Friday Little Bits: Progress Report

Here are a few ministry progress updates from 4theVoiceless:

Orphanology

Wednesday night was the first night of our Orphanology study at CHC Southaven.  There were 18 of us in attendance, a great group.  The study will continue through November 7 on Wednesday nights from 6:30-8:00.  This past Wednesday, we focused on how orphan care reflects the gospel and how God’s commands to help the “voiceless” have always been to His people.  Therefore, believers have a responsibility to minister to orphans.  We ended with this video, which.powerfully captured the first session of our study.

Lauren Johnson, adoption specialist, will join us the next two weeks as we focus on adoption and foster care.  Lauren and her husband Chris are active in the orphan care ministry of Lifepoint Senatobia.  If you live in the DeSoto County area, please join us on Wednesday nights.

Adoption Cookbook

We are hoping to complete the 4theVoiceless cookbook sometime around Orphan Sunday (Nov. 4) so that they will be available during the Christmas season.  The cookbook will help fund our adoption fund as well as create awareness about adoption through some pretty remarkable stories.  The recipes are still coming in slowly.  Would you use your influence to help us gather about 300 more recipes in the next month?  Each person can submit up to 10.  Click here for the form.

Hope for Haiti

Not much change in the Hope for Haiti campaign over the last couple of weeks, at least as far as funding goes.  We are still at about 26% funding for the new House of Abraham.  4theVoiceless will be selling paracord bracelets and paper bead jewelry at the Trinity Baptist Church (7200 Swinnea in Southaven) crafts fair tomorrow from 9:00-3:00.  We will be at the Tricia’s Hope fundraiser extravaganza at Jim Saucier Park in Southaven (near the library and police department) from 11:00-dark on October 13.  Finally, we will be at fall festivals at CHC Southaven (Go Center) and CHC Hernando (Conger Park) on October 31.  Get the word out!

Work continues on the orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, as you can see in the photos below.  Thanks to Dusty Cooper of IsleGo Missions for the update!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orphan Sunday

Orphan Sunday is a day when churches around the world focus on God’s call to defend the orphan.  This will be the first Orphan Sunday at CHC Southaven and CHC Hernando, and we are still in the planning stages.  More and more churches are joining in.  Check out the Orphan Sunday website for the story behind the day and to see what churches around the world are doing on this year’s Orphan Sunday, November 4.  If you are part of a church that would like to get involved, please let me know; I have recently been asked to serve as an area coordinator for the Orphan Sunday organization and would love to talk to you and share ideas.

Thanks for reading.  Now, move.
Al

What I Read vs. What I See

I spent about an hour in conversation with a friend yesterday.  It was one of those conversations with more questions than answers.  He is a fairly new believer in Christ (a few years), one who immediately after his conversion set out to learn the Word of God.  His questions could be rolled up into one question that we should all consider:  Why does the Christianity of my experience not look like what I read in the Bible?

The easy answer would have been, "Come to my church!"  He might indeed come, and I hope he finds more similarities than differences between the Christians in our church and the Christians in the Bible.  Our pastor at CHC is currently going through a series called HYPOChrIsTianE, a challenge to the church to more accurately reflect the object of our worship, Jesus Christ, to a world that largely does not follow Him.

Within the specific scope of this blog, however, I want to point out the huge chasm between what the Bible says about caring for the orphan and what we, as churches in the wealthiest nation in the world, are doing.  Imagine what happens when a maturing believer like my friend reads the Old Testament and sees the heart of God for the voiceless (the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, and the poor) and then compares it to the normal American church experience, where the orphan is rarely, if ever, mentioned.  His resulting questions are legitimate.

good news to GOOD NEWS

The good news is that more and more churches are re-awakening to this ancient command to care for orphans.  Orphan Sunday is November 4, and more churches than ever before are doing something to raise awareness of the world's orphan crisis.

Even better -- that good news is a pointing finger toward the Good News.  Orphan care -- adoption in particular -- so beautifully and accurately reflects the gospel.  Consider:

1.  God created man.
  

•      God created every child who is an orphan.

2.  Man fell.
  

•      Some result of the fall led to every orphan's status as an orphan.

3.  God redeemed man back to Himself.  Man was in desperate need of rescue, a spiritual orphan.  Man had nothing to offer God.  Despite all this, God made a way for man to be reconciled to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.  He gives those who follow Him help for today and hope for tomorrow.

