How Tennessee Baptists partner with the Psalm 139 Project

The ERLC’s Psalm 139 Project is an incredible initiative that places ultrasound machines in pregnancy centers, giving vulnerable mothers a window into the womb so they can see the precious lives growing within them. And now, through a new campaign of the Psalm 139 Project called “Across State Lines,” Southern Baptist individuals, churches, state conventions, and other entities can work together to extend pro-life ministry from conservative states into abortion-permissible states where the need is great. 

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Beth Moore, Compassion Ministries Specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, about how Tennessee Baptists are living this out by promoting a culture of life in their state and beyond. Since 2022, they’ve helped place 14 ultrasound machines in pregnancy centers across Tennessee. They’re currently offering life-saving care and the hope of the gospel by partnering with others to help fund an ultrasound placement in Vermont, where abortion is much more accessible.

Episode Transcript: How Tennessee Baptists partner with the Psalm 139 Project

Narration:

Welcome to the ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re talking about how Tennessee Baptists are promoting a culture of life.

Narration:

The ERLC’s Psalm 139 Project is an incredible initiative that places ultrasound machines in pregnancy centers, giving vulnerable mothers a window into the womb so they can see the precious lives growing within them. And now, through a new initiative of the Psalm 139 Project called Across State Lines, Southern Baptist individuals, churches, state conventions, and other entities can work together to extend pro-life ministry from conservative states into abortion-permissible states where the need is great. 

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Beth Moore, compassion ministries specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board about how Tennessee Baptists are living this out by promoting a culture of life in their state and beyond. Since 2022, they’ve helped place 14 ultrasound machines in pregnancy centers across Tennessee. Now they’re offering life-saving care and the hope of the gospel by partnering with others to help fund an ultrasound placement in Vermont, where abortion is much more accessible. 

Now, let’s turn to Elizabeth Bristol’s conversation with Beth Moore. 

Elizabeth Bristow:

So, with us today is Beth Moore. Beth, thank you so much for being with us here on the ERLC Podcast.

Beth Moore:

Thanks so much for having me.

Elizabeth Bristow:

To start out, would you please just share a little bit more about your role with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and the work that you’re involved in there?

Beth Moore:

Sure. So my role is Compassion Ministry Specialist, which means that I help our churches as they are trying to meet needs in the community. That looks like anything from Feeding and Hunger Ministries, jail and Prison Ministries, and of course pregnancy Support Ministries, which is what we’re gonna talk about today.

Elizabeth Bristow:

Very neat. And how long have you been in this role?

Beth Moore:

So I’ve been in this role since 2021. I’ve been with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board since 2018, and prior to that I served with the International Mission Board.

Elizabeth Bristow:

Very neat. Very neat. Well, we so appreciate the important work that you do to serve Southern Baptists in Tennessee and just Tennesseans across the state in these various areas. How has the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board been working to promote a culture of life in Tennessee, and especially through your partnership with the ERLC’s Psalm 139 Project?

Beth Moore:

Yeah, so this of course is very important to all believers that we value life from the womb all the way until death. And so we have, like I said, different kinds of ministries, but particularly we want to support our pregnancy support ministries. And we are able to do that as Tennessee Baptists give through our state missions offering, the Golden Offering, for Tennessee missions. And we have been able to provide resources for our pregnancy resource centers. Our executive director, Dr. Randy Davis, has a passion for this as well and has championed it in our state legislature. And since 2022, we have actually placed 14 ultrasound machines around the state. Some of those have been fully funded through the Golden offering, but many of those have been done in partnership with the ERLC and the Psalm 139 Project, which has just been just a tremendous joy. I love working with Psalm 139. They have contacts sometimes that I don’t or know the needs that I don’t. And so often we communicate about where is there a need in the state right now for an ultrasound machine.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s great. Yeah, I would say, what is a forecasted plan looking like? You know, you’ve shared what you’ve done in the last several years. What are some of the current needs that you may see that are on the horizon across the state?

