One year ago I clicked on an email attachment and saw these two faces. My wife and I had just committed to adopting them. As this picture came up on my computer screen, I knew very little about them. The feelings of contentment I now have when I hear their infectious laughter reverberate in our home I had never felt. I had no idea how prideful I would be when noticing looks on the faces of strangers in public when they hear them call me daddy.
While I was clicking on a picture, thinking I was beginning a journey to know as father two boys thousands of miles away, God was taking me on a journey to know Him as Father in ways I never thought possible.
I know better the love my Father set upon me before the foundation of the world. I am more amazed of my Father’s devotion to rescue me before I wanted to be rescued. I am more confident in the truth of my own adoption and acceptance as a son in the Son.
One year ago, all I thought was that there were two little boys who had been left at an orphanage in Ethiopia and they needed us. I never knew how much I needed them. I never knew how they would be used to teach me of a my Father’s love. But my Father knew!
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.Isaiah 11:6-9
The brunt of the curse in the world is vividly seen and felt in the ways sin and death affect children. The war between the seed born of woman and the serpent rages each day as 16,000 children die of starvation. Approximately 1.8 million children die annually as a result of disease caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. An estimated 1.2 million children both boys and girls are trafficked each year. There are 145 million orphans and vunerable children in the world today. On top of this, thousands of unborn children are violently destroyed daily through the abominable act of abortion. And yet, there is a day coming when such destruction along with the destroyer will be turned on it’s head.
Isaiah 11 describes a day when the Prince of Peace will come and judge the world in righteousness. Justice will dominate and the wisdom of Christ will cover the world as the waters cover the sea. As flowers of peace choke out thorns and thistles, the least of these – the abandoned, abused, and aborted – will rise up and assert authority on the earth.
In this passage, God mocks the serpent by describing the way in which the child, the snake once sought to kill, will scoff as he fearlessly waves his hand over the impotent snake’s hole.
We must make peace with and for the child now by serving the orphan and seeking justice for the defenseless. As we see them suffer, we must not shirk from joining them in their battle against the wicked one understanding they will win. Victory will be declared when they stand with the One not ashamed to call them brothers, as well as, co-rulers.
Here is a sermon I preached this Sunday from Isaiah 11, “So this is Christmas“
Ashland Avenue Baptist Church’s 2010 World Impact Conference will be held September 23-26 at AABC in Lexington Kentucky. Our guest preacher will be Dr. Russell Moore. Breakout sessions and small group discussion will be led by leading orphan care advocates from ABBA Fund, Lifesong for Orphans, and Hope For Orphans (other groups and are still being added).
This unique World Mission Conference hopes to show how adoption and orphan care fit within the church’s responsibility to fulfill the Great Commission. This conference is for anyone who has a heart for both the abandoned child and spiritual orphans living among the nations. On top of mission related resources, there will also be resources for church leaders and who would like to know more about connecting orphan care to your church’s vision for the nations, families considering adoption, and Christians concerned about orphan care in general.
Jason Kovac from ABBA Fund sent a word of encouragement to Ashland Avenue Baptist Church on Orphan Sunday.
Orphan Sunday at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church included one of the most powerful songs I have ever heard “Rescue Me” written and sung by Pastor Nate BeVier. All of Pastor Nate’s songs are gloriously Christ-centered, but this one is my new favorite. On Sunday evening, Pastor David E. Prince and myself engaged in a practical conversation on adoption. You can listen to the audio here or visit the AABC sermon page and download the following resources.
Rescue Me by Pastor Nate BeVier
A Practical Conversation on Adoption David E. Prince and Jeremy Haskins
On November 8th, Orphan Sunday, at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, I will be involved in a practical conversation on adoption with Pastor David Prince. The topics of conversation will include : the adoption process, transracial adoption, finances and adoption, decision making and adoption.
At AABC, one of the primary ways our commitment to the fatherless is fleshed out is through adoption. Not everyone can or should adopt, but everyone in our congregation is called to be apart of the process by supporting families who are adopting. So whether you plan on adopting or not, join us to consider how you can better minister to the 145 million orphans around the world in need of love and care. The conversation will take place at 6:00p.m. during our evening worship service.
“Some of you just need to do it. Some of you just need to adopt.” These were the words of Dr. Randy Stinson at our church one year ago. Didn’t sound very spiritual or profound at the moment. I didn’t see a shining light or have any estatic feelings. And yet, after everything was said and done, this is what it boiled down to for me and my family. We just need to do it!
The next day I looked at my wife and said,” We’re doing it!” We then called an agency to do our home study. Less than a year later we have two more precious boys!
