Latest / reIMAGED: Bringing Pro Life Into Gospel Focus / Why reIMAGED? Reclaiming the Sacred Worth of Every Human Life

Transcript

Why reIMAGED? Reclaiming the Sacred Worth of Every Human Life · reIMAGED: Bringing Pro Life Into Gospel Focus

• 0:04
  Alissa: Alright. So, Chris, what if pro life is the wrong place to start?
• 0:09
  Chris: That would be interesting being that this is a pro life podcast.
• 0:13
  Alissa: No. But on a serious note, what if the church has held the right position on being pro life, but hasn't always understood the full implications of what that foundations and worldview.
• 0:27
  Chris: Yeah, I like that because, again, if you start the conversation knowledge wise from like a political standpoint, you're like way further down the road.
• 0:39
  Alissa: Right.
• 0:39
  Chris: And what you're proposing is back to more like a biblical foundation being pro life. Right?
• 0:46
  Alissa: Yeah.
• 0:47
  Chris: And then what are all the ripple effects from that Yeah.
• 0:50
  Alissa: Connect to the image of God and where the foundations all begin to help people to conceptualize it more. Because I feel like in Christianity, but also in the pro life movement, we've separated those into different camps where the church might agree with being pro life, but they don't necessarily think of it from a completely image of God or Gospel foundation. They think of it more as like a political issue than how it flows from a worldview, I guess.
• 1:34
  Chris: Yeah, like if I put myself in those shoes and right now think of like, where was I twenty years ago? That was me. I would not have been able to defend, explain, have a true one on one conversation with anybody as to why I'm pro life other than just kind of like cultural Christianity.
• 1:57
  Alissa: Right.
• 1:57
  Chris: Like, I know my family's pro life because I grew up going to this Baptist church and believed in Christ and followed. And so I knew we were pro life. I couldn't tell you why.
• 2:07
  Alissa: Right. And obviously you'll get a lot of varying opinions within Christian culture. But I think people don't really want to think through why it matters. And I don't mean to say that there aren't individual Christians or even ministries who are helping people to understand the reasons that the sanctity of human life is a biblical perspective. I'm just thinking if we can have a bigger conversation with people who would claim to be pro life, but, bring them into the conversation and talk about what they're seeing in their context as far as ministry leaders or pastors that feel like they don't really have the tools to talk about what it means to be pro life and how we do that well.
• 3:03
  Chris: Right. Yeah. Where we work at Life International, many times when we do, like if we meet with other pastors, both in other nations and here in The States, the question often comes up from other pastors is, yeah, we struggle with how do we talk to our congregation about this, whether it's platform, like from the pulpit kind of thing or in a smaller scale, like, you know, a life group or a small group type of thing or a classroom or one on one. I think that's a struggle the church has always had, at least in my lifetime.
• 3:39
  Alissa: Yeah. And, you know, the name of this podcast is Reimaged, which intentionally is giving a nod toward the Imago Dei and being made in the image of God. And so I think our hope is to keep the guardrails of Scripture and what we know is true, and we won't compromise on that truth, but to engage people in wider conversations about how to apply that, the challenges that they're seeing in their own lives, whether that's somebody who's just living daily life as a Christian and wants to be able to have good conversations with their friends and neighbors, to a person who's a pastor of a large church and helping to give them language and the tools to engage people on this subject matter.
• 4:29
  Chris: What
• 4:34
  Alissa: if being pro life is bigger than we think? We're asking honest questions and exploring what scripture says about the value of every human life. This is Reimaged, bringing pro life into Gospel Focus. Reimaged,
• 5:03
  Chris: If most people in general, not even just Christians, see it as a political issue, where does that typically happen? It's big platform or large gathering. It's more like there's a place where you're projecting something or speaking something. Our goal in this is to have more realistic practical conversations which means, by the way, that we are not the experts in it.
• 5:34
  Alissa: Right.
