40 Days of Prayer and Fasting - 40 Days of Constant Vigil - 40 Days of Community Outreach

About Seattle 40 Days

This fall over 200 cities around the world will be praying, fasting, and holding vigil for the unborn from September 23rd - November 1st. Our community will be joining in the unprecedented national movement.

40 Days for Life is a focused pro-life campaign with a vision to access God’s power through prayer, fasting, and peaceful vigil to end abortion in America.

The mission of the campaign is to bring together the body of Christ in a spirit of unity during a focused 40 day campaign of prayer, fasting, and peaceful activism, with the purpose of repentance, to seek God’s favor to turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life, thus bringing an end to abortion in America.

Campaign Components

One of the strengths of 40 Days for Life is its simplicity. The campaign is made up of three key components:

  • Prayer and fasting: inviting people of faith throughout our city and across the country to join together for 40 days of fervent prayer and fasting for an end to abortion

  • Peaceful Vigil: standing for life through a 40-day peaceful public witness outside the local Planned Parenthood at 9th and 45th in the U-District

  • Community Outreach: taking a positive, upbeat pro-life message to every corner of our city through media efforts, church and school outreach, petition drives, and public visibility

Potential Benefits

There are many potential benefits that our community could experience:

  • Reduce abortion rates – by 15%… 20%… 25%… Or more!
  • Recruit and mobilize hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of new people into effective, life-saving efforts
  • Lead post-abortive women – and men – into proven and effective healing programs
  • Develop dynamic new leaders to increase the future impact of pro-life efforts
  • Bring churches together in an historic display of Christian unity and action
  • Generate enormous “buzz” by getting prominent pro-life news coverage – even from biased media outlets
  • Increase local financial support for pro-life efforts
  • Make the sanctity of human life a crucial issue throughout our community and in upcoming local, state and national elections

All of these results have actually been realized in other communities, and – with God’s help – could happen here in our town as well.

Why 40 Days?

God has used the period of 40 days throughout history to bring about major transformation…

  • Noah experienced transformation during 40 days of rain
  • Moses was transformed by 40 days on Mount Sinai
  • David was transformed by Goliath’s 40 day challenge
  • Elijah was transformed when God gave him 40 days of strength from one meal
  • Nineveh was transformed when God gave the city 40 days to remain faithful
  • Jesus was empowered by 40 days in the desert
  • The disciples were transformed after spending 40 days with Jesus following His resurrection

What will God accomplish when people of faith across our community and throughout our nation unite for 40 days of prayer and fasting, pulling out all the stops to end the violence of abortion?

We don’t know, but we’re sure excited to find out!

Track Record of Results

Over the past five years, a handful of communities conducted the 40 Days for Life campaign creating measurable, lifesaving results:

  • College Station, Texas activated over 1,000 people; reached out to 25,000 households with a strong pro-life message; created local, state, and national news; and slashed the local abortion rate by 28%

  • Green Bay, Wisconsin rallied 700 people — only 2% of whom had EVER been active in pro-life efforts before — and saved 2 babies from abortion during the first hour of their campaign

  • Dallas, Texas spared 17 children from death by abortion, united 89 churches, and mobilized over 1,000 people

  • Kitsap County, Washington organized 150 people and sparked a flurry of news stories and letters to the editor of the local paper. During the campaign, and perhaps because of it, the local Planned Parenthood facility abruptly cut back its hours and closed 2 full business days a week

  • Houston, Texas gained news coverage in the Houston Chronicle (a paper that actually FUNDS Planned Parenthood), directed 120 pregnant women away from an abortion facility to nearby pregnancy care centers, and saw another local abortion operation go out of business

  • Charlotte, North Carolina brought together many different Christian churches in a rare display of unity and experienced a harvest of women — and men — finding healing through post-abortion counseling programs

  • Madison, Wisconsin united Catholics and Protestants from across the region and reported hearing from a source inside the local Planned Parenthood abortion facility that the clinic experienced the most turnarounds in its history

  • Aurora, Illinois is currently in the midst of a 40 Days for Life campaign that was put together in eight days and has already mobilized hundreds of people and generated dozens of media stories in an attempt to prevent a new 22,000 square foot Planned Parenthood abortion facility from opening on September 18

  • And many more as the campaign has spread around the world these past 2 years!

National Unity

There are numerous advantages to holding 40 Days for Life campaigns in many areas at the same time:

  • National unity is fostered as cities and towns join together for this initiative

  • Our city will have a network of support from other communities that are engaged in the same activity concurrently

  • Better coordination and training will be available since all participating communities are at the same stage at the same time

  • The national media will stand up and take notice when many cities are generating local news coverage during one focused period

  • The costs of conducting a local campaign will be significantly reduced by sharing resources across all participating communities

  • The abortion industry will have a difficult time defending itself when it is besieged with prayer on many fronts simultaneously

  • The positive results experienced during the 40 days build strong momentum which leads to involvement long after the campaign

How YOU Can Make a Difference

Please pray and ask God to show you the unique role He has for you in the 40 Days for Life effort. Here are some possible ways you could make a lifesaving impact right here in our town:

  • Prayer warriors are needed to fast and petition God that He will bless this effort and do as He promised in 2 Chronicles 7:14; that He will hear our prayer and heal our land.

  • Vigil participation may be your role. God could be asking you to peacefully stand as His witness outside the local abortion facility as a sign to the community that what goes on inside that building is simply wrong.

  • Community outreach might be your specialty. If you’re a person with an outgoing personality, please consider this. Or maybe you’re being called to take a leap of faith and step out to educate your town or city about God’s truth.

  • Leadership is needed in the following areas:

    • Prayer coordinator

    • Vigil coordinators

    • Outreach coordinator

    • Event coordinator(s)

    • Church coordinators

    • And we’re sure other roles that will become clear in time

If you still need more information to help you decide where to get involved:

  • Contact seattle@40dfl.com

  • Take time to pray and ask God to show you His plans for your involvement