The Bridegroom and His Bride

written by Al White, Development Specialist

As the newest member of the PCC Development Team,  I bring a pastoral background into my responsibilities. My role is to encourage generosity and support for the PCC efforts. I have the joy of aligning passions and resources on behalf of our mission to “compassionately engage, educate and inspire others about the truth of human sexuality.”

I’ve been recently captured with the Biblical metaphor that depicts Jesus as the Bridegroom, and His followers, the church, as His beloved Bride. This relational aspect helps us understand His sacrificial love for us, and our response to that love. That relationship is also a great way to encourage husbands and wives to adopt that he/she model as they both have roles and responsibilities to serve each other out of love.

I recently discovered another and even more specific application of that word picture to the work of the Pregnancy Care Center. Beyond the model of a great marriage, we can also see the model of the roles of a father and a mother. Jesus served His Bride with protection and provision through sacrificial leadership, and The Bride, the Church is called to a maternal role of producing and developing life.

Traditionally, the Church nurtures life through its Christian education, or discipleship efforts. The legacy of producing generations of faithful followers is clearly set forth in the models of the New Testament churches. But with such a maternal responsibility for producing Christian life, should not Christ’s Bride be equally passionate about protecting life? If our interest is about creating more and more followers of Jesus, doesn’t it make sense that we should be more interested and active in insuring that more potential followers are given a chance to be born? Our hope is that every child born would someday hear the message of Jesus’ love and respond, to be born again. Children can’t be born again without being born the first time.

Followers of Christ – be His beloved, radiant and ready Bride of Christ. Embrace that maternal role that calls us to affirm life that it may be born – with hopes that the child will be born again. Yes, our mission is to help others be “born again”, but our initial maternal role and responsibility is to protect and promote life.

Thank you for your ongoing support and prayers for the Pregnancy Care Centers of South Central Indiana. Your partnership with us not only affirms life, but fulfills the Church’s mandate to create more followers of Jesus.