The pregnancy help community’s largest annual gathering commenced Tuesday with special day-long in-depth training sessions and a poignant message from a longtime servant in the movement to go forth without fear.
Heartbeat International’s 53rd Annual Pregnancy Help Conference was held in Salt Lake City, with regular conference dates of April 24-26, and Heartbeat’s In-Depth Day, a supplemental pre-conference intensive day with 13 sessions, on April 23.
Heartbeat is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and globally. The organization’s annual conference is the premier gathering for the pregnancy help community. The 2024 Conference theme is United for Life.
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The In-Depth Day offered training on Abortion Pill Reversal, Adoption, marketing, pro-life apologetics, human trafficking, the LOVE Approach, fundraising, sexual wellness, understating trauma, and post-abortion assessment and care, as well as an executive roundtable and maternity housing director’s symposium.
The In-Depth day had hundreds in attendance. In-person Conference attendees numbered 1,300, from 46 states and 16 countries, and Heartbeat’s separate concurrent virtual Conference had more than 700 attending, making for the largest Heartbeat Annual Conference held in the western region.
Sylvia Johnson, CEO of Houston Pregnancy Help Centers, gave the In-Depth Day’s keynote address, offering encouragement to the pregnancy help movement.
Johnson said the mark that Heartbeat International has made in the pregnancy help community cannot be erased and expressed gratitude.
“Thank you,” Johnson said, “all of you who have so impacted us, heard our cries pick up the phone, answer our calls, give a solution, encouragement and empowerment so that we continue to serve on the front lines.”
Johnson has served in pregnancy help ministry for 40 years, beginning with one conversation she said changed her life forever when she “gave Jesus a huge ‘yes.’”
This is what unifies everyone in the room, she said, each one said ‘yes’ to the Lord, and choosing the side of life and the commitment to Jesus Christ is the foundation for what those in pregnancy help do to serve women.
“You are family,” Johnson said. “We are one together.”
“The entire world can be against us,” she said. “Politicians can be against us; family members can be against us. … But you know what? This week, this day, we going to stand in the authority that God has given us.”
Johnson said those in attendance would be empowered by conference workshops, learn what they’ve never learned before, and develop friendships that will be with them forever.
All this unifies us, said Johnson, and the pregnancy help movement is unstoppable.
Johnson pondered all the things that collectively those in the room do in pregnancy help ministry.
“All of this is what we do today,” she said, “and we wake up and we do it again the next day and the next day over and over again because of the ‘yes’ that comes out of your spirit to the mighty living God who serves you and who's with you, who will never leave you nor forsake you no matter how hard the times are.”
In her 40 years of pregnancy help ministry Johnson regrets just two things.
“I regret worrying about anything,” she said. “How many times did the Lord tell us not to worry? The same God that told us when life begins, that he knew us in the womb, the same God told us, “Don’t worry.””
“The second thing is fear,” Johnson said. “I regret fear. I regret fear that tries to come in and disrupt what God is telling you to do. That vision that He's giving you.”
“I regret those two things,” she added. “Don't let that come to you. The Lord has not given you a spirit of fear … fear is from the enemy. You are people of faith. You will do this for free.”
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This is not her ministry, Johson told the Conference crowd, rather it is the Lord’s ministry.
“The Lord is the provider at the ministry, and He is the Lord of that ministry, and he will share His glory with you,” she said.
Johnson said that every baby saved and very salvation mean glory to God.
“We have no control of that,” said Johnson, “but we control the showing up and believing God by faith that it will happen, and it will occur, and we get to see God at work.”
With a reminder of the human impact the pregnancy help movement has on a consistent basis, Johnson said, “You know that people live entire lives and never see a miracle going to happen and we get to see it on a regular basis.”
The Lord knows each and every one of us, she noted, our brokenness and weakness, and yet He chooses us to be a part of what He's doing.
“He trusts us that much,” Johnson said.
She offered the important reminder that while those in pregnancy help ministry tell the client in front of them that she is the sheep and the one she that Christ will go after, they must remember the same for themselves.
“Don't you forget that the same Jesus that you're telling her about, that is the Jesus that you need every day when you wake yourself up and look the mirror,” Johnson said.
She also reminded those present that they are serving in the community or neighborhood they are at this moment because that is where God wants them. He may move them, but there is no mistake about where they are, and they should not compare their ministry to another. This is not impressive to God, Johnson said.
“What's impressive to God is your faithfulness is your ability to be obedient to Him,” she said. “Your ability to show up, not give up, not faint, not cave in.”
“This is too important,” Johnson said. “Lives depend on us.
Every year she grieves the number of abortions that occur, she said, but offered tangible encouragement to the pregnancy help crowd.
“We think about the potential and we think about the tragedy, and this society and this culture that we live in, and it may get to us,” said Johnson.
“I want you to look around this room and think about all the babies that we saved because of the people in this room,” she said. “I want you to think about that number. You think about that. That's the number we're not getting as much as we should - The impact of this room, the impact in this nation at this time that's speaking against culture, that stand firm to God's word.”
When a client walks out the door of their ministry she has been given more, said Johnson.
“You want her to find more Jesus, not more of you, more of Jesus when she leaves,” she said. “You're giving her something that will never be corrupted, that will never leave her, that will always be faithful.
That's so selfless and honoring to God, said Johnson.
“And I want to tell you, I want you to keep on doing this,” she said. “Don't you give up.”
The movement isn’t quitting, Johnson said, rather, it’s going even stronger now.
“Our world is changing, but our word of God has not changed,” said Johnson. “And it'll never change. So, I want you to be encouraged. This is our tribe. We're unified together in this purpose. We’ve got to do more for Christ.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
