Adoption Advice

As a pastor and adoptive parent I found this to be a very helpful article...

10 Ways to Pastor Adoptive Parents and Those Considering Adoption

By: Jason Kovacs

There are many ways that you can express your pastoral care for those considering adoption and those who have adopted already. As an adoptive father and former pastor, I offer a few thoughts on how to help adoption become a biblically based, heart-led, missional movement in your church and not merely another program on your church’s list.

1. Develop your own heart for the fatherless.

God calls Himself a “father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5) and emphasizes throughout Scripture his special care for orphans. In fact, the very heart of the gospel is God’s passion to not only redeem sinners but to adopt them as his very sons and daughters (Ephesians 1:4-5).

Many adoptive parents and those pursuing adoption feel alone in their churches because it seems like no one understands. By communicating that adoption is fundamentally connected to the gospel and the nature of God you will challenge the view that adoption is a “plan B” if a couple cannot have children biologically.

2. Do a biblical study on God’s perspective on orphans.

As you develop your heart for adoption, pass this on to your people in your preaching. You can start by simply looking up all the instances in the Bible to the “fatherless.”

3. Educate yourself on basic facts about adoption and orphan care.

Did you know there are roughly 129,000 children waiting to be adopted today in the US and over 132 million orphans worldwide? That is a starting point to stir your heart to pray and cry to God for his justice and grace to be poured out on their behalf.

Some websites I've found helpful in keeping me aware of these issues are...

• Cry of the Orphan
• Joint Council of International Children's Services
• US State Department Office of Children's Issues
• US Department of Health and Human Services

Your awareness of these kinds of things will speak volumes to the church you lead. Whether it is through your preaching, teaching, or just regular conversation, your church will begin to hear this and will gain God’s heart and perspective on adoption.

Your understanding will also touch those who have adopted and who are considering it.

4. Ask questions.

Listening is one of the most powerful expressions of your care. Learn to ask the right questions. Here are a few good ones to ask:

• Why are you considering adoption? Are you both on the same page? If not, where do you differ?
• Do you both have the faith for adoption?
• Are you aware of the risks, ups, downs, and unknowns of adoption?
• Have you talked to other adoptive families about their experience?
• Have you been praying together about this?
• Where do you feel called to adopt from?
• What kind of support do you have in place?
• Are you aware of the cost of adoption? How will you pay for it? Will you need help?

5. Remind them that they desire a good and God-magnifying thing.

Encourage those pursuing adoption with God’s heart for the fatherless. Encourage them with God’s promises to direct their steps (Prov 16:9). Encourage them with God’s faithfulness to provide.

6. Keep on encouraging them.

Those who step out in faith to adopt enter a journey filled with many ups and downs. Keep supporting them throughout the process. Ideally, they will have a care group or some close friends that will be able to do this as well.

7. Provide financial counsel and help.

The majority of couples adopting are challenged by the high costs. Any ways that you can provide encouragement and help financially will express love in a very tangible way.

One way you can do this is by establishing a church adoption fund to offer grants and loans to members. You can visit Hope for 100 for an example of what one church in Texas is doing.

8. Cry with them and celebrate with them.

The majority of adoptions are filled with great highs and great lows.

There are often many tears shed due to failed placements and other setbacks. There is also unparalleled joy in being matched with your child and bringing them home.

Do what you can to enter into their experience. Embody the compassion and empathy of Christ in the hard times and magnify the joy of the Father in the celebration.

9. Celebrate adoptions publicly in services.

Give time during worship services not only to teach on God’s heart for orphans, but also to celebrate specific adoptions. You can perhaps do this as part of Sanctity of Life Sunday or in conjunction with another special day such as Mothers’ or Fathers’ Day. Also, November is National Adoption Awareness Month.

There are many ways you can publicly celebrate adoption during the service such having an adoptive family share their story, honoring adoptive parents in the congregation, or taking a special offering for your church adoption fund. Be creative!

10. Don’t feel like you have to have all the answers.

Use the wisdom and experience of the Christian adoption community. There are a growing number of resources available, including many churches that have ministries aimed at promoting and supporting adoption.

Encourage those in your church who have a passion for adoption to lead the church in caring for the fatherless and supporting adoption. And remember you are not alone! There is a community of others to support you and above all, God, the Father of the fatherless, is with you to provide all that is needed to follow his call to care for the “least of these.”

