We Can Do This
It doesn’t take a megachurch to make a difference. In 2006, 39 individuals from several Christian organizations met in Little Rock for the very first Orphan Summit. For several days, they prayed and strategized about how God would have them care for orphaned and vulnerable children. That weekend, the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) was born—a small group of churches and Christian organizations that was proactively seeking to care for orphans. These leaders from Family Life, Focus on the Family, Show Hope, Bethany Christian Services and other organizations also formed a board of directors to make the Orphan Summit an annual event. Their motto cuts to the heart of the matter: “Leave your ego and logo at the door for the good of the gospel and for children.”
Six years later, the Alliance has grown exponentially from its original 39 members to an international movement of concerned Christians and churches. Each year in November, Orphan Sunday brings churches together to “celebrate the love of God who ‘places the lonely in families’ and calls us to do the same.” In 2011 more than 500,000 individuals in the United States were involved in some type of Orphan Sunday activity. More than 100 churches in the Philippines held Orphan Sunday events, and more than 1,000 Eastern European churches honored Orphan Sunday.
Before you think your church is too small to make a difference, you need know that it is not. After all, CAFO started with just 39 people. As a matter of fact, many churches that are the most active and effective in orphan care are not particularly large. City Church Tallahassee in north Florida sponsors 10 orphaned children to be placed in Ethiopian foster families instead of living in an orphanage. Orland Park Church in the Chicago area works with an orphanage in Honduras, hosts an Orphan Sunday each year with a dinner that follows, and assembles back-to-school backpacks to provide at-risk and foster children with school supplies and personal dignity.
You can make a difference. But the solutions are much more complex than just building another orphanage or writing out a $30 check every month so a kid can have food. We must learn to think differently, to pray differently, to budget differently, to teach differently and to live differently. As churches are planted around the world, we can partner with those indigenous churches. The most effective orphan care model always has and always will be local believers ministering to local orphaned children.
But don’t act out of guilt or obligation or just because you think it’s “cool.” Until God breaks your heart for the orphans he loves and longs to rescue, your response will likely be superficial. I challenge you to get on your face before God. Confess and repent of your lack of concern in this area. Ask him what he would have you do, but only if you’re ready to make some radical changes in your life and in your church.
This may involve restructuring your budget, downsizing the building plans, starting an annual Orphan Sunday and preaching about orphan care, adoption and related issues. It might include starting an adoption fund to help families adopt, adopting a child yourself or working with social services to recruit and train members as foster families. Perhaps your church will partner with a church in Ethiopia or Guatemala to help get children out of orphanages and into foster homes, leading to indigenous adoptions. Maybe your church will sponsor children financially so they can continue to live with their own families. You might need to change your children’s ministry policies to accommodate at-risk kids in your community, develop a support and discipleship group for teenage moms, or spearhead a sports ministry for kids whose fathers are in jail. And no matter what else you do, encourage your church to put together a team of people to strategize, pray over and develop the many facets of an orphan care ministry.
The list could go on and on. There are a million ways to get involved. We can do this. We must do this.
What You Can Do
ANYONE can gather a team of people to strategize and pray over how your church can become involved in orphan care and encouraging and supporting adoption. A great way to introduce this ministry to your church is to start an annual Orphan Sunday. A free kit is available at AdoptionJourney.com/PastorKit. Many churches now have orphan and adoption ministries, and those teams are very willing to talk with you and share how they have formed their ministries.
MANY can start a ministry in your church that reaches out to families who have adopted children and begin to support and encourage them in tangible and intentional ways. Individual church members can provide childcare one afternoon or evening each week to the family at no cost. This will provide the parents the opportunity to get away and not have to worry about their children. Having consistency helps some of the children with more severe needs develop a greater comfort level with their caregivers.
A FEW can look into and develop a ministry like 4Kids of South Florida. Two other similar ministries are Project 1:27 in Denver, Colo., and The Call in Little Rock, Ark. A FEW can also actually adopt a child with extreme emotional or physical challenges. It will be risky and difficult. Usually the best people to do this are “younger empty nesters”—those who have already raised a few children, know the challenges and have “been there and done that” when it comes to parenting teenagers. You are already seasoned and understand the challenges of parenting. For some of these children, you might be their only hope. Seek God’s wisdom as you prayerfully approach opportunities to practice pure and undefiled religion by caring for orphans in distress.
Taken from Orphan Justice by Johnny Carr. Copyright © 2013. Used by permission of B&H Publishing Group, Inc., Nashville, TN. All rights reserved.
Order from Amazon.com: Orphan Justice: How to Care for Orphans Beyond Adopting
