To learn more about the unique conferences and events that Together for Adoption is offering in 2012, visit our new event pages:
National Conference 2012 (September 14-15, Atlanta)
Conference for Pastors at Southern Seminary (October 4-5)
Registration is now open for Summit!
JOIN…
organization leaders, grassroots advocates, pastors, adoptive families, and ministry entrepreneurs that share your passion.
ENCOUNTER…
the gathering hub of orphan ministry partnership, networking and inspiration for service.
BUILD…
knowledge, resources and practical skills via more than 80 workshops and unforgettable speakers and music.
Plenary Session Include…
Rick and Kay Warren, Francis Chan, Crawford Loritts, Jedd Medefind, Ryan Bomberger, live interviews by Dennis Rainey, music by Geoff Moore and Steven Curtis Chapman.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, are interested in foster care and adoption and are free this weekend, let me encourage you to consider attending The Refresh Conference in Redmond, Washington. The Refresh Conference is a conference to support foster and adoptive parents through inspiring speakers, workshops, and worship. Registration is only $35 per person or $50 per couple.
Last week, while attending a meeting for the Carolina Christian Alliance For Orphans, I was fortunate to meet Traci Weldie. Traci works with Safe Families for Children, a movement of biblical compassion and hospitality. Safe Families‘ aim is to mobilize a movement of Christians who open their homes to families suffering the anguish of poverty and crisis. Their passion is to connect these families with churches that are wiling to be a “spiritual extended family” to those who lack that kind of support.
Traci works with families that are going through critical and unmanageable circumstances. Safe Families is a great way for the Church to get involved in the care and aid of children and families who are in a vulnerable position. If you live in the Upstate of South Carolina and would like to learn more about Safe Families ministry in South Carolina, considering attending their informational dinner on March 11th, 5pm, hosted by First Baptist Simpsonville.
The following is a story of one of the many families Traci & Safe Families have helped.
This is the story of Cherish and Tom and Lynda Krecklow. Cherish is a single mom to 4 kids, trying her best, but really struggling. Cherish called Safe Families when DSS opened an investigation on her mother, with whom she was living. Cherish had never abuse, neglected her kids…but her mother had and so she knew she needed to get out of that home. Through Safe Families, Cherish placed the oldest two of her four children.
Sam and Joe were placed in the home of Tom and Lynda Krecklow. From the first day of the placement, Sam and Joe felt love and they knew Tom and Lynda also loved their mom. Cherish called 4 times that first night, making sure the boys were OK, safe and were happy. The boys reassured Cherish that yes, they were doing just fine. The following day, Tom started what would be coming a daily habit for the next 2 months, taking the boys for a 20 minute walk around his property…and just talking. For the first time in these boys’ lives, a man was investing time in their lives! The boys bonded with Tom right away.
Meanwhile, Cherish began working with Safe Families volunteers who helped her create a budget, helped her find an apartment to rent and even helped her secure a part time job as a church secretary. A small group Bible study learned about Cherish through Safe Families and decided to furnish her new apartment completely. Within 6 weeks, Cherish had a job, a new place to live that was furnished with everything from bunk beds for the kids to paper towells and laundry detergent. While Cherish was getting back on her feet, Tom and Lynda drove the boys to visit her each and every week. Cherish talked daily with the boys, and over time started opening up to Lynda about her fears, concerns and hopes for the future.
When Cherish was settled, she welcomed home the boys with a celebration! But the relationships didn’t end there. To this day, Joe and Sam spend the night with the Krecklows on special occasions. And a few months ago, when one of Cherish’s kids had to have a surgical procedure, Tom and Lynda stepped up and cared for the other 3 children for a week. Tom checks in regularly with “his boys” and Cherish and Lynda talk all the time on the phone.
Cherish looked at me the day of that homecoming celebration and said, “I didn’t know Christians did this kind of stuff, but now I do. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
I’m really looking forward to partnering with Safe Families. Greenville will be a better place because of folks like Traci & her efforts.
Our National Conference is Sept. 14-15 in Atlanta, Georgia
We are very pleased to announce that Cross Pointe Church (Atlanta, Georgia) is hosting our 2012 Together for Adoption National Conference on September 14-15. Keynote speakers include Tony Merida and Noel Piper. Mark your calendars and stay tuned for details!