•      Orphans are among the weakest and most vulnerable of God's creation.  They seldom have anything to offer, only needs, yet some believers move toward them and give them hope and a future.

4.  God adopted us into the family of believers.  He is our Father, Jesus is our older brother, and the church is made up of our spiritual brothers and sisters.

•      Adoption provides a home for an orphan, often with father, mother, sisters, and brothers.

A Living Example of the Gospel

So what is our response to someone like my friend who sees the gap between what the Bible says and what he sees lived out in the church?  What about, "Let me show you."  Make sure you don't have to look far.

Thanks for reading. Now, move.
Al

Random add-on:  Passion for the writing of this post was enhanced greatly by Phil Wickham's "You're Beautiful."

     
    

Friday Little Bits: Christian? Prove it!

If I give

To a needy soul but don't have love then who is poor?

It seems all the poverty is found in me

So let my life be the proof,

The proof of Your love

Let my love look like You and what You're made of

How You lived, how You died

Love is sacrifice

Oh, let my life be the proof,

The proof of Your love

from "The Proof of Your Love" by for KING and COUNTRY

What does your life prove about God?  

I have heard it said for years that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the you are the best Christian that somebody knows.  Let's assume for the next few minutes that you invest in this blog that that statement is true.  Christians are reflections of Jesus, so how accurately are you reflecting Him? 

• Jesus noticed those that the rest of the world had mostly cast aside.  Think woman at the well, lepers, blind men beside the road, greedy tax collector.  Will you notice the "invisible" people today?  Tomorrow?  Four months, three days from now? (When you have totally forgotten this post and no one is reminding you to notice those whom Jesus would move toward.)
• Jesus valued the humble and lowly in spirit.  Think Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).  Do you see the value in the "invisible" people or are they just there to give you your coffee, take your ticket, scan your grocery items?  Do you view others as better than yourself?
• Jesus put loving others right up there in importance with loving God.     “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command.  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  Matt. 22:36-39 (HCSB)  Think about your words -- spoken publicly or privately, written on social media sites -- do they reflect Jesus and of the great lengths He went to secure my freedom from sin and my hope for now and for eternity? 

I have considered all these things, and I don't measure up.  Neither do you.  I may not know you personally, but I can say with a great degree of certainty that you aren't perfectly reflecting Jesus either.  

I'm here to challenge all of us to more accurately reflect the heart of the Father who loved us when there was nothing lovable about us, to the point that He sent His Son to die on a cross and incur His wrath for sin on our behalf; in doing so, He adopted us into His family.  We didn't deserve His mercy.  We shouldn't love the "invisible" people because they deserve it, but because we received mercy and love when we ourselves didn't deserve it.  Loving them is a reflection of God's loving us.

Thanks for reading.  Now move toward an orphan, a widow, a foreigner, the poor.  Reflect the Father.

Al

4theVoiceless Ministry Project Updates: 

Hope for Haiti:  We will let you know next week where and when 4theVoiceless will be selling Hope for Haiti bracelets (and our other jewelry) in the weeks to come.  In the meantime they are available at the CHC Connections Bookstore at CHC Southaven.  We are still at about 26% of the funding required to build the new House of Abraham orphanage, and construction has begun.  Before reading any further, would you stop and join others in praying that God would raise up this money in time for the new home to be completed by mid-November.

Adoption Cookbook:  Recipes continue to trickle in, but we need them to pour in over the next couple of weeks.  We would like this project to be completed by mid-October so that we can begin selling them on Orphan Sunday (Nov. 4) and sell them through the Christmas buying season.  Remember, this project will give families much-needed financial assistance with their adoptions.  Anyone can submit a recipe; click here to send us yours (up to 10 recipes per person).  Thank you!

Orphanology Study:  Wednesdays from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at CHC Southaven from September 26 through November 7.  Click here for more information.  Let us know you're coming!




 

My Lowest Point as a Pastor

Eighteen months ago I was at my low point as a pastor.  You couldn't have looked at me and known that at the time, probably, but there was a storm stirring in me.

