LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Tammy Tillman’s desire to see women counseled through the gospel of Christ dates back to her teenage years.

She was a rising high school junior in Tallahassee, Fla., where she had lived all her life. Thanks to her father’s job promotion, Tillman’s family abruptly moved to Lake City, about an hour east of Tallahassee. Though the miles from her hometown were few, to the 16-year-old Tillman it felt at first as if her family were moving to Mars.

Though blindsided by the move, God opened Tillman’s eyes to both her spiritual darkness and the need for Christian counseling.

Although she had grown up in a warm Christian home, Tillman was not converted to Christ until her senior year while in Lake City. God also began another good work in her through a set of circumstances that bordered on tragic.

“One of my close friends tried to commit suicide,” she said. “That had a huge impact on me, and while I was in college God began to use that to open my eyes to the need for Christian counseling. God used me to help her through it.”

The Tillman family spent only a year in Lake City before returning to Tallahassee, but it was a year that transformed Tillman’s life. Today she is earning a master of divinity degree in pastoral counseling at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Tillman’s passion is to offer biblical counsel to other women, which she hopes to do fulltime upon graduation from Southern Seminary.

Last summer she gained profound insight into counseling by working as a post-abortion counselor at A Woman’s Choice Resource Center, a ministry of Southeast Christian Church in downtown Louisville. Southern Seminary professor William Cutrer also ministers at the center.

The desecration left in the wake of abortion was part of the insight Tillman gained.

“There are so many issues and so many problems that arise in the woman’s life following abortion,” she said. “Abortion affects them in mental, physical, emotional and spiritual ways. Some women are made sterile by this because it is a medical procedure.

“There are a lot of things that women don’t know until they [have been] through the abortion because they aren’t told these things.

“Some women suffer from a ‘sleeper’ effect in that they have dreams about killing babies and can’t get it out of their mind, [sometimes for] 25 or 30 years after the abortion. This could be triggered by a sound or a smell that reminds them of it. A lot of women go into promiscuity. Sometimes there is a lot of anger and guilt. There are just dozens of problems caused by abortion.”

Tillman said the greatest delight she and other counselors at the center find is offering the only counsel which will truly heal their souls -- telling them about a better way, of life in Christ.

The gospel provides a healing balm for women who see God as ready to punish their transgressions but not ready to extend forgiveness.

“So many of the women would ask us, ‘How could God forgive me after I have killed my own child?’” Tillman said. “Many of them see God only as one who punishes and not as one who is also full of grace and truth. It is hard for them to accept the fact that there is forgiveness for sinners through the cross.”

Prior to beginning at the counseling center, Tillman said she was concerned that women who were hurting after having fallen into the trap of abortion might be reticent to discuss it with one who has never been through such an experience.

“I would tell them, ‘Maybe I haven’t walked in your shoes, but I have been in your shoes because I am a sinner,’” she said. “But God has had mercy upon me. It was an incredible opportunity to shine light in darkness and expose some of the false beliefs these women had, false beliefs about God, sin and grace.

“I am humbled that God would choose me to work with these precious women, who so need the healing that only the gospel can bring. Watching God work in the lives of these women was an incredible experience.”

The center is located across the street from an abortion clinic. Often women who intended to seek an abortion would stop in at the center thinking it was the clinic, Tillman said. Many times this would be frustrating because the woman would leave and go across the street, she said.

Tillman remembers one 18-year-old girl who was pregnant and came to the center, thinking she was entering the abortion clinic. The girl came with her mother in tow. Both mother and daughter were determined to have the teen’s pregnancy aborted.

“We talked to them about the different stages and all that a woman goes through even after an abortion,” Tillman said. “But the girl didn’t care and her mother felt having an abortion was a good choice. It is not at all rare for mothers to bring their daughters in for an abortion because they think it is the best way.

“We had another girl who said she [wished she] had had somebody like us to counsel with her beforehand because she wouldn’t have gone through with it. When we would hear that, it would make us that much more determined to minister to the needs of these women. A lot of them come back and trust Christ and then live lives that are obviously transformed. God is doing a great work at the women’s center.”

