Editors note: The CGN team wanted to take this opportunity to introduce our audience to Tommy Green and his organization “Run Against Traffic,” which does excellent work helping victims of sex trafficking. If you’d like to learn about their work and how you can help by participating in a simple yet effective fundraiser (at no cost to you), read on!

——

A Heart for the Wounded

Physically Healed, Emotionally Restored, Spiritually Aligned. In Community.

This is what the fruit of righteousness and the justice of Christ can look like in the lives of those in need. We’ve seen it first hand with victims of sex trafficking.

In the human trafficking space, especially in the USA, there are a multitude of issues that confront those seeking to bring about transformation to lives, systems, nations, and the world at large. The problem that we at “Run Against Traffic” are committed to tackling is that if we “saved” all those “enslaved,” there are not enough places for them to go to be fully restored to experience true restoration, healing, and integration to a more beautiful life.

Many of us in the church know that merely “Saving Souls” can sound more exciting and vital than all of the hard work that comes after. We’d argue that the long-term work of healing, balance, hope, discipline, and connecting in community takes a lifetime, and that is where the real vital work lies for all of us, regardless of our background. Discipleship is often a harder sell than evangelism to people in the church, but I strongly feel it is more critical for the long-term health of any genuine movement.

To put a broken soul back together again can take a lifetime, and we need patient and healthy systems of healing and community to stay the course for the long haul.

Who We Are

The work of Run Against Traffic started in 2015, and our experience working with survivors has shown that while the recovery can go swimmingly, without long-term aftercare in place, it can all fall apart dramatically and quickly.

Our goal at Run Against Traffic has been to create a foundation raising finances and resources and building community activists to match the sea of human need caught in the crime of Human Trafficking. Our efforts are directed specifically to fund USA aftercare and see adequate programs established for the people enslaved in our country through force, fraud, or coercion.

These precious image-bearers are many times hiding in plain sight. This problem is complex, and it will take all of us working together to adequately understand and address this and see these crimes ended and put in a museum for future generations to marvel over.

The Time is Now

When Covid hit many of the predatory and fraudulent targeting behaviors that fuel predators and national/international trafficking became more potent in the digital space. The landscape changed as humans were stuck at home or trapped without the ability to get to school, connect with teachers, school administrators, or have home visits from social workers, etc.

Social Media became the feeder system in a more pronounced way. It was during this pandemic that Run Against Traffic was given an incredible opportunity.

We were approached by a new independent social media platform called PYVOTT. They told us that for the month of December through January 11, they would donate $1 to our foundation for every single download of their free app.

This is significant for the masses of us who care about this issue and the millions of us who are so tired of the toxic and disconnected culture of the current social media climate. We believe having a new social media company with a value system to see healing and change in our world and use social media for good is a powerful statement of change and action.

As we work together, we will see victims coming out of these horrific experiences physically healed, emotionally restored, spiritually aligned, and in community with us all again.

Immediate Call To Action

Download the Pyvott App on your phone right now for a new social media experience.

With that simple act, you are partnering with us to contribute to the long-term aftercare of Human Trafficking Survivors.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 by downloads in this campaign, and we NEED you. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tommy Green

Perhaps you have heard of reluctant missionaries and pioneer missionaries, but have you ever heard of “a kind of missionary?” This was Patrick Collinson’s description of his mother, Belle Patrick, who as a young woman, went to Algiers, North Africa, to assist Lilias Trotter, noted pioneer missionary to Arab & Berber Muslims.

Belle Hay Patrick (1895-1972) was born August 22 in the Scottish fishing community of Anstruther.

She was the eighth of 10 children. Her son, Patrick, wrote, “Belle had more than her fair share of the Patrick brains, although she was not, at first, very practical, in the domestic sense. Her mother sometimes called her a “gey, haundless tottie (a happy but helpless little one).”¹ But with her “fair share of brains,” little Belle “learnt the entire book of Psalms by heart and never forgot them.” At the age of nine, she won a scholarship to the local secondary school, which eventually led to a scholarship at St. Andrews University. She qualified as one of the first three women lawyers in Scotland in 1925, but she never practiced. Instead she responded to a call to become a “kind of missionary” in Algeria. In her own words, “It was to be the Gospel instead of the Law.”²

SCOTLAND (1920-1925)

