Listening In: Justin Reeder

WARREN SMITH, HOST: Justin, welcome back to the program.

Almost two years ago, about a year and a half ago, you and I spoke whenever Love Life was, let’s just say, younger than it is today. You’re still a pretty young organization. In fact, it was a little awkward for me because I kept saying Love Life Charlotte and you guys were already growing beyond Charlotte. And you were starting in the Triad, and for those listeners from around the country, that’s Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point North Carolina. And then the Triangle, which is Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But now you’re growing even beyond that. But before we get to the New York initiative, which is what I really want to talk about today, give me an update. What’s been happening in the year and a half since we talked?

JUSTIN REEDER, GUEST: Thanks so much for having me back on, Warren. Appreciate it. Yeah, we’re at three and a half years now that we’ve been doing the ministry—launched in 2016. The last time we talked, I think we were just launching in Greensboro and Raleigh and the Triad and Triangle. We’ve just seen the Lord continued to grow those areas. We now have about 300 partnering churches with us across North Carolina. That’s across denominational lines—Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, non-denomination. So around 300 churches that are working together in those three cities. We’ve now seen about 50,000 people that have come out for our prayer walks that happen every Saturday for the 40 weeks, from 9 to 11:00 AM every Saturday. We’ve seen over 1,500 families now that have made the choice for life at the abortion center. These are people that scheduled an abortion and showed up to the abortion clinic and made the choice for life. 

SMITH: Well, I wanted to pause there, Justin, and just ask you about that. Is that how you identify that they made the choice for life? In other words, you’re at the abortion facilities. You know they’re going in to get an abortion. So if they don’t get an abortion, then that’s a pretty definitive evidence that y’all have made a difference. Is that how you measure that? 

REEDER: We partner with great sidewalk counseling ministries in Charlotte and Greensboro and Raleigh that are doing amazing work. And just one example is this past Saturday we had some people that were out there. We had around 300 people there for the prayer walk, the sidewalk counseling teams were doing their thing and and there actually happened to be one of the ladies that was responding at the end of our prayer walk. She wanted to become a sidewalk counselor and she was being prayed over by the pastors and the sidewalk counselors came up to us right when we were praying over her and they were asking for a translator. They needed someone to speak Spanish. And so this lady went right from the altar of being prayed over, she wanted to become a sidewalk counselor, walked right onto the mobile unit, got to translate for a mom that was there for an abortion, was seeing a free ultrasound through the mobile unit of Hope Pregnancy Care Center made the choice for life on that day. There’s four moms that made the choice for life on Saturday. But this is the role that the church is getting to play. They’re being activated into the battle for all their different giftings and callings. 

SMITH: Well, you know, Justin, just in that quick story, my mind is exploding with wanting to ask you followup questions because what I heard there was that there’s Love Life—you guys—but there’s also pregnancy care centers. You’re partnering with a pregnancy care center out there. You’re partnering with sidewalk counselors as well, and you’re partnering with churches—300 churches—which by the way, and I hate to be cynical, but that in and of itself is a virtual miracle to get 300 churches from all across denominations to work together. I mean, it’s one thing to get maybe two or three and do a pulpit swap and do something that’s kind of nominal stuff. But when you talk about partner, you’re asking them to make a commitment, a 40 day commitment.

REEDER: 40 weeks. So, yeah. So, you know, really it’s not just saying, Hey, we’re going to pray for you. And then we sign you up on our list. Like they go through our whole process and they commit to adopt at least one week out of the 40 weeks where they’re mobilizing their people. They’re speaking about it from the pulpit. They’re challenging their people to pray and fast on Wednesday and to go to the prayer walk on Saturday. The senior pastors are coming and leading those prayer walks. And then beyond the prayer walks, their people are committing to be mentors for these moms and dads, to foster and adopt, to become sidewalk counselors and beyond. So it’s a real buy-in from the local church, but it takes all of us. Takes the pregnancy care centers, it takes sidewalk counselors. It takes the church of Jesus Christ as a whole to break the stronghold of abortion. 

