Sidewalk Advocacy Training Comes to Ann Arbor

by Iris Hanlin

10:00 a.m. on a hot June Saturday, and twenty pro-lifers gathered in the parish center of Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor for a few hours of training, specifically geared toward those pro-life folks interested in sidewalk advocacy, that is, having a loving and vocal presence outside of abortion-providing facilities, whilst remaining peaceful, prayerful, and abiding by the law.

The morning began with a welcome from Sidewalk Advocate for Life (SAFL) representative Michael Vacca. "Thank you for being here," he said, "and God bless each of you. It's going to be exciting to see how God works through this."

Vacca then distributed an invitation for another, shorter evening of training to take place on July 19.

The day commenced after Paul Dobrowolski, former regional director of 40 Days for Life Ann Arbor, who hosted the event along with other members of the Christ the King Pro-Life Committee, expressed the local pro-life desire for the presence of two advocates on the sidewalk outside of the Planned Parenthood on 3100 Professional Dr. in Ann Arbor, for every hour the clinic is open. "This is the next step, another tool after 40 Days for Life," said Dobrowolski.

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The 4-hour video training was led by Lauren Muzyka, an attorney by trade who has devoted the majority of her adult life to counseling women away from abortion facilities. As the Dallas-trained, founder and executive director of Sidewalk Advocates for Life national (hopefully international, soon), Muzyka trains fellow to-be counselors in this cross-denominational program using what she calls "the heart method," ensuring all counseling activities to be peaceful, prayerful, and law-abiding.

According to Muzyka, the focus of the SAFL ministry is to do all things with love, whether praying on the street corners, or in direct contact with the men and women who are at the abortion clinics. From practical advice as to what advocates should or shouldn't wear to personal advice as to how the abortion facility client be approached and treated, the course of training was in-depth instruction for how to do just that.

From the SAFL website:

VISION & MISSION

To train, equip, and support local communities across the United States and the world in “sidewalk advocacy”: to be the hands and feet of Christ, offering loving, life-affirming alternatives to all present at the abortion center, thereby eliminating demand and ending abortion.

SPIRIT OF THE PROGRAM

Sidewalk Advocates for Life takes a peaceful, prayerful, law-abiding approach to reaching out to those servicing the abortion center. We seek to be the hands & feet of Christ and to ‘stand in the gap’ for those who, ironically, may feel they have no choice. While we provide crisis intervention on the sidewalk to women in unplanned pregnancies headed into the abortion center, we recognize that our outreach can only go so far: we must offer her real, ongoing help or crisis management. Our interaction never ends without offering her life-affirming alternatives such as help from the local pregnancy resource center(s) and other organizations in her local community.

MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE PROGRAM

• Sidewalk Advocacy – Sidewalk Advocacy refers to crisis intervention in front of the abortion center. It involves actively encouraging a woman to choose life, empowering her to leave the abortion center, and ministering to all present to bring about a conversion of heart from a culture of death to a culture of life, thereby ending abortion.

Traditionally known as “sidewalk counseling,” sidewalk advocacy is a re-branded term that emphasizes the peaceful, prayerful, law-abiding methods of this ministry with love as its centerpiece.

• Prayer – Prayer provides the foundation for everything we do, for apart from God we can do nothing (cf. John 15:5). We encourage local communities to match a prayer partner to every sidewalk advocate, and for sidewalk advocates to counsel together in pairs. We also encourage local communities to hold an opening and closing community-wide celebration at the beginning and end of every quarter, to invite prayer for the sidewalk advocates and the program and celebrate all God has accomplished with their cooperation.

• Community Support – We bring together the Body of Christ, cross-denominationally, to pray for and support the local sidewalk advocacy program. Community members are invited to become sidewalk advocates by attending a local sidewalk advocacy training every quarter. Additionally, at the beginning and end of every quarter, local communities are encouraged to hold an opening and closing community-wide, cross-denominational celebration to pray for the program.

For more information, contact info@sidewalkadvocates.org