• 5:35
  Chris: Actually learning as we go. In fact, one of the trainings we do at Life International is called the journey of a life giver. It's an ongoing process of learning. It's this journey of understanding from the Lord. So what we want to do is invite guests in to say, well, let's have those real conversations.
• 5:54
  Alissa: Right.
• 5:54
  Chris: Let's talk about in your context or in your context, what does it look like to engage in the pro life movement and how it affects people in your congregation and your neighborhood in a one on one kind of a basis, not a big platform, all of society kind of a basis.
• 6:14
  Alissa: Right. For sure. And going back to what you said a little bit earlier, we obviously are very committed to Scripture and to the Gospel, and those will always be the foundation and the guardrails. So we're not seeking to come to different ways of thinking about the pro life cause or movement based off of consensus of having different people in here, but learning from people as to how to walk out those principles and those beliefs that we affirm to be true. So, yeah, so I think, what what would you say?
• 6:57
  So you've obvious obviously already mentioned that we're both Life International employees.
• 7:03
  Chris: Yes.
• 7:04
  Alissa: How did you come to your role here? And what does it mean to you and your personal life? Well, and professional, I guess. Yeah.
• 7:14
  Chris: So I started with Life International, in 2018, but I go back years ago. So I was born and raised in a Christian family here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is where Life International is located. I was saved as a young child. I think I was five years old. Later on in my late teenage years to when I was about 20, was a prodigal son, kind of ran off, lived an entirely different lifestyle, came back, not only came back home to my literal family, came back home to the Lord.
• 7:56
  And at age 20, which happens to also be when my wife, Christie, and I connected after I'd already turned around and come back to the Lord. That's when I felt like I had, I know God had his sights set on me, but that's when I finally think had my sights set on the Lord and turned back, came back with arms open saying, I want more, I want you, I want to learn. And that's when scripture came alive to me. Well, fast forward, I think twelve years is when I first stepped into vocational ministry and was the director of student ministries at the church that I've been at for forty years now. I'm still at this church.
• 8:41
  So I was the youth director, was, I did that role for several years and then was a church planter in the Chicago land area, with a great church network there. And then came back to West Michigan and found through a fundraising banquet, through some friends that invited us in, heard the message of how the gospel and life are linked together through Kurt Dillinger, our president. And that was the first moment that I had ever heard, the pro life movement spoken in a way that was through the Gospel. Not just biblical, but through the lens of the Gospel. I remember it like just like a light bulb going off and it totally switched something in my heart and in my mind.
• 9:32
  And at the time I was looking at walking away from the role I was in at this camp through the church I was at. And I remember walking away saying, I could see myself working for an organization like this.
• 9:46
  Alissa: Like that, yeah.
• 9:47
  Chris: And I think it was... That was May. And by end of August, I was on staff at Life International. And now my role, I had left Life International after a couple years, was, fulfilling a role as an executive pastor for a while, but then came back to Life International now four years ago. So I have two different stints at life, international.
• 10:11
  Yes. So now I serve as the Vice President of Operations and Engagement, trying to basically operations is what you think running things here in the office, but also engagement in North America, U. S. And Canada. Trying to do things like this to get the message out there for North America to hear.
• 10:32
  Alissa: Right. To try to kind of start a not a new conversation, but a conversation that we can invite other people into collaborate with other people that also share this mission. And then it would be also really awesome if people who maybe aren't already pro life or are not already Christians ended up hearing this podcast. That would be super cool too.
• 10:57
  Chris: Yeah. Because part of the whole link of the Gospel and the Sanctity of Life message is clearly, well, the Gospel is to win people to Christ. I mean, that's so that's our heartbeat. So what's fun about one of my, a part of my role is I get to hire people. And one of those instances was I was involved in hiring you.
• 11:20
  You don't report to me, but I get to be involved in your hiring process. And you have a pretty unique story. So why don't you tell us both your personal journey and how you came to Life International because I got this email that basically said, my resume will not make sense for this role. And but the way you wrote the rest of the email, I'll let you explain that basically was like, And I right away was like, this feels right.
• 11:49
  Alissa: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Chris: So why don't you kind of give us some background?