During the previous summer, I had read a really harmless-looking little orange book called Radical, and it had intensified every area of my life as a Christ-follower.  I made some, well, radical changes to my own life, and I led my small group through a study of the book over the next few months -- with mixed response.  Most of them revved up their walk with Christ...for a few months.  Some continue to pursue Him with passion today.  I don't think it was as paradigm-shattering to anyone else as it was to me, though.  Looking back, I know I pushed too hard and much to quickly for my group members to "get" what I had "gotten."  I probably also gave too much credit to the little orange book and not enough to the Holy Spirit of God that was burning inside of me and that had burned inside of David Platt as he wrote it.


Fast forward through the first couple of months of 2011.  I was spending a few days of spiritual refreshing at my parents' cabin, as is my habit to do most every spring.  This time, I was spending a couple of days at a conference in Hattiesburg.  On February 28, 2011, I watched pastor after pastor take the stage and preach some of the most powerful, Gospel-centered messages I had ever heard.  And yet, this was my low point in ministry.

Over My Head

Several speakers into the conference, it began to occur to me that I was in way over my head; these guys had strings of initials after their names as long as my arm.  (The only initials I have after my name are B.S - draw your own conclusions.)  Each of them seemed to be a pastor, author, professor, advocate of some world-changing cause, etc., etc.  And here's the kicker:  they were all much younger than me! 


Here I was, 44 years old at the time, with my heart pounding to make a difference in this world for the kingdom of God but with seemingly no outlets.  I went back to mom and dad's cabin that night with a very heavy heart, considering my wasted life.  Why didn't God call me to ministry sooner?  Sixteen years as a high school baseball coach -- did I really even make a difference?  Were all the other years for naught?  And how much difference was I making now, even after a call to the ministry?  All these were questions I threw up to God during the night of February 28, 2011.

And then, on Day 2... 

 

God responded.   Russell Moore, in his message on Colossians 2:16-23, made a couple of statements that the Holy Spirit used to interrupt my self-absorbed melancholy.  Here is what I wrote:

• "The only thing that can kill what is killing you is the gospel of Jesus Christ."
• "Why would I allow myself to be judged or disqualified by some idea of what my life and ministry should look like when I am a part of a living being in the body of Christ?"

That word disqualified hit me right where I was.  That's exactly what I felt.  My eyes were on the other parts of the body of Christ and not on the head, Christ Himself.  I was starting to get what God was saying to me, but He had an exclamation point for me in the next message from Tyler Jones:

• "Coveting robs me of the joy of being who God made me to be."

This was one of those statements that made me do a double-take. Looking around, I wondered if everyone else got that like I did.  No, apparently not.  Apparently, that was just for me.  I had done what I always tend to do: Identify the the issue and begin to deal with it.  God was telling me to acknowledge my situation for what it was, the sin of coveting my neighbor's influence.  Before I could move ahead, God wanted me to call my covetousness what is was: sin, an offense against Him.

I don't know about you, but I don't particularly like a fault in my life being pointed out starkly as sin.  But there it was.  That wasn't the low point, though, because God was now speaking to me.  It wasn't pleasant, but it was God.  He was calling me back to my first love, Jesus Christ, and focusing my eyes on the opportunities, small though they may have seemed at the time, that I had right in front of me.

I had two more opportunities to speak to the kids in our church's AWANA program on the grand story of redemption throughout Scripture.  I had my weekly meetings with my discipleship partner.  It didn't seem like much influence at the time, but in reading back through my journal, I am reminded that 12 third- and fourth-graders gave their lives to Christ on March 9, 2011, and that two ladies led people to Christ for the first time that night (not the last for either of them).  And now, I am joining my discipleship partner on a mission trip to Haiti next month as he continues to pursue God in bigger and bigger ways in his life.

Conception

And then there was one more inconspicuous little nugget from March 5, 2011.  I found it tucked into a long list of things I was asking God for his heart about on behalf of our church:  "I pray that You would open our eyes to feel the same about...orphans as You do...."  And thus began my journey into God's heart for the orphan.  I suppose that 4theVoicless was conceived that morning in that prayer.  And because of what we know about God's heart for the orphan and because we as the church are God's hands and feet in this world, we fully expect to change the world.

Thanks for reading.  Now fix your eyes firmly on Jesus and change the world yourself.
Al

Friday Little Bits: Adoption Training

I am very excited to be in beautiful Duluth, Georgia, with one of our 4theVoiceless team members, Tony Pillstrom, to attend the Together for Adoption conference.  We have signed up for some breakout sessions that I believe will be very beneficial to our ministry to couples seeking to adopt and others seeking to help them.  I will share some of what we learn this weekend in the weeks to come.

