Pro-Life Movement: Why the Future Is the Church, Not Just the Law | Amy Ford

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Jenny Beth Martin Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. I'm Jenny Beth Martin. For decades, the pro-life movement has worked to defend the dignity and value of every human life. Many leaders within the movement have emphasized that being pro-life is about much more than winning policy debates. It's about creating a culture where women feel supported, encouraged, and empowered to choose life.

[00:00:39] Today's guest has dedicated her life to that mission. Amy Ford is the founder and president of Embrace Grace, a nonprofit organization that equips churches to support women facing unexpected pregnancies. What began as a ministry has grown into a global movement with more than 1,200 churches around the world using Embrace Grace programs to provide spiritual and emotional and practical support to women and families.

[00:01:04] Amy is also the author of several books, including Help Her Be Brave, Discover Your Place in the Pro-Life Movement. Amy, thanks so much for joining me today and welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So tell my guest a little bit about you and your background. Well, I had my own unplanned pregnancy when I was 19. I grew up in church, had an amazing family, but I didn't have a relationship with the Lord.

[00:01:32] And so I found out I was pregnant and I was so scared. I thought, you know, you think of the worst case scenarios of what could happen. And I thought my life was over. My dreams were over. That everything was, you know, my life was going to be horrible. And so I and the father of the baby felt the same way. So we decided even though we grew up knowing abortion was wrong, we thought, you know what, we could just have an abortion.

[00:01:57] It will deal with the consequences of a broken heart later. We just kind of went robot mode, you know, try not to feel or think it felt like in that crisis moment when your brain isn't fully processing everything correctly. Luckily, it felt like a quick fix, you know, to to it. And so we scheduled the abortion and paid for the abortion. And as they were describing to me how they were going to do it, I actually ended up hyperventilating and passing out in the abortion room.

[00:02:23] And when I came to one of the nurses was fanning me, she was trying to give me a drink of water. And she said, you're too emotionally distraught to make this decision today. You can come back another day, but today you're not getting an abortion. And so I went back out in the waiting room, told the father of the baby we're still pregnant. And so then we just decided in that moment, OK, if our life was over, if our dreams were over, like we knew we had each other. We were high school sweethearts. We knew we wanted to get married someday, just not necessarily in the order that it ended up happening.

[00:02:52] And so we got married when I was 16 weeks pregnant. And we had asked the pastor that had led my husband to the Lord years before if he would marry us. And he said, no, I'm sorry, because you've sinned. I will not bless this marriage. And we were like, wow, we are such horrible people. We can't even be married and be blessed. And we ended up finding someone else that would marry us. But it definitely felt like a scarlet letter experience, you know, on that day.

[00:03:19] And so we went on to have a son who, of course, is the best gift ever. We can't imagine our life without him. And he's 27 now, married and has a baby. So I'm a honey is my grandma name. I feel like that's a very Texas grandma name. And we can't imagine our life without him. And, you know, it was so close that we would have missed out on so much. And we had tried to go to church, you know, around that time.

[00:03:47] And it was sort of like the elephant in the room and people don't know whether to say congratulations or I'm sorry. And so they don't say anything. And then you feel alone in a crowd of people. And so we just stopped going for a really long time. And and it took us a while before we really started to go back to church again. And and but whenever my son was two, that pastor that wouldn't marry us, he actually called my husband out of the blue and he asked for forgiveness.

[00:04:14] He said he felt like it was his worst mistake in pastoring history that he had ever made. Will you please forgive me? And my husband loves this pastor. He was like, yes, of course. We love you so much. Yes, we forgive you. And then when my son was 16, that pastor asked us to come speak at his church. So I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and he's in Austin, Texas, so a few hours away at this point. And so he he before I had got to Austin, he was very open with his congregation about what he had done years before.

[00:04:43] He said he had a religious spirit, a Pharisee heart. He told them all, you know, the story. And then he told about the ministry I run now, Embrace Grace. And so I came and I spoke and I did my thing. And then afterwards, I came back on the platform or he asked me to come back on the platform. And he asked my son, Jess, who was 16, to come on the platform. And this is in front of everyone. He said, Amy, years ago, I asked your husband for forgiveness, but I never really asked you. Will you forgive me? And I was like, yes, of course. We forgive you years ago.

[00:05:14] We love you so much. Well, then he looked at my son, 16, in front of the whole church. And he said, will you forgive me for planting seeds of rejection in your heart before you were ever even born? And while you were in your mother's womb, I rejected you. Will you forgive me? And my son, 16, in front of the whole church says, I forgive you. And it was such a powerful moment in that room. Like you could feel church wounds being lifted.