As a young woman, children were drawn to Belle. A prayer meeting that she started with five other friends at the end of World War I, soon began to attract children. Four little girls who had been skipping rope came one August evening to peer through the open windows at the women praying. Belle said to them, “If you want to see what we are doing, come inside. You’ll be less bother in than out,”³ and in they trooped. They sat in a row on the front bench. The women went through their usual routine of hymn-singing, Bible-reading, prayer and an address, and the girls were as quiet as mice. Belle wrote:

“I felt really sorry for them, prisoners of their own choice, in a cold dark room, while outside the sun still shone and other bairns were laughing and playing. So when our service was over I said, ‘You’ve been very good so I’ll tell you a story all to yourselves’, and I launched on my favourite pastime. They were still quite quiet but now it was not the quiet of boredom; they were entranced. When I finished and they reluctantly rose from their seats I said: ‘We’ll be back next week and if you come half an hour earlier I’ll be here to tell you a story and then you can go home without sitting through the meeting.’ Next week I was greeted by eight children, and week by week the numbers grew until I had over fifty, packed like herrings on the narrow benches. Then in walked the halflins, half-grown boys, adolescents. The South fishing had started and all the men and older boys had left, so there was nothing to do in the dead town. So what better than to break up the bairns’ meeting? By changing my style of story-telling I managed to keep them in reasonable control for the children’s meeting, but then they began to stay behind for the women’s prayer meeting!”⁴

Weeks later, after Belle had told a gangster type story and preached what she thought was a gospel sermon, she decided to confront the boys by appealing to their better nature. “And then a remarkable thing happened. Week by week we had prayed for revival, and now it happened. The boys were held to their seats by a power outside themselves; they were under conviction of sin. Our six lads went home converted.”⁵ It was the autumn of 1920, and there in East Anglia to the south, the last of the fishermen’s revivals broke out. She wrote, “Many of our local fishermen were caught up in the movement of the Spirit. When the campaign was over our Prayer Union group had grown from 6 to 60. Again I felt a concern for the children. So I started a children’s meeting for them, which met before the prayer meeting, and once again it grew by leaps and bounds until it was difficult to pack all the youngsters into the room. The reading room could hold about 80-100 adults, but on my register I had 200 children, with an average attendance of about 150, and mostly I had no helpers!”⁶

ALGIERS (1925-1927)

By November 1925 Belle Patrick found herself in Algiers at Dar Naama with beloved artist & missionary Lilias Trotter.

Belle’s son Patrick wrote, “I say ‘a kind of missionary’ since her role was that of secretary to the remarkable Miss Lilias Trotter, founder and leader of the Algiers Mission Band (AMB).” When Belle arrived at Dar Naama, she found Lilias, age 72 with a weakened heart and confined to her bed. Patrick wrote, “She lived with Miss Trotter and others in Dar Naama, the rambling house of a former Barbary corsair (pirate!) in El Biar, Algiers.”⁷

Her initial missionary posting was for one year. Lilias wrote one enthusiastic letter after another to Belle’s mother; she said, “I do look on her as one of God’s most special gifts to me of late.”⁸ She explained to Mrs. Patrick that Belle’s first task was in “getting the gospel to the Sufi Moslems, a brotherhood of mystics.” As Lilias saw it, Belle was accomplishing this by typing the text of her book The Way of the Sevenfold Secret, considered by many as Miss Trotter’s magnum opus.

Written with the Sufi brotherhood in mind, it was a book based on the seven I Am’s of Christ in John’s gospel. The next project was a beautifully illustrated oversized book, Between the Desert and the Sea. Miss Trotter had assembled the watercolor illustrations earlier in her confinement, and now she began to prepare the text with the help of her secretary, Belle.⁹

The intent of the book was to “make people care,” Lilias said.¹⁰ “The text reveals her intimate knowledge and love of a people and a land; the watercolours bring to life unforgettable images, exquisite and exotic.”¹¹ In her forward Lilias writes, “The colour pages and the letterpress are with one and the same intent—to make you see. Many things begin with seeing in this world of ours.” ¹² Belle saw. When she left Dar Nama for home in 1927, she went with the vision to tell of the ‘other sheep’ that Jesus had in Algiers (John 10:16).

