, in your presence, and relationship with him. And he does the work within within you. It’d be it’s beautiful to have a church behind you. And and I work for my church for Gateway North here in Austin. Um, their motto is no perfect people allowed. And I’m just curious how you identify, like, how do you identify these churches? Like, how are you spreading this message?
Well, you know, it’s interesting because most churches, I mean, you just think about it practically, okay? You you wake up Sunday morning and you take a pregnancy test, and the test is positive, and in your mind the news is negative. The typical church, who are you supposed to talk to? Now, we got all kinds of stuff in the church. We, you know, you got grief care, you got like weight loss issues, I mean, all these different things that are longer-term issues. I’ve been struggling with alcoholism or that so I got celebrate recovery, I mean, there’s all these different ministries for things where people have been struggling. But for this issue, that is an immediate issue. The typical church has nothing. And we used to say it was like nine days from the time that you confirm your pregnancy until the woman would schedule her abortion. Well, it’s gone from nine days to just basically nine inches, the distance from this abortion pill to her mouth. So when that happens, she has to know that her church, right, has a a response because Planned Parenthood has a ministry response. They got something for you. But if you’re you your church, like who should I talk to? So part of this whole Making Life Disciples ministry platform is about putting those small teams in the church so that no woman thinks that the church that that you know an abortion provider or abortion pill is a compassionate alternative to the church. Right? So the key is helping churches first off see this issue as part of the core work of the church. So um you’ll hear pastors, you’ve heard pastors say, Well, I’m not gonna talk about the abortion issue, it’s too political, whatever, whatever, right? So, okay. Um, do you talk about poverty? Do you talk about homelessness? Do you talk about food insecurity? Do you like yes, of course. But politicians talk about all that stuff too. So why is it that this issue you won’t talk about, but those issues you will, because the pro-life movement gave the issue to the politics and expecting the politics to solve it.
Yeah.
So what happens is why for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, pastors see those as good works that lead to discipleship. But compassion for the pregnant is outside of that. So, what this is seeking to do is kind of pull this back into the church. So the first thing has to happen is the church has a vision that says, wait a minute, this the life issue is an on-ramp to discipleship. It’s it’s an on-ramp, so the woman who’s facing an unplanned pregnancy, your first thought isn’t, well, who should I vote for so that she can’t have an abortion? Or even what material support she needs. Your first thought should be, is she a disciple of Jesus Christ? She needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. The child going inside of her needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. The guy who got her pregnant needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
And although then all of a sudden you find this issue in your mission statement. You find this issue in your mission statement.
Why? Because the goal and the role of the Church of Jesus Christ, Christianity is super simple. It really is. It’s living out the Great Commandment to fulfill the Great Commission. That’s how Jesus did. With out the Great Commandment to fulfill the Great Commission. What’s the Great Commandment? To love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. Luke 1027. Right? Love God, love your neighbor as yourself. Okay. Well, when you unpack that verse again, you look at it in the Greek, in the context, well, the word for love, there’s agapeo love, which is sacrificial love, right? And then neighbor, the Greek word for neighbor means near one or near fellow. So in that in Luke 10 27, if you look that up, you’ll see a lawyer comes to Jesus and says, What do I need to do in order to inherit the kingdom of God? And Jesus said, What the book say? And there says, lays it out, just like I said. And Jesus said, Thumbs up. And then the lawyer, again, seeking to justify himself, asks the central question that every single issue in the culture spins on, which is, Who is my neighbor?
Who is my neighbor? That’s the abortion question.
See, because the
the I was told, this is where Big Bird and Mr. Rogers get together. Because Big Bird, his you know, so Mr. Rogers, he’d be like, Won’t you be my neighbor? Like he’d get a little James Brown on you. He’d just pull that car together, won’t you please, won’t you be my please? He’d like be my neighbor, right? And Big Bird and his crew, they’re walking around, who are the people in my neighborhood? Like the people, like who’s the people in there? So the culture is saying, Well, who’s my neighbor? And the and the baby in the womb is saying, Won’t you be my neighbor? Yeah. So Jesus understanding this conflict, he doesn’t answer the question with the question, he answers with a story. And it’s the story of the Good Samaritan. And in the story of the Good Samaritan, what do you have? A vulnerable one who cannot advocate for themselves. You’ve got the priest and the Levi, both of whom who knew the great commandment.
Yes.
Good works. And so Jesus points out in the story and says, Well, who was a neighbor to the man who fell? And the Lord’s sister wanted to show him mercy. The Hebrew word for mercy has the same root as the word for compassion and the word for womb. It’s supposed to be a place of mercy. The most vulnerable place any of us have ever been is in the womb. That’s why Jesus came in the womb to share in that vulnerability of humanity. The mother is responding to that vulnerability. See, because the baby has a heartbeat. The only language a baby has. It’s heartbeat. What do you listen for? Heartbeat. Heartbeat. We’re listening for that, listening for that, right? And I always tell people that the heartbeat is the baby saying, Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy. And what does the mother do? She says, I will agape you.