Beth Moore:

Yeah, some of our pregnancy resource centers are looking to do mobile ministry. As you know, so many of our women in Tennessee live far away from access to medical care. And so we have pregnancy resource centers that are serving multiple counties and trying to care for women in multiple counties. And so we are trying to partner with them as they’re growing their ministries to do mobile ministries. We also partner with churches that are doing outreach to single moms, unwed moms, moms that are in crisis through things like Embrace Grace and other ministries at their church. And so we partner with them. As we partner with our pregnancy resource centers, we also want to help them have any sort of evangelistic resources that they are using. We think it’s so important for them to have, of course the ultrasound machines and any kind of medical equipment, but we want the women that are coming to these centers to have the opportunity to hear about the hope of Jesus.

Beth Moore:

And so we also make sure that we can provide Bibles, Bible study materials, whatever those things are. And we also work to connect our churches. The pregnancy resource centers that we partner with are of course partnered with many churches around our state. That’s how we hear about them. But we also want to make sure that more of our churches know how they can partner, how they can minister to these women, because we ultimately want the women that are coming to the pregnancy resource centers to be connected to a local church, a local church body, so that their children have the opportunity to grow up hearing about the gospel.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s so important. Is there a particular story or experience that stands out to you that captures the impact of this pro-life work that you would want to share with our listeners?

Beth Moore:

Yeah, so recently, we’ve had the opportunity to place an ultrasound machine last year at a pregnancy resource center. And just a few months ago, in fact, I got an email. And when we place the machines, when we partner with the ERLC, we are placing quality machines and we’re also making sure that they have all of the pieces and parts to the machine that they need so that they’re providing excellent medical care. We think it’s so important that anything that we do, we do with excellence, especially if we’re doing that in the name of Jesus. And so, just a few months ago I got an email from a pregnancy resource center where we were able to place a machine to tell us that a lady came in and they were able, because of the machine, the quality and the level of the equipment that we provided to identify an ectopic pregnancy in a mom. 

Beth Moore:

She came in abortion minded. And then when she found out that the pregnancy wasn’t viable, she obviously grieved. So first of all, they were able to provide life-saving care to this woman. And in that time also really minister to her as she processed through all these ranges of emotions that you would imagine she’s feeling and to share with her the hope of Jesus. And so, you know, they concluded this email by saying, yes, this ultrasound machine is saving the lives of the unborn, but today it saved the life of this woman. And when I read that message and thought about the impact that these machines have, that these ministries have, that when Southern Baptists and when Tennessee Baptists give to Psalm 139, when they give to the Cooperative Program, when they give to our state missions offerings, the impact that they have on the unborn, but also on the lives of these women, I think we won’t know until eternity how this has changed lives and changed eternity. 

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really amazing and such a good reminder for people to hear that their giving truly does make a difference. I think sometimes people give even with an uncertainty of where that money is exactly going to go or how it’s going to be used. And so to hear those on the ground, tangible stories of how their giving is making such an impact is just incredible. So we have recently entered into an exciting partnership between Tennessee Baptists and New England Baptists to fund a new ultrasound machine in Vermont. Tell us more about this partnership. How did it come together and what are you looking forward to?

Beth Moore:

Yeah, so Rachel Wiles, who is my regular contact and friend when the Psalm 139 Project. She’s who always reaches out about these machines and lets us know the need, let’s us know if we can help at all. And we of course always try to do what we can. And so after we placed our last machine, and as best we can tell right now, pregnancy resource centers in Tennessee are at a good place with ultrasound machines. And so we don’t have any immediate needs that we know of this past year. And so Rachel reached out and she asked if we would be willing to partner with Psalm 139 and other state conventions, with Alabama, to help place this machine in Vermont. As we know, we have a lot of Southern Baptists living in the southern states. We have a lot of giving, a lot of things happening.