[00:05:39] The fact that the pastor would humble himself in that way was a very healing moment, I think, for a lot of people. And even for my son, Jess, because he just three years before my first when he was 13, my first book came out and embrace grace was really starting to take off. And I had never told him. He hadn't done the calculations of, you know, his birthday and our wedding anniversary is not nine months. And, you know, he didn't really know a typical eighth grade boy. He didn't really know how to process.

[00:06:08] He was just like, oh, you know, I'm like, how does this make you feel? You weren't planned by us, but you were planned by God. God knew exactly that we needed you, even though in that moment we were so scared. And and so it wasn't until a few months later that he really kind of had a revelation. And he the youth group at his church had asked to ask a few of the kids to speak for five minutes on how they're an overcomer. And he had come into my room and he was like, I really feel like I just heard from God. He was like, I was an overcomer before I was ever even born. And Satan had a plan to take me out.

[00:06:38] But I'm here and I want to use my story and I want to help people. And he's just always had a heart for evangelism and sharing the gospel. He got a degree in at ORU with theology and his MBA. And he's just a passionate guy who writes for Focus on the Family. He speaks. He's just an amazing communicator and has a marketing agency that he runs. And so we're super, super proud of him. And we're so glad that we chose life, even though it was at the very last second.

[00:07:07] We're glad that we made a life decision. Well, I'm very glad that you did as well. And the pastor was horrible to you and you forgave him, which is what he should have done to you initially anyway. But the way that he so publicly embraced what he did wrong and asked for the father's forgiveness for your forgiveness, for your son's forgiveness and essentially asking the church even to forgive him as well.

[00:07:37] That takes a great deal of maturity and spiritual growth. And so I'm very glad he did that. Yeah. Amy, at what point? So you weren't going to church a lot. And this pastor called two years, so two and a half years or so from when you first found out you were pregnant to ask the father for forgiveness.

[00:08:04] At what point did you feel like God was stirring your heart to begin embrace grace? Well, it wasn't until my son was 10. And, you know, it's not, you know, I, I, I, we went on to have another baby a few years later, you know, I'm doing life. It's busy. I'm a mom, you know, all that. And it's not like I go back and think about my unplanned pregnancy all the time at this point. Sure. We've moved on and we're, we're going to church now and all that.

[00:08:32] But it wasn't until my son was 10 that I was at a women's conference at my church. And I just really felt like I heard from God in a way that I've never, even since then, I've never heard like I did at this moment. It was Carrie Jobe was leading worship. I don't know if you, Carrie Jobe Carnes and Christine Kane was preaching. I don't know if you know any of those people, but they're amazing. And I, I had a vision and it was, it was like snapshots that look so real.

[00:09:00] And it was of me having an unplanned pregnancy 10 years before. I looked really sad and lonely and it just looked like, right. It was just so vivid. And then all of a sudden the snapshots changed and it changed to me throwing baby showers. And now, you know, 10 years later, I'm at a time in my life when all my friends are getting pregnant. You know, I started it way earlier than everyone else did. And I love throwing parties. And I, that year I had thrown 13 baby showers for my girlfriends.

[00:09:28] And so I always just have the, the cute decor and, you know, things like that. I just love hostessing. So that, and then it was over. It was just that those, these pictures that I just saw that look so real right in front of me. And so I ran, as I was leaving, I was kind of confused. I didn't know. I'd never experienced anything like that. And I ran into the groups pastor as I was leaving this conference. I was like, can I tell you what just happened? And I told her, and she just kind of quickly said it, like it wasn't, you know, much to it.

[00:09:54] She's like, why don't you just start a small group for women with unexpected pregnancies. And the baby shower can maybe be the draw that, that, that draws them into the church. And then she kind of walked away and, you know, I've never led anything at a church. I didn't go to college. I never felt like I wanted to teach a class or anything, but there was something inside of me that stirred in my heart when she said that something that made me super nervous,

[00:10:20] but then also something that was just like drawing me to that idea. And so this was like in March of 2008 and I was, you know, started researching, well, if I did do this, what would I teach? You know, so I'm putting, Googling single and pregnant curriculum. There's no such thing as single and pregnant curriculum. We prayed about a name for our little group at our church and we really felt like Embrace Grace was a great name. It's the moms embracing grace for themselves. It's the church embracing grace for the moms.