I will sacrificially love you. That’s why motherhood is such an amazing, amazing thing. It’s an amazing gift to women. I mean, it’s just amazing because that’s what you’re doing.
So even if you’re not a Christian, giving birth, the act of giving birth, is actually a fulfillment of the great commandment. Why? Because you’re loving God, because you’re protecting one of his image bearers, you’re loving the image bearer, and you’re loving yourself. Because in that great commandment, there are three loves. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s yourself.
Yeah.
As yourself. So there are three loves. I see what we’re sure as it love God, love neighbor. That’s not right. Just love your neighbor as yourself. There’s three loves, and what you see there is that those three loves are interconnected, and they’re interconnected in the birth process. Why?
Because when you abort your child, it creates antipathy between you and an Almighty God. Like conflict between you and God. I mean, that’s like so when you when a woman gives birth, it’s living out the great commandment.
And then the second piece is the great commission, which is to make disciples of who? Your neighbors.
Your family. And who are the most vulnerable neighbors? Your children. Killing one of your children is not an act of discipleship. That’s why you cannot be a pro-choice Christian. Because being a pro-choice Christian is a violation of the Great Commandment and a violation of the Great Commission. Now, that’s why this issue has to be led by the church. Because the Great Commandment and the Great Commission don’t exist in the podium.
They don’t even know what a family is. No.
A man is, a woman is, they’re confused by all, they’re just all confused. So that’s why this issue can’t can’t be led by the politics.
It can’t be led by the politics. It must be led by the church, but it’s got to be led by the church in the way that the church is designed to lead, which is love. Last thing I’ll tell you, and that kind of puts a fine point on this, right? So when you think about the issue of abortion, right? So it’s it’s a it’s a problem. Like if you say you’re it’s a problem, it’s a problem that we’re trying to solve. Like, how do we solve this problem from
a Christian perspective? And when you think about problems, there are three types of problems. There are simple problems, there are complicated problems, and there are complex problems. Simple, complicated, complex. Now, simple problems, they’re easy. They have what are called known knowns. You know what you know. So a peg board is a simple problem. Got a peg, got a hole, know where it goes. That’s why a baby can solve a peg board. Simple. Right? Complicated problems, right, are like a jigsaw puzzle or a Rubik’s Cube. They’re known unknowns. So with a jigsaw puzzle, I’ve got a thousand pieces, I got the box, I know what it’s supposed to look like, but I don’t know where all the pieces go. Now, simple problems and complicated problems are not are not dynamic. In other words, they don’t change over time. Then you have what are called complex problems. These are unknown unknowns. Unknown unknowns. Like cancer is a complex problem, right? Sin is a complex problem. That’s why one guy can look at some porn and say, I’m not into that. I’m not gonna, I’m putting that away.
Another guy looks at this very same picture, exact same moment, and he done left his family, seeing process. What happened? We both looked at it. It’s complex. So when people like you, people say, Oh, tell me about your relationship. Well, it’s complicated. No, it’s actually not complicated.
Your problem is you think your relationship is complicated when your relationship is actually complex. The woman I kissed this morning before she went to work is not the woman that’s coming home.
Life will impact her, and I’m not the same man. Life will impact her, it’s complex. So when you marry someone, what you’re actually committing to is to spend life in the complexity. Now, in the garden where sin was created, where it happened, what Satan was actually saying to Adam and to Eve basically was, you want to be like God. And she’s like, okay, well, you she didn’t understand. See, what he was basically saying is that you want to move into a place of complexity, of unknown unknowns. See, you’re gonna be like God. See, there is no complexity with God. God only has known knowns. So you want to be like God, that means you want to operate in a world of complexity, but you are designed to know everything that can be known. And she’s like, Yeah, cool.
Had no idea. God had created what kind of world for her? Simple. Eat from this tree, don’t don’t eat from this tree, everything else is yours. Easy peasy, pegboard. Now, they sin. They sin, and then they think that sin is a simple problem that they can solve with a fig leaf.
God comes and says, Oh no, no, this isn’t simple, this isn’t complicated, this is complex. And he kills one of his complex creations to cover their sin and then foreshadows that another complex one will cover come to cover their sin in relationships. So what I’m what am I leading to with this? See, the complex problem of sin is solved in what? Loving relationships.
Emmanuel God with us. So if abortion is sin and sin is complex, how are you gonna solve it? With a simple solution like overturning row? Numbers are up.
You’re only gonna solve the complex problem of sin, what? Through loving relationships. And anybody who’s worked on any other issue knows that. You have a friend who has a problem with alcohol or addiction or uh whatever it may be. What do you what do you do? We gotta be in relationships. We gotta be in a relationship.
So loving relationships are designed to solve the complex problem of sin. Emanuel, God with us, which is what we as the body of Christ are to be God with us in the flesh in terms of the hands and feet of Jesus. Now, what’s the one thing we have not deployed against the complex problem of abortion? The church.
We said we want your money, maybe some volunteers, but you can’t lead this because we’re gonna solve it with politics. That’s a pro-abundant life perspective.
