Helping ‘blooms’

Amy Ford had just finished speaking at a pro-life conference when an elderly woman approached her, questioning whether single, pregnant women really deserved brand-new baby gifts. Couldn’t they make do with gently used items?

Amy had encountered such church reluctance before. When she and her now-husband, Ryan, conceived a child as teenagers, Ryan’s pastor—the man who had led Ryan to Christ—refused to marry them, concerned that other teens at the church would think he was condoning sin.

Years later, Amy realized there was no such thing as a “single and pregnant” curriculum. She had a vision of herself as a “really sad pregnant woman,” and then another of herself throwing baby showers.

The discipleship program she created, Embrace Grace, roughly follows the school calendar. Each fall and spring 282 groups in 42 states prepare to start but sometimes don’t meet at all if no “blooms” (the Embrace Grace term for mothers-to-be) show up.

If a bloom completes the 12-week program, she receives a lavish baby shower and a symbolic makeover night at the end. When a bloom opts for adoption, she receives a “celebration of life” shower instead, where the church provides gifts other than baby items—clothes, gift cards, cash, or items she needs for work, like cosmetology tools or digital cameras.

If someone attends a few times and ultimately chooses abortion, leaders are encouraged to connect her with post-abortive counseling.

There are no qualifications for attendance. Blooms might be newly pregnant, about to give birth, or young moms. They are not required to attend church, sign statements of faith, or maintain a relationship with their baby’s father.

Leanna Baumer, executive director of Assist Pregnancy Center in northern Virginia, had heard of Embrace Grace but had never referred a client there. “We don’t really have girls chomping at the bit to sign up for a Bible study,” Baumer said.

Statistics show, however, that many women showing up at abortion centers may already be well familiar with church settings. A 2015 CareNet study of women who had chosen abortion found 43 percent were attending church once a month at the time of the abortion.

Christina Muscari was among those hesitant to disclose her situation at church. Having grown up in a Christian home, she obtained an abortion at Planned Parenthood in 2003 as a college student.

Later, after marrying a Christian and resuming church activities, Muscari says she heard the enemy pulling her back from sharing her secret: You can step out, but if they really knew all the stuff you’d done, they’d never accept you.

Muscari now leads an Embrace Grace group at Christ Community Church in St. Charles, Ill. She tells her girls her testimony on the very first night of class, so that they can trust her.

“I think there’s a lot of distrust with the church,” Muscari said. “A lot of people come in with preconceived notions that this lady just wants me to be good and wants to teach me to be better.”

But classes, Amy said, are about falling in love with Jesus first, “because that’s when all the things they shouldn’t be doing just become things they don’t want to do anymore.” Embrace Grace leaders focus on “overwhelming” their blooms with love—offering rides to doctor’s appointments or checking in with blooms frequently via text, for example.

The model seems to be working. To date, Embrace Grace groups have showered 1,358 blooms with nearly 33,000 gifts. More importantly, internal statistics show 30.6 percent of attendees profess faith in Christ during Embrace Grace classes. (Many of the remaining attendees have previously professed faith.)

Donors may like big statistics, but what happens in a typical Embrace Grace group is much more granular. To close her class on a chilly evening this October, Muscari asked her blooms to share “roses and thorns” from the week—highlights and lowlights for the group to pray over.

Brynn Beyer, who works at an aromatherapy shop and was 26 weeks pregnant with her daughter Paisley, willingly shared her rose: making rent for the month.

Her thorn: a drunken neighbor banging down her apartment door in the middle of the night and threatening her houseguest and boyfriend with a gun.

Muscari and her co-leader were quick to let Beyer know about free legal services they knew of—services available not through the national Embrace Grace umbrella, but through the church where the group was sitting.

“You are so brave. I love you. You’re going to be great mommies,” Muscari told her blooms that night. “If just one person had come alongside me and said, ‘I’m going to help you, I’m going to stand by you. …’”

Later, in private, she finished the thought: “I feel like I would have been strong enough to do it.”