Fall CHAP HELP Day: A Gathering to Lobby God and Lawmakers

Everyday, we seem to hear something shocking and surreal in the news. We’re overwhelmed by the sense of dread brought on by these happenings, and these current events also break our hearts. We're appalled by the atrocities being inflicted, not just on the unsuspecting, but on the innocent and the helpless. Nothing seems sacred or precious anymore. Nothing.

As followers of Christ familiar with His grace and mercy, we cringe knowing that our country has long deserved His punishment. We deserve God's judgment for allowing sin to creep into our private lives to the point that we've been rendered impotent. Sin has established strongholds in our families, our churches, and overrun our communities and society at large. How else could we co-exist with all the moral evils around us while claiming a relationship with a Holy God?

Knowing the gospel, we are keenly aware that our sinful state is a congenital condition. Christ died on the cross and rose again so that we would no longer live for ourselves but for God and others with His kingdom and eternity in view. God entrusted us with a charge to be salt and light but we haven't been faithful as we should be.

We are rife for punishment.

While pondering these things recently, I was reminded of wicked Nineveh. This is cause for hope. "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened." [Jonah 3:10] Picture the repentance and revival that went on by reading the short chapter, if not the book.

Are you at all curious about what God may do if He finds us humbling ourselves, praying and seeking His face - in the wickedness of our state?

Charles Grandison Finney, probably the greatest revival preacher there ever was said, "There are two kinds of means requisite to promote a revival: the one to influence men, the other to influence God. The truth is employed to influence men, and prayer to move God. When I speak of moving God, I do not mean that God's mind is changed by prayer, or that His disposition or character is changed. But prayer produces such a change in us it renders it consistent for God to do as it would not be consistent for Him to do otherwise. When a sinner repents, that state of feeling makes it proper for God to forgive him. God has always been ready to forgive him on that condition, so that when the sinner changes his feelings and repents, it requires no change of feeling in God to pardon him. It is the sinner's repentance that renders His forgiveness proper, and is the occasion of God's acting as He does."

The CHAP legislative team, acknowledging our own sense of incompetence and inadequacy to lead and change legislations that infringe on our private lives, invite you to assemble with us in Harrisburg, on Tuesday, September 8, at the Capitol's main rotunda, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon. Please share the CHAP HELP Day Event - our Home Education Lobby Program - by sharing this e-Newsletter and this link. Let's be an army of prayer warriors.  

Before lobbying our legislators’ offices like we've done in the past, we will focus on lobbying the God of Heaven first, Who alone understands our woes, and can change the hearts of men and women - our lawmakers, our judges, executive leaders, our church ministers, and our fathers and mothers. We will hear speakers, read from the Scriptures, and we will pray.

At the end, everyone is encouraged to meet with your local (or another) Representative and/or Senator and appeal to them concerning our rights and liberties as families and parents. We need many hands to help distribute copies of the DVD Overruled - to key lawmakers. We are working towards passing HB1512, an Act providing for parental rights protection; and HR63, a Concurrent Resolution petitioning the Congress of the United States to call a convention of states limited to proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States that impose fiscal restraints on the Federal Government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the Federal Government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress. [Short and longer clips from Overruled like this one can be viewed on Youtube.]

There are other details here.  

MEET OUR SPEAKERS:

Carolyn Conner is a long time homeschooler and homeschooling advocate. She and her husband Ron adopted six children whom they home educated, including two with special needs.  Always interested in current events and government, she became more involved in the political arena once her children finished their formal schooling. She uses her skills and talents to further socially conservative principles, especially related to life and end-of-life issues.  Carolyn is currently serving as a leader in politics, is active in her church where she directs the Women-to-Women outreach and has taught government, citizenship and elections classes at her local homeschool co-op.  She lives in the Lewisburg area with her husband, two 20-something children with Down Syndrome, and likes to travel to see her daughters and 15 grandchildren.

Steve Davies was born and raised in Houston, Texas, attended Texas A&M University, graduated with a BS degree in Nuclear Engineering. He worked in the electric utility industry for 36 years, and held a variety of positions related to environmental permitting, environmental compliance, new power plant development, human resources, government relations and asset management. His family moved from Houston to PA in 2000 for his job. He retired in 2013, and since 2014, he has been doing business development and marketing work for engineering and environmental consulting firms. He began working with the Convention of States in early 2014, and assumed the COS PA State Director position in July, 2014. He is married and has 3 children: one is out of college and recently married, and the other two are in college/grad school. They home-schooled all of their children from K thru 8^th grade.

David Miranda has worked most of his life in the technical sales profession, the last 13 years selling communications technology solutions to the healthcare industry. David and his wife Ann both came to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord in 1984 and 1985 respectively. Since then they have endeavored to follow the teachings of the Bible and to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the LORD. They began homeschooling their two children in 1999 and home schooled through high school. Today their children, Mark and Sarah, use their talents in music and cartooning to honor and serve their Savior, Jesus Christ. Together the family has served in Spanish ministry, nursing home ministry, and other ministries in the local church.   

David serves as National Grassroots Director for ParentalRights.org, the organization spearheading the effort to realize the Parental Rights Amendment (PRA) to the U.S. Constitution. He speaks in churches and other venues to raise awareness to the increasing erosion of parental rights that threatens the liberty of Christian parents to teach and train their children in the nurture and admonition of the LORD.

David’s objective is to move concerned Americans to actively support efforts to realize the PRA in order to stop the erosion of parental rights and provide the constitutional protection that will preserve time-honored parental rights in America.

Join the gathering if you can and if you can’t, please pray with us wherever you may be.

"I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made

for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful

and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness."  ~I Timothy 2:1,2