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Churches...making big difference in Ukraine

Several churches in the Birmingham, AL area are helping to change the lives of orphans in Ukraine, through their partnership with Lifesong for Orphans

Help Ukraine orphans get US college education, and return to foster change in their home country - through Bright Futures

Dad, how do you get rich?

"all" the money from an 8 yr old girl's piggy bank

A Lifesong giver recently shared this story with us...an example of how we get to advocate WITH our children!

I was driving home from bible study one evening when my 8 yr old daughter asked, “Dad how do you get rich?” I asked her why she wanted to get rich and she said that she didn’t really know but when pressed she wanted to buy another American Girl doll. I explained to her that many children didn’t even have one doll, let alone two.

She wanted to know why some people were rich and some were poor so I answered because God makes some rich and some poor. I explained that if we are rich we should not use it for ourselves but we should give it to the poor to help them…this makes God happy. I very thoughtful little girl asked if I know some poor people. I told her that I did and she asked if I could take her to meet them so she could give them the money she has in her piggy bank.

Over the last few months she has asked me several times if I can take her to some poor people so that she can give them her money. Well, the other Friday night my wife and I were talking about an orphanage in Honduras that has some needs. We were trying to narrow down how many of the needs we could help with when our 8 year old asked if the people there are poor. We explained that they are poor and she promptly declared that she wanted to give them all the money in her piggy bank, except the dollars she has gotten from losing teeth because she wants to keep track of how many teeth she loses…but when she’s done losing teeth she will give that money too. Well, she and her 4 year old sister pooled their piggy bank change and came up with $15 dollars. She is excited to give the money and never wavered in her decision.

The ironic thing is that my wife and I wrote the single largest donation check we have every written but in Jesus eyes our daughter has given more because she has given nearly everything she has. I praise God that he has given us a heart to share and that we have the opportunity to influence our children’s hearts for the poor.

As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."   ~  Luke 21:1-4

Ministry In Action

  We are excited to partner with our friends in Newbury Park, CA for an upcoming seminar!

Join Dark to Dawn Ministries Saturday, September 26, 2009 for an orphan and adoption seminar. Lifesong and several other organizations will be speaking at this event.

Dark to Dawn's mission is to defend the cause of the orphans by declaring God's mandate for their care and encouraging and equipping the church to take action.

Please join us for this opportunity to be inspired by God’s word and heart for orphans!

 Click here for a printable flyer

Creating a Culture of Adoption in Your Church

My friend Jason Kovacs at the ABBA Fund had a great post about creating a "culture" of adoption in your church... not just creating a ministry...

Many of these churches are asking how they can serve the fatherless most effectively?

The best advice I can give is to not simply start an orphan care/adoption “ministry” but aim to see an orphan care/adoption culture established. What do I mean by that? It may be semantics but I see a difference that has great implications:

Ministry tends be an optional program that a small group of interested individuals can take part in.

Culture is something that the whole church community takes part in by virtue of being part of the church.

Ministry does not necessitate the involvement or the vision casting of the church leadership.

Culture will be sustained by the preaching of the gospel and the particular ways it is worked out.

Ministry is not always clearly connected to the mission of the church.

Culture is a means to work out the mission of the church.

Think of these statements in regards to other “ministries” that we find in our churches – evangelism, prayer, mercy. The extent to which these gospel-activities are seen as “ministries” or “programs”, as they so often are, they often struggle. I find churches that are most effective at evangelism are those churches that see evangelism as a non-negotiable for every member and have created a culture in which every member by virtue of their involvement in the church community is caught up into the activity of reaching the lost. I think the same ought to be true for orphan care/adoption.

The greatest thing you can do to establish a culture of adoption/orphan care in your church is to be gripped by the reality that God has adopted us as His children. The church is God’s great trans-racial adoptive family. As the gospel takes root in our hearts and we recognize that adoption is central to the heart and mission of God it also becomes something we care about. We will naturally begin to reflect our vertical adoption in our horizontal efforts. This is the foundation for creating a culture that believes that every Christian is called to care for the fatherless in some way.

Not everyone is called to adopt but everyone is called to do something.

The question for each Christian and each church is not “Should I care for orphans?”

The question is “How can I care for orphans?”