SMITH: Well, okay, so that—and we talked about a lot of this stuff whenever we were together a couple of years ago. What I’m hearing is it’s continuing. It’s growing. And you guys are still, you know, now very active in the Triad and the Triangle. Now you’re going to New York. A couple of questions I want to ask about that. There’s a lot of real estate between Charlotte, North Carolina and New York. You could go to Washington D.C. You could go to Richmond, Virginia. You could go to Philadelphia. Why did you leapfrog over all of those cities and go to New York next? 

REEDER: Sure. So first and foremost, because that’s where we believe the Lord’s called us to go. Obviously we all heard the news, you know, that came out of New York City when they legalized abortion up to the day of birth earlier this year. And we had some national groups that started reaching out to us and just saying, what can we do to help come alongside of the church and New York City to respond to this new bill that they just passed? And as we saw, once New York passed it, then that trickled throughout the nation. It really kind of set fires off in other places because New York City’s the most influential city in the world. It’s also the abortion capital of America. 64,000 abortions a year in New York City. 35 abortion clinics between the five boroughs and only a handful of pregnancy care centers in New York City. Just to put that in comparison here to North Carolina, we have almost 15 pregnancy care centers and less than half of the amount of abortions in the entire state of North Carolina. They only have a handful of pregnancy care centers with more than double the amount of abortions. So just a lot of work is needed there. And so that’s kind of what began it. And as we started asking our pastors here, you know, what connections they have up there, who can we go up there and support? Who can we go up through to encourage? Really just took time to be in my prayer closet and I was—like everybody else—so sad to hear what was happening in New York as they expanded all the way up to the day of birth. But honestly, I was exhausted at that point. We launched all three cities. We have a lot on our plate. And really found myself in a place where I was exhausted and full of grief for what was happening in our nation. But as I opened up the scriptures and I was in my prayer closet, the Lord took me to the Mount of Olives, when he was praying, when he challenged his disciples to be praying, and the Lord spoke to me through that text. The question that Jesus asked his disciples was why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you don’t fall into temptation. And the temptation that he knew that his disciples were about to face was that they were going to be found unfaithful. He knew what was coming. He knew the battle that was coming, and he’s saying, wake up and pray so that you don’t fall into temptation. And I felt the Lord just speak that to me. Wake up and pray, Justin. Don’t fall into temptation and be found unfaithful. In that same text, it also says the disciples were exhausted and full of grief. And that’s exactly where I found myself. And so I just began to pray, Lord, if you want us to go and help serve the local church there, we will go. So we took kind of a discovery trip up there to meet with pregnancy care centers, to meet with local pastors and see what we could do.

SMITH: Well let me pause you there, Justin, and sort of drill down into that. So you took a discovery trip and that means you and maybe a couple of folks here from your ministry went up there. And you and I have spoken offline. I’ve lived in New York for awhile. I’ve got two sons that are living there now. One of them working and one of them in graduate school at Columbia University. And I know that that’s a real different town than Charlotte, North Carolina or Greensboro or Raleigh, North Carolina. It’s a different culture. It’s a different scale, different size. And even the Christian community is very, very different there. I mean, you know, I’ve heard—Redeemer Presbyterian Church has made a big difference in that city and there are many, many other churches there as well. And also I’ve heard, for example, that 30 years ago, two percent of New York was evangelical and today maybe six to eight percent but that’s still a much, much smaller percentage of evangelicals that are around here. So what’s different? What’s the same? What are you doing?

REEDER: Well, you know, it is definitely a different town. There’s no doubt about it and there’s different challenges, but the people of New York are great people. We’ve really fallen in love with the people there. But again, we’re there just to be a tool for the local church. We’re not there coming in saying, we’ve got it all figured out. We’re just saying, here’s what is happening in North Carolina. Here’s what has helped us here. And we’re simply here to the pour spiritual fuel on the fire that already exists in the city, to come alongside the local church, to come along the side of local pregnancy care centers, to help see the church mobilize and activated in the city and we’ve really seen the Lord doing incredible things. We now have over 20 church partners in New York City. We haven’t launched yet. We expect to hit around 40 church partnerships by the end of the year.