In Honour of Cash (b. Feb. 26, 1932)

"To be sure, Cash’s Christian testimony is a mixed bag. In his later years, he took out an ad in an industry magazine, with a photograph of himself extending a middle finger to music executives. And yet there is something in the Cash appeal to the youth generation that Christians would do well to emulate.

Other Christian celebrities tried—and failed—to reach youth culture by feigning teenage street language or aping pop culture trends. How successful, after all, was Pat Boone’s embarrassing attempt at heavy metal—complete with a leather outfit and a spiked dog collar?

Cash always seemed to connect. When other Christian celebrities tried to down-play sin and condemnation in favor of upbeat messages about how much better life is with Jesus, Cash sang about the tyranny of guilt and the certainty of coming judgment. An angst-ridden youth culture may not have fully comprehended guilt, but they understood pain. And, somehow, they sensed Cash was for real."

- Dr. Russell Moore (from his article "Real Hard Cash")

The Power of Forgiveness

In his book The Prayer of Our Lord Philip Ryken says that, "There is such a big difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. It takes two to reconcile, so it is not always possible to be reconciled. But it takes only one to forgive. So if people do you wrong, forgive them, whether or not they ask for forgiveness. You cannot cancel their sin. Only God can do that, and He will only do it if they repent. But what you can do is set aside your own anger, bitterness, and resentment towards them."

Well, here is a very moving example of the power of forgiveness and reconciliation...



But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
- Ephesians 2:13-16 (ESV)

Blessing or Burden

Our one year old baby girl has just gone through her third major surgical procedure. She began her life with a big one, open heart surgery, then they "installed" a pacemaker and now, this past Tuesday, she had successful fundoplication surgery (click here for an explanation) along with inserting a "G-tube" in her abdomen. Today Emma is recovering very well and we thank you all for your prayers. All this to say, we have been so blessed to have her in our lives and would never consider her to be a burden.

Unfortunately not everyone shares this perspective on life. In fact, for some, children are seen as an obstacle to success or limit on one's personal freedom. Take for example the following words from President Obama's statement given last month on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

It is a sad commentary on the values of a culture when children, or to be faithful to the president's statement "unintended pregnancies" are seen as a limit to personal dreams or as Dr. Albert Mohler reported yesterday, as a burden on the environment...

The contemporary clash of worldviews comes immediately into view with controversies over children, contraception, abortion, and now the environment. A recent controversy in Great Britain makes this point all too clear.

Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the British government's Sustainable Development Commission, told The Times [London] that it is high time that the government moves to limit family size in the nation -- all in the name of the environment.

From the Times:

“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.

...

He went on to argue that each child "born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square." The reduction of a child to a "carbon footprint" is about as twisted a formula as can be imagined. A child is compared to the loss of "2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland."

If his extremism is not clear enough, consider this section of the paper's report:

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

A limit on our dreams and freedoms? A burden on the environment? Really? This is certainly not how I see children and it is certainly not how God sees them either.

"Children are a gift from the Lord." Psalm 127:3 (NASB)

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Peace Be With You

I am currently reading through an excellent book on resolving personal conflict called "The Peacemaker" by Ken Sande. As we all know from experience, a big part of maintaining peace in any relationship is the ability to graciously give and receive constructive criticism. Unfortunately, as we also all know from experience, our pride often gets in the way of being able to do this. With this in mind, here is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Alfred Poirier that you can read in its entirety by clicking here.

...for the sake of our pride and foolishness, we willingly suffer loss of friends, spouse, or loved ones. Some of that destruction comes in the shape of a thin truce. We tolerate a cold war. We make a false peace. We pledge to each other to discuss only those things which have little significance for bettering our souls. We lay out land mines and threaten the other that we will explode in anger if they so much as raise the forbidden subject of my mistake, my error, or my sin.

This is how churches split and factions develop. We surround ourselves with "yes" men—people willing to never challenge, advise, or criticize us. Yet, while we go on defending ourselves against criticism, we find Scripture teaching something different.

The ability to hear and heed correction or criticism is commended in Scripture, particularly in Proverbs. Being teachable, able and willing to receive correction, is a mark of the wise. And the wise father or mother will encourage as well as model such an attitude for their daughters and sons.

...walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, [2] with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [3] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3 (ESV)

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