At the end of her first year, Lilias told Belle that she could not see her as a missionary, “at least not yet.”¹³ Before heading back to the UK, she felt that it was necessary for Belle to learn more about the mission by joining some of the tournées (tours) undertaken in the interior of Algeria and Tunisia, as a colporteur, distributing Christian literature. She wrote to her mother some of her hair-raising adventures in places not yet frequented by tourism. The railway lines were often blocked by drifts of sand. When traveling by car, they were bounced around as shuttlecocks due to the deeply rutted roads, while other times they had to take off their shoes and stockings to pull the car through mud and mire and salt marshes.¹⁴

Miss Trotter and her team appointed Belle as assistant secretary of the AMB in London, England. She was to organize prayer groups that were springing up across Britain, and she was to be the “liaison officer” between the field needs and the prayer partners.¹⁵ Before Belle left Dar Naama, Miss Trotter had clarified her English and French wills—Belle’s “fair share of brains” and law degree must have been useful. But Lilias’ most personal legacy was her journals and sketchbooks to be distributed among her family and friends, including the contents of ” one hundred & twenty-five pigeon hole shelves and drawers.” Under Miss Trotter’s direction, Belle had organized the ordering of the contents of those pigeon holes into alphabetical order!¹⁶

LONDON

Meanwhile, before leaving Algiers, Belle had met a Mr. Cecil Collinson, Deputation Secretary of the AMB. Upon her return to Britain in 1927, “Mr Collinson escorted Belle and another missionary lady to the Keswick Convention in July. It was at the nearby Friars Crag on Derwentwater that he proposed marriage. By the end of the year they were married.”¹⁷ Belle later discovered that it had been Mr. Collinson who suggested the placement of Belle in Croydon, South London, as the assistant secretary of the AMB! Perhaps this foreknowledge had also influenced Miss Trotter’s remark to Belle that she could not see her as a missionary, “at least not yet.”

EGYPT

Cecil had retired from business in the 1920s as he felt a call to evangelize the muslim world, now devoting himself full-time to the home end of such missions as the AMB, the North Africa Mission and the Fellowship of Faith for the Muslims. Later in 1935, he was appointed Secretary of the Egypt General Mission (EGM), which led to regular visits to Egypt with Belle. It seems Cecil was a “kind of missionary,” too.

During WWII, the Collinson family lived in Highbury, North London, where their house was badly damaged twice by bombs. Belle & Cecil also ran a canteen for the forces. Cecil died in 1952 and in the 20 years of life remaining, Belle applied her astuteness in all directions. She actually typed Patrick’s Ph.D. thesis, and when he became a lecturer at the University of Khartoum in the SUDAN, Belle spent her winters there with him. Many of her old missionary friends were deployed there, and she took trips with them as challenging as those Algerian tournées 30 years earlier! She moved to Sydney, AUSTRALIA, with Patrick and his family celebrating her 74th birthday en route. In Sydney she was soon doing all the secretarial work for the local office of the Middle East General Mission (formerly EGM). She died of cancer, patiently borne, in January 1972. Belle’s book, Recollections of East Fife Fisher Folk, lay in a drawer unpublished for many years. Upon re-reading her remarkable book before publishing, Patrick remarked, “I think I always underestimated my mother.”

A “kind of missionary?”

Yes, of the very special kind. What was her legacy? Today we like to use the phrase “on mission” and a word derived from two words “mission” and “intentional,” that is “missional,” to describe an active walk of faith. Certainly those modern terms “on mission” and “missional” fit Belle Patrick well. Everywhere she ventured she was herself. She used her upbringing, education, talent, personality and Spiritual gifts, with the intention of bearing the name of Christ and making Him known. Her life spanned 77 years in six different countries. In each decade, in every nation she gave her all. At age 30, she had decided, “It was to be the Gospel instead of the Law,” and for the next 47 years, it was so.

In her 30s, Miss Trotter had made a similar decision—it was to be the gospel instead of a career in art. In her 70s she understood the necessary & supportive part Belle played in getting the gospel to the Sufi Brotherhood. Without a secretary to type her manuscripts, Miss Trotter’s final works may not have reached the audience she had hoped for.

The body of Christ was always meant to be a team of connected parts, working together with Christ as the head. Each part is a necessary part, not kind of a part. If anything, Belle’s life demonstrates to us a life picture of what the apostle Paul was trying to tell us in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. Each part is a necessary, supporting part to the other, making up a whole. Perhaps we can conclude that there is neither a “kind of a missionary” nor is there a “kind of a Christian” either. Each believer is a necessary, living, active and supportive part of the whole.