We realized that the Bible calls every Christian to care for orphans in some way. We were convinced that adoption was a very specific way our family would reflect the gospel. There is nothing inherently evil about adopting. We had spoken with godly men who saw no reason why we should not adopt. We picked Ethiopia because this was the quickest and best travel situation for our family. We called an agency and did it!
Was this rash or wise? We’re trusting God to sort that out.
Our staff at church is currently going through the book by Kevin Deyoung , Just Do Something. I personally think the book would be very helpful for those considering adoption. So if you are waffling, let me encourage you to pick it up and apply the principles to your decision. And let my give you some advice, whether you adopt or simply plan to support those who do, “Just Do Something!”
The young man was as passionate about the gospel as anyone I have ever met. It seemed as if he was leading someone to faith in Christ on a weekly basis. He was continually reproducing his life in others as he worked to disciple new believers. While he was primarily engaged in campus ministry, his family was also active in a local church. And yet, the ministry in which he was involved had no connection to his church. It was almost like he was moonlighting for Jesus.
When personally confronted about this disconnect he responded, “I have been involved in churches for years and they just do not understand how evangelism and discipleship really works. For me I have to just keep them separate!” He continued to remain perfectly content in keeping his ministry to college students disconnected from his life in the local church.
I am reminded of this young man’s words when I think of folks who have grown weary of trying to meet with their pastor to talk about orphan care. Or when I talk with the pastor whose congregation decided against establishing an adoption fund because of pressing budget issues. Or the ministry director who is continually frustrated with all the ‘bureaucracy’ it takes to effectively partner with a local church.
I am thrilled to see how God is using so many from outside the church to step in the gap that has too long existed between the church and the orphan. It’s amazing to see that finally so many are being awakened to the global orphan crisis. Yet, in the back of my mind I continue to dread the day when I will sit across from the guy who waited for the church long enough and took his passion elsewhere. I fear hearing the words, “The church just doesn’t know how orphan care is accomplished. For me its better to keep them separate!”
The pressing need of 145 million orphans and vulnerable children cannot bypass local churches. If we want our ministry to orphans to bring glory to Christ we can in no way keep it separate from the church.
In Ephesians 1:23, Paul says the church is, “the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” If this description of the church were not in the Bible, it would sound blasphemous! Yet, Paul is explaining that Christ is building the church and until He is done His plans for human history are incomplete. In Ephesians 3:10, Paul says that its God’s purpose to declare His wisdom to the universe through the church. In Ephesians 5:25-28, he explains that to make this happen Jesus is willing to give Himself for the church.
Therefore, whatever ministry we engage in must be designed to equip and build up the church. If your ministry does not at some point assist the church in the purpose of declaring the glory of the gospel in the world it is in opposition to Jesus’ plans for your ministry. This also means that, like Jesus, we must be willing not only to suffer and sacrifice for the orphan, but first and foremost for the church. Such a commitment to the church in general is to be displayed through accountability and service within specific local body.
I mention suffering and sacrifice for the sake of a local body because this sort of vision for orphan care will take patience. It cannot be just another program being sold to churches. Our goal is to keep this ministry away from the church resource room presently stocked with the last two decades of faddish curriculum, videotapes included. If it is to be sustained, it has to be integrated into the life of the church, which could take some time.
It must first be driven by the preaching and connected to the church’s mission efforts. In the last post, I spoke about how preaching is to drive adoption and orphan care in the context of the local church. From the pulpit, the vision for such a ministry must flow into the church’s mission to reach the world with the gospel. This doesn’t happen overnight!
At Ashland Avenue Baptist Church, we believe that orphan care and missions are intimately connected within our commitment to obey the Great Commission. One way this will work itself out is by making international orphan care a component of our church’s mission work. For example, one of our church’s ten-year mission goals is to personally engage in church planting within the 10-40 Window. Right now, we are looking for opportunities to begin this engagement through orphan care among the unreached.
The organizations that will eventually do the most for the orphan will be those who allow their ministry to be sucked into the ministries of local churches and melded with each church’s overall commitment to reach the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. They will even be willing to see their ideas transformed as they are connected and plugged into the current of each individual church’s ministry energy.
Three organizations who are great models in this way are Hope for Orphans, Abba Fund, and Lifesong for Orphans. Each group is set up to mobilize the local church for the sake of the orphan. They are designed to give each church as much ownership as possible and the ability to fulfill their own vision for ministering to the least of these.
The orphan needs more than scattered organizations doing great things in the name of Jesus. The orphan needs the body of Christ mobilized into local outposts personally equipped for a rescue mission. The way each church takes part in this mission will look different. While there is a great need for para-church organizations to mobilize and assist churches and while each church will have its own issues to overcome, we should never think there is another group of folks on the planet who can care for orphans better. This includes those orphans who live in orphanages in Uganda, as well as, the spiritual orphans who live on college campuses in Kentucky.
