During my high school years, I volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center. This was before the era of required community service hours for students. I served there because I believed it was a worthy cause. And most of my peers agreed with me. We grew up in an area where families went to church and held conservative values.

But new research suggests being a regular churchgoer no longer correlates with being pro-life. As my colleague Sarah Zylstra reports in her latest article, a recent study showed “no significant correlation between being born again, how often one attends church, or how frequently one reads the Bible and the likelihood of having had an abortion.” In fact, “the same study found that about 20 percent of regular churchgoers had ‘paid for, encouraged, or chosen to have an abortion.’”

As Sarah concludes, “Whatever strategy Christian churches and families are using to disciple young people in this area, it isn’t working.” Our culture is proactively and intentionally pushing the opposite view, and this research makes it clear we need to reconsider our approach.

So I’m thankful for Sarah’s interview with ​​Herbie Newell. He’s the president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, and he provides thoughtful and practical ideas for how parents can teach their children to value life. Read the article and consider how you can implement his tips with kids in your home and church. As Newell explains, “It doesn’t have to be talking points from a pro-life rally or the March for Life. It can just be, like Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us, teaching as we go.”