[00:10:50] And, but I found a book called Embrace Grace. Oddly enough, I Googled that. I was like, I mean, just see, and there was a book called Embrace Grace. It didn't really have anything to do with being pregnant. It was by Liz Curtis Higgs. She's an amazing author, but it was really simple and it was about healing. It was about faith. It was about hope and, and letting go of past hurts and wounds. And I was like, you know what? We'll use this. It's literally called that. So we put the word out. Three moms showed up and one wore a coat in August in Texas because she was terrified

[00:11:19] of stepping foot into the church and anyone seeing that she was pregnant. They wouldn't make eye contact. One was still abortion minded. Her mom had heard about this group and her mom didn't want her to have an abortion. She was 19. And she said, just try this group once. I heard that they're starting this, you know, just try and then see. And, but it was amazing to see over 12 weeks, which is how long the group is, that, that they started coming in. When they started, they had like a hopelessness about them. Their shoulders were sagging. They wouldn't make eye contact.

[00:11:49] They were scared for their future. But over the 12 weeks, it was amazing to see how they became empowered as women to be the moms that God created them to be. Like they were, they had a sparkle in their eye by the end of it. They all had surrendered their life to Jesus. Like it was such an amazing experience. The baby shower is beautiful. So then we're like, well, let's try it again. Let's do it again. And we did it again. Three more goals came, then eight, then 14, then 21. And it started growing and growing and growing. And then other churches started hearing about it saying, this is so cool.

[00:12:19] Will you show us what you're doing, what you're teaching? And over time, we kind of started writing our own. We would see, oh my gosh, they're really struggling with their identity and their value. Like this is what we need to be teaching. And it kind of just evolved. And so four years later, by 2012, we had gotten up to 10 churches without even trying. It just sort of happened organically on its own. And that was when we kind of had the revelation of like, this is needed in the world. Like there's nothing like this exists.

[00:12:44] Why isn't the church one of the first places a girl runs to in that situation instead of the last because of shame and guilt? And meanwhile, the abortion rate is the same inside the church as it is outside the church. There's no difference. So women are sitting in our pews and are filled to shame. They don't know what to do. And they don't know maybe what a local pregnancy center is because the church has never talked about it. So they're going straight to the abortion clinics and then coming back. And no one ever knows, you know, or they're choosing life.

[00:13:12] And maybe they're too ashamed to come back because of the situation, you know, like kind of what happened with my pastor. But I will say I was talking to a pastor a couple of weeks ago, and he's a pastor that's been pastoring for decades in a small church in Louisiana. And he said, you know, I he said, I remember one time he said when we were actually they were launching Embrace Grace. And he said, whenever we did, we announced it at the church.

[00:13:38] And and afterwards, someone came into my office and said, did you see that so and so walked out of the room when you announced about Embrace Grace? And it was an older woman in the church. And he said they said she seemed really mad. It was very abrupt. And she like walked out. And he just he had this revelation of why. And he said years ago, that woman's daughter had an unplanned pregnancy and it was brought to us. And he said, I remember all these men pastors were sitting in this boardroom and we

[00:14:08] were making a decision on what do we do? And this is like, you know, back in the 90s or 2000s. And he said, I remember feeling a little bit of a check in my spirit of like, this doesn't seem right because we were saying, well, we probably should kick her out of youth group and we probably, you know, maybe she can come back and use like we were making all these decisions. And I felt something part of like this doesn't seem right. But this is the way we've always done it. This is the way we handle this situation. This is what we've done for decades.

[00:14:37] And he said, it wasn't until Embrace Grace was was approached to me that I was like, oh, there can be a different way. Like this seems more aligned with God's heart. And I think that that's been the case. It's gotten a lot better. You know, when we first started in 2008 or 2012, when we started the nonprofit pastors, we would get a lot of, well, this is rewarding sin and this is condoning bad behavior. The baby showers, maybe they need gently used stuff and not brand new.

[00:15:05] And so we talk about the prodigal son, you know, all of that. But now we don't hear that as much. Maybe in the tiniest town and it's a very old pastor. Sometimes we hear that. But now we hear more of pastors saying either this is political, which, yes, abortion is a political issue, but this is an issue that affects all of us. This is just about loving people. And so they don't. And and we aren't a political organization. We just are caring for the girls don't think they're joining a pro-life group.

[00:15:34] You know, when they join Embrace Grace group, they're coming for help and resources. And then or maybe we hear pastors say, well, we don't have pregnant women in our church that are experiencing. And yeah, they I'm like, you know, statistically, you do. You actually do have women in your church. But say it is the tiniest church. You have 20 people in your church and you're all senior citizens and you actually don't. You don't have women in your church. We'll go out and partner with your local pregnancy centers.