Beth Moore:

We also, in Tennessee, are blessed with a believing governor who has really promoted these placements of these machines in his term as governor. And so we’ve just been really fortunate in Tennessee. And when Rachel reached out and said, there’s this need in Vermont in a sister state, in a sister convention, would Tennessee be willing to help? So of course when I passed that on to our leadership, there was no question at all that we wanted to do what we could to share the blessing that we have in Tennessee. And so yeah, we were able to partner with Psalm 139, Alabama Convention, and Tennessee Baptists to help place this machine. And not only place the machine–when we do these placements, we also help provide the training for the staff so that they can use the machine. And so that can get quite expensive when you’re doing all of that. So we are just super excited that we can have this partnership, that we can do what Southern Baptists pride ourselves on doing, which is cooperating together to advance the mission of God. And I believe that we are advancing that by helping save the lives of the unborn and to minister to women that are coming into these offices hurting and questioning and wondering, and they’re gonna be met by believers who love them and can point them to Jesus.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s so beautiful. I love that partnership model. And like you said, when we cooperate together, when we partner together, we’re more effective in how we can share the hope of the gospel with those around us. And so we’re super excited and look forward to that placement in Vermont. So as we look ahead, how can listeners who are hearing this podcast episode pray for you, pray for your ongoing work in Tennessee and beyond?

Beth Moore:

Yeah. I think pray that I will be able to encourage our churches to engage in their community, to meet needs in their community. If we’re going to see revival in Tennessee and across the states, our churches are really going to have to begin to engage with hurting people, engage with the broken, engage with those that may never come into our churches on their own. So we’re gonna have to go to them. And so that’s really what I’m trying to encourage our churches to do. I think pray for these pregnancy resource centers across our state because they are front lines for the broken and the hurting, and they have the opportunity to connect women and children to our churches. And I think that there’s nothing that Jesus would love more than for us to wrap our arms around hurting women and children and point them to him.

Elizabeth Bristow:

That’s really great. Beth, is there anything else before we close out that you would want to share?

Beth Moore:

I think, again, I’m just so grateful for the ERLC and the Psalm 139 Project and what it means to so many women and children across our country, but I know especially in Tennessee. And so I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you to Southern Baptists for giving to the Cooperative Program and of course to Tennessee Baptist for just their generosity. We saw record giving for our state missions offering this past year, the highest we’ve ever received. And because of that, we were able to do what we’ve done with these ultrasound machine placements, but also many other missions opportunities right in our state. So, I just want to say thank you so much to our churches in Tennessee and beyond for your faithful giving.

Elizabeth Bristow:

Well, and thank you. Thank you for the hard work that you put in each day to serve those vulnerable people and communities around you. And if it’s okay, I would love to pray with you before we go. God, we are so grateful for Beth. Lord, I’m thankful for the ministry that she is involved with, Lord, across the state of Tennessee, in bringing the hope of the gospel to those who are lost and those who are vulnerable, those who are hurting. Lord, I just pray that you would abundantly bless her and bless her ministry. Lord, I pray that Tennessee Baptists across our state would just be invigorated, Lord, to get involved in their communities, Lord, to search and seek for needs that need to be met and have a willing heart, God, to serve in those places. I pray for pregnancy care centers across our state who are doing very important work of serving vulnerable women and children and families. And I just pray God for you to encourage them wherever they are serving, that you would just bring more and more women to their clinics Lord, to receive help so that they can also receive the hope found in you, Christ. And so I pray for their work and I just pray, God, that you would ignite revival in all of our hearts, Lord, to just be about serving you and doing the will of our Father. Lord, we ask all of these things in your name. Amen.

Narration:

Southern Baptists in places like Tennessee have been working hard for years to protect preborn lives and care for vulnerable mothers, and now they’re using their resources to bring support to abortion permissible areas of the country like Vermont by helping to fund ultrasound placements in states with few, if any, protections for these children, and where mothers will often travel to receive abortions, you too can reach across state lines with a missional mindset, saving lives and supporting mothers facing unplanned pregnancies. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the ERLC Podcast. Join us next time as we hear from the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.