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The January 12 special election to fill Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli’s Fairfax County seat in the Virginia Senate is hot as it is important. As such, we are redoubling our efforts to alert and educate voters in the 37th Senate district. Our Winning Matters campaign, which distributed nearly 1,000,000 voter guides statewide during the recent election, now is focused solely on this important Senate race in Fairfax County.

In addition, our grassroots chapter, the Fairfax Family Forum, is hosting a candidate forum tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Fair Oaks Church, 4601 West Ox Road. Democrat nominee, Delegate Dave Marsden, and Republican nominee, former Fairfax County School Board Member Steve Hunt, have been invited to discuss their positions on issues of concern to the faith community. They will also take questions from the audience. Please plan to attend this important event.

We have two Winning Matters area coordinators working in the county, as well as a project manager. The Family Foundation has produced a special voter guide for this election, available in English, Spanish and, for the first time ever, Korean. Our area coordinators are contacting hundreds of churches, pastors and volunteers, and have distributed 20,000 voter guides across the district.

Despite this success, because of the extremely short time frame, we have been unable to contact anyone in several of the churches. If you attend one of these churches, or know the pastor or a parishioner at one of these churches, please help us make a connection there. E-Mail Mark Earley, Jr., at mlearleyjr@gmail.com or Marlon-David Sias at mdsias@gmail.com  and let them know how you can help. The voter guides need to be in these churches for distribution this Sunday, January 10:

Abundant Life Family Church, Fairfax

Annandale Calvary Church Of The Nazarene, 8220 Little River Turnpike

Annandale Church Of Christ, 4709 Ravensworth Road

Annandale Wash. Good Shepherd Nazarene, 8220 Little River Turnpike

Antioch Baptist Church, 6531 Little Ox Road, Fairfax Station

Braddock Missionary Baptist Church, 12326 Braddock Road, Fairfax

Calvary Church Of The Nazarene, 8220 Little River Turnpike, Annandale

Calvary Hill Baptist Church, 9301 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax

Centerpointe Church At Fair Oaks, 4104 Legato Road, Fairfax

Centreville Assembly Of God, 14821 Lee Highway

Centreville Church Of Christ, 13919 Braddock Road

Centreville Community Bible Church, 15109 Carlbern Drive

Centreville Community Church, 15301 Lee Highway

Centro Evangelistico El Refugio, 25207 Elk Lick Road, Chantilly

Chantilly Baptist Church, 14312 Chantilly Baptist Lane

Christ Church, 8285 Glen Eagles Lane, Fairfax Station

Christian Fellowship Church, 10237 Leesburg Pike, Burke

Church At Northern Virginia, 10922 Vale Road, Oakton

Church Of Love And Truth, 209 Oak Street Southwest, Vienna

Church Of The Apostles, 3500 Pickett Road, Fairfax

Clifton Baptist Church, 7152 Main Street

Community Baptist Church, 10112 Community Lane, Fairfax Station

Community Bible Church, 4400 Fair Lake Court, Suite 60, Fairfax

Diaspora Fellowship Church, 9304 Nester Road, Fairfax

Dulles Family Life Church Nazarene, 14740-H Flint Lee Road, Chantilly

Fairfax Baptist Church, 10830 Main Street

Fairfax Church Of Christ, 3901 Rugby Road

Fairfax Community Church, 11451 Braddock Road

Fairfax-Lee Highway Church Of God, 14740-H Flint Lee Road, Chantilly

Faith Baptist Church, 301 Center Street South, Burke

Faith For Living Church Of God, 12901 Lee Side Court

First Baptist Church Of Vienna, 450 Orchard Street

Grace Fellowship Church, 25350 Poland Road, Chantilly

Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2381 Cedar Lane, Vienna

Immanuel Korean Baptist Church, 5020 Marshall Crown Road, Centreville

International Baptist Alexandria, Annandale

Knollwood Community Church, 10000 Coffer Woods Road, Burke

Koinos Fellowship Church, 43844 Churchill Glen Drive, Chantilly

Korean Presbyterian Church Of Centreville, 25454 Gum Spring Road, Chantilly

Living Covenant Church, 14637 Lee Highway, Suite 102, Oakton

Living Savior Lutheran, 5500 Ox Road, Fairfax Station

Maranatha Baptist Church, 3511 Annandale Road, Annandale

Mok Yang Presbyterian Church Mission, 6608 Little Ox Road, Fairfax

New Creation Mission, Centreville

New Hope Presbyterian Church, Fairfax City

Nova Worship Center, 14740 Flint Lee Road-Unit H, Chantilly

Ox Hill Baptist Church, 4101 Elmwood Street, Chantilly

Parkwood Baptist Church 8726 Braddock Road, Annandale

Pleasant Valley Assembly Of God, 25207 Elk Lick Road, Chantilly

Prince Of Peace Lutheran Church, 8304 Old Keene Mill Road, Springfield

Prosperity Baptist, 42962 Braddock Road, Chantilly

Springfield Church Of Christ, 7512 Old Keene Mill Road

Truro Church, 10520 Main Street, Fairfax

Washington Bible Baptist Church, 14701 Lee Highway, Centreville

Washington Grace, Fairfax

During the recent statewide campaign, we and our sister organization, TFF Action, ran an unprecedented — and massively successful — voter education campaign, Winning Matters. Although we anticipated a wind down after the election in November, Winning Matters remains in high gear for the crucial special election for the 37th district Virginia Senate seat (in Fairfax, January 12) vacated by Republican Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli.

Winning Matters retained a staff of three (two field reps in Fairfax and a project manager) which has produced, and is distributing, thousands of paper and online voter guides in English, Spanish and Korean to churches, civic groups and area businesses. It also is providing absentee ballot applications for people not be able to vote in person on the 12th. Winning Matters also is working with churches to announce the election and/or put it in their bulletins as a reminder to their members to go out and vote.

If you are interested in helping Winning Matters with this crucial special election, between Republican Stephen Hunt and Democrat Dave Marsden, especially within your church, please contact Roger Pogge at 804-343-0010 or e-mail him at roger@familyfoundation.org. 

Although the campaign is a short one, it has been hot for a while, probably because it is so crucial to the makeup of the Virginia Senate, which the Democrats currently control by one seat. Among the issues: Marsden now claims to be for lower taxes, despite his history of votes to raise them; the fact that he moved into a friend’s house to be eligible to run for the seat; and, of course, it wouldn’t be a campaign in Virginia if life and abortion weren’t part of the (misleading) discussion. If Hunt wins for the GOP, it will remain within striking distance of winning crucial votes, with Lt. Governor Bill Bolling breaking ties. If Marsden pulls it out for the Dems, the left will have a little leeway with a second vote to spare. One seat might not sound like much, but whoever wins the election can change the dynamics of the entire Virginia Senate. Which is why winning matters.

All of us at The Family Foundation of Virginia hope that you will spend time with your loved ones and friends this Thanksgiving. It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on the abundance of grace and mercy that is poured out on each of us each year by our loving God.

In the many battles we face, and in a culture where our values seem to be slipping away, it is often difficult to find joy and thankfulness. Yet, we are incredibly blessed in so many ways. Simply being alive, having the opportunity to serve our God, to live in a land that is free — still — and having family and friends to love are just some of the things we too often take for granted.

This year, we at The Family Foundation have much for which to be thankful. While many will first think of the recent elections where pro-family candidates were victorious, our gratitude goes far beyond those results. For one, we can never express enough how thankful we are for our supporters. This year, despite the difficult economy, donors to The Family Foundation helped make Winning Matters an unquestioned success. Add to that the nearly 1,300 people who attended our Annual Gala with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, and we can truly say that God supplied for our needs in remarkable ways in 2009.