[00:16:03] Go tell them, hey, we would love your clients to be referred to us. Sounds like you need younger people in your church. You need some kids in your church. Invite them and go outside your walls and invite them into your church family and just trying to help them see a little differently that this can be a way where, you know, moms are are scared. They're they're trying to figure out what their future is. It's a great opportunity for the church to introduce them to their rescuer, Jesus,

[00:16:31] and and to invite them into communities so that no single mom ever has to walk alone. My dad is a Methodist minister. So some of what you're you're hearing and I grew up literally in in the church, like in the church, every single in the church building every single day of my childhood, pretty much. I. Some of these ministers are awful. They're just absolutely horrible.

[00:16:57] We all every single one of us since all of us, everyone ministers, ministers, wives, ministers, kids, non ministers, their families, their kids. You have to have a place where people can make mistakes or deliberately choose to do something they shouldn't be doing and enter into sin and also allow them to come out of it and give them a place to continue living. I. Yeah.

[00:17:27] So I'm glad you're you're doing that. And it's it's awful that a couple of decades ago, there were churches who were were saying having meetings trying to decide what are we doing with the the person who is pregnant. Amy, one thing that always that has bothered me, I went to a small high school, a fairly small high school. There were about 400 students in my high school, about 100 in each each class. So it wasn't very big.

[00:17:57] And every year there was at least one and usually two or three girls who were pregnant in my high school. So we knew they were pregnant. We saw them pregnant. And I they weren't really my friends, but it just was a fact that they were pregnant and they were in school. And I one of them was in my class. She was I was it was a Spanish class. So I was a freshman. I think she was a senior and we got along well. And I you know, she it just was what it was.

[00:18:26] I don't recall really judging her for it. I I figured it must have been a really difficult situation for her. Um, what alarms me right now, and as you're saying this in these ministers and pastors who have thought they don't have pregnancy in their their their churches, my kids went to a really large high school that had over twenty five hundred students, maybe even three thousand. And they're in the entirety of them being in school.

[00:18:56] I only know of one pregnancy in that entire school for four years. And I don't think that that's possible. I mean, maybe it is because I think that will COVID happened and and that locked them down for a while. And also phones play a different lives played are affecting teenage behavior a little bit differently. But I still it just doesn't seem like that is possible.

[00:19:20] So I suspect my point is I suspect there were kids who are having abortions that we just never knew about. If you don't have a place to land when you when you find yourself in this situation, especially if you're a teenager or a college student, the abortion route is going to be very, very easy because you don't know what else to do. So what you're doing right now, I think, is such an important it's very important.

[00:19:49] You can't just be a person who says that you're I mean, you can because there are plenty of people who are. But you can can see that you are pro-life, but you're living being pro-life. And it's it's quite amazing. It's we like to use the word pro-love. You know, pro-life. It's a stance. It's a belief. It's a vote. Um, but being pro-love is where we may think we may make abortion unthinkable instead of just illegal.

[00:20:16] Like if we can focus on, you know, making unthinkable where a woman's like finds out she's pregnant and she's like, why would I need to have an abortion when there are so many churches? There's so much support out there and I don't have to walk alone. There are over 300,000 churches in America. And if we could all get involved and get engaged in the movement, we really can make abortion unthinkable. And we can help make sure a mom never has to walk alone, that she just knows that the church is a safe place to go to.

[00:20:45] She knows about pregnancy centers. You know, my own story going back to that, like I went to church every single week. Yes, I didn't have a relationship with the Lord, but I went every single week. Why did no one ever tell me what a pregnancy center was? That they're totally free in our communities that are donor funded by people like me and you that will give me a free sonogram that will talk to me about my resources. I had no idea that they existed and how many other women don't as well and are now.

[00:21:14] And, you know, now that the pill is available in Miphy Pristone, it's like they don't they just order it online, even when you're in a pro-life state and it gets shipped to you. You can even pay an extra $20 to have it overnighted and they just have their abortions in their home. And the trauma around that is really, really hard. And so if we can make the church just more known for what we're for than what we're against, I would think that we really can make the church to be a safe place that these women go to.

[00:21:41] Women are just now bypassing pregnancy centers a lot of times because they don't know that they exist, even women in the church. And so they just can get the pill online. Even if you're in a pro-life state, I'm in a pro-life state in Texas. And you can still just order the pill, pay an extra $20 to have it overnighted and you just have the abortion in your home. And it's super traumatizing and sad. And I even have a friend that runs an abortion healing ministry.

[00:22:08] And she's just said that in the last few years, they've seen this influx of young women. Like a lot of times when women, you know, start to think maybe they need healing from their abortion, sometimes it's like 20 years later, you know, or 30 years later, they're starting to connect the dots that they need some healing. But now they're seeing this influx of young and they started digging into it. And it's the pill, the pill.