SMITH: Well, you say you haven’t launched yet. I mean, you haven’t launched in the sense that you’re going public, but you are planning to launch pretty soon, right? 

REEDER: Correct. 

SMITH: Can you say a little bit more about that? And part of the reason, Justin, I want to drill down a little bit into what’s going on in New York is that I’m hoping, I’m imagining, I’m imagining to the point of hoping that others are listening that are not in North Carolina and not in New York, and they might be saying to themselves, I want to do this in my city. What’s the first step? So what were some of those first steps?

REEDER: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And just to speak to that, too, you know, really, we felt as we had gone into Greensboro and Raleigh and we started first here in our Jerusalem. The Lord really spoke to us, you know, it’s to Jerusalem, Judea, Sumeria, and to the ends of the earth. And New York City, again, is the most influential city in the world. And so we know that when that city is no longer known as a place of death, but a place of life that will send ripple effects literally around the world. And we do have people that have, we’ve had over 30 cities that have reached out to us say, how can we launch Love Life here? And we’ve really been prayerful and selective on where we go and how we do it. We’ve invited people in. We’ve shown them what we do. Some have taken that back to their city. Actually a group in South Australia, in Adelaide, just launched a full month of prayer and fasting and just did a large prayer walk at the largest abortion center in South Australia that just happened this last weekend. They sent us pictures from it all. We shared our playbook with them, everything that we do and they’re just taking it and running with it. So if you’re listening and you want to find more out, please go to lovelife.org. We’d be happy to help you. 

But as we’ve gone into New York City, again, it’s a steady thing. This is not a viral sensation. That’s what I always tell people. This is not a viral sensation. This is not an overnight deal. We’re here for the long haul and it takes eye-to-eye meetings, kneecap-to-kneecap. It’s building trust, building relationships, inviting people in. We’re not doing a one day event. That’s not what we’re there to do. We’re there to build a culture of love and life. And that takes time. And it takes trust.

SMITH: So, the pregnancy care centers, you show up from Charlotte, North Carolina, and you got this new idea. Are they receptive? Are they old?

REEDER: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, obviously people have questions. People, you know, this is still somewhat taboo for people to go out to an abortion center. A lot of us have kind of had a certain picture in our mind whenever we say those words. But thankfully—

SMITH: Well, let me pause you. When you see a certain picture in mind, you’re thinking protesters and screaming and yelling and angry and that is just not what you guys—

REEDER: Correct. That’s not what we do. And I think the media has just painted that into where it’s really kind of struck fear into the church to engage and, you know, front lines type, pro-life ministry. But thankfully, you know, we’ve been able to model it here and we’re able to point to a lot of testimonials, a lot of videos, a lot of pastors that have participated that know that’s just not the case. That’s not what we’re there doing. And we’re not there protesting. We’re not there because we hate anybody. We’re there because we love people. And so we’re able to point to the model here and that has definitely helped make it easier as we go into New York because it’s not a brand new concept. It’s a new town, but it’s not a new concept. But, really, the Lord has given us favor with some great churches there in the city. Times Square Church is one of our anchor churches. They’re in the city and you know, people want to do something, they just don’t know what to do. And Love Life is giving them the vehicle to know how to do it.

SMITH: So, Justin, you sort of figured out the model here in North Carolina. Charlotte, your Jerusalem. It’s going to be—from now on, every time I think of Greensboro, I’m gonna think Judea. And I’m going to think of Raleigh as Sumaria from now on. Which is funny for me because I know both those towns pretty well. But now you’re going to New York and you are planning to start this end of September? 9/29?

REEDER: 9/29 will be the Sunday that churches will communicate it for their adoption week. And 9/29 is also what we have on all of our Love Life bracelets, believe it or not because we challenged the church across North Carolina to stop and pray for one minute every day at 9:29 because the abortion centers open at 9:30 but also 9/29 matches up with Mark 9:29 which says this kind can only come out through prayer and fasting. So we launch New York City on 9/29.

