A pro-life culture in church is fuelled by the fact that there is not only life after death, but as Tom Wright says “life after life after death.”  A robust doctrine of resurrection, steeped in God’s plan to renew the whole creation (as opposed to souls floating around like cling film on wispy clouds), fuels pro-life in the here and now from womb to grave.

Right now one of our beloved church couples is winging their way to Taiwan to finally take home their  adopted five year old boy; a little one has spent five long years in an orphanage.

They would have adopted in Australia, except the adoption laws are way too restrictive and there are no unwanted babies being put up for adoption because there are no unwanted babies making it to birth.  They chose life.

And on this same weekend, another couple who planted our church with us, are fostering their first baby.   They’ve just asked on Facebook for our church people to put up encouraging Scriptures as they do it.

This would be mine:

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:58)

From the roadside this past year or two it looked like this couple were doing a big renovation to tap into the secular version of the good life, get the right fixtures, upgrade the house.

Turns out all that expanding and painting and tiling was them prepping their home to be a long term foster home.  They have three kids of their own under 11.  Why?  They know that labour in the Lord is not in vain, precisely because 1 Corinthians 15 is about the hope of life in the age to come.  They chose life.

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