This post is one in a series of post titled, “The Orphan Advocate, The Pastor, and The Local Church. Check out PART ONE The Orphan Advocate and The Pastor and PART TWO The Pastor and The Orphan
I stood outside my pastor’s office as he told me with a sense of disgust the story his friend Dr. Russell Moore had just recounted to him about the woman asking if his two sons who were just adopted were ‘really’ brothers. While I would have never had the courage to ask it, the question made sense to me. I probably shook my head in disbelief and walked away pretending to be disgusted as well. But, for several days I remember trying to figure out why the story did not make sense to me.
I eventually figured it out. When I did, it hit me like a freight train and I have never been the same. I had to come to terms with the fact that I had never really understood the doctrine of adoption.
I was raised in a context where adoption was something you only whispered about. While I knew families who had adopted, no one ever talked about it publicly. There was always the fear of embarrassing these families and their kids. Adoption was something for infertile couples and families who really loved children in need. So I never made any connection between the act of adoption and my existence in the church.
I needed someone to connect these theological dots for me. Once this happened I no longer thought about adoption as some sort of reality happening in a realm of the universe light years away. It’s real! I’ve seen it! I’ve experienced it!
This happened primarily through the preaching of two men, David Prince and Dr. Russell Moore. Preaching is what God used to connect the dots between my adoption in Christ and adopting children. My family and I have never been the same. Both of these men continue to help connect the dots for others. Their preaching is helping to cultivate a culture of adoption in my church and the church in general, a culture that understands why in Christ we ‘really’ are brothers.
If you are a pastor, I realize that the last thing you need to add to your recycle bin full of conference invitations and sample small group curriculum is another sales pitch. I promise that I won’t send you any junk mail. However, I would like to tell you how to improve your preaching in a way that will radically transform your church. I simply want to encourage you to connect the dots for your people.
All you have to do is tweak your sermon outlines to make sure your folks understand that adoption is central to their life as the family of God. Every now and then, point out that you are a former orphan leading a group of former orphans. Let your people in on the truth that every time you stand at the front and ask sinners to repent and come to faith in Christ you are attempting to care for orphans. Then start encouraging church members to rescue orphans in the same way they were rescued in Christ. This doesn’t even require a new sermons series. If you are already preaching the gospel, you should be able to look back through some of your most recent sermons and find places where you could have already done these things.
Maybe you were thinking that I was going to try and sell you on starting an orphan care ministry in your church or starting an adoption fund. I just did!
My point is that when you start connecting the dots between adoption and life in the church a whole new culture will begin to emerge, a culture that will cause your members to set out on rescue missions of their own. Adoption and orphan care will begin to take place and all you have to do is preach.
I am not saying that you can establish a culture of adoption through preaching and never need any sort of strategies or ministry machinery to help it along. I am saying that these things will be more effective if they grow from your preaching. Furthermore, your preaching will call to the surface the people in your congregation who are gifted to lead such ministries.
Hopefully, you understand that I am only encouraging you to lead your congregation to experience in some specific ways what you have already been preaching. You have declared with authority that God’s love for the world has nothing to do skin color. Walking by fathers in church hallways with children they committed to sacrifice for before they ever met, proves that this unconditional love is living and real. Looking over at a family with one kid from Kentucky and another from Kyrgyzstan concretizes the reality that the gospel transcends bloodlines and makes Christian unity possible. When families show up with children of different skin color, who have various former cultures, we are reminded of our mission to declare the manifold wisdom of God to the ends of the earth.
I am not asking you to simply be a distant voice on these issues. I am sure that, while you may never personally sort through stacks of notarized paperwork or organize an adoption fundraising banquet, your preaching will lead many others to do so. As a matter of fact, as much as you reflect the wisdom of Christ revealed in the gospel, it will be your voice that all former orphans in congregation hear each time they answer the misinformed, as well as, the forces of darkness by saying, “Yes we are all brothers!”
This post is part of a three part series titled The Orphan Advocate, The Pastor, and The Local Church. Check out PART ONE The Orphan Advocate and The Pastor
My wife and I kept looking at one another in disbelief. We listened as a woman attending the Together for Adoption Conference talked to us about her desire to adopt a sibling group. Our shock was not caused by her desire to adopt a sibling group, but her husband’s ignorance of such a desire. We were taken back by the anxiety she displayed concerning the possibility that he may not be on board with this plan.
