Moving towards hard places is not just what we do; in light of the gospel, it’s who we are. We are the kind of people who move towards hard places and broken people because that’s exactly who Jesus has been for us. We move towards, not away, and when we do it says something true about who Jesus is in our lives. Our friends might look at us like we’re crazy, our families might look at us like we’re crazy, we might look in the mirror sometimes and ask ourselves why we’re being crazy - and everyone’s right! It’s crazy! It’s crazy that God would do this for us; and it’s crazy that He would then invite us to do it for others.
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. Among the countless things to be aware of and opportunities to get involved, here’s ten things to consider as you work to bring your awareness to bear through action. 1. The data: 400,000+ children in foster care. 100,000+ children waiting for their forever families. And this pandemic isn't helping anything. 2. We’re not merely talking about numbers and data and stats - but instead real kids, real moms and dads, real humans just like you and me. 3. The fact that data rarely changes hearts and that we are predisposed to find reasons why the data is not our problem.
I’ve heard it said throughout my life in ministry that, “Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint.” Early on this word picture was helpful for me, serving its intended purpose to build a long-view perspective of faithfulness in work that can often be slow to produce immediate and satisfying results. I’ve used this phrase countless times myself challenging ministry leaders…
We all have an “inner voice” that sometimes whispers to us and sometimes screams at us. Mine is usually preaching a message of fear and doubt when I sense God leading me in a certain direction. Maybe yours is too. It’s asking, “Who are you to think you can make a difference?” or “What if you don’t have what it takes?” or “What if you fail and look foolish to others?” or “Are you sure you’ve heard correctly from God on this?” Your voice could be asking you a million other things right now.
The journey of foster care and adoption is an incubator of seemingly competing emotions, feelings and experiences - none of which are felt lightly or quickly. The tension of everything seeps that much deeper and lingers that much longer. The joy of loving and the heartache of letting go. The thrill of adopting and the grief of all that's been lost. The confusion in the wake of brokenness and the clarity in the face of redemption.
Sometimes the foster care problem feels really big (because it is!), and our people feel really small. There are over 425,000 kids currently in the United States foster care system. No doubt thousands of those are right there in your own state...and perhaps in the very city you sit in while reading this. It's no surprise people in our churches can sometimes feel small.
Foster Dads, Thank you for doing what you're doing. You are loving in some of the hardest and deepest and most complicated places. Places most men go to great lengths to avoid. Yet you, with arms open and hearts broken, have courageously stepped towards them for the sake of others. That is so counterintuitive, remarkable and beautiful. So, thank you.
There’s no “just” or “only” in what you are doing. You haven’t “just” fostered a few or “only” adopted one. Rather, you have significantly altered the trajectory of a life forever. Generations to come will never be the same - not just in the life of the child you are loving but in your life as well, your kids', their kids' and their kids', and even in the lives of those at your church or in the grocery store…
Foster and Adoptive Parents: God is using you to love in some of the hardest places and through some of the most difficult situations. In the midst of all the uncertainties and unknowns that surround what you're doing there are some powerful promises and truths for you that are constant and sure and worthy to be reminded of. Here's just a few...
In the gospel God says, “I see you where you are and I’m coming after you.” This is the whole redemptive story of scripture – a God who sees the distress of His people and moves towards them, not away from them. Hovering over His people like a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night – God was close, but out there.
Stories are redemptive. They humanize powerful messages and help people personally internalize transformative things through the lenses of someone else's experience. It's important that your foster care, adoption and orphan care ministry is consistently sharing stories of how God is moving in the lives of families in your church. It's even more important that your use of stories is helping, and not unintentionally hurting, the broader vision of your ministry. When using stories – whether video, print or live interview style – to undergird the vision and mission of your ministry, ensure they are reinforcing your message and deconstructing false paradigms of your people.
When speaking of the widow's small offering in comparison to that of the rich, Jesus says, "Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had...." (v.3-4)
What a provocatively encouraging statement - that somehow, the value of her offering was not measured in quantity but in humility; not by size, but by sacrifice. Jesus doesn't discredit the offering of the wealthy, He simply redefines that of the poor. In that moment He stops and essentially says to all those around, "Hey, there's something truly profound going on here that I want to make sure you don't miss."
We recently found one of our daughters crying in bed. She seemed fine the last we saw her before going upstairs, so this took us a bit off guard. In a home with four daughters there always seems to be something to cry about, but when she calmed enough to share with us what it was this time, we were shocked. Hitler. That's right, HITLER was on her mind, and apparently had been for the past several weeks. What?! She told us her class was doing a research project at school and each student could select any topic they wanted to learn more about.
I travel often for work. Enough that the whole experience is a fairly routine one for me. Airports, car rentals, hotel rooms, even long security lines and flight delays - I'm fairly numb to it all now. It's just a means to the end of getting where I need to go. However, a recent trip to Chicago was anything but routine. My oldest daughter came along with me and it changed the entire dynamic. In the months leading up to the trip she checked out and read at least a dozen books from the library about Chicago's history. She researched museums, parks and famous sites she hoped to see and visit.
The questions, comments and curiosities about foster care come with the territory when you bring a child into your home. They're an ever-present part of the whole experience. While most encounters are hugely encouraging and civil, some are not so much. Yet even in those, although it may come across as such at times, I'm convinced the majority of people are not intentionally malicious or insulting. I believe people are wondering - wondering what they are seeing, how to make sense of it and if they can go on with their normal lives as if they did not know what they have now seen to be true.
It's virtually impossible to fully prepare someone to become a foster parent. It's too nuanced and complex of an issue to prescribe a certain formula to it. This doesn't mean parents shouldn't be properly trained and prepared; it just means that while certain things are universally true and can be anticipated, most things are not when it comes to the messy and hard and raw of real peoples lives. You simply can't script it; you can only live it - discover it - piece by piece, a little bit at a time.
Foster parents: God is using you to love in some of the hardest places and through some of the most difficult situations. In the midst of all the uncertainties and unknowns that surround what you're doing there are promises and truths in scripture that are constant and sure and worthy to be held onto. Here's just a few...1. It won't be easy. Jesus is not unclear about the implications of what it will mean to follow Him: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23) Very little in life that's worth much of anything is easy.
The stories are often horrific, the statistics are daunting and the problem so massive that it's often hard to know what to do or where to begin. Yet, at the core of who we are as the Church, we believe that even in midst of the hard and the broken and the overwhelming there can be a hope and a truth is that far more compelling. That as the Church we have both the duty and privilege to speak on behalf of and stand for the sake of those who cannot speak and stand for themselves - because that is exactly what God has done for us through Jesus.
It was only a few years ago. We had three young daughters, a new church plant and a conversation one night that will forever change the course of our family. She was ready for us to become foster parents. I was not. It had been an on-going discussion for months. A very cordial one. We were on the same page, just different timelines. While I had been dismissing it in the name of it “not being the right time” she had become prayerfully convinced that in fact it was. The conversation that day was a carbon copy of the many other discussions we had on the subject up to that point. She believed now was the time.
Every day you and I are counting the costs of things. We do it with clothes, food, cars, homes, extra curricular activities, the way we spend our time and energy, how many times we hit snooze on the alarm clock, the friends we hang out with and even the ones we don’t. We do it intentionally; we also also do it subconsciously. In the economy of our daily lives, we are perpetually assessing the value of things, relationships and opportunities by determining whether or not the benefit of having those things in our lives will be worth the costs required of us to get them. This constant evaluation of costs, worth and ultimate value are a part of our normal daily rhythms of life.
