Category Archives: the orphan advocate

The Local Church and The Orphan

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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

The Pastor and The Orphan

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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