Friday Little Bits: Right Around the Corner

Do you want to make a difference in the life of a fatherless child?  If you live in the Mid-South area, you have several opportunities right around the corner.  (If you live somewhere else, you have opportunities, too; I just don't have a list of them for you :)

• CHC Southaven's Orphanology class was full again this week.  Lauren Johnson from Harden House Adoption and Foster Care helped our class know some of what to expect during the adoption process.  She will be back again this week to talk about foster care.  We are hopeful to provide some specific training in our area for potential foster parents in the near future.  You can come and take part in our class at any time; you need not have attended any of the previous classes!

• 4theVoiceless will have a table with our jewelry and T-shirts at the Tricia's Hope fundraiser (Read Tricia's story here.) at Jim Saucier Park in Southaven.  Ten percent of our profits from that day will go toward helping defray the Chavez family's medical expenses. The rest of our profits will go toward building the House of Abraham children's home in Jacmel, Haiti.  We are grateful to partner with our friends from CHC's Celebrate Recovery; they are awesome folks who have been great friends to the ministry of 4theVoiceless!

• The flow of recipes for our adoption cookbook has picked up this week.  We still have plenty left to go before we are ready to publish, but this week has been very encouraging that we will get there and be able to help families fund their adoptions.

•  Orphan Sunday is just four weeks from this Sunday.  This will be the first time for an Orphan Sunday emphasis at CHC.  I met with our pastor this week about what November 4 will look like for our church, and I am looking forward to hearing his message to the church from James 1:27.  His HYPOChRIsTianE series has been eye-opening to say the least, and this message will fit in perfectly with the rest of the series.  We will also have some practical expressions of care for the orphan in which our people can engage.  If you attend another church, I hope that your church is also recognizing Orphan Sunday in some way.  The official Orphan Sunday web site has plenty of ideas that churches all over the world have done and are planing for this year.  If I can be of any assistance to you, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Let me offer you a challenge between now and the next blog post on Tuesday: look for a way to engage in a conversation about orphan care and see what you discover.  

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."