SMITH: Wow. Well I will never forget 9-29 from now on. Yeah, the idea that abortion facilities open up at 9:30 and you stopped and pray at 9:29 is a very powerful reminder. Okay, so, 9/29 we’re now into early September as you and I are having this conversation. You said 40 churches. That’s a far cry from the 300 you’ve got here in North Carolina. But it is a good start. So you mentioned Times Square Church. What are some other—who are some other churches that are involved and how many do you want to have, you know, sort of ready to go on 9/29?

REEDER: Yeah. So, a lot of Assemblies of God churches have really jumped on board with this really quick. Bethlehem is one of the key churches, New Song, Real Life Church. Got about 20 church partnerships right now in the city. We believe we’ll get to about 40 by the end of the year. We launch on 9/29, that’s a Sunday. And then October 5th is the very first prayer walk. That’s that Saturday. And we’ll run for seven weeks this year since we’re starting towards the end of the year. It won’t be a full 40 weeks like we do here, but we’ll have seven weeks this year. We’ll finish off on the same week 40 that we’re doing here in North Carolina where all the churches will come back together on week 40 and then we’ll launch again in February of next year for a full 40 weeks in New York City.

SMITH: And so talk a little about how the logistics are different in your city. I mean, I know a little bit about—here in Charlotte, for example, y’all pray and do your sidewall counseling at a facility that is not in the middle of downtown. I mean it’s out of town just a little bit. There’s some—there’s a little bit of, you know, real estate around and space and that sort of thing. Not so much in New York City, right? 

REEDER: Right. And actually, I don’t know if you know this, but we bought the two acres right next door to the abortion center here in Charlotte. But you don’t have that in New York city, right? You don’t have empty lots that you can do that on. But the Lord has just given, again, such incredible favor with the church there. We are partnering with a church that’s 0.4 miles down the road from the largest abortion center in Manhattan. It’s on Bleecker and Mott. That’s the largest abortion center. It’s called the Margaret Sanger Center. They pride themselves on doing 11,000 abortions a year. This is the largest abortion center. It’s the head of the snake. And, again, the Lord gave us a facility to meet at 0.4 miles down the road from that abortion center, which is one of our partnering churches. So we will meet there at their space. That’s where we’ll start our prayer walks every Saturday morning, and then we’ll do the 0.4 mile walk to the abortion center, stop in front of it, pray, worship just like we do here in North Carolina. And then walk back for our closing section. So, again, the Lord has worked out the logistics. It kind of seems impossible in a city like New York to have a location to gather people that’s close enough to be able to pull off a prayer walk. But the Lord did it. 

SMITH: You’re gonna do seven weeks of this year. You’re gonna do 40 weeks next year in New York. And I’m assuming that you’re hoping that you’ll just keep doing that in New York every year—40 weeks—until either the Lord returns or abortion is no longer done in New York City. Is that right? 

REEDER: That’s exactly right. Yeah. We’re here for the long haul. We’re here to see this thing all the way through and we believe, you know, that this will also bleed into the other boroughs. We’ve had a lot of churches already come to us and say, how do we start this in the Bronx, how do we start this in Brooklyn? And so on. 

SMITH: So, okay, so three cities in North Carolina that I’m assuming will continue even though your focus is now on New York. Other people, you’ve grown a movement here in North Carolina and other people can keep it going here. And you’ve got this, you know, this cookbook, what did you call it? You didn’t call it a cookbook earlier. This—your playbook.

REEDER: Playbook. Yeah, well, it’s a model, you know, 40 weeks. That’s the time from conception to birth. And we have what we call an adoption week that we take each one of our partnering churches through and it’s just four simple steps of hear, pray, go, connect. It’s a turnkey ministry opportunity for the churches to mobilize their people and it educates them. It calls the church to prayer and fasting. It goes out to the prayer walk on Saturday and then get people connected beyond that week into whatever they feel that the Lord is leading them to do. 