We also are extremely thankful for our army of volunteers, both those who guide or work through our local grassroots networks, and those who help us here in the office or at various events. Incredibly, volunteers sacrificially gave more than 1,000 hours of their time in our headquarters this year! From stuffing envelopes for mailings, helping distribute nearly 900,000 Voter Guides, to making thousands of phone calls, the help given by these volunteers can simply not be measured. We could not have had a successful Winning Matters campaign, nor Gala, without these selfless individuals. The Family Foundation — Board and staff — offer our collective heartfelt thanks.

We also are thankful for the challenges God places in our path. It is only through those hard times that we truly place our trust in Him and mature in our faith. Together, we face many challenges — culturally and politically. But it is for just this time that God has placed us in this Commonwealth. He chose us to be here to fight for our liberties when they are in peril. That is an honor for which we can truly be thankful.

Again, we thank you for your support of The Family Foundation. May God bless you abundantly this Thanksgiving!

In October, we announced an online contest to reward the person who distributed the most voter guides prior to the election. We also announced a drawing for all who participated in our online contest.

Congratulations to Donna Moore, our contest winner, who distributed nearly 10,000 voter guides to churches and various groups in the Fredericksburg area. Donna is a member of the Rappahannock Family Forum and has been actively engaged in making a difference in that region for years. We will send Donna a beautiful framed photograph of the state capitol.

Also, congratulations to Tony Armstrong of Newport News, who won the overall drawing. He will receive an autographed copy of the book From Hope to Higher Ground by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

We offer our sincere thanks to all who distributed voter guides during the past campaign. With your help, we placed nearly 900,000 voter guides in churches and with civic groups throughout The Old Dominion! This is by far our largest voter guide distribution effort and we believe our voter guides had a big impact on the election. CNN exit polls reported that 34 percent of those who voted were born again/evangelicals, 83 percent of whom voted for the winning candidates. That is the highest percentage of voting for that demographic since CNN began exit polling in Virginia, giving the winning ticket nearly 50 percent of their votes.

This does not take into account our many African-American friends, such as new Pastors For Family Values Chaplain, Bishop Earl Jackson. We also published our first voter guide in Spanish and received much positive response from pastors in the Hispanic community. But . . . there is still work to do!

Please continue to keep our Winning Matters efforts in your prayers. There are at least two special elections to fill vacant Senate seats (to replace Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli and Virginia Beach Sheriff-elect Ken Stolle) and maybe more as Governor-elect Bob McDonnell selects his cabinet appointees. We will be “on the job” and “on the ground” with our Winning Matters team, covering these elections, motivating and educating voters to make an informed choice at the ballot box.

Thanks to so many of you who have helped us distribute hundreds of thousands of Family Foundation Voter Guides (click here) to churches in every corner of the state. (It’s not too late to spread the guides around, either — forward this link to your friends, family and fellow church members). With your help, our Winning Matters staff has conducted the largest Voter Guide distribution effort in the history of The Family Foundation. We are excited that so many values voters across the commonwealth will go to the polls tomorrow armed with the information they need to make an intelligent, informed choice when they cast their vote.

We’ve developed an online tool to assist us in tracking which churches distributed our Voter Guides. If you helped deliver Voter Guides, would you log on and let us know to which churches you delivered them? As an extra motivation, we are offering prizes for your participation. Win a framed photo of the Virginia capitol by being the person to submit the largest number of churches you coordinated with and delivered TFF Voter Guides to. If you distributed at an event, that also counts. Enter just one church or one event where you delivered Voter Guides and you will be entered into the drawing to receive an autographed copy of Governor Mike Huckabee’s latest book. Click here to enter to win! Your participation in this effort will help us better plan our future Voter Guide distribution efforts and enable us to be better stewards of the resources we have been blessed with.

Of course, don’t forget Tuesday is Election Day. Exercise your sacred duty and make sure your friends and family members go out and vote also.