Tillman, who received a bachelor’s degree in human science from Florida State University in 1998, hopes to continue ministering to women after seminary. She is attending Southern Seminary with the goal of becoming a staff counselor for women within a local church.

She sees this as a glaring need within evangelical churches and hopes to see the seed God planted in her as a result of that tenuous high school year grow into a ministry that helps heal hurting women.

“We have a lot of women who are hurting in our churches,” she said. “We have to meet their needs and above all bring those to Christ who do not know him. We have a lot of felt needs, but that is their deepest need.

“Then they will realize that God fixes people who are wounded and hurting. There are women who have had abortions who are within our churches but are ashamed for anybody to know. There are a lot of needs, and my passion is to minister to them.”

LOUSVILLE, Ky. (BP)--For more than 20 years seminary professor William Cutrer has taught about abortion, written about it as an author and counseled women against it as a medical doctor.

Still, one thing mystifies him -- why so many local churches seem reluctant to address the issue.

Cutrer is associate professor of Christian ministry and director of the Gheens Center for Christian Family Ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Cutrer is also the co-author of “False Positive,” a novel focusing on the sanctity of human life theme set in a crisis pregnancy center, “Deadly Cure,” “Lethal Harvest” and “When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden.”

“The annual Roe vs. Wade observances do bring attention to the horror of abortion,” he said. “Sadly, many churches don’t discuss the issue at all, or simply pass the week by and become calloused to the real genuine human tragedy. The loss of precious life is enormous and the impact on the lives of the women that have had abortions is incredible.

“The church should step forward and speak up on behalf of the babies. (They should) make an impact for the babies and for the generation of women who suffer, often silently, because no one told them the truth before they made their decisions. Grace abounds toward them. May we faithfully get the message out.”

Cutrer is neither a passive observer nor a detached commentator.

He serves as the medical director for “A Woman’s Choice,” a pro-life crisis pregnancy center in downtown Louisville. The center, located across the street from an abortion clinic, is sponsored by Southeast Christian Church -- Louisville’s largest evangelical church -- and supported by other concerned churches in our area.

The clinic offers counseling and medical services for pregnant women. Above all, the clinic seeks to educate women on the truth of pregnancy and abortion.

“Many of our clients come in to our clinic by mistake,” Cutrer said. “They have their appointments for abortion but God’s Spirit directs them to us. We give them the best of care without deception. We tell them we don’t do abortions and we don’t refer for abortions.

“But what we do is offer them the love of God in Christ, free counseling and support, and a free ultrasound if they would like.”

To the contrary, abortion clinics charge at least $200 for a sonogram, Cutrer said, on top of a fee for the procedure that ends the life of the fetus. The further along a woman is in her pregnancy, the higher the fees, he said.

“Women who have been there (the abortion clinic) and come to see us have commented on how clean and friendly our clinic is,” Cutrer said. “They feel safe.”

Last year alone, the clinic was instrumental in turning 350 women away from abortion, convincing them to carry their pregnancies to term. Some put the children up for adoption, while others raised them with assistance from family, friends and even the clinic itself, he said.

One recent technological development has greatly increased the effectiveness of the clinic’s task, giving it a formidable weapon against those that view the fetus as a mere ‘blob of tissue’ -- the 4-D ultrasound.

The new ultrasound allows expectant mothers to see a three-dimensional view of their baby as it moves within the womb.

“The client will see lips, ears, the baby’s mouth opening and closing, fingers and toes,” he said. “It is very dramatic. No one leaves the clinic believing the baby is a ‘blob of tissue’ or a ‘cluster of cells.’

“These terms like ‘products of gestation’ depersonalize the baby, making abortion look like the solution to a problem (and) not the destruction of human life. So, we at the clinic call ‘em like we see ‘em -- these are babies. And it becomes very evident when the client watches the large TV screen that shows the very images I‘m watching on the machine.”

While “A Woman’s Choice” employs this new machine so clients may see their child in flesh tone color, abortion clinics do not allow expectant mothers to see such detail, Cutrer said.

“The abortion clinic doesn’t permit the clients to see what they are seeing,” he said. “It would hurt their business. So the new machine is making an impact. I think most clinics can do a very fine job with the 2-D machine but it would be nice for them to have a center to refer clients to that uses the 4-D.”