• 11:51
  Alissa: Sure.
• 11:52
  Chris: And then how you came to Life International?
• 11:53
  Alissa: Yeah, so background would be very similar to your story. Born and raised in a Christian home, was always pro life. I felt like that made logical sense and also made a lot of sense from what I knew about scripture and about God. And then went to public university for a while. I started, of course, like you always do when you get to, like, teen and later, even a little bit later than teen years, started really questioning things and wanting to challenge myself of, well, why do you believe what you believe?
• 12:34
  As I started to wrestle and had friends that didn't agree with my beliefs and really wanted to figure out, okay, I wanna know that this is true because first of all, I don't wanna believe something just because that's how I was raised. I wanna wanna believe it because it actually is reality.
• 12:53
  Chris: While you were still in college? I mean Or is this kinda coming out of college?
• 12:57
  Alissa: I always kind of had that mentality, but I did go to a Christian school, k through 12. And so I didn't have a lot of real challenge. Like, we would, of course, discuss and try to take opposite sides of controversial issues to, like, you know, work through it. But I wouldn't say that it really got tested in real life and probably until late high school, early college.
• 13:21
  Chris: I feel like there's a weird group of people like you that think that's fun.
• 13:25
  Alissa: What? Oh, testing? Yes. I love it.
• 13:28
  Chris: Testing each other. I'm always like, no. I'm not interested in that.
• 13:31
  Alissa: No. I love digging into it, all of the messy stuff and trying to figure it out. But, yeah. So in college, I remember kind of even entertaining for a while the idea of, well, I personally think that abortion is wrong, but I think it's, you know, it's not for me to say. And started to
• 13:51
  Chris: Very similar. Yeah.
• 13:53
  Alissa: Head down that path and then quickly, you know, I won't get into all of it right now, but fairly quickly realized the inconsistency of that belief. Yeah, so I had some time. And I will say I also did not walk closely with the Lord for a long time through later high school, early college. Definitely lived a lifestyle that was not consistent with what I said that I... Well, with what I profess to believe.
• 14:26
  But God was faithful to me as He is regardless of my unfaithfulness. And I ended up meeting my husband, who also was raised in a Christian home and had also kind of been living a lifestyle that wasn't in congruence with what he said that he believed, and we ended up talking. And we... It's funny because looking back, I'm like, God had to have been just, like, shaking his head because I remember when I actually had, like, a real conversation with Mike because we generally knew each other in college. But when I sat down and actually started to get to know him and realized that he also had the same beliefs that I had, that we both weren't living, I went home and I told my roommate, I was, like, so excited that I had met this guy that was claimed to be a Christian, but was Yeah.
• 15:18
  Was still able to, like, quote unquote, have a good time. Yeah. So, you know, kind of ironically sitting
• 15:25
  Chris: at a bar once with a Christian friend and kinda looking at each other like, we both know what we're doing is not what's honoring God. Yeah.
• 15:32
  Alissa: Right. And in that moment, I was like, oh, this is perfect. Yeah. But looking back, I'm just like, you know, facepalm like, Wow, Alissa, you really... You were really that dumb.
• 15:44
  But anyway, God brought us back to... Like, at the same time, really, we were ironically attending the church that you attend when we were first married. And I was in a mentoring Bible study, and God started to really work on my heart and recommitted my life and would come home and talk to Mike about all the things I was learning. And so anyway, we just did a 180 at that point in life. And I would say early and...
• 16:12
  So we have three kids. And when I was staying home and had young kids at home, I really dove into apologetics and wanting to understand on an even deeper level the reasons for why I believe what I believe. I also had some really close friends who were either deconstructing or they had never been believers in the first place. And, you know, we would have conversations and they would challenge me. And so I did a deep dive at that time, listening to podcasts and reading books and blogs and all of the things that were going on at that time and just really honed in on some specifics.