From the Together for Adoption conference web site:

Romanticizing orphan care and adoption is so very easy and tempting to do.
But orphan care and adoption always involve suffering. Just ask any birthmother or a child who is one of three hundred orphans in a Chinese orphanage or a family that is experiencing the high-ups and low-downs of the adoption process or the adoptive family that is overwhelmed by the challenges of the post-adoption journey. There is no such thing as orphan care and adoption without suffering.

The primary objective of our September 14-15 national conference is to take Christians deeper into God’s story of Adoption to give hope and practical tools to walk with deep joy through “the sufferings of this present time” (Romans 8:18-23) for God’s glory and the good of orphans around the world. God’s work of adoption within the world is a story that encompasses all of human history, from its pre-temporal beginnings when God predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to the renewal of the heavens and the earth. From the Apostle Paul’s perspective, Adoption is the story that makes sense of the universe, that makes sense of our broken lives and gives the existence of all creation ultimate meaning.

Just look at the way Paul uses the word Adoption (Eph. 1:4-5; Rom. 9:4; Gal. 4:4-5; Rom. 8:15, 23). According to Scripture, Adoption serves as the grand purpose or objective of God’s work of redemption (Galatians 4:4-6). When the story of redemption reaches its intended goal (Romans 8:20-23), Scripture calls it Adoption, and Adoption is ultimately the ‘happily ever after’ of God’s giving us Himself forever in a renewed creation, in which there will be no more tears. Adoption is the God-Story that gives our personal stories meaning and significance within a broken world. It announces that one day everything sad is going to come untrue.

Busting Up Boulders

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there’s more than one way to break up a boulder (like the one pictured above).  A jackhammer of some sort is ideal, but what if one is not available?  In Jamaica and Haiti, where heavy equipment and power tools are most often not available or affordable, workers use an interesting method that involves the following steps: 

• digging a trench around the rock
• covering it with charcoal and allowing it to burn until the rock is fiery hot
• dousing it with cold water to hopefully break the large rock into smaller, moveable pieces.  

When I learned of this technique, I couldn’t help but think how much starting an orphan care ministry is like that.  The boulder is the enormity of the need -- at least 140 million orphans in the world by the most conservative estimates.  There is no jackhammer big enough to do the job of providing each of them a loving home with parents to care for them.  So what do we do, just concede that the boulder is too big and can’t be moved?  God’s Word simply does not allow for that.  He commands His church to minister to orphans, so we look for other ways to break up the boulder.

I am very grateful for men and women and organizations who have done the work of breaking up the biggest rock.  They have done much of the preliminary hard work of creating opportunities for others to get involved., but there is still much to do.  Many of the rocks are still very big and need exploding further.  The question for us, especially as churches, is this: How big a part can we play in the movement (and I hate to call it that, like just another social cause) to care for the world's fatherless children?  How big a rock can we chip away at? 

The people who helped get the ministry of 4theVoiceless off the ground believed we could take a good-sized piece of the bigger boulder and learn how to most effectively chip away at it.  We have chipped away some fragments, and we have seen some significant pieces fall away.  For instance, we have spent considerable time and space in this corner of the blogosphere talking about our Hope for Haiti campaign, an effort to raise $35,000 to build a permanent building for the House of Abraham orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti.

However, the smaller pieces are no less significant.  There’s the call I got yesterday from one of the widows in our church, getting clarification on the purpose of the forthcoming 4theVoiceless cookbook to benefit our adoption fund.  She is aggressively gathering recipes for us from the senior adult Sunday school classes.  There’s another conversation I had with a lady in our community who wants to adopt but doesn’t even know where to begin, so someone put her in touch with me.