The Together for Adoption Boot Camp is an intensive two-day event designed for Christians and ministry leaders who desire to journey further into the transformative theology of adoption (i.e. God’s work of adoption within redemptive-history). You will spend valuable time with Together for Adoption’s leaders, be taught by other pastors/theologians, and have the opportunity to learn from respected leaders from orphan prevention, adoption, global orphan and foster care organizations. Our boot camp sessions will equip you with a robust theology of adoption and, if you choose, certify you to organize and lead Together for Adoption House Conferences in your area of the country.
Our first boot camp will be held April 20-21 at Downtown Presbyterian Church in beautiful Downtown Greenville, South Carolina (watch the video below for an inside look at Downtown Greenville). Learn more about our T4A Boot Camps.
The purpose of our boot camp is to provide gospel-centered teaching that magnifies the adopting grace of God the Father in Christ Jesus and mobilizes the church for global orphan care. See schedule and boot camp format.
There is no registration fee to participate in a Together for Adoption Boot Camp, although you are responsible for all of your travel, lodging and meal expenses.
Registration is limited to thirty people. Early registration is recommended. Register now. Don’t forget: registration is free!
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If you were encouraged by Stephen Miller’s family’s adoption story (video below), you will certainly enjoy picking up Stephen’s new CD: God & Sinner Reconcile. You may purchase it now on iTunes. Check it out!
Together for Adoption is committed to helping Christians think theologically about all things adoption. One of the ways we seek to do this is through occasional interviews. Today’s interview provides wisdom for transracial adoptive families.
Our guest is J.B. Watkins, Senior Pastor of St. Roch Community Church, a multi-cultural congregation called to serve the St. Roch and St. Claude neighborhoods of New Orleans. Desire Street Ministries planted St. Roch Community Church in an effort “to replicate its model of incarnational ministry and indigenous leadership development.” Danny Wuerffel, Executive Director of Desire Street Ministries, writes: “Desire Street Ministries exists—to revitalize impoverished urban neighborhoods through spiritual and community development. As a part of that mission, we consciously try to combat injustice and to share God’s heart for the poor.” St. Roch Community Church was launched in January 2007 as a result of this mission. It is a community of believers that is committed to preaching the gospel in word and deed, discipling children, youth, and adults, and addressing the felt needs of these New Orleans’ urban communities.
1. J.B., tell us a little about yourself and your ministry in New Orleans.
My name is J.B. Watkins and I am the Pastor of the St. Roch Community Church plant. Having been planted by Desire Street Ministries, we are a diverse body of believers affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America and located in the inner-city of New Orleans, Louisiana. St. Roch, as a core group, began meeting in February of 2007 for bible study with but a handful of people and plenty of children. Currently on average, we have about 20 adults and depending on the location, anywhere from 25-35 children attending our Sunday evening bible studies. As for myself, I recently joined St. Roch as the Pastor in August of 2007 by way of a previous ministry in Memphis TN. As a church, it is our desire to see the whole of the community by which we reside (St. Roch/ St. Claude), become transformed in every sphere of its existence by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. My wife and I adopted two black boys as infants. They are now eight and ten. How important do you think it is for white parents to connect their black children to the black community and their black heritage?
I believe that it is very important. As a child with black skin, he will somehow or another always be identified with those of the same skin color. As such, the opportunity should be afforded them to connect with the black community as well as their black heritage. This can have a very positive affect upon the child in that he will be enriched with the different experiences of being raised by white parents and yet having full access and awareness of his black identity. Not only would this prove beneficial for the children but for the different-race parents as well.
3. How can different-race parents help their adopted children deal with racism?
For one, I believe that it is very important to be truthful and upfront about it. The sad fact is that racism, though not as open or blatant as times past, is still very much so alive. This need not be hidden nor denied but carefully and sincerely explained.