SMITH: Yeah. Well that’s really cool. But the spirit of that question really, Justin, is this, you’re in four cities. The growth has been slow but it has been fruitful. And like you say you’ve made a long-term commitment. You’ve given the playbook away to others so that they can start their own thing. But then you’re also starting a new one in New York. What’s the long-term vision? I mean, you just want to give the playbook away and let a thousand flowers bloom? Are there cities in your mind that you think, well, okay, well we might let you know, a local group have, you know, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but we’re going to do Des Moines or whatever. I mean, how do you go through that thought process?

REEDER: That’s a great question. And we’ve wrestled with that for awhile because we’ve had so much interest, you know, to take it to other cities. But the reality is what we do is it’s very in-depth, takes a lot of work and honestly not everyone’s quite ready for that. So, but at the same time we don’t want to hold things back and hold it with closed hands. So we’re doing discovery weekends for those that are interested to come and learn more. We share with them, you know, what has worked, what doesn’t work, kind of our playbook, so to speak, as you mentioned earlier. And then they can go and start their own thing. It doesn’t have to be Love Life. We’re not trying to, you know, put Love Life’s name on everything. This is about mobilizing the church of Jesus Christ and the movement that’s happening right now in South Australia is called Love Adelaide. It’s not Love Life, but we help coach them and teach them and now they’re running with it. And so there are certain cities that we know that we’re called to really kind of drive that stake in the ground. Like in New York City. Just being prayerful of which cities the Lord leads us to as far as that goes. But we also don’t want to hold everything back until we see that next city. For those that are ready to do something, we want to encourage them. We want to help come alongside of them.

SMITH: Justin, I’d like to pivot a little bit in our conversation and ask you to sort of your impressions of the pro-life movement, not just here in Charlotte or you know, in the sort of the solar system of Love Life Charlotte, but larger. Now you’ve been full time active ministry in the pro-life movement for at least the last four years that you’ve been doing Love Life? Have you seen a change? I mean, is it getting—? Are you more hopeful? Are you less hopeful? On the one hand, and then on the other hand, what do you see the particular challenges of pro-life right now?

REEDER: Yeah, I’m very hopeful. I’m very encouraged by, you know, not only what we’re seeing here locally, but nationally. I mean this thing is being talked about more than what I can remember as far as abortion goes. Just nationwide. I think a lot of things are being exposed, which is good and they need to be. So I’m encouraged by what we’re seeing take place. Obviously you kind of see some states jumping, you know, one extreme and others may be going the other. But I’m very hopeful at what I see happening. The young generation, I mean, we see that here. I would say the majority of people that participate with us are young people. The young generation is caught fire on this thing. And so very, very encouraged to see the young folks. We have a youth for life prayer walk coming up where we’ll have a couple of thousand young people out there leading the prayer walk completely from top to bottom, the worship leaders, the speakers, the prayer warriors. And so this generation is really taking this and running with it.

SMITH: Well, I think that’s—I wanted to ask that question number one, because I wanted to hear your opinion, but I also think that it’s important because of something you just said. Even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, one of the things that we’re seeing is that certain states are doubling down on abortion like New York. Other states like Georgia are passing heartbeat laws. And that’s a really, really good thing. But overturning Roe v. Wade can’t be the end game for the pro-life movement. Because we’ll just end up with certain states that are doubling down on abortion and certain states maybe that don’t have it. And I’ve heard John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center say—and many others say—that we’ve got to make—our end game is not for abortion to be illegal, but for it to be unthinkable. And it sounds to me that that’s really what you’re all about as well—the youth movement and the other things that you’re doing with the women is not just, you know, to sort of take them out of a crisis in that particular situation. But it’s also to paint a new face on the pro-life movement. Is that fair?

REEDER: Yeah, absolutely. We want to see a culture shift. That’s really what we’re after. That’s the been the mission of Love Life from the very beginning where people stop running to abortion clinics for the answer and they start running to the local church. That’s the shift that we want to see. And we know that as we continue to position ourselves in such a way, we activate the body of Christ, we get people within the church healed and set free from our past abortions. I mean, that is a huge dynamic to this, Warren, is there’s been a lot of us within the church that haven’t ever shared that with anybody. And praise the Lord, we’re seeing a huge wave of healing and restoration in the church right now.