• 16:52
  But one thing that I really dove into was abortion and wanting to understand all of the arguments for it, the arguments against it. And then it's just always been something I'm very passionate about. And fast forward a number of years, we were living in Grand Rapids again after having been gone for a number of years. And one of my neighbors was being interviewed on MSNBC when the Roe versus Wade decision was... I think it had already been leaked, but it hadn't been officially Right.
• 17:26
  Announced yet. And so she had somehow been connected with a reporter from MSNBC, and they wanted to have a panel of women in Grand Rapids to discuss when the decision was officially announced. And so this friend called me, and she was like, so you're the only, like, pro life friend that I have? I was like, what? She goes, so I was wondering if you would wanna come on this show for MSC sole target on That's basically what I was like, this seems like a really bad decision.
• 18:00
  Like, no. I'm not doing that. And she was like, well, the reporter wants to just give you a call. And, like, will you talk to her and the producer and just, you know, tell them your story? Anyway, to make a long story short, I really felt like the Holy Spirit was present in that phone call.
• 18:16
  I was on a joint call with the producer and the reporter and was able to really articulate my positions well. And I remember them being like, wow. Well, okay. So we would really love to invite you to come on the show. And I was like, well, here's the thing.
• 18:37
  Chris: I'm not Deep down, were you kinda like, what do you mean wow? I know. Were you expecting something really idiotic?
• 18:43
  Alissa: Or is a logical belief. No. But she wanted me to come on, and I was really hesitant. I... You know, it was MSNBC, and they're not exactly friendly to conservative or pro life causes.
• 18:58
  And so I told her that. I was like, I'm concerned about coming on. I don't wanna be a Target. I don't want anybody to know my last name, all of that kind of stuff. So anyway, she was like, okay.
• 19:09
  We won't put your last name on the screen. We won't do this. We won't do that. Anyway, so I did it. And it was two and a half, three hour long panel.
• 19:19
  So there were other women there that held varying opinions.
• 19:21
  Chris: Right.
• 19:22
  Alissa: And it's funny because when it actually aired, I got, like, less than three seconds of airtime.
• 19:28
  Chris: You were interviewing, you sent me the link.
• 19:32
  Alissa: Yeah.
• 19:32
  Chris: And I watched it, and I was like, yeah. He gave you, like, no airtime.
• 19:35
  Alissa: Right.
• 19:35
  Chris: I remember thinking, like, what she had to say must have been really great.
• 19:38
  Alissa: Yeah. And kind of just actually edited it, honestly, because I was like, one thing that they showed me saying and then, like, the next part of that same thought, we're not in the same mood. It was so frustrating. But at the end of the day, I just really felt like God must have had a reason for that. The people that were in the room while we were recording heard everything.
• 20:01
  And And I will also say there was another pro life woman that they've... Well, actually, she came because I invited her, a Catholic girl from Grand Rapids that was on as well. So there ended up being two of us who were pro life. But anyway, it was an interesting experience. And then it wasn't long after that that my kids had kind of gotten to the age where I was thinking of going back to work part time.
• 20:25
  And I thought that would be with my church. I just thought I would probably go on staff and do And something so I kept looking on the church's website for job postings. But there was also a community job board, which is where I saw the posting for Life International as communications director. And I was like, well, you know, my degree is in communications, but a director level position. I was like, I haven't been working in the...
• 20:54
  That kind of capacity for over fifteen years. So
• 20:58
  Chris: that's your email.
• 20:59
  Alissa: That's when I sent you the email, and I didn't know it was you at the time. But I sent the email just explaining I've been a stay at home mom for fifteen years, and I'm passionate about this, and I have the degree, but it doesn't... You know, my resume does not look good. And then you wrote me back and said, well, let's have a discovery interview. So that's how I ended up here at Life and International.
• 21:22
  Chris: That was
• 21:22
  Alissa: Almost three years ago. That was in twenty twenty three.
• 21:25
  Chris: Three. Yeah.
• 21:26
  Alissa: And it was right before we were leaving to go to Malta for the Global Congress for Life.
• 21:31
  Chris: Yeah. So you got hired on, and right away, we were saying, so when you start, the... One of the biggest projects you'll ever work on ever is gonna be, like in three weeks.