[00:22:30] It's the trauma around seeing the baby, you know, and knowing that what just happened. Because when you have an abortion in a doctor's office or a clinic, you may hear some things, but you don't really know, you know, or you haven't seen anything. You just might hear. But in this case, it's all of the, and then they're calling the emergency room or calling the clinic saying, what do I do? Do I flush? Do I bury?

[00:22:59] It's the saddest and it is not, this is not women's health. This is just a really sad situation that we're in. But I think if women knew more about pregnancy centers, that I think that they would pick it up more. You know, with me, I was 27 years ago as we had the phone book. And so we just went straight to abortion clinic. Meanwhile, there was something right up the street that would have been a free resource for us. That was amazing.

[00:23:26] That could have helped me think a lot different, come out of that crisis mode. Right. So what you're doing now by having this in churches, it lets, if it's advertised in the bulletin and on the website, it lets people know it exists, that your program, Embrace Grace, exists even if they are not in a situation where they need it. And then if one of the people in the congregation or one of their friends or family winds up needing

[00:23:55] such a ministry, now they know it exists. And I think that's, it's really important. Right. Yeah. And when the church can be known more for what we're for than we're against, that we can be known more for our love, that we know I'm in a trouble, I'm in a situation, I don't know what to do. How about I go to the church for prayer, wisdom, guidance, support, counsel, there's an Embrace Grace group. And whether they choose to place their baby for adoption or parent, the church can walk

[00:24:23] alongside them and help them get pointed in the right direction to get back on their feet. And, and to be discipled and loved on. That's really amazing, Amy. So you started out and you, you had a meeting in your church and then you had another one and then other churches wanted to. Now you're at 1200 churches. Is that correct? Yeah. We're in all 50 states, but we have figured out, you know, our, our vision statement is

[00:24:51] for every woman with an unplanned pregnancy to have a church to turn to and her local area for practical, spiritual, and emotional support. So in order to make that happen for every woman with an unplanned pregnancy to have a church to turn to, then we have figured out that we actually need 23,400 churches strategically placed around the United States. It's, you know, more and more pop, you know, I live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. You can't just have one in Dallas where we were a big area with a high population.

[00:25:17] We would need many, you know, to be able to serve the population, but we need 23,400 churches to say yes, that I will open my doors and hearts to these women and young fathers and that they get connected into the support systems within local churches. So that is what we're on track to do. We are in over 1200 churches, but we are on a plan to get to the 23,400. So whether you live in a teeniest, tiniest town or you live in a very populated city,

[00:25:46] we need you and your church to get involved so that we can start referring moms. It's the saddest thing when a mom calls us and hears about us through a marketing or a friend and she wants to get connected to a church and we don't have one in her area. And us as at the Embrace Grace headquarters, we're like, you know, do we just Google and send her to a local church and hope for the best that it's a good experience? But as you were saying earlier, you know, not all churches, unfortunately, have the best hearts and minds.

[00:26:15] You know, we want if the girl is brave enough to try church, we really want it to be a good experience for her. And a lot of times when I'm inviting moms to local churches, they always kind of think like something is going to jump out and someone's going to tell them, you know, I've heard girls say, I thought you were going to tell me what a horrible person I was when they tried church or a lot of times they think they have to clean up their life. I heard a girl one time say, I need to stop smoking. Can you give me one more week?

[00:26:43] And they don't think that the church like that they can come as they are, that they think the church is for perfect people. And unfortunately, it's because we as the church have projected ourselves that way. And, you know, and so how can we be more vulnerable and are authentic in our own stories? But even with our with when we train all of our leaders on the first class, like just share your own story, whether you had an unplanned pregnancy story or not. We all have stories where God has taken our messes and turned them into miracles. And so they do that.

[00:27:12] They're very strategic in that. And what happens is these moms, they're they're kind of defense mechanism. They come in. Maybe they're coming for the free baby shower, but they're preparing themselves to be, you know, told how horrible of a person they are. But then they're caught off guard by the leaders, you know, telling their stories. And they're like, oh, well, if that leader, if that's her story, that's a way worse than my story. You know, it could be. And if God did that for her, then maybe God will do that for me, too.

[00:27:41] And and then they start listening and opening their heart to who God is. And it changes everything. So that is what we want to do. We have a big vision on on how the church can really get involved in this issue and really help make abortion unthinkable in our own communities by being the hands and feet of Jesus for these women and being it's a pro love movement that we're working on. I love that phrase pro love.