If you are not currently involved in caring for orphans in some practical way, explore how you can get involved.  If you are a part of a church that is not moving toward the command of James 1:27 to minister to orphans, we need you to take your rock and chip away at it (under the authority of your church leadership).  It doesn’t take a large budget; 4theVoiceless started with zero dollars.  It doesn’t take a multitude of connections; most of the people who have been a great help to us we met after we began to move toward God’s command.  It doesn’t take a huge team; we have operated with a handful of dedicated people.  You don’t have to have a dynamic leader for your ministry; I am not being falsely humble when I say that my personality is not exactly magnetic.  But know this: none of those things determine the success of an orphan care ministry.  The great God of the universe, the Father to the fatherless, and the owner of all the resources on Earth (not to mention Earth itself) will guide you to break up more of the boulder that is the needs of the world’s orphans than you could possibly imagine.  Just move and see.

Thanks for reading,
Al

Friday Little Bits: 4 Ministry Updates

Hope for Haiti

Hope for Haiti continues to make progress.  Right now, through bracelet sales and contributions, we have raised $7,200 (23%) of our $35,000 goal.  Construction on the new House of Abraham has begun with work on the foundation.  Look for photos in the next few days on the Facebook page.

 

4theVoiceless Adoption Cookbook

We have received 37 recipes (9%) so far and have 363 to go.  Remember, profits from this cookbook will go toward the 4theVoiceless adoption fund to assist those adopting children.  If you haven’t submitted a recipe yet, would you please send us up to 10 of your best.  Click here for the form.
Categories:

Main Dishes
Breads
Side Dishes
Desserts
Starters/Appetizers
International Dishes
Soups/Salads
Crock Pot/Slow Cooker Recipes

Adoption Conference

I am looking forward to attending the Together for Adoption national conference near Atlanta with one of our other team members.  There are some great breakouts scheduled; we had a hard time choosing eight of them between us.  I look forward to reporting on what we learn.

Orphanology Study at CHC

Colonial Hills Church - Southaven will be offering a study of Orphanology, by Tony Merida and Rick Morton, as part of our equipping classes beginning September 26.  This is a great place to step in to orphan care ministry.  Along with many others, I have found this book to be a great blend of WHY we should do orphan care and HOW we can do orphan care.  Whether you are an attender at CHC or not, you are welcome to join us for this study on Wednesday nights at 6:30.

Thanks for reading,

Al

How Many Orphans Do You Know By Name?

How many orphans do you know by name?  That was a questions Tony Merida asked pastors and church planters at the One8 Network Boot Camp last week in his message “The Gospel and Mercy Ministry.”  What a challenging question.

Having the right theology about the marginalized (the orphan, the widow, the foreigner, and the poor) is much easier than personally serving them.  Think about these specific questions:

• The right theology says that believers are all adopted into God’s family.  But has that led us to adopt or help others adopt or personally serve orphans in any way?
• The right theology says that it is the responsibility of the church to take care of its widows.  But have we personally spent time with the widows in our churches and gotten to know them and served them where they had needs?
• The right theology says that the foreigner living among us is loved just as much by God as much as we are.  But what specific kindnesses have we personally shown those who were born in other lands and speak other languages?
• The right theology says that we should serve the poor.  But are we satisfied with meeting the physical needs of the poor by sending money but without personally getting to know them?

Do you know an orphan by name?

On the Friday night before our 4theVoiceless mission team visited one of the Baptist Children’s Village homes a couple of Saturdays ago, I asked them to consider what one of the most valuable things that each one of the children we would meet would have, something personal and unique and precious to each of them.  One of our team answered, “Their names.”  One of our main focuses during the time we were able to spend with those precious children, then, was in learning each of their names.  Everyone likes to be known.

I didn’t really consider something until just now as I was writing:  I don’t remember one time that the children asked our names.  Perhaps that’s all just as well.  We didn’t go to be known but to get to know.  We went to be the body of the Father to the fatherless. 

• God used our backs to let His kids play “horsie.”
• God used our voices and arms and legs to tell His kids of His “Marvelous Light.”
• God used our laps to take His kids down a slip ‘n slide.
• God used our hands to serve His kids lunch.
• God used our hands to draw His kids pictures on their goodie bags.

Years from now I hope those children remember their Father’s kindness, not the names of some men and boys from DeSoto County, Mississippi, for it is His kindness that leads us to repentance.  The only name they really need to remember is Jesus.

4theVoiceless doesn’t exist to be known but to know.  It’s a simple mission, really.  To know children who don’t have a loving home, wherever the Lord would lead us, and to let them know that they are personally known and loved by their Father.

Thanks for reading.  Now move toward the fatherless…personally.
Al