• 21:43
  Alissa: Yes. Interviewee. In a
• 21:44
  Chris: different country Yes. Working with a videographer you don't know and a whole bunch of international partners you've never met.
• 21:50
  Alissa: Yeah. And I remember
• 21:51
  Chris: you going, how come I can do this? And I was like, you'll be fine.
• 21:55
  Alissa: Well, yeah.
• 21:56
  Chris: But what was great is you got to meet all of these international partners in such short form, rapid fire that I feel like you learned far more than most employees do, like within months kind of thing.
• 22:14
  Alissa: It was... Yeah. It was baptism by fire.
• 22:16
  Chris: You were in with all of those interviews of all those partners
• 22:20
  Alissa: Yep.
• 22:20
  Chris: At a global gathering. Cause there was what, 108 nations physically present that were represented.
• 22:27
  Alissa: That sounds right. And then another another
• 22:29
  Chris: 40 or so online. Right.
• 22:32
  Alissa: Yeah. It was a very, very life changing experience to be there. And like you already said, to be able to meet our international partners that quickly after starting and just understand the culture here. Yeah. It was a really awesome
• 22:53
  Chris: So that took you from the like, I don't know if we call it a bubble, but the realm you were in, in regards to like your own pro life world and conversations and suddenly threw you into this, like, global thing.
• 23:08
  Alissa: Right.
• 23:09
  Chris: What was your perspective on that? When you first started, suddenly you're thinking this isn't just a pro life conversation like I've been having with friends, my neighborhood, church, coworkers, whatever. Now you're seeing like, wow, God is doing this global movement that is all over the world, literally in all corners of the world.
• 23:29
  Alissa: Yeah. I think, I mean, there's a lot of different aspects that impacted me, but I think a few of them would be how similar it is and how different it is. Like my own personal U. S. Context with my own friends and my own acquaintances and the way that we think about issues of the sanctity of human life and then what it looks like globally.
• 23:57
  And just I think the thing that makes the biggest impact on me and was one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to work for Life International is that we have not lost the gospel in our attempt to address the sanctity of human life around the world. So I think, unfortunately, it can be really easy for Christians to assume the gospel and then get about doing the good works, which obviously, you know, we were created to do good works. But getting so focused on that that they forget that the gospel has to be shared with people. You have to actually verbally share the good news with people and explain to them what Christ did for them. And it was really important to me that this ministry has not lost that.
• 24:51
  It's very much a part of who we are. So that was really impacting. And it also made me realize, regardless of where you are in the world, ultimately, it does come down to, do you value human beings because they bear God's image? And it is literally a identity that is given and not something because of what you do. It's because of the thing that you are, who you are.
• 25:22
  Intrinsically, you are valued. And that happens from the moment of conception because that's when there is a new human being. So, yeah, I would say just the reality that it's so similar worldwide, but then the unique ways that it presents itself around the world is also really interesting too. There's been many stories that I've had the opportunity to hear through our international partners or through our team here that goes and does trainings internationally about the way that people in other countries don't have access to the education that we do as far as it pertains to biology and and, frankly, the theology underneath. And those people realizing that for the first time.
• 26:13
  And I think I've taken a lot of that for granted being in the West and having, you know, growing up in a country that has pretty at least the opportunity to know a pretty developed theology on life. Not everyone in the world has access to that. So it's been really Yeah.
• 26:30
  Chris: After working here for a while and then, you know don't know how many trips I've been on but in the I don't know let's say 18 to 20 countries I've been in or something I feel like I've become more grateful for what I didn't realize I had in my upbringing. And even as my young adult years, I look back at the different pastors I had who truly valued the word of God in a way that they did not handle it lightly and gave me such a strong foundational teaching in the word of God that I didn't realize it at the time, but now I go other places and it's not that the Bible isn't valued that way in many other nations and places, but my theology and my doctrine, my understanding of Christ and who he is, all of the doctrines of God, all of the scripture that I've learned over the years, I don't think I realized how critical and important it was until I started to go to other countries and to see where there are things that they just don't have access to. Like quality of books, like literature, like systematic theology or whatever it is that we all can just go and grab.