And you think about relationships, yes. First, helping the woman form that loving relationship with a child going inside of her. This is a Mago Day. Helping that woman form that loving relationship with the guy who got her pregnant, that’s God’s design for marriage. Helping that woman and that man form a relationship with God, that’s discipleship. It’s all about loving relationships.
So if you’re really serious about solving the problem of abortion, there’s an entity that God has created to deal with the complex problem of sin called the local church. And that’s what a pro-abundant life perspective is designed to help that community of loving relationships apply the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s design to family, to this intractable, social, complex sin called abortion. And when we do that in earnest, you see a transformation first in the church with the abortion rate’s just about as high as the broader culture, but then in the broader culture as well. And until we do that, we will not see that. We will not see that. And so that’s really what a pro-abundant life perspective is designed to do. And you know, we must decrease as like pro-life ministries or whatever, and the church must increase because that’s what God designed to solve the complex problem of sin, loving relationships through the body of Christ.
Love it. I I just I love it. I want to end it there because you’ve you’ve you’ve covered it very beautifully.
Um you’ve given us quite uh a show to just ponder and reflect and really go back to his word, to go back to to the books you’ve you’ve mentioned and just sit with it and allow God to come in and reveal to us what he needs to reveal. How do we find you if say if there’s a church that wants to talk to you specifically and Kernet? How do how do we get
a hold of that? And how do we purchase your book, Willand? Let us know.
Great. Well, uh uh Kernet is is uh found online. It’s care c A R E, just like it’s spelled, uh like you hear it rather, uh netnet care net care hyphen net.org. That’s what we’ll do.net.org. So care dash net.org for our our our website. Um I talked about uh one of the ministries called Making Life Disciples. Uh and it’s just that making life disciples.com. Uh if you want to go there to learn about that church-based ministry, which is which is uh part of care and effort, but you can find a lot of that through uh through our website. Uh my book is uh is online. Uh you can find it on Amazon. And uh there’s a there’s a uh heartback uh paperback and then also digital version of it as well. It includes a free Bible study uh as part of that. Um so you can do that with your with your small group. Because again, the first thing that has to happen is that the church has to move from being pro-life to being pro-abundant life. So it’s like the movie The Matrix, you have to unplug so that you think that your response to abortion is solely to vote for the right candidate, right? So you understand that no, I’m pro-abundant life. So voting’s part of it, but it’s not all of it. Uh, and actually that we’re supposed to lead in terms of discipleship. So that’s what you can find. You can find the find the book there, uh, Making Life Disciples. I have another book I wrote for Fathers called uh uh uh for Father for Fatherhood, rather, which is um bad dads of the Bible, eight mistakes every good dad can avoid. Uh, you can find that there. And then I wrote another book uh for uh single mothers raising boys uh called uh uh raising sons of promise, a guide uh for single mothers boys. And a lot to your point, a lot of that’s out of my own experience with the bad dads of the Bible book uh in terms of uh helping men be better dads, and then one of the chapters uh uh I used the story of Abraham, which is one of the bad dads. Uh I talk about the book, and his bad dad mistake was abandoning uh his son, which is Ishmael, uh his first son, and I use that to uh for the second book, which is raising sons of promise, which kind of looks at Ishmael and Hagar. So Ishmael uh as an archetype for a boy growing up without a dad, and Hagar as an archetype of a of a woman uh with a father who has rejected her and her son, which a lot of single mothers face. So I kind of that was my own experience growing up in a single mother household. So it’s trying to help her heal her, uh, so she can help him heal him, so he can become, you know, the son of promise, uh, that doesn’t become another baby daddy that leaves the mother, but becomes a husband to her and a father to the child born inside of her.
So what I do I loved, loved your story, Roland.
I I love how you’ve used his prompting and really have become a light for a great deal of us to follow um in terms of calling. Like you really have elevated that word for me today, and I’m sure for those listening on the other end of this interview, which I will want to release way before a lot where you were slotted to release was in July. But
I think I’m going to put you in front of a lot of interviews because I I do think this issue it needs to be talked about. It needs to be talked about from this perspective. And um and for the listeners of release outreal purpose, you know how I always sign off is to remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light. You know, God has called us to be his light, he is within us when we accept him, uh, when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have a light within us that is often dimmed by the things that have happened to us if we stay there. But when we turn to Him and we ask Him to reveal to us and surrender to Him and submit to His plan for our life, we find ourselves in chapters that bring us such immense joy, immense love and peace, and the fruits of the Spirit that only when we abide in Him and He abides in us, we can produce together because we can’t do anything without God. God is is central to our marriages, he’s central to our life, to our calling, to our identity. And it’s taken me decades to get to this stage in my life. I was in Crypto America for a long time. And I’m so grateful that I listened to podcasts and opened up this podcast and came to know people like Reyland, because I think people like Reyland are really living proof of believer in us and believing us because we are the body of Christ. And when we work together, we are seriously unstoppable. So I hope you guys have a wonderful and blessed rest of your week and have a safe Memorial Day weekend. And Rylan, thank you for joining us from Maryland today. I really appreciate it.
All right, thank you.
Everyone blessings. Blessings.
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