But not only is it important to be truthful and upfront about racism, I also believe that this issue must be handled and addressed from a biblical perspective. I believe that the children should from an early age be made aware of the beautiful diversity of God’s creation, which includes ethnical backgrounds. And any attempt to discredit or deny such beauty must be attributed to the devastating effects of sin. In addition to such, different-race parents must help their adopted children to see and appreciate the culmination of the gospel—namely that day in which all types of people will equally, as it pertains to race, stand before the throne of the Lamb giving praise and thanks for what he has done. And not only will this be the case, it should likewise be reflected here and now.
4. Many different-race children struggle with the differences they discover between themselves and their different-race parents. How might the gospel influence how parents address this struggle?
As a biracial child with predominantly African-American features (skin complexion, hair, etc.), I have often struggled with such differences myself—my mother being biracial with predominantly Euro-American features and my father being African-American). One way in which the gospel may influence how parents address this struggle is to help their children to see that the gospel allows for certain differences and likewise celebrates them. It is an all-too common error to associate the reality of differences with problems. And this need not always be the case. Different-race children must be helped to understand that the gospel allows for differences and as such to be different in many aspects by all means ok.
5. Many multi-ethnic families live in non-integrated neighborhoods. They often fear that this will have negative effects upon their transracially adopted children. Is this a legitimate concern? If so, what can multi-ethnic families in this situation do to address this?
I believe that most concerns as they relate to transracial issues are legitimate, this particular fear included. While it would be a wonderful and profitable experience for transracial families to live in integrated neighborhoods, those who do not live in such can offset such fears in a number of ways. The most obvious would be to move to an integrated neighborhood. Another avenue would be to provide a way of access in which different-race children could be connected to environments or neighborhoods akin to their race. This could be done in a number of ways as well. Different-race children could be sent to schools that have a mixed population. Different-race parents can see to it that their different-race adopted children have opportunities to play with some children of the same race, which would open an opportunity for white parents with black children to meet black parents of black children, and that will in turn provide other opportunities to offset raising different-race children in non-integrated neighborhoods.
6. Some supporters of transracial adoption believe that being a Christian obliterates all of our natural differences. They believe that Christianity ought to be blind to all ethnic distinctions and differences. What are your thoughts about this? Wouldn’t it be better to say that Christianity relativizes them?
I believe that Christianity ought to be blind to all ethnic distinctions and differences only as it pertains to salvation and Christ being offered to all (Galatians 3:28). I do not believe that Christianity ought to be blind to all ethnic distinctions and differences simply for the sake of unity; which is where this line of thinking often comes from. I do believe that Christians should strive for unity by recognizing, utilizing, and celebrating various ethnic distinctions and differences. I am reminded of the various people and positions that God used in Scripture to bring about his plan of salvation. He used, prophets/prophetess, priests, kings, men, women, Jews, Gentiles, with their various personalities and backgrounds. It is my belief that we are to likewise relativize not only our various positions and gifts but also our various ethnic distinctions and differences in advancing the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.
*This interview was originally posted at From Hope to Reality.
The following article was published in the 2008 issue of Tolle Lege that announced the release of Joel Beeke’s book Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption.
Our Father which art in heaven…(Matt. 6:9).
The doctrine of adoption has profound ramifications for the Christian life. If we are true believers, it addresses so many aspects of our walk that it becomes a dominant metaphor for our salvation. One particular area of encouragement comes in relation to our prayer life.
First, consider in general the blessing that spiritual adoption opens for prayer. When Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father which art in heaven,” He expects us to consider the divine majesty. It is a picture of a heavenly throne, highly exalted above and ruling over the created realm. Now that this created realm sinfully stands in rebellion against the King of all creation, the idea of being called before His presence is quite a dreadful thought. The fearfulness of the thought is precisely the reason Adam and Eve hid in the Garden of Eden after they ate the forbidden fruit. However, believers are not called to stand before the throne as unlawful subjects, but as beloved children.
Amazingly, Jesus teaches His disciples to approach this heavenly King as a Father. But what grounds do we have for considering God our Father? Surely God has brought all men into existence and has extended a father-like care over His creation. But what gives children of disobedience (Eph. 2:2; 5:6; Col. 3:6), wrath (Eph. 2:3), and the devil (John 8:44; 1 John 3:10; Acts 13:10) the ability to call upon God as Father? The only reason to call Him Father is that He takes us as His children by grace.