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part shares in its joy. You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:26, 27, NIRV).

¹ Recollections of East Fife Fisher Folk, Belle Patrick. Birlinn Limited, 2003.
² Ibid
³ Ibid
⁴ Ibid
⁵ Ibid
⁶ Ibid
⁷ Ibid
⁸ Ibid
⁹ The Love That was Stronger, I.R. Govan Stewart. Lutterworth Press, 1958.
¹⁰ Until the Day Breaks, Patricia St. John. OM Publishing, 1997.
¹¹ A Passion for the Impossible, Miriam Huffman Rockness. Harold Shaw Publishers, 1999.
¹² Between the Desert and the Sea, I. Lilias Trotter. Hunt, Barnard & Company, Ltd., 1928.
¹³ Recollections of East Fife Fisher Folk, Belle Patrick. Birlinn Limited, 2003.
¹⁴ Ibid
¹⁵ A Passion for the Impossible, Miriam Huffman Rockness. Harold Shaw Publishers, 1999.
¹⁶ Ibid
¹⁷ Recollections of East Fife Fisher Folk, Belle Patrick. Birlinn Limited, 2003. Friars Crag—John Ruskin described the view as one of the three most beautiful scenes in Europe.

We look forward to the next article in our missionary biography series, Pioneer Missionary to North Africa, Miss I. Lilias Trotter.

Here in Australia, the government began in January of 2016, an initiative to take in 12,000 refugees from the Middle East.

This opens up an incredible opportunity for the church in Australia. The refugee crisis seemed to reach its pinnacle in public awareness in 2015. News stories abounded worldwide, with pictures of refugees from the Middle East pouring into Europe. As a result, Christians have had to take a hard look at what our responsibility should be to the refugee crisis.

We have discovered that nearly 40% of Sydney residents speak a non-English language at home.

There are more than 250 languages spoken in Sydney. Arabic, which dominates the western suburbs, is the most widely spoken non-English language. Sydney has a huge population of Arabic speaking migrants who have sought asylum in Australia.
God has opened many doors for us to minister to the Arabic community here and to help with the decision-making teams that are settling the refugees. I have been ministering at the oldest Christian Arabic fellowship here in the western suburbs of Sydney. After services, many of the people come up to me to tell their stories. With tears and gratitude, they ask for prayers and help for their relatives still in the Middle East. Also, the churches in the northern beaches of Sydney have rallied to provide homes, resources and mentorship to arriving refugees. This group is working closely with the Premier of New South Whales’ office.
In addition, part of our work is partnering the Arabic speaking churches with sympathetic Aussie churches to better receive the refugees. Unifying the church at large is so important in many aspects of evangelism within a community. We are also working with the Salvation Army who has a parachurch unifying presence in Sydney regarding issues like this. The Salvation Army’s latest initiative, “The Big Hello,” stands to support and welcome Syrian and Iraqi refugees to their new home of Australia.

How we welcome refugees impacts their future.

People who are warmly received gain a sense of belonging. The kind of welcome they receive impacts how they interact with others from the outset, as well as their long-term integration.

God gives us wisdom in His word as to how we should welcome refugees.

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).

Also, Job writes, “The sojourner has not lodged in the street; I have opened my doors to the traveler” (Job 31:32). Though we are not under the law, the wisdom and principles of God’s law stand. And is it not mercy that crowns God’s people? Micah 6:8 says that what God requires of us is to, “Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” Also, when Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor…” He explained through the parable of the Good Samaritan, the kind of love and mercy that a true neighbor has. We, God’s children, are to be the ones who express a unique kind of mercy that is only found in the gospel (Luke 10:29-37). This mercy is to be shown to the “foreigner.”

When you think about it, the entire Bible is a book of refugees. Throughout the scriptures, we see God working out His redemptive story through sojourning men and woman.

As Christians, we know in some way what it is to be a “foreigner” and a “stranger” in another land.

We live in a world that is not our home, and we long for our homeland heaven. Jesus also understands the plight of the refugee. He left this homeland to come to a foreign land where He was mocked, ridiculed and died at the hands of an unjust government. As God’s people, we should have some understanding and compassion towards displaced people. We must remember that the outworking of the gospel in our lives is shown by mercy. Mercy involves sacrifice, forgiveness, benevolence and yes….even risk. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful…” (Matt. 5:7). God is “merciful and compassionate” and risked it all in order to rescue us. As we aim to discern our place in the refugee crisis, may God give us His mercy, compassion and wisdom.

