_{Below is an excerpt from the newly expanded A Biblical Mandate to Do Something About Abortion, now available in booklet form. This section deals particularly with the unique involvement opportunities afforded by Abort73. To read the entire document, visit Abort73.com/mandate.}

Everything we’ve talked through to this point has been fairly general. It could easily compel your involvement across a wide variety of “pro-life” ventures. I hope it will. But now I’d like to get more specific, by telling you why I believe Abort73.com is uniquely equipped to change the way America thinks about abortion and is uniquely qualified to merit your support. I suspect that many of you are ready to do something but have no idea where to begin. Abort73.com is a great place to start! It provides what is arguably the most thorough, engaging, and accessible abortion education in the world, and it offers a variety of simple ways to extend that education to those around you.

Abort73.com launched in 2005. The goal was simple: to completely change the way people think about abortion. How? By stretching the educational potential of the world wide web beyond where it had ever been before. There were already hundreds of pro-life websites in existence, but the evidence against abortion needed a more credible and engaging outlet if it were to ever take hold. We didn’t want a website that focused on an organization. We wanted one that focused squarely on abortion, pairing solid content with first class design.

Since middle school, high school, and college students are the people we most need to reach, and since they spend huge amounts of time online, an internet-based campaign made perfect sense. It reaches students where they’re at, students who will determine public policy in the future and who are uniquely vulnerable to having an abortion in the present.

For five years, I spent significant amounts of time visiting college campuses across the nation, talking to students about abortion. When the evidence is well presented, minds change. I’ve seen it over and over. The problem is, how do we get that evidence in front of an entire nation (and world) of students? How can we have an influence on every college in America, every day of the year? And how do we reach high school and middle school students at the same time? The most logistically-feasible answer is through a polished, professional-grade website like Abort73.com.

• DESIRING GOD NATIONAL CONFERENCE - Abort73 has the remarkable opportunity to be one of only a handful of ministries to exhibit at this fall’s Desiring God National Conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center (Sept. 28-30). We’ll be debuting the new Biblical Mandate booklets, adding one to the registration packs for all of the more than 3,000 people attending.

• CORNERSTONE CALIFORNIA - We had great success at the original Cornerstone Festival in Illinois. The new west coast version will give us another great opportunity to put Abort73 in front of thousands of Christian students.

• EXPANDED AD CAMPAIGN - This September, we’re running full-page Abort73 ads in four different Christian magazines: Relevant (for the third time), CCM, YouthWorker Journal and HM.

• EXPANDED MYSPACE TOOLSET - To date, there are roughly 200 million users on MySpace. The Abort73 MySpace page (MySpace.com/abort73) continues to be an extremely valuable gateway into the main Abort73 site. To help usher in even more people, we’ve released a new assortment of MySpace-specific tools, giving MySpace users all sorts of new ways to promote Abort73.com. Find them at Abort73.com/myspace.

• JEFF JONES - Our new Director of Marketing and Outreach starts work this September. Hallelujah!!

Two-thirds of the way through 2007, we’ve yet to see anything like a regular giving pattern emerge. As you can see from the data below, the monthly totals have been all over the map. The good news is that, having received a total of $56,636 for the year, we’re $2,600 ahead of our year-to-date target and $14,000 ahead of what we brought in for all of last year. The less good news is that our August giving was $2,700 below our target for the month, and our monthly expenses grow by more than $3,000 when we hire our second full-time staff person in September. You can find a much more detailed financial breakdown by visiting Abort73.com/budget. Because our 2007 budget is so back loaded, our $2,700 cushion will disappear quickly if monthly giving doesn’t increase. In that sense, we are stepping out in faith, knowing how important this hire is and believing that God will provide through the generosity of his people. Please pray for us. We’ve experienced famine and feasting and know that God’s hand is in both. Sometimes he allows us to boldly spend on new ventures and sometimes he teaches us to tighten the belt!