In Our Midst

The Archdiocese of Seattle runs a post abortion recovery program. It is, therefore, in all their churches. It is Rachel's Vineyard with weekend retreats available to any who wish to heal from their abortion experience. To date this year, there have been three of four and I know of at least two more upcoming retreats that will be conducted before the end of the year.

Part of this program is Project Rachel and the intake person does a lot of counseling with the women/men prior to their coming on retreat.

For more information please check out http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/. It is nationwide and world wide. One does not need to be Catholic to come on a retreat.

God Bless - Lee Anne

It seems you have entered the doorway to soon. While their are a lot of ministries out there catering to PA Women and men, there are few "CHURCHES". Prolife Presyberterians are just now working to get PA Counseling into the "church".
http://www.ppl.org/Ministry_AffectedByAbortion.html
And St. Pat's in NEB. has their affiliation with Catholic services, which I suspect is or should be available across the states, ( those that still do have Catholic services.)

St Patricks Catholic Church of Lincoln Nebraska..
Catholic Social Services
Catholic Social Services (C.S.S.) of Lincoln offers pregnancy services, an adoption and foster care program, family and individual counseling, and post-abortion counseling through their main offices at 301 S 70th Street, 489-1834.
C.S.S. also offers a food pantry, thrift store, emergency services, housing and refugee services at 123 N 25th Street, 474-1600.
Volunteers are also needed with their many important works.
http://www.geocities.com/frcoulter/stpats.html#educ

There is RAMAHS international, but they are a ministry.
http://www.ramahinternational.org/our-mission.html

and catholic diocese of cleveland is offering PA
http://www.clevelandcatholiccharities.org/prolife/Project%20Rachel.htm

I think this is definetly something we need to be bringing into our churches.

Thanks so much for your comments, ladies! I'm so glad there are resources in some of the churches in your areas. You are so right, KC. Abortion recovery is definitely needed within the church!

God bless you both!

In Him,
mary

I tried to do some of this research in my area and discovered a lot of "women's groups". It's possible that post-abortion services are getting categorized under that description but I don't know. My hunch, not really based on anything but a feeling, is that a lot of churches keep their post-abortion ministries secret. I know that PR is very fearful of losing their funding if they are too "vocal" about their services.

Mac, who do you list as "the top ten mega-churches in the United States"? Be interested to see that list.

Also, how are you doing the searching? What are you googling for a phrase? There are so many possibles: "Abortion recovery", "post Abortion counseling", "Abortion healing".

Rachel's Vineyard is funded and supported by the Catholic Church as Lee Anne said above, to the tune of 355 retreats yearly worldwide.

We wrote about the details here: http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2005/06/three-new-interdenominational-post.html
and here:
http://afterabortion.blogspot.com/2005/06/letter-to-associated-press-on-exhale.html

Probably 25,000 people in 10 years have received actual face-to-face help from RV and Project Rachel.

This pair of Catholic Churches has part of their website devoted to postabortion services and help:
http://stpatrick-stlawrence.org/healing.htm

I had no idea Rachel's Vinyard had such an enormous reach! That's awesome!

Besides the three churches I listed on the blog entry, following are the other seven "mega churches" that I found on a list at Google. I don't remember off-hand who compiled the list. Seems like it was from an article in one of the Christian magazines.

Lakewood Church
World Changers
Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa
The Potter's House
Second Baptist Church
First Assembly of God
Calvary Chapel of Ft. Lauderdale

Thanks so much for your comments! :)

I just realized I didn't give you enough information on those other seven "mega churches." Let's see if this helps. :)

Lakewood Church, Houston, Tex.
World Changers, College Park, Ga.
Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa,Santa Ana, Calif.
The Potter's House, Dallas, Tex.
Second Baptist Church, Houston, Tex.
First Assembly of God, Phoenix, Ariz.
Calvary Chapel of Ft. Lauderdale

As for churches having abortion recovery groups "incognito"... I seriously doubt it. There is no reason having such groups would send a red flag to the government where funding is concerned. Abortion recovery is not political; it's ministry. :)

Blessings!
mary