Tony Perkins and company at the Family Research Council have an ingenious idea. If your U.S. representative nor either of the commonwealth’s U.S. senators have a town hall meeting, host one yourself! FRC has everything you need via the links below. This ties in perfectly with the previous post on our Winning Matters campaign. Please forward this link to interested people. Read on: 

Download a Townhall Kit today and help host a Townhall Meeting on Health Care in your church or community

Help Organize a Health Care Townhall with Included Kit

August 25, 2009 | Share with Friends

In 1787, when the Constitutional Convention decided not to reform the weak Articles of Confederation but rather assemble a new constitution, they faced a tremendous challenge in gaining the support of the citizens of this young nation. The process lasted for months and included numerous public “townhall” type meetings. Many of these meetings were held in churches, moderated by prominent pastors.

Nearly two and a quarter centuries later, such involvement by churches is more urgent than perhaps ever before. Under the proposed health insurance scheme being advanced by President Obama and his allies in Congress, Americans would be compelled to:

• Pay for abortion on demand by financing insurance companies that pay for abortion services.

• Fund the leading provider of abortion in the nation, Planned Parenthood.

• Foot the bill for government panels that would foster the notion that self-termination (i.e., suicide) is a sound moral and financial option for the elderly.

• Pay for abortifacient contraceptives.

Additionally, the Obama proposal fails to protect vital conscience rights for health care providers, thereby exposing them to the threat of being required to perform abortion-related services.

We are calling on pastors and Christian leaders nationwide to hold forums in your churches where these matters can be discussed and exposed. And it’s to that end that we are offering for download FRC Action’s Townhall Kit — so that you can create your own townhall meeting, just as churches did more than two centuries ago, to inform and activate the people in your pews and communities.

Take a few moments to download and review the Townhall Kit. We are providing you with all the material you will need to conduct a powerful, respectful and informative event.

The Founders understood that without the churches of America, the new nation could never have been formed. Without the churches today, I would argue it cannot be sustained. Your role in this effort is critical, and thank you for all you are doing for our country and its future.

Download a Townhall Kit Today! [PDF]

Sincerely,

Tony Perkins

President

P.S. Please forward this email to at least one friend.

Our Winning Matters campaign — the voter identification, registration, education and mobilization projectof both The Family Foundation and The Family Foundation Action — is in full gear. It has been, actually, for some time, and a great deal already has been accomplished.

We have nearly a dozen full- and part-time staff hard at work across Virginia. With the help of pastors and other committed Christians, they are  identifying, informing and mobilizing pro-family, values voters to cast values-driven votes on Election Day.  

The first phase of Winning Matters is identifying eligible voters in Virginia according to their values and making sure they are registered to vote. Sadly, statistics tell us that nearly half of self-proclaimed evangelicals are not even registered. Thus, they ignore a critical responsibility and minimize the effectiveness of pro-family citizens in the political process.

While it may sound over-used and outdated, one of the best methods for identifying and registering like-minded individuals is through churches. Every day our field staff meets with pastors from some of the more than 5,000 churches we have identified across the Commonwealth, and encourages them to conduct voter registration drives prior to the October 5th registration deadline.

Many pastors still do not practice this basic civic process in their churches. Some pastors still do not understand that it is not a political activity — in fact in Virginia, voters cannot even register by political party.

Therefore, Winning Matters encourages all churches to host a voter registration drive either on Sunday, September 13, 20 or 27.

Beyond churches, the process of voter identification has become an incredibly precise science in recent years, especially with the Internet. Anytime you visit a Web site to shop, read political news or participate in other special interests, you leave a fingerprint. These consumer behaviors can be predictive of one’s potential vote. This type of “micro targeting” was extremely effective in the California marriage amendment campaign. Our Winning Matters campaign is capitalizing on all of these established practices to do our part to find conservatives who might not be registered to vote.

In a less high-tech way of demonstrating this, believe it or not, we have individuals who support us or who have signed an issue petition who are not registered to vote. As part of Winning Matters, we will cross check our entire list with registration rolls and will send a letter and a voter registration form to any who need them.

