Posthumous book highlights Clint Clifton’s passions: church planting, flying; N.C. lawmakers override veto, enact 12-week abortion ban.

When Clint Clifton was tragically killed in January of this year in an aircraft accident, he left behind a legacy of faithfulness as a pastor, a church planter and, most importantly, a husband and father. Many testified, in the days and weeks after his death, to his fervent desire to see the Gospel go forth.

Clifton served as senior director of resource and research strategy at the North American Mission Board (NAMB) at the time he died, a role he filled due to his passion to support and develop the next generation of mission-focused leaders in the church.

Clifton’s son, Noah, described this aspect of his dad’s legacy during his father’s memorial service.

“My dad would repeat the words of Ephesians 4:12 often. ‘Equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ,’” Noah said. “He took this verse as his own personal mission. He figured out a formula that churches make disciples, and disciples make churches. This is why my dad spent so much of his time training and equipping new leaders so that more churches can be planted. My dad would always say that when a church gets planted into a community, it is like a disciple-making factory has been planted into that community.”

One of Clifton’s final projects was a short book written to help church leaders do exactly that – make disciples who make churches. The book, How to Start a Residency: Turning Members into Missional Leaders, affords Clifton another opportunity to pass his wisdom along to pastors and church leaders as a free resource through NewChurches.com, a site he helped steward. 

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North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature voted on Tuesday (May 16) to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a bill banning most abortions in the state after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

The party-line vote in both chambers of the General Assembly gave supporters of the bill the three-fifths majority needed to override the governor’s veto. The House of Representatives voted 72-48 to override the veto Tuesday night, after the Senate voted 30-20 in favor of the override earlier in the day. 

The legislation, known as Senate Bill 20 or the “Care for Women, Children, and Families Act,” takes effect July 1. The measure reduces the ban on nearly all abortions in the state from the current limit of 20 weeks down to 12 weeks. The measure also includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, fetal anomalies and when a mother’s life is in danger.