Cutrer is a board certified obstetrician/gynecologist and has been involved with women’s health care since the late 1970s. Prior to coming to Southern Seminary in 1999, Cutrer spent 15 years in a private medical practice during which time he attended Dallas Theological Seminary. He also served as senior pastor at Wildwood Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas, from 1994-97.

He volunteered at crisis pregnancy centers in the 1980s and served as the medical director of a pregnancy resource center in Dallas, where he supervised the medical portion of the ministry.

Cutrer wants local churches to be aware of and support similar pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

“If more of the churches knew of the availability of counseling, support, even legal assistance with adoption, benevolence aid and the medical capabilities, it would help them minister to women,” he said. “I’d like to invite believers to pray for us and the ministry at the clinic.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Seventy-three-year-old Charles Williams is the embodiment of the famous “never surrender” speech which Winston Churchill delivered during the darkest hours of World War II.

Williams’ commitment to those well-known words bore fruit yet again in December. The Monticello, Fla., native graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, receiving a doctor of ministry (D.Min.) degree in church consultation. He now holds seven degrees alongside more than 40 years of experience in ministry.

“I adopted Churchill’s advice a long time ago,” said Williams, who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict. “And that is to never give up. I think the secret to success is not necessarily intelligence but perseverance.”

Williams’ story is one of perseverance and accomplishment. In his seven-plus decades of life, Williams has served as pastor for eight churches in Kentucky, Georgia and Florida, attended six different colleges, receiving degrees from five of them, and held seven different positions within Christian education.

The veteran minister now holds the honor of being the oldest person to receive a degree through Southern Seminary’s Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth.

“When I first asked [an official] at the Graham School if I was too old to enroll in the program, their reply was the only way that my enrollment would be a problem is if I were too young and inexperienced,” Williams said. “So I went into the program with 40-plus years experience.”

Williams’ list of degrees reads like the synopsis of an academic catalog. It includes bachelor, master of theology and doctor of theology degrees from Luther Rice Seminary, a bachelor’s degree from Southwestern College, a master of arts degree from Pepperdine University and a doctor of education degree from Nova Southeastern University.

Williams began his educational pilgrimage in 1961 and by 1978 had earned six degrees. His decision to add a seventh from Southern Seminary came as a result of a new direction in ministry.

After serving as a pastor and Christian educator for many years, Williams is now putting his vast pool of knowledge to use for local churches, offering consulting services for congregations that are in decline both spiritually and numerically.

Williams is presently working with eight small rural churches that are in decline. He does not charge small churches for his counsel. He recently bought a motor home that he and his wife use to travel for consultation visits to these small churches.

“Since I have this motor home we are able to park at the church, so the churches do not have to pay for a place for us to stay,” he said. “Many of these areas are somewhat remote and don’t have hotels or motels.”

Williams and his wife, Georgia, have two children, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

At the outset of his ministry, Williams’ only goal was to spend the remainder of his life as pastor of a rural church. But while attending Luther Rice Seminary, then located in Jacksonville, Fla., in the mid-1960s and pastoring a church there, Williams realized God had also called him to work in Christian education.

In the years since, he has served as a teacher, dean and executive vice president for Luther Rice. In 1981 he organized the Southern Baptist School for Biblical Studies in Jacksonville, of which he remains president. The school offers theological education for ministers who desire to remain in the fulltime pastorate.

Williams hopes his decision to work for an additional degree later in life will serve as encouragement and inspiration for fellow ministers.

“If I can use this to encourage and inspire others, that will be great,” he said.

Thom Rainer, dean of Southern Seminary’s Billy Graham School, said Williams’ vast knowledge will be of great use to local churches.

“Charles has vast experience in the local church,” Rainer said. “He is the first to complete the consultation emphasis in the doctor of ministry in evangelism and church growth. He will be able to apply his experience and training to help churches all over America.

“I am impressed with his work and tenacity. I really think he can be an invaluable asset to many churches.”

Williams does not have any plans for retirement. Genealogy says he may have many years left in ministry, with Williams noting that his mother is 93 and still strong and healthy.

“I feel that I have 15 to 20 years of active ministry left in me,” he said. “I am starting my third career within ministry now and don’t plan to retire anytime soon.”