SMITH: Well, you know, it’s funny you should say that because I’ve thought about that a lot. I mean, you know, there are 300 million people in this country. There’s been, what, 50, 60 million abortions in—it’s impossible to conclude that this has not affected the church. That it’s not about them. It’s about us, right?

REEDER: Yeah, that’s right. And it begins in the house of God, right? And it’s not just the women, it’s the men. And so we just have seen a huge wave of those that are being healed and set free. And what I say all the time is that these are really the Navy SEALs of the movement. If we can get them set free, then they help set other people free. And so there’s so many ripple effects to this. We want to see a culture shift, again, where people stop running to the abortion clinics and start running to the local church. And that’s what we’re after here. Not only, you know, with abortion, but also for the orphans that exist in our city—not just the orphans in the womb. Also the orphans outside of the womb. We have around 10,000 kids in the foster care system in North Carolina, and God has called the church to care for them. We’re the greatest organism on the face of the planet. Rick Warren said this once, that there are more people in a church on Sunday morning here in America on one Sunday morning, than go to every professional sporting event in the nation over the course of a year. One Sunday morning, we have more attendance. We can win this thing if we start opening our mouths and we put our feet to our convictions.

SMITH: You know, Justin, the noise ordinance is not the only challenge that you’ve had lately. Your business was vandalized, is that right? 

REEDER: Correct. Yeah. I mean we’ve had some people that have several different times done some things at the business and some vandalism—

SMITH: And I think people should know this is like a tent making profession— the business is for you. 

REEDER: Right, right. 

SMITH: And even though you do this pretty much full time, and we covered this in the first interview, you’ve got folks running that business, but, I mean, that’s a big deal whenever—I mean and you’re sure it’s related to your pro-life activism. 

REEDER: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, they posted stuff publicly on their Facebook pages about it. So, you know, but I just wanna encourage people that when you start seeing stuff like that’s when you know you’re in the right place. When you start seeing bullets fly, so to speak, that’s when you know you’re over the target. And so I just want to encourage pastors, you know, church leaders that this is a good work. This is what the Lord has called us to do. It might not be popular with everybody, but to me, our moment that we live in now, this is 1942. This is 1850 so to speak. 1942 when 6 million Jews were killed. You know, if I’m a business leader in Nazi Germany during 1942, what is my obligation to do? It’s not just to continue to run a good business and make a good profit and share the gospel sometimes and do some discipleship. I’m called to rescue those that are perishing. And so we have chosen to utilize the platform that God has given us to run at this battle. So I just wanna encourage anybody out there, use the platform that the Lord has given you. If it’s media, if it’s a pastor, use your voice. If you’re a marketplace leader, use your business. Find a way to use it. 

SMITH: So what’s next? 

REEDER: So we have a lot of new initiatives that are rolling out. One of them I’ll share with you, it’s called House of Refuge. This is where we’re really helping our partnering churches position themselves to be a place for hurting families to run to versus a lot of times, sadly to say, run from. We know a lot of people in the church are having abortions. And so just doing that through ssome simple ways of educating our people from the pulpit at least once a quarter, reading a statement that takes one minute to read that just says, here’s how we will handle that situation. We’re not going to shame you. We’re not gonna pull you up on stage in front of everybody and embarrass you. We’re going to love you. We’re going to walk beside you. And for those that have had an abortion in your past, it is not the unforgivable sin. Jesus died for that sin as well and he wants to forgive you of that. You repent and turn to him. And so we’re just helping position the church to be able to communicate it with their people, but then be able to back up that statement with real resources and real help.

SMITH: Justin, in closing, just kind of a lightning round of a couple of things that we’ve touched on but not really dug into and maybe dig into them just a little bit. One is adoption. You’ve mentioned adoption a couple of times. What do you guys doing in that arena? 

