Choose several activities from the options below, keeping in mind what might work best with the group you have and the time you have available for the event. Feel free to include some games and a snack or meal.

Activity Options

  • The Park Date” skit and discussion questions. Have two people who are comfortable with acting practice ahead of time and arrange to have props there at your event.
  • Collect items for a crisis nursery, crisis pregnancy center, nursing home, group home for disabled people, etc. Participants can bring items with them on the night of the event and either drop them off in a collection box, or work together to prepare care packages to be delivered in gift bags. Be sure to speak with people at the charity ahead of time and ask what items would be most needed or most appreciated. Arrange when to drop off the donated items and who will drop them off.
  • Pray for your state and federal representatives and then write letters to them, thanking them for working so hard to serve your country, telling them that you are praying for God to guide them and bless them, and telling them that you want the sanctity of life to be protected. Specifically mention which current laws you oppose or support.
  • Make a sanctity of life display honoring babies who have been aborted or miscarried by people in the congregation or their family members. People can share the name of the child and date he/she died or was miscarried either anonymously or with name(s) of the parents. The names and dates could be printed on hearts and kept in a frame hung up somewhere in the church. Alternately, the congregation could start a memory garden area and people could paint the name and date on a stone that could be placed in the memory garden somewhere on the church grounds. If the child was not given a name, the person can print something like “precious child” or “baby Smith” instead of a name.
  • Blizzard of encouragement activity: Have each person make a unique snowflake by folding a piece of white paper and cutting small pieces out. Each person can then open up his or her snowflake and draw a cross somewhere on it to show that the main reason we are precious is because God loves us and Jesus died for us. Then, have each person print his or her name on the snowflake, encouraging them to think about why their parents might have chosen that name and what that name means to them. Encourage everyone to wander around the room, introducing themselves if they do not already know someone. Have participants print messages on each other’s snowflakes, sharing what they think is unique, special or precious about the other person. You could either have people share their messages about each other face to face or you could have everyone tape their snowflakes to dark colored paper plates, punch four holes in the plates, string yarn through the holes and wear the snowflakes like backpacks so others can print messages anonymously.
  • Arrange to have a display of pamphlets, posters, etc. from Lutherans for Life, Concordia Publishing House, or other reliable sources. Consider having a display of the size and appearance of babies at various stages of development while in the womb. Check with your local crisis pregnancy center or pro-life organization to see if they have displays you could borrow or someone who could come speak to your group at your event.

Recommended Resources:

LCMS Life Ministry is devoted to upholding the sanctity of human life, both in our church body and the culture at large. You can find out more about their ministries here. LCMS Life Ministry also has a podcast through KFUO that can be found here and a library of resources.

Lutherans for Life offers a wide variety of resources through their website at http://www.lutheransforlife.org/. Some of those resources are also available from the Concordia Publishing House website at http://www.cph.org/.

Concordia Publishing House offers a good selection of resources for in-depth study and discussion of sanctity of life topics including:

  • Abortion in Perspective: A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod as Prepared by its Social Concerns Committee May 1984.
  • What About Abortion by A.L. Barry
  • What Child Is This? Marriage Family and Human Cloning: A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. April 2002.
  • Christian Faith and Human Beginnings: Christian Care and Pre-Implantation Human Life: A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. September 2005.
  • In the Beginning: A Collection of Essays and Bible Studies on the Sanctity of Early Human Life. LCMS World Relief and Human Care, Sanctity of Life Committee.
  • Christian Care at Life’s End: A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. February 1993.