• 27:57
  We can go to a library and just grab it for free and utilize it And many places don't have that many do. And there's a lot of places elsewhere in the world that are theologically rich and so devout around the word of God. But what's been interesting is to engage with other leaders and people around the world. Like I took those kinds of things for granted. But what also was embarrassing to me a little bit was how much people do the instant that they become a believer in some other countries, they're saying, What do I do?
• 28:34
  And then they go and they start leading. They immediately start discipling other people. And one of the things that I really have come to love about Life International is where not only are we dedicated to the word of God and the importance of the word of God and the gospel and the sanctity of human life, But we're also dedicated to multiplication, meaning like disciples making disciples. So if we can attach ourselves, go serve people who are disciples, who are discipling others, we know that this message will multiply.
• 29:10
  Alissa: Exactly.
• 29:11
  Chris: That's what I think has always been thrilling to me, but also embarrassing because I realized like, wow, there's so many periods of my life where I just haven't done that. And I've had all of the opportunity to. So it does ignite something in you that's different than what I grew up with. So it's been thrilling to be a part of it.
• 29:32
  Alissa: Right. Yeah. And I mean, the end of the day, care both about, obviously, the physical life of every human being, but we also care about their spiritual life. So it's really an evangelistic ministry at its core. We seek to make other believers, to make disciples from that perspective.
• 29:58
  But then we want to go further than that and help disciple them in knowing why human life matters Yeah, so
• 30:06
  Chris: I'm guessing our listeners will hear us periodically say the term, the mission field created by abortion.
• 30:14
  Alissa: So
• 30:15
  Chris: really we see it more opportunistically like, hey, we are pro life, but our ultimate goal is that people would find Christ, find their hope in Christ alone, salvation in Christ alone. But we know that the greatest cause of the loss of life in the world is abortion. And that is a mission field that is created by this devaluation of life everywhere. And that's where we enter the mission field and partner with other believers, other Christian leaders, pastors, ministry leaders.
• 30:47
  Alissa: In Yeah. This podcast, what do you hope? What are some of the things that you hope we will address or the kinds of conversations that we might have? Is there anything you're looking forward to?
• 30:58
  Chris: Well, one of the things I really hope happens here is like when I look back at my history as a pastor in a couple of different roles, a few different roles, I wish I would have known what I know now or seen it the way I see it now so I could go back and do some of those things over again. So having come to that now, I now feel like I want to help other guys, other women, like I want to help people learn that in the midst of where they are right now in ministry. So I would love to see North American pastors, ministry leaders, small group leaders, women's Bible study leaders, like whatever it is, to have that moment like you and I each have had in our own unique ways. Not from a platform type of a space to say, let's tell everybody at a picket line or at a rally or whatever, but to actually like engage in this conversation in your small group.
• 32:01
  Alissa: Right.
• 32:02
  Chris: Not just from the pulpit on Sunday, but also in your small group. To open the doors to where Christians in North America, leaders and people who are just simply in a small group and live in a neighborhood like you experienced, where you start, we start to engage in conversation with people who might be in like a pregnancy crisis moment.
• 32:25
  Alissa: Right.
• 32:26
  Chris: And that person might find, Oh, this conversation is different than what I see on television or in Facebook conversations, which cause a lot of people who are in those crisis moments say, I'm not going there. I'm just gonna make my decision.
• 32:40
  Alissa: For sure. It's not primarily a political identity. It's primarily a moral and biblical issue at its core. And so Christians and non Christians alike, I really feel like we should be able to have conversations that we respect one another, we listen to one another, and we hopefully can move in a better direction where it doesn't have to be so angry and such a difficult... I mean, it's
• 33:15
  Chris: So that's a great question. What do what do you hope to see?
• 33:18
  Alissa: Well, you know me. I love to
• 33:20
  Chris: And you can't say the same answer.