REEDER: Yeah, well I think it’s really critical for the—first off for educating the church. And just for the listeners, you know, there’s really kinda two main buckets in the orphan care world. You have the private adoption world, which is the moms that make the choice for life and do a loving thing and they want to place their child for adoption. And we work with groups like that. And we have tons of families on a list that are ready to step in there. But the reality is there’s about 2 million families that are on the waiting list in America right now to adopt a child through that route. So we really focus on the other bucket, which is the kids that are in the foster care system. These are the kids that are a lot of times that are forgotten about. These are kids that are wards of the state and here in North Carolina we have 10,000 kids in the foster care system. About 2,000 of those kids are clear and free for adoption immediately and there’s zero costs financially to adopt one of those kids. And so we’re educating the church on that. Most people are unaware of that bucket and we’re calling the church to step into it, to begin fostering and to adopt these children. Psalm 68:5, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God.” It’s who he is and his Holy dwelling. He takes the lonely and he said them in families. And this is a huge part, again, of a culture shift of where people start viewing the church in a different way as we just obey the biblical mandates that are before us.

SMITH: You know another question, Justin, again, lightning round, just radically changing the subject. Here in Charlotte, you guys have been something of a phenomenon. You’ve brought lots and lots of people out to this abortion facility down here in South Charlotte—not very far from where we’re sitting actually. And that has created some backlash. A noise ordinance, for example. Can you bring everybody up to speed on that and not because what happens in Charlotte, North Carolina matters to folks in Seattle, Washington, but it’s really kind of an object lesson for the kind of resistance that you’re going to get if you step out in this arena. Is that fair? 

REEDER: Absolutely. Yeah, this is Satan’s pride and joy. You know, he’s destroying the very image of God at these abortion clinics. And so when the church starts to show up, there’s different manifestations. And, you know, there’s many, many—a couple that I’ll share with you really quickly. There’s a lady this last year when I was doing an interview actually in front of the abortion clinic, she came up to me and started yelling in my face, “Just stay in your churches. Just stay in your church buildings. Why won’t you just stay in your churches?” And to me, that kinda wraps it up right there. That’s exactly what Satan wants us to do. He wants us to stay in our church buildings and keep it in the building. But when you start taking it out to the dark places, you’re gonna see different manifestations. We had the owner of the abortion clinic publicly put out a word, put out a statement on Twitter commissioning witches in our city to come out and put spells on our group and on the land before our week 40 prayer walk. The witches showed up, did their little thing, black magic, whatever. It has no power. But point being that the owner of the abortion clinic is publicly commissioning witches and if that doesn’t kind of pull off the mask for everybody, this whole women’s health thing, the owners commissioning witches to try to stop the movement and it manifests itself in many different ways. One that we’re dealing with right now is with the city officials. City council just voted to put in 150 foot buffer zone around abortion centers and so their whole aim in this, which we knew two years ago when the mayor put out a four-part plan publicly, she said one of her top priorities before leaving office is to bring change to this small street in Charlotte, referring to the Latrobe Drive, referring to our ministry. The four-part plan was no parking, the sound ordinance, the sign ordinance and as well as a physical buffer zone. And now they’ve just implemented the sound ordinance. They tried the parking one last year, but now they did the sound one this year. And so we’ll see how it actually affects us. I mean, our mission continues to be the same. Our prayer walks will continue, but this is just what happens when you show up. But it is so worth it, Warren, let me tell you. We’ve seen so many lives touched so many people that have been healed and set free from past abortions, so many that have been saved from having the abortion and potentially one of the greatest things, we’ve seen the church be activated. We’ve seen the church come out of our palaces, so to speak, and go to the brokenness to examine the walls just as Nehemiah did, and to see people be activated and to see the church be united. John 17 is being played out in our city week after week, not for a one day conference or a big name band. They’re coming out to the dark places of our city week after week, standing shoulder to shoulder, Baptists next to Presbyterians next to Pentecostals. It’s a beautiful picture of unity in our church.

(Photo/You Tube, Love Life)

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