[00:28:09] So tell me, it seems like you've got two paths of entry. You've got the path of entry for moms and dads who need help. And then you also have a path of entry for churches and volunteers to become involved. What what if somebody is listening right now and they feel led to start this in their own local church? What would you how would you help them if they reached out? Yeah, well, I know a lot of people that call that may be interested.

[00:28:36] They start kind of self-doubting or they're like, well, if they knew my story or maybe I don't have a theology degree or I'm not a pastor, but really anyone can lead a group. The only prerequisite that we have is that your pastor approves it or your pastoral oversight approves it. And that way, because we don't have a way of like, you know, someone calls us from Connecticut and I don't go to a church. I just want to do this in my house. Like, we don't know. You could be weird. You know, I don't know. So but doing it under the covering of the church, meaning a pastor has signed off to

[00:29:03] say I will we have it's an agreement form. I'll never tell a girl to have an abortion. I'll never judge or shame her publicly or privately. I'll be the spiritual covering and authority of this group. I approve this group to be at my church and I approve this leader to lead the group. And I approve our church to be listed on the Embrace Grace website directory so that moms in our community can find our group. It's that simple. They sign it.

[00:29:30] And that way, we know we're all on the same page and whoever can just lead the group. And so and it's cool because we have digital curriculum. So you don't even have to prepare a lesson. You just press play. The girls get books to go along with it. But the teaching that you do together, you just press play and we give you the handouts, the icebreaker questions. We prepare you all along the way administratively so that you have more time relationally with these moms.

[00:29:56] We help you get connected to your local pregnancy centers so that they can start referring their moms. They want their clients to get connected to local churches. And so they would they will be thrilled to know that you're going to have a group at your church. I I've led so many groups over the course of since 2008. And I will tell you, you will have row seats to miracles. It is amazing to see what God does. And some moms, it's more we're planting seeds and we pray that they'll blossom.

[00:30:23] And then some moms, you see them blossoming right in front of your very eyes, like the transformation and the hope that gets integrated into their hearts is a beautiful thing to see. It is a joy to walk with these moms, even when some of them are walking through very hard and difficult circumstances. It's not our job to fix them. It's our job to love them and point them to Jesus and even other resources in the community that are out there that are helpful as well.

[00:30:52] I think that that is wonderful. And Amy, you're this is an odd. There are so many things about what I'm about to ask that are probably obvious. But what do you think is the best thing that Christians can do when they find out someone is pregnant unexpectedly? And also, how does that same behavior translate when they find out somebody has sinned and is

[00:31:19] looking for a way to live with the consequences of it, whether it's pregnancy or something? Well, if you know someone that's pregnant that comes here, I always say to say congratulations, you know, that a baby is always a blessing, no matter how that baby was conceived. Even if the baby was not planned by this mom, the baby was planned by God.

[00:31:42] And I have seen so many times that when God wants to woo his daughter or his son back to his heart, he might just give him the baby to do it. And he might just give him the sweetest face that they've ever laid eyes on so that maybe they can get a tiny glimpse of how much God must love them. And it's not easy to be a single mom. As you said, there are natural consequences of sin of like doing things outside of God's order. It's hard to be a single mom.

[00:32:12] But God is with them. And God, you know, he turns all things for good for those that love him. And he will walk with them every step of the way. And a baby is always, always, always a blessing. And, you know, to think that he chose this mom out of all the women in the world to carry this baby. And he will be with her every step of the way. And even for moms that place their baby for adoption, we've had many moms that have done that through Embrace Grace.

[00:32:41] And I'm just so blown away by their strength, the fact that they could have had an abortion, but they chose life and they sacrificed their body for nine months to save this baby's life, to bless a family that maybe has prayed their whole life for a baby. And that they are doing that. And the sacrifice that's in that is very moving. For those moms, you know, for the moms that choose to parent, we have a big baby shower.

[00:33:10] For the moms that choose to place their baby for adoption, after they place, a few weeks after, once they're healed and rested a little bit, we have something called a celebration of life event. But we honor them and buy them gifts. And it's very custom to maybe, I know we had one girl that wanted to be a photographer. And so everyone chipped in and bought her a new awesome camera. And people are buying her new clothes. And they're speaking life into her. And we've had some moms have very open adoptions where even the adoptive family and the baby come as well.

[00:33:38] It's a beautiful thing to see. I'm a wreck. I cry all through it. It's just so blown away by how hard it must have been, you know, to think you carry a baby and then all of a sudden you don't have the baby. It's like you have a limb chopped off or something. You know, it just feels, the grieving process is really hard, even when they feel like they know that's the right decision for them. The grieving process can be really hard. So it's important, too.