I began my journey in better understanding this complex issue when I traveled to a gathering of church leader’s in Istanbul, Turkey, last year. There I began to understand the plight of the refugee and how tremendous the problem is. For instance, in Jordan, up to 80% of the population are refugees. Refugees in any country are, by law, not allowed to work. The conditions in the camps are deplorable in many countries, and the people living in the camps are in complete despair – willing to risk their lives in a small raft at the hope of possible safety elsewhere.

Following my trip to Turkey, I became acquainted with Voice of the Refugees headquartered in Anaheim, California. They have been an incredible support and resource to us as we work with the churches in Australia on this issue. They provide some valuable information in answering basic questions about ministry to refugees.

Earlier this year, I was able to travel with a couple other pastors to Northern Iraq for inductive scripture training to encourage the workers in the IDP camps. (Internally Displaced Peoples are people that still live in their own country but are displaced from their homes, lives and work.) I experienced first-hand the conditions and heartbreak of these displaced people. Most of the IDP are well educated, middle class, home-owning families who have had to leave everything behind to literally flee for their lives, because of their unwillingness to give up their Christian faith to become Muslims.

The current worldwide refugee crisis is an opportunity for the church.

It also comes with risk. We can pray for our governments to have wisdom in handling this crisis. We should pray for our leaders! But as the church, we are called to go beyond our fears, take risks and minister God’s love and truth to all people. In this time that we live, there is a profound opportunity for God’s people to live out the gospel. This watershed issue will reveal our faith and our understanding of the gospel.

Modern churches may question the necessity of international missions outreach. After all, isn’t it enough that we reach our local community for Christ? Is it important for every local church to reach beyond its neighborhood to bring the message of Christ to the world? These are good questions for discussion.

I believe missions are the life-blood of the church. Individual Christians and local churches alike will become stagnant without outreach. As God pours into us His riches (His Word, His Spirit, and His great love) we must pour out His goodness back into the lives of others or we will not be revitalized. When missions take a back seat in a church’s priorities and functions, it is because the heart of the church has drifted from the God-given purpose for its existence.

The mission (singular) of God.

What we normally think of as “missions” in the church could be more accurately referred to as simply the mission (singular) of God. The missional heart of God is seen in the example of the Father in sending Jesus. As Philippians chapter two instructs us, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…” who left the glory of heaven to come to this stinky earth to rescue people! The very nature of God leads his church to giving itself to a hurting world. The very nature of God is to seek and save the lost.

Jesus told us that His mission was to be lived out through His body, the church. He said in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, “you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Therefore, true missions take place not only in our backyard, but also to foreign peoples in distant lands. It is incredibly important for the pulse of every church to have the heart of a missionary. Worldwide mission is the very heartbeat of the gospel itself, to carry the good news of Christ to our neighbor and to the ends of the earth.

A gospel-centered church cannot be anything but a missions-centered church.

Every healthy church has a dynamic of outreach that we call missions. A gospel-centered church cannot be anything but a missions-centered church. A church that focuses only on meeting the needs of its local members has become more like a club. When we turn inward, we become ill with the disease of self-absorption. In economic downturns many churches cut missions budgets, but it is important to remember to stay true to the heart of a God-on-mission when we consider our church budgets.

Jesus’ remedy to those that find themselves having turned inward.

Jesus’ remedy to those that find themselves having turned inward is to “lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest” (John 4:35). He also says, “Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Matt 9:38). So let’s look and pray for missionaries in God’s fields.

Recently the world population exceeded seven billion people! Astonishingly, just less than 50% of the world’s largest people groups remain un-evangelized according to the World Christian Database. Obviously, the need is very great for churches to keep international missions at the core of their values. It’s important for church leaders, to prayerfully identify, send and support missionaries with as much conviction as anything else the church sees as relevant. In doing so, we model that single mission of God that has never wavered.

One of the greatest ways to reach out into your community is to meet the real needs of parents and then to share with them the love of Jesus Christ. Some of that pressure comes from the outside with education, economic, and social expectations overwhelming many parents today. And some of the challenges come from inside the family itself. Conflict between family members, lack of cooperation, resistance from children, and balancing schedule, money, and relational time make leading a family quite a challenge today.