• 33:21
  Alissa: Get into get into the hard questions. So I think we're gonna, along the way, have some really interesting conversations. I think our next episode even is supposed to be about defining what is pro life and what exactly does that mean? What does it encompass? What is it not?
• 33:39
  I think that will be really interesting just to have that conversation as a foundational place. And then, you know, there's a lot of talk right now about abolitionism and just things that are...
• 33:53
  Chris: Oh, so you dropped that in there.
• 33:55
  Alissa: I dropped the word
• 33:56
  Chris: to talk about it.
• 33:57
  Alissa: The word eventually. I'm not saying when we're talking about it. Stay tuned. But, yeah, I like to I like to wrestle through the hard things. So we'll see.
• 34:08
  And even having people on that may have had abortion in their past and talking about abortion healing and what comes after you have had an abortion and the forgiveness that is available and how God can still use you and use your story for His purposes.
• 34:27
  Chris: And just another foundational, less important, is the biblical foundation. So I'm Chris. This is Alissa. We're going to be the hosts of this podcast. Periodically, it might be just us two, but we also hope to have guests on on a regular basis to where we'd have somebody else sitting here and or other people, maybe multiple sitting here so we can have conversation and we're simply hosting a conversation or facilitating a conversation.
• 34:56
  Alissa: And
• 34:58
  Chris: I would say the other thing I look forward to, which you and I and other teammates on the staff at Life International get to experience this a lot is, we all have the same understanding heartbeat overall kind of thing, kind of the same DNA, over time working together here at Life International, but we're all uniquely different. And you're more like an apologist, mindset. Am I right? Would that describe you well, do you think? Like, those are the things that drive you to conversation.
• 35:34
  Right? And I come from a more pastoral background and I'm always going, yeah, so that's a really interesting comment. How does that apply to that person sitting over there that nobody's kind of noticing? That's what I think will be entertaining as well. Because I don't think like you and you ask these questions, I'm like, I don't know.
• 35:54
  Like, tell me more because clearly there's something I'm not aware of.
• 36:00
  Alissa: No. Yeah. It will definitely be a really good conversation. I think we also will have the opportunity to bring some of our international partners on when they're in town.
• 36:11
  Chris: Which is always fun.
• 36:12
  Alissa: Very, very cool.
• 36:13
  Chris: And stretching. Take
• 36:14
  Alissa: care from them. Yes. So, yeah, it's just gonna be interesting to see how it all unfolds. Another
• 36:21
  Chris: guest we plan to have on on a pretty regular basis is not only some of our staff members, like, you know, some of our international team, but also Kurt Dillinger, our president. Yep. There's times where we'll probably have him on, with other guests, but also just to pick his brain and his heart on the issue because he's been doing this. He actually started Life International now. This is our twenty fifth year, which is a big celebration for us.
• 36:47
  So we're a quarter of a century old and Kurt before that actually came and I'm sure we'll have an episode where he tells his story in more depth. But he actually was a pregnancy resource director, center director for quite a while. But was a missions pastor before that, a youth pastor before that. So he has somewhat of a similar background to me, he actually really entered the pro life movement from a center director role.
• 37:15
  Alissa: Right.
• 37:15
  Chris: And then brought that here to Life International and started this. So it'll be interesting to hear from him a lot too. Absolutely.
• 37:23
  Alissa: Yeah, there'll be lots to discuss. So...
• 37:25
  Chris: And I'll save that for him because there's so many things we could say, but it'll be better coming from him.
• 37:30
  Alissa: Yeah, for sure. So join us next time on Reimaged where we plan to talk about what it means to be pro life and who gets to define it. We would love for you to join the conversation and email us at reimagedlifeinternational dot com.
• 37:45
  Chris: You can also find us on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, or on our website at lifeinternational.com. We'd love to engage with you. Again, email us. We'd love to hear your, questions that you have, topics that you're interested in, or even questions in regard to what we brought up in this episode or any other episode in the future.
• 38:07
  Alissa: Amen.