[00:34:06] We partner with organizations like Brave Love and Lifeline to get that birth mom support afterwards so she can meet other birth moms that are going through similar things or have gone through that so that she can connect and relate to as well. That is so amazing. So you have a plan and a goal to be in 23,400 churches. How quickly do you expect to reach that? How long will it take?

[00:34:36] Well, our COO, which is my husband, he's kind of the risk person. You know, he's a risk. He also owns an insurance agency. So he's a risk manager. We have a 25-year plan. So by the year 2050. But I will say that I think we can do it faster. Actually, next month, we're rolling out even more ways churches can partner. By just doing a group, we're also rolling out church buddies, which is, you know, for those moms that call us and we don't have a group in their area.

[00:35:04] And so we don't have to just Google and hope for the best, that there actually is a point person at a church. Maybe they can't lead a group right now. But we can connect that mom to this person. And that person, the church buddy would say, hey, here's the service times. I'll meet you at the door. I'll pick you up. And I'll show you where childcare is. I'll sit with you. We don't have an Embrace Grace group, but we have a women's group that would totally welcome you in. Or we have a night of worship. It's just someone that's going to be there that they don't have to walk into the church

[00:35:34] totally by themselves. So we're launching church buddies. And we also are launching mentorships that people can do one-on-one. If they can't do a leader group, they can mentor a mom for six months, every other week for six months, and get that mom acclimated into church as well. So we think that offering those new programs that launch next month, that's going to help us get there also to the 23,400 churches. And when someone becomes a church buddy or a mentor, maybe eventually after they do it for a little while, they're like, you know what?

[00:36:04] I've welcomed four pregnant moms in. I might as well just start a group. And so we hope that'll kind of baby step them into leading a group as well. I like that. Amy, what are the most important lessons you've learned on this journey as you have started Embrace Grace? Well, you know, it's not... I think that with leading Embrace Grace, I have learned like the very first semester that I ever did it, we finished the whole semester 12 weeks.

[00:36:32] And one Saturday, I had left my phone at home all day. We had to have baseball games with the kids, and I'd actually left it at home. And so by the time I got to my phone, I realized that all the moms in the group, that first group with three moms, they all were trying to get a hold of me and needed me for different things. One had broken up with her boyfriend, and one needed to pay her electric bill. And they all were like frantically trying to get a hold of me. And it was a big revelation that I had of like, oh, I have become their source. And I did not intend for that to happen.

[00:37:00] I had good intentions trying to help fix stuff or fix their problem, or like they come to me a problem. I'd be like, oh, you should do this instead of teaching them how to go to God for things. And so the next semester, I changed it. You know, there were some times when the Lord was like, you need to pay for her electric bill. You know, he would ask me to do that. But then sometimes I would hear the Lord say, let's point her back to me. And we would say, let's pray together right now for that need that you have, that God would meet that need

[00:37:29] or whatever it is she's going through. And being more Holy Spirit led in that and not becoming their source, because eventually if they can't get a hold of me or whatever, then I've done them a disservice that I didn't teach them how to go to God. And so ever since then, and also that can like really burn you out too, when you just are like, you know, a genie in a bottle that's supposed to, you know, give advice and counsel and fix all their problems, you know, you'll get burned out really quick. So I'm glad I figured it out very quickly and starting Embrace Grace

[00:37:57] that let's teach them how to go to God so that they can, you know, even as they are raising children and 10 years down the road, it's not that they're trying to get a hold of me, that they know that they can go to God for what they need. That is a very important lesson. You're right, you would burn out, but the more important thing is that you're helping them learn how to solve their problems. And the number one step

[00:38:25] is to first take it to God. So I think that that's very important. You mentioned the fathers. What all do you do for the fathers? We have a program called Embrace Legacy. So it's the same 12 week structure. How it even started is that some baby dads would show up and the leaders are like, oh my gosh, there's a baby dad, you know, and we don't want any of the mom, we want the moms to be able to express themselves. And sometimes having a man in the room, you know, can change things.

[00:38:54] But yeah, we also are so glad he showed up to church, like we don't want to turn him away. And so the leaders would call their husbands and say, I need you to get up here. That dad showed up. And so come sit with him, talk to him, you know, mentor him, whatever. And so he would show up and then it would be going really well. But he's like, what do I teach? Or what should we go through? How should we do this? And so we created Embrace Legacy. And it's a very, it's an amazing, also digital curriculum, paper curriculum. But it's only, you know,

[00:39:23] the teachings are only 20 minutes. So if you have an hour and a half with the dad, it's also that it leaves room for whoever that male leader is that he can listen to the Lord of like, what does this guy need? We've had some groups of guys or individual guys that maybe they struggle with porn or maybe they have father wounds or, you know, what they, it kind of seems like there's themes, you know, and that leader can really help guide them even custom to what they're going through.

