With the advanced planning accomplished — or well underway — it’s time to turn to the specific details for the Decision Day Rally itself:
- Special Jobs to Assign to Your Helpers
- Rally Day program and Emcee role
- Documenting your Rally
- Prayers and hymns for the Rally
- Action items for Rally participants
Special jobs for your helpers
Several of these jobs are important enough to be explained in greater detail in the sections below (follow the links in this list):
- Sign Distributor(s) to help you pass out all your signs. You can ask some of the first people to arrive to help with this job.
- Leafleter(s) to distribute the Roe v. Wade: What’s at Stake? flyers to Rally attendees and the general public. Pick extroverts, and remind them to smile, look people in the eyes and say, “This is for you” or “I have some important information for you,” or the like
- Master of Ceremonites (Emcee) to keep the program moving smoothly (this could be you)
- Photographer to shoot lots of pictures of the special, attendees, passersby, etc.
- Videographer to shoot footage of the special guests and (optionally) record interviews
- Media Liaison to whom all inquiries from reporters will be refered
- Police Liaison who will be the sole person to work with the police
- Head Counter to take an accurate count of how many people attend the rally (including infants and children!)
Rally Day program and emcee role
There are two keys to ensuring your Rally runs smoothly: (1) choose a good Master of Ceremonies (emcee) and (2) put together an exciting, focused, detailed Rally agenda.
Quite likely you, the Rally leader, would be the most appropriate emcee. Other options include another member of your leadership team or a local Christian radio personality. The emcee will be responsible for:
- Calling the Rally to order,
- Introducing the person offering the opening prayer,
- Introducing each of the special guests (speakers, singers, etc.)
- Introducing the person offering the closing prayer, and
- Closing the Rally with action items.
The bulk of your program will most likely be brief speeches and prayers from the special guests you’ve lined up. It’s important that you encourage your guest speakers to keep abortion and Roe v. Wade front and center in their talks, and be sure not to let the rally stray into partisan politics instead of the lives of unborn children. If you choose to have politicians of any kind speak at your rally, make it clear that this is not a campaign event.
Draw out a detailed agenda for the Rally, with each item — the opening and closing prayers, each individual speaker, every hymn or song or other activity — spelled out, in order, with the time alloted to each.
It’s also a good idea to factor in some “slop” time — for example, a few more minutes for each speaker than you really need — so that you don’t fall behind.
Share the agenda with your special guests in advance so they know where they fit into the program. However, it’s best not to tell them exactly when they’re speaking, lest any delay in the program cause them to become impatient. But do let each guest speaker know how long you expect them to have the stage.
Documenting your Rally
It is critical for you to carefully document your Rally so that you can spread the word about what was accomplished in your city. And if the local media give scant or no coverage to the event, it becomes urgent to disseminate your own account, photos and videos through every possible channel.
See “Document and Share News of your Pro-Life Event” on the Pro-Life Action League’s website for detailed instructions on how to document your event.
Prayers and hymns for your Rally
Because our effort to overturn Roe v. Wade is rooted in our faith, prayers are an appropriate feature to include in your rally. Prayers may led be led by local clergy or a layperson.
Offering some music and hymns during your Rally can help keep the Rally program interesting and encourage involvement form those in attendance. You could even recruit a high school band, talented singer or choral group to perform during the Rally.
For any group song or hymn, you need a song leader to start things off and keep everyone singing. Appropriate songs and hymns include:
- “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”
- “God Bless America”
- “Onward Christian Soldiers”
- “The Star Spangled Banner”
- “Amazing Grace”
- “America the Beautiful”
Action items for Rally Participants
At the conclusion of your Rally, give participants some “marching orders” to expand the impact of your event past Decision Day. Marching orders can include:
- Pray daily for the states to extend greater legal protection to unborn children
- Talk to friends, neighbors and family about why the overturning of Roe v. Wade is good for America
- Get involved in pro-life efforts in your community, like prayer and sidewalk counseling at your local abortion facility, or volunteering at a local pregnancy center
- Remind the crowd that our work is just beginning to extend legal protection to every unborn child and provide real support to every unborn child’s mother
- Encourage participants to text the word LIFE to 33777 to be alerted when important pro-life action and legislation campaigns are happening. (This will also ensure they receive updates about future events YOU organize in your community in conjunction with the National Team at no expense to you!)