Empowered to Connect conference

Coming soon to Nashville, TN...

Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael and Amy Monroe (Lifesong partners through Tapestry) will be speaking encouragement and sound Biblical advice to adoptive and foster parents at their Empowered to Connect Conference on September 10-11.  Hosted by Show Hope this will no doubt be an event worth attending.

I have had the great privilege of hearing all three of these speakers only to be left (a little teary eyed) challenged and well equipped.  Want to know more?  

Take a look:

Empowered To Connect from Tapestry on Vimeo.

You can also go to empoweredtoconnect.org for more materials like study guides, articles, and videos!

Have you heard Dr. Purvis or the Monroes speak at a conference?  Maybe you've read The Connected Child or even gone through the Created to Connect Study Guide.  Leave a comment and share with us what you learned!  We'd love to hear from you!

.

Bring healing to hurting hearts!

Introducing the Created To Connect: A Christian’s Guide to The Connected Child. 

This study guide, created by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael & Amy Monroe, is designed to help illuminate the biblical principles that serve as the foundation for the philosophy and interventions detailed in Dr. Purvis’ book, The Connected Child.  Together with the book, the study guide is a great tool to help adoptive and foster parents better understand how to build strong and lasting connections with their children, and is ideal for use in small groups as well as by individuals or couples.

Visit the Empowered To Connect website to download and print the entire (76 page) study guide, or view and print it chapter-by-chapter.  There is no charge for this or any of the Empowered To Connect resources, but be sure to let other adoptive and foster parents know about this new study guide.

Check out the video series here.

Don't miss our upcoming webinar!

 

How does an adoption fund fit with your church's mission/vision?

• Evangelize the lost – Adoption is evangelism at its core…Bringing the mission field home, where children are loved, cared for, and discipled to know Jesus Christ as their Savior.

• Edify the saved – Adoption Fund challenges, encourages, and enables Believers to put their faith in action, by stepping out in faith to adopt (fulfilling God’s commands in scripture).

• Minister to those in need – There are millions of children waiting for forever families who would like to adopt them, but just can’t because of the financial barrier.

• Be a Conscience in the community –  As th e Church becomes obedient to God’s commands concerning the fatherless, the community will see Jesus Christ is alive and working in the lives of His people to care for those children who can’t care for themselves.

Read more. Reserve your spot now!

The Local Church is Uniquely Equipped!

I must confess I’m blown away by all God has done through Tapestry over the last 5 years. They’ve made a profound difference for local families and the children those families have fostered and adopted." - Jedd Medefind, President of Christian Alliance for Orphans

Check out this post from Tapestry titled 'Three Things We Have Learned & Three Things We Would Do'! A glimpse at the depth of this post -

In the end, the growth that we have seen speaks far more to the needs of children and families in our community (and every community) and the power and reach of the local church, than it does to anything that we ourselves have done. We are humbled that God has used us to play a small part in the lives of so many, and we are excited about what He has in store for us as a ministry and a community.

During any given week, we receive calls from people across the nation wanting to start an adoption, foster care or orphan care ministry in their church. Many of them have very similar questions: How do you get started? What do you do at your small groups and events?  How do you handle this or that?   Three things we have learned in these past five years are that there are no easy answers (although there are some very accessible and available resources), there is no ’one size fits all,’ and there are no shortcuts (at least none worth taking)."

See you at Summit VI!

The Church Reclaiming the Care of Orphans...

Embrace is a community of like minded families, individuals, and churches passionate about the needs and care of orphans and waiting children in America.

Matthew 6:26

Trails to the Frontier - posted by Michael Monroe of Tapestry

Bruce and Denise Kenrick, together with Cindy Coffman, lead Embrace, the foster care and adoption ministry at Rhea’s Mill Baptist Church in McKinney, Texas. Embrace is a member of the DFW Alliance, and Bruce recently shared these thoughts about their ministry’s journey to the present and their latest initiative to help churches become more involved in the lives of orphans and waiting children.

Nearly three years ago, our church was one of over 300,000 Christian churches in America that had no intentional ministry to orphans or waiting children. When we came to our small Baptist church to be on staff, my wife and I were already foster parents. Yet our church remained mostly uninvolved in this area. Honestly, even my wife and I were not aware of the potential that was staring us in the face each week.

It wasn’t until a mom of one of the students in our church was driving down the road listening to the “Cry of the Orphan” radio broadcast that the potential (and the calling) began to become evident. She had no experience or background in foster care or adoption. She hadn’t visited an orphanage overseas … yet God seemingly pulled her over to the side of the road and called her to launch a ministry that would help the church reclaim the care of orphans and waiting children.

She asked us to help her start the ministry, and while we had experience in foster care and student ministry, we were lost when it came to organizing an orphan care ministry from scratch. Fortunately, one of the pioneer orphan care ministries in the United States, Tapestry at Irving Bible Church, was located just thirty minutes down the road, and they were willing to meet with us, share their ideas and resources and give us direction as we developed the vision for what our ministry would become. It was through their mentoring, as well as our connection to resources from organizations such as Hope for Orphans, that God led us to craft the vision and mission for our ministry, Embrace.

After struggling for nearly two years to solidify any real programming that would make a lasting impact on the foster, orphan care and adoption community, we dreamed up an initiative that would duplicate what Tapestry had done for us. We believe that it is God’s purpose that the local church lead by example in caring for orphans and waiting children. After all, if the church walks away from this privilege and opportunity, these children will ultimately gain little benefit from what the world has to offer. So in our third year of ministry, we are launching Sketching Floor in order to call more churches to the frontier of orphan care ministry and equip them to do it well.

Thus far, many churches of all sizes and from various denominations have embraced the idea of inviting God to use their local congregation to love and serve these precious children. Just as Tapestry didn’t ask us to mimic their programs or approach, yet freely offered every resource they had, we plan to pray with church lay leaders and staff members asking God to help them chart the direction the He would have them go.

Orphan care ministry can be a difficult area to wrap our arms around. With more than 140 million orphans spanning the globe, the needs are vast – but so too are the possibilities. If we ask every church to do every thing in the area of orphan ministry, the task would truly be insurmountable … but God has equipped His Church to meet these needs for the sake of these children and praise of His glory. So we are grateful for those that have blazed a trail for us to follow, and we look forward to walking with others down this path as the frontier expands before us.

Sketching Floor is a gathering of church teams crafting relevant, effective ministries to care for orphans and waiting children. Led by experienced local church ministry leaders, it is designed to help churches organize their orphan ministry’s vision, sharpen their efforts and begin making an impact. Churches need not travel the journey of creating and growing an orphan ministry alone – Sketching Floor is available so they don’t have to.

To learn more about Sketching Floor or to find out how your church can participate in Sketching Floor, visit http://www.sketchingfloor.org/."

It should not be lost that this is a 250 person church with a vibrant and innovative orphan ministry that is now actively seeking to help other churches (sometimes 10 or 20 times their size) develop, launch and sustain healthy orphan ministry.  Really cool!