[00:39:51] Because usually those are a lot smaller in size than Embrace Grace groups. If we have seven moms in Embrace Grace group, we might have one or two dads, unfortunately. And we need more fathers in the world. That is for sure. A lot of these guys maybe never had dads themselves, so they don't know what this looks like. And so having a godly man that will walk with them and say, you can do this and encourage them and speak life into them is huge for them to have a mentor

[00:40:20] and someone to look up to and guide them along the way. That is very special. I'm glad that you're doing that for the dads. And then Amy, you have a book called Help Her Be Brave. And do you have more than one book? Yes, I have. Help Her Be Brave is my newest one. It is a book about, you know, I went to church my whole life, didn't know there was a pro-life movement. It wasn't until two years after we started Embrace Grace that we realized, oh, there's a whole, there's maternity homes, there's pregnancy centers, there's grants for single moms. I went to church my whole life,

[00:40:50] had no idea this whole world existed. And so how many other Christians also don't know? And so that's what Help Her Be Brave, discover your place in the pro-life movement. That's my newest book. I also have a book called A Bump in Life. And that's 20 stories of girls that chose life, whether they chose to place their baby for adoption, parent, very hard situations, date rape, preacher's kids, girls on drugs. It's just 20 stories and you can't argue with stories. So that is a great outreach tool to get to a mom with an unplanned pregnancy

[00:41:20] that there might be a story in there that she can relate to and give her hope to keep going. So Amy, I, as we are closing, let me ask you, what do you think the future of the pro-life movement is? It seems to me that it needs to be a pro-life movement. Yes, I totally agree that I think the future of the pro-life movement is the church and the church and then also just the manpower of us as Christians being God's search

[00:41:49] and rescue team, being the hands and feet of Jesus, watching for women that maybe are pregnant. I find pregnant moms everywhere and I have a way to ask them if they're pregnant. You know, I have gotten in trouble thinking people were pregnant and they weren't. But if we can be, you know, Holy Spirit led as we're out and about outside the walls of the church looking for people that need hope, maybe it's our kids, you know, you had mentioned when you were in high school that the girls would get pregnant. Maybe our kids in high school, we can train our children

[00:42:17] to also be watching for people to be God's search and rescue team even in their high schools, getting them connected into churches that we as Christians are going about our days and being the hands and feet of Jesus, going outside the walls and getting these moms connected to hope in the church. I think that is the future of the movement. I think we really can make abortion unthinkable. Well, I think it's so important. We definitely, I think that laws

[00:42:47] are very important and I think that the work that is being done inside the pro-life movement that affects laws is an important law because we want to try to prevent babies being killed. And I also think that given how abortion has been so easily accessible for so long and now with the pill, it's even more easily accessible

[00:43:14] that we have to have a way to have that grace with people who have chosen to have an abortion and we also have to have grace with people who are unexpectedly pregnant and trying to figure out what to do next because if we don't have that grace, they're going to choose what they perceive as the easy route and for them that easy route is probably going to be the pill that would end the pregnancy and then they have to live

[00:43:43] with the consequences of that for the rest of their life and the guilt and the loss that they will ultimately have at some point, whether it's quickly or 20 years down the road. My point is, I think it is about changing hearts and minds as well as changing laws because you can change all the laws you want. People will, there will be people who still break the law no matter what the law is,

[00:44:11] but working on changing the hearts and helping all of us have a softer heart to people who need to be in a place and we want to choose life. Being able to have a soft enough heart to help them I think is extremely important and finding a way to forgive their sins and to make sure that they know that their sins are forgiven and that with Christ there's always, there's always a fresh start

[00:44:40] and God loves us no matter what. And you're really doing that and I think it's something that's very, very admirable. Oh, thank you so much, Jenny. I appreciate that. If people want to be more involved if they want to donate or they want to volunteer or they know somebody who is in need, where do they need to go to sign up with you to learn more about what you're doing? To go to embracegrace.com as all the information about joining a group if you're pregnant or even we have also Embrace Life

[00:45:10] for Young Single Moms and Embrace Legacy for Fathers. If you want to lead a group, embracegrace.com as well. If you want to donate, embracegrace.com. It's got all the information and next month to check out mentorship and church buddies if you would like to do that at your church as well. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Amy. I'm very glad to get to know you and I wish you very well and I look forward to getting to know you better over the coming years. Same. Thanks, Jenny. If you enjoyed today's conversation,

[00:45:39] go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.