Second, consider the foundational rights of our Elder Brother to approach the Father. In John 15:16, Jesus tells His followers, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Having assured them of His plans for them to flourish in godliness, He then encourages them by calling them to invoke His name in prayer before His Father in order that “whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.” With this, we understand that it is fundamentally the right of Jesus to stand before the heavenly Father. Any right we have is derived from Him.
Third, consider how the rights of our Elder Brother undergird our privileges in prayer as adopted children. Praying to God as “our Father” implies coming in Jesus’ name and under His representation, for we only have a hearing as children because of our close association with the One with foundational rights to the throne of grace. In Romans 8:17, we recognize that we are God’s “children.” However, we also notice that we are only “heirs of God” so far as we are “joint-heirs with Christ.” It is clear that son-ship is granted upon union with Christ. Therefore, it is on the natural and merited rights of Jesus the Son of God that we can be called the children of God. Now, if our adoption stands upon our union with Christ, then any petition to God as “Father” must be grounded upon all that our Elder Brother is for us. Thus, if we are children of God because we are joint-heirs with Christ, our recognition of God as our heavenly Father signifies our coming in Jesus’ name.
Consider the blessing our Elder Brother provides for us. We have no access to this blessed privilege on our own. However, being joint-heirs with Christ and because of Christ, we have the loving affection of the King of heaven as we kneel in prayer. Furthermore, as believers, we desire to stand holy, blameless, and pleasing before God. But what hope do we have for such a task? Christ has ordained us to prosper in piety and affords us a hearing with His Father as our Father, so that our requests before God for thriving in godliness shall be granted. What a privilege it is to be brought into this holy family! Children of God, rejoice in your adoption, recognizing that having a heavenly Father’s love backed by the authority of a redeeming Elder Brother provides much comfort and hope.
Jay T. Collier
Director of Publishing, Reformation Heritage Books
We are pleased to announce that our first Together for Adoption regional conference will be held at Calvary (West Campus) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on Saturday, April 28th. The primary objective for all of our conferences (both regional & national) is to magnify the adopting grace of God the Father in Christ Jesus and to mobilize the church for global orphan care. If you live in the Southeast, we hope you will join us and a great group of exhibitors for our first regional conference.
Registration is $39 per person. Online registration will in February.
Worship will be led by Kaleb Scharmahorn (listen to Kaleb’s worship band’s new CD).
Conference Schedule:
8:00am – Doors Open (Check-in & Registration)
9:00am – Main Session 1
The God Who is a Father to the Fatherless | Dan Cruver
10:30 am – Breakout Session 1
11:30 am – Lunch & Networking
1:00 pm – Main Session 2
The Church that Cares for the Fatherless | Jason Cornwell
2:00 pm – Breakout Session 2
3:15 pm – Main Session 3
Eating at the King’s Table | Burke Parsons
4:15pm – Close & Networking
More details are forthcoming.
I’ve written this series on a God-centered approach to orphan care for those of us who don’t automatically think in Trinitarian ways when considering how best to care for orphans in their distress (I mention two Trinitarian ways in part 2). My default mode is not to be Trinitarian in my approach to orphan care. But if Scripture’s teaching on the Trinity is to be the fountainhead not only of every biblical doctrine but also of every aspect of the Christian way of life (The Christian doctrine of God: one being three persons, p. 31), then we must strive to be Trinitarian in how we approach caring for the fatherless.
So, let me conclude this series by suggesting two additional ways the Trinity should shape our care for orphans.
1. Don’t think project. Think relationship.
I do not know anyone who knowingly views orphan care as project management. In the online age, we have the ability to include pictures of orphaned and vulnerable children when we blog about them. One of the reasons many of us include these pictures is so that we are not tempted to view these children as projects. We wish to remind ourselves that we are caring for real people—children who laugh, cry, and long for safe, permanent and loving relationships. Orphans are not projects. They’re people who were created for relationships. But no matter how good our intentions may be, if we are not approaching orphan care through the lens of the Trinity with intentionality, chances are that somewhere along the line we will be tempted to view the complex work of orphan care as project management.