After all the identification and registration is completed, Winning Matters will move into phase two — education. We will provide an update on that portion of the campaign after the October 5 voter registration deadline. In the meantime, if your pastor is not familiar with Winning Matters, or you know of other people who maybe instrumental in activating your church into this civic action, or even know individuals who are not registered to vote, forward them this link so they can learn more about Winning Matters.

Since we brought up pastors events and Winning Matters 2009 last post, we thought we’d review a major event that we had a hand in from earlier this month that, in essence, was a launch to the whole idea of more civic activism from people with a Biblical perspective. The Virginia Renewal Project took place at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside Hotel on June 4 and 5, and you know it was an important event when certain groups raised hackles about it. 

More than 450 pastors from across Virginia attended, and represented every denomination and ethnicity. The hotel’s grand ballroom was packed as speakers such as historian David Barton, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke of the need to return America to its Godly heritage. 

Barton was especially moving as he related how the Founding Fathers all gave credit for their inspiration to the pastors of the day. We often hear that the Founders were a bunch of  deists and secularists, but Barton’s research and documentation convincingly proves what used to be a common notion taught in America — that this nation was founded primarily by Christians on Judeo-Christian principles. 

Pastors at the conference were encouraged to engage the culture and make a difference by being salt and light in all arenas, even in the political realm.  They were told that despite the threats of the ACLU and People for the American Way, no church has ever lost its tax-exempt status. Everyone left encouraged and inspired to make a difference in our Commonwealth and in our nation.

Last week we, and our sister organization, Family Foundation Action announced the “Winning Matters” campaign that will register to vote people who believe in Biblical and traditional values. Since Virginia is one of only two states holding statewide elections this year, our decisions will be intently watched across the country. So voting with an informed conscience is especially inportant. The four point Winning Matters plan includes:

1. Identifying more Virginians who share our values;

2. Turning concerned citizens into values voting Virginians by registering them to vote;

3. Educating newly and previously registered voters on the differences between candidates on matters of life, marriage, parental authority, religious liberty and constitutional government; and

4. Motivating and mobilizing these informed voters to make a wise choice and to vote on election day.

In addition, Pastors For Family Values has launched its own Winning Matters 2009 Campaign. PFFV is not interested in which party wins, but rather that Biblical values are victorious when people make their way to the polls this November. So, Pastors For Family Values will travel the Commonwealth this summer holding various pastors events designed to educate, empower and encourage pastors to use the influence they have to continue to hold up Biblical values in their congregations and communities.

These events will feature outstanding, nationally known speakers and provide real tools, such as voter registration kits, TFF Action General Assembly Report Cards and voter guides. All events are free of charge.

Pastors For Family Values Winning Matters 2009 Pastors Events

» Roanoke: June 26, Golden Corral, 8-10:00 a.m.

Speakers: Pastor Rick Scarborough, Ph.D., of Vision America; and Mat Staver, Dean, Liberty University School of Law

* * * * *

» Harrisonburg: July 7, Shoney’s, 8-9:30 a.m.

Speakers: Local pastors reporting on the recent Watchman on the Wall Conference; and Mickey Mixon, Area Coordinator Winning Matters 2009 Campaign

* * * * *

» Fredericksburg: August 4, Fredericksburg Expo and Convention Center (tentative), 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

Speakers: Jonathan Falwell, Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church; and Bishop Harry Jackson, Pastor, Hope Christian Church, Washington, D.C.

* * * * *

» Richmond: July 23, Wyndham Hotel, 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Speaker: Bishop Harry Jackson

* * * * *

» Norfolk: August 20, Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Speaker: Pastor Rick Scarborough

If you are a pastor, please mark your calendar and be sure to make it to at least one of these great events. You won’t be disappointed. If you are not a pastor, please bring this schedule of events to your pastor’s attention and encourage him to attend. To RSVP for any of these events, or for more information, call (804) 343-0010.