I received a wide range of responses to the Communiqué I wrote in early September. I wanted to address the why of working for the CHP not the how or the what. There was a lot that I left unsaid. One person responded by suggesting that we need to look at what is wrong with Canada and "bring healing." I think this person understood what I was saying but it serves to illustrate my point. This is 'cause and effect' thinking—something we do (the cause) creates good in the nation (the effect)—and I do not believe this is the right frame of mind for us if we are to be successful. Instead, we need to have a "promise and obligation" mindset. We are obliged to sacrifice ourselves—our time, money, energy, even our very lives—for the good of our neighbour, and God promises that He will bless that sacrifice. But our focus must be solely upon God and His glory. It’s a subtle thing, I agree, but the language we use deeply influences the actions we take; if we make "promise and obligation" the language we use, we will be less likely to fall into all the traps the Enemy sets for us. Another correspondent thought I meant that it was sufficient to simply "try our best and let God do the rest." I can see, now, how one might get this impression but it was not my intention. God is not glorified by mediocrity. Our God is perfect and able to do all that He wills. As His image bearers we must strive to reach this standard. Moreover, we are poor heralds of our God, indeed, we encourage others to mock him if we act foolishly and ineffectually in His name. Jesus' parables are immensely comforting. The parable of the talents, for example, tells us that we must use what we are given to increase God's glory in the world. The bare minimum, he said, is the low risk investment of putting it in the bank, but that's the minimum. It is possible that our investments into God's glory may not yield anything; they may even be lost altogether but our status as servants will not be affected by that loss. So let us be encouraged to do those things we expect to yield the greatest income of glory for our Saviour. But what should we do? Everything seems to come down to money. It takes money to do anything but you are too responsible to simply give your money because we ask for it; you need to know that something useful is going to be done with it. This creates a catch-22 of sorts. The solution to the impasse lies in Lewis' law of lesser and greater good. The lesser good, in this instance, is raising money and making the party bigger and stronger. It is easy to focus on these things, and so far it has been of marginal benefit. Let's look at a greater good, for instance, telling people about the injustice that lives within Canada. During the election, Mike's campaign team developed a powerful little brochure which started with the proposition, "In Canada, where you live determines if you live." It was, as you might guess, a pro-life brochure. We put Mike's face on it, and contact information, but it was not about Mike at all; it was about telling the people of our riding about the injustice that abortion presents. More than 40 people showed up one Saturday to hand deliver several thousand of the brochures and we let Canada Post do the rest. We had more response from that brochure than any other thing we did. Moreover, because we made this explicitly about abortion, we were able to get broad support from people who were not particularly interested in getting Mike elected but were interested in spreading the word about abortion. There are no restrictions on how much we can communicate between elections. If we raise the money, we can do pretty much what we want. So our EDA is going to deliver a variation on that brochure probably sometime in the new year. And then, we're going to try to do a new one every six months. Each one is going to cost about $20,000 to develop, print and deliver. The purpose is simply to give Canadians in our riding the information they're not getting from the government or media. Why not leave it up to pro-life groups and other organizations? Quite simply, we can do it better and more effectively than they can. In order to send out a brochure, we need to find 50 people willing to donate $400 each to the EDA. Because we are a registered EDA, each of those people is going to get a $300 tax credit from the federal government. A tax credit counts as taxes paid, so it literally means that donors are telling the federal government to fund our EDA. Moreover, because those donations are directly linked to the prolife brochures we are going to run, donors are compelling the federal government to pay $15,000 to promote pro-life issues. Too often we see the government squandering our money on parties for celebrities or on things that destroy the family; here, at least, we have control over where the government spends our money. South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale is willing to run point on this, so to speak. We think that every EDA could be doing this but it’s very difficult to develop all the material, so we'll take the risks and develop the materials, as well as the marketing material that will help you go to your local pro-life group and uncover new sources of donations. If your EDA wants to get involved and make a real change in the country, then send me an email at adam@sswrc.ca. The obligation is that there are real things that we can do today that will glorify our God. The promise is that He will bless that work and our nation through those things.