Imago Dei Ministry

 

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

-– Psalm 139:13-14a

Imago Dei (meaning “Image of God”) is a Ministry Team that was approved by the Session of Proclamation PCA in the Spring of 2023. Our mission is to end abortion as part of our vision to apply the healing balm of Jesus Christ to all those who are or have been involved in abortion. 

We will petition government officials to that purpose, pray, educate our church community about this issue, equip our church community to offer hope, help, and discipleship to women and men facing pregnancy decisions, support those in crisis pregnancy and those who suffer post-abortion trauma, become a resource for foster care and adoption information, and bring the truth of this sin to the community at large. In all of this we will proclaim the gracious gospel of the kingdom of God by calling sinners to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. 

To learn more about the biblical basis for this ministry team, read more below. 

At this time, Imago Dei is focused on promoting: (1) prayer and (2) letters to state, county, and local governments. 

In the future, Imago Dei hopes to develop ministry in these areas: 

  • Education in the church 

  • Support of local pregnancy center(s) 

  • Pre-abortion ministry 

  • Post-abortion ministry 

  • Foster care and adoption 

  • Sidewalk presence, preaching, and counseling near abortion clinics. 

To learn more, please contact Brian Ward at imagodei@proclamationpca.com. 

Basis For Imago Dei Ministry:

Whereas, the Scriptures forbid murder of human life (Genesis 9:6; Exodus 20:13), as confessed in the Standards of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) under the Sixth Commandment in Larger Catechism 134-136 and Shorter Catechism 67-69, and; 

Whereas, The Holy Scriptures recognize human life before birth in the womb (Exodus 21:22- 25, Psalm 17:14, Jeremiah 1:5, Isaiah 44:24, Luke 1:41, etc.), and; 

Whereas, Christians as far back as the writing of the Didache in the First or Second Century recognized that “you shall not abort a child or commit infanticide,” and; 

Whereas, the Reformed tradition has recognized the evil of abortion from the days of the Reformation, with pastors such as John Calvin noting: “...the unborn, though enclosed in the womb of his mother, is already a human being, and it is an almost monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his most secure place of refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy the unborn in the womb before it has come to light,” and; 

Whereas, abortion ends human life in the womb and is legal in the state of Pennsylvania in the United States of America, and; 

Whereas, in 1978 the PCA studied the issue of abortion and communicated the following statement to the civil authorities: “God declares in Sacred Scripture that civil government, no less than the Church, is a divine institution and owes its authority to God. The Bible is the supreme revelation of God's will and teaches that the unborn child is a human person deserving the full protection of the Sixth Commandment, ‘You shall not murder.’ We who love our nation, in the name of God who alone is sovereign, call upon you to renounce the sin of abortion, to repent of the complicity in the mass slaughter of innocent unborn children, who are persons in the sight of God, and to reverse the ruinous direction of both law and practice in this area. The obedience to God which places us in subjection to your rightful authority, requires of us to proclaim the counsel of God as it bears upon the same God-given authority,” and; 

Whereas, our conviction is that we can address the issue of abortion in ways that directly support our mission statement as articulated below: 

“Prayerfully dependent on and empowered by the Spirit in all of life, we will: joyfully praise God; sacrificially love all people in deed and truth; and faithfully proclaim Christ, to the glory of God and for the good of our neighbors”; 

Therefore Be it Resolved, that Proclamation PCA Church establish an Imago Dei ministry to address the issue of abortion.