So, how does the Trinity help us think relationship and not project? When God the Father set out to redeem us through Jesus Christ, He never lost sight of His missional objective: to bring us into His loving communion with the Son. Redemption was never a “project” to God. It was God making room for others within His Trinitarian communion. Take Triune love out of redemption as its fountainhead and destination and redemption becomes mere project management (see the highlighted section of this blog post to see the difference between Trinitarian love and the “love” of a single-person god). Trinitarian love treats others as persons-in-relationship and not as projects-to-be-managed.
2. Don’t care for orphans or adopt one in order to meet some need within you.
A single-person god creates out of need. He either creates because he needs someone to rule or because he’s tired of being alone. In either case, a single-person god chooses to create because he’s needy. But a Triune God—a God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is a God who is not relationally needy. A Triune God is a God who has known relational fullness and perfection for all of eternity. A Triune God creates merely because He desires to do so. He creates (and redeems) out of fullness, not neediness.
The God who has called us “to visit orphans and widows in their distress” is Trinity. He is One and yet at the same time is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Therefore, when God calls Himself a “Father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5), He is not revealing to us that He’s needy. God doesn’t care for the fatherless because there is some need within Him that He’s trying to meet. No, God is a “Father to the fatherless” because as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God has always loved another. As Trinity, God the Father has always loved His Son and God the Son has always loved His Father. Or, to look at it from a different angle, as Trinity, the Son of God has never been fatherless. He has always known and enjoyed the love of a father. If you look at the very center of eternal existence, what you find is that the eternal Son has always had a Father. That’s at the very bottom of reality. Fatherlessness, then, is the result of the Fall of man. Sons (and daughters) were meant to have fathers. A fatherless child cuts against the very grain of “the way things ought to be.” God cares for the fatherless because He has always been a Father and no child should be without the protection and love of a parent.
If the God who calls us “to visit orphans and widows in their distress” is Triune, then we are not being very godlike if we care for orphans out of our need. Caring for the fatherless out of need is not a godly thing to do because it’s not why God cares for the fatherless. A Trinitarian approach to orphan care guards against the temptation to serve fatherless children out of our emotional need by reminding us that we were created and redeemed to find our deepest joy and satisfaction in the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Only a Trinitarian approach to orphan care can protect us from caring for others out of our own neediness.
“‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ — which means, God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
The Incarnation is by far a greater miracle than even the creation of all things in the beginning. It will forever be the greatest miracle in the history of the universe. God becoming man is, as Paul writes, the mystery that changes everything. How so, you ask? T. F. Torrance explains:
“God with us” means that in the birth of Jesus Christ, God has given Himself wholly to us, in a love that is absolutely unstinting and infinitely lavish. It is God’s utmost self-giving that stopped at nothing. God could do no more than come Himself into our humanity, and give Himself entirely to us—and that is exactly what He has done in Jesus. The sheer extent, the boundless range, of His act of love takes our breath away.
“God with us” means that God Almighty insists on sharing His life with us. Far from abandoning us . . . God has identified Himself with us. Once and for all He has become one of us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. God has committed Himself to us in such unrestrained love in the birth of Jesus, and in such a way that now He cannot abandon us any more than He can abandon Himself in Jesus Christ.
That is why the birth of Jesus was heralded with such sublime joy among men and angels, for now that God is with us, the whole situation in heaven and earth is entirely altered, and all things are made new. Now that God is actually with us and of us, everything else is assured. Whatever may happen in the future, God’s purposes of love and fellowship and peace with man will all be fulfilled.
“God with us” means God with us sinners in our lost and bankrupt state. Where we have sold ourselves irretrievably into slavery and perdition and are hopelessly broken and damned, God has joined Himself to us. God has refused to let us go. He has insisted on making Himself one of us, and one with us, in order to make our lost cause His very own, and so to restore us to Himself in love.
“God with us” means that God is for us, God is on our side; that He has come among us to shoulder our burden, and to rescue us from disaster and doom and to reinstate us as sons of the heavenly Father. That is the meaning of the whole life of Jesus from His birth to His death. It was God taking upon Himself our poor human life in all its wretchedness and need, God living out our human life from beginning to end, in order to redeem it…, in order to make our lost cause His own (When Christ Comes and Comes Again, pp. 20, 40, 41).