More and more parents want closeness with their kids. They want their families to be successful and want to enjoy family life. So when the church steps in with answer that specifically address the home, parents listen. Right around your church are hundreds of families that would like advice that would make their families more successful. And you have the answers. God has given biblical principles that add to peace, closeness, and depth for any family. In fact, when a family understands God’s principles, the family itself develops a mission instead of just reacting to the chaos of life.

A tremendous tool for outreach by a church is to offer parenting seminars as an outreach to the community. Whether it’s driven by video teaching or a live presenter isn’t as important as the integrity of the biblical principles taught in a practical way. It’s not good enough to tell kids to honor and obey their parents. Kids need to know how and parents need to know how to teach those concepts without yelling at their kids. Parents want ideas for working with their teenagers and getting their kids through the day without a crisis. They want to know how to have closeness and still get things done.

As you share real solutions for the challenges parents are facing you can talk about where they come from, the Bible. You can talk about the value of the church as a family and reach out as a caring community where parents and families can find support. Most importantly, you can share with those parents the most important parenting tip available, and that is to understand who God is as Father and how a personal relationship with Jesus Christ adopts them into God’s family.

When you use parenting seminars as an outreach to the community, you’re being like Jesus. One of the ways he shared the message of the kingdom was by helping people at their point of felt need. He often used common life experiences to create interest. He talked about everyday things like water, crops, and bread and often ministered to personal needs by healing, feeding, or just enjoying social interaction. These things became vehicles for him to share the kingdom. He talked to the woman at the well about living water. He gave over 5,000 people food to eat. He healed those who came to him. Jesus was willing to help people where they were, and used those opportunities to express God’s love and share about the kingdom.

Parenting seminars today are like the feeding of the 5,000 in Jesus time. Parents are hungry for answers for their families. They want help. Parenting is a need families are willing to admit and they’ll even come to a church to find answers. Parents love their children and want the best for them, but often they lack the knowledge, wisdom, and practical ideas needed to raise healthy, responsible children.

If you want your parenting seminar to be a successful outreach, consider these things:

1) Pray for your community. Gather a group of people together who can start praying for the specific needs of families in your area. Announce the idea to your church in the idea stage as you’re praying together.

2) Plan your content well. You don’t have to be a parenting expert to teach a parenting seminar. You could bring someone in from the outside, use video presentations, or teach material from a good parenting book. Make sure that it’s both biblical and practical.

3) Choose the timing well. Any time you choose will likely conflict with youth sports and other events. Don’t be discouraged by that. Not everyone is busy every moment of the week. Some won’t come because of other commitments, but don’t let that stop you. You might choose a Saturday morning event, or Friday evening, or three Wednesday evenings. Parents are often hesitant to commit to an eight-week study but might be interested in a two week event offered four times a year.

4) Offer a children’s program. Don’t just babysit the kids, but teach them things that complement what the parents are learning. If the kids have a positive, meaningful experience, parents are more likely to come to something else like a church service.

5) Find solutions for other excuses. You might provide a low cost meal before the event to care for busy parents. Keep the cost low or offer it for free. Encourage pre-registration to enhance commitment levels. Don’t forget the grandparents since many grandparents are heavily involved in the raising of children today.

6) Promote it well. Have a team of people promoting the seminar within your church and another team of people promoting outside the church. Inform various groups and government agencies of your event since many people need court mandated parent training and can receive adoptive and foster care credits for attending a parenting seminar. Notify every preschool, day care, and after school program in your area. Those leaders work with the kids and know that the parents would benefit from some help. Sometimes even the school system will allow the promotion of a seminar conducted at your church.

7) Involve many people from your church. This is home missions, and when you present the opportunities to people, present it as a missions event, instead of simply recruiting people for tasks to be done. You’ll want help promoting, greeting, caring for children, preparing food, and then everyone ought to be encouraged to get the word out to parents they know.

A Parenting Seminar Outreach works because it connects with families and ministers to them right at their point of need. But it doesn’t stop there. A Parenting Seminar Outreach not only strengthens families but it becomes a vehicle for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

At the National Center for Biblical Parenting we have a resource and data CD called How to Use Parenting Seminars as an Outreach to the Community.

For more ideas, resources and tools for ministering to parents you might want to visit the website of the National Center for Biblical Parenting. www.biblicalparenting.org