It wasn’t just this lady who expressed this sort of anxiety. I also heard from several ‘lay leaders’ about the difficulties they were having with the leadership in their churches as they sought to start orphan care ministries.
As my wife and I drove home from the conference, we talked about what it would be like to want to adopt without your husband’s leadership. What would it be like to have a burden for orphan care before the leaders in your church had such a burden? What would it be like to have pastors who are not ready to make caring for the fatherless a part of your church’s ministry?
If this is your situation, let me assure you that I do know what it is like to have a burden for orphans. The scars of malnutrition that I see on my two sons, recently adopted from Ethiopia, remind me everyday of the need to care for the fatherless. I am well aware that this need goes way beyond casual suggestions and abstract ideas about how to better your local church’s ministry. Real human beings created in God’s image are really suffering by the millions.
While I can relate to your heart for the orphan, I also know what it is like to be a pastor who is responsible for making decisions about effective church ministry. My role at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church is to make sure all we do fits within our vision for impacting the world with the gospel. I have met with sincere people who think that eternity hangs in the balance over the style of bulletin we use or the implementation of the latest evangelism techniques. Even so, I have come to realize that to have an effective ministry you have to be selective. You cannot immediately jump on board with everything everyone wants to do. It is important to have your church’s energy, resources, and focus funneled in the same direction.
With that said, I have the conviction that orphan care cannot just be tacked on to other ministries or relegated to small a niche group. Your vision must be much larger than the guy asking for Krispy Kreme donuts to be made available in the foyer before services. So as an advocate who serves on a pastoral team in the context of a local church, let me give you some advice as you set out to establish something as crucial as caring for orphans in your church.
I want to begin by reminding you to honor the structure God has ordained in the church. For the church to function properly and fulfill the purpose of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth, God has ordained pastoral leadership. (1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9) As a Christian, you have the responsibility to serve under the authority of faithful men who shepherd with God’s word in the context of a local body. Your responsibility to honor such authority goes beyond dutiful teeth gritting respect. It includes making sure your pastor’s job is a joy and delight. (Hebrews 13:17)
As you approach your leaders, make sure your goal is to do it in a way that will bring joy to their lives. This does not mean that, if first denied, you should ever give up on making orphan care apart of your church’s vision. It means you go about it in a way that respects authority and realizes this is bigger than any one person’s agenda. It’s about the glory of God in the church Christ has promised to build.
It means you will dream big but be willing to start small. Do not put pressure on your leadership to have to immediately revamp their vision and totally transform the church’s budget. That’s not fair to them and will only leave you disappointed.
At first your pastoral team may simply give you their approval to run with some of your ideas. Realize that you will eventually need more than just their approval. You will at some point need their influence, authority, and personality. So check your pride and come to terms with the fact that this ministry will only reach its maximum potential when it begins to rise from the pulpit. It will really begin to thrive as your leadership starts to connect it to the gospel culture already present in your church. Because this is something you probably have little influence over, to see it fleshed out most effectively you are going to have to be patient.
Whatever it is that you are given approval to do, run with it. Make sure everything is carried out with a sense of excellence. Pastors love supporting ministries that function without them having to micromanage all of the details. Assure them that you are not dumping one more thing on their plate that will require more of their time.
We both know that eventually your pastor will be overjoyed to give time and energy to this cause. When that time comes you must be willing to let them infuse their vision into it even if it is not exactly what you had envisioned. Remember your pastors have been called to shepherd the body and that includes you and your ministry.
If at first your leaders are not where you are on this issue, give it time and keep praying for them. They must know that not agreeing with all your ideas will in no way hinder your relationship with them or your service in the church. You are going to continue to love and support them. Once you walk away from their office you must be their biggest fan in the congregation.
I am sure there will be exceptions. But, I truly believe that if your pastors are the men God has called them to be, they will eventually be led to lead your church to care for orphans in some way. If you are at a church where the pastor is constantly studying the Scriptures so that the word might go forth and change your congregation, he will eventually have to deal with God’s heart for the orphan revealed in the Bible. If your pastor is faithfully preaching the gospel so that the lost come to faith in Christ, sooner or later he will see how the glory of the gospel is displayed through the rescue of orphans. If your pastor desires to live above reproach before God and men, then I am confident, as you pray for him such godliness will eventually be fleshed out through orphan care.
If your vision for orphan care bypasses God’s clear vision for the church, it will always be lacking. Orphan care in your church must be done within the boundaries God has set for church leadership. Know that at the end of the day establishing such a ministry, while seeking to cultivate greater joy in the life of your leaders, will only mean greater care for the millions of orphans in the world.
This post is part of a three part series titled The Orphan Advocate, The Pastor, and The Local Church.
