April 2010 Enewsletter

How to Get Small Groups in Your Church Praying for Foster Kids

The third annual National Foster Care Prayer Vigil will be held from May 16-23.  Maybe you’re wondering how you might get more people in your church praying.  Have you thought about approaching your church’s small groups leader and asking if your church’s small groups would consider praying for our nation’s foster children as they meet that week?  If so, you will want to make things as easy as possible for them to do so.  Try these simple steps to help your small groups leader see the need and promote the prayer vigil to groups in your church:

•    Print out statistics highlighting the needs of foster children in your city, state, and across the country.
•    Print copies of the Prayer Vigil Guide found on our website.
•    Make an appointment with your church’s small groups leader to demonstrate the need and share the prayer points.
•    Write a blurb for your church’s bulletin.

Imagine if small groups from your church dedicated their entire time that week to praying for the children in your local foster care system.  What might God do as so many people in your church are exposed to what His word says about these precious children, what their needs are, and what His expectations of us are?

Local Church Orphan Ministry Spotlight:  Lake Pointe Church in TX 

Lake Pointe Church is a multi-campus church in the East Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  It is home to many vibrant ministries, including an Adoption and Orphan Ministry that is the subject of this issue’s local church orphan ministry spotlight.

The ministry began in November 2005, with 4 families who had a heart to serve through adoption and orphan service.  The ministry has grown considerably over the past four and a half years and has reached beyond the walls of Lake Pointe to include other families in the community who are involved in adoption and orphan care.  As Andrew Steele, who along with his wife Tricia are two of the founding members of the ministry, puts it, “Recently, we’ve been blessed by being able to share advice and mentoring to other churches that are seeking to start adoption, foster care, or orphan care ministry.  We love to share our passion for the fatherless who wish to begin ministry in these areas.”

The ministry focuses on two main objectives:  to help build families through adoption, and to show God’s love to the world’s orphans.  In relation to adoption (and foster care), the ministry encourages and promotes adoption and foster care through personal testimony, prayer and mentoring.  They provide helpful resources to prospective adoptive and foster families who want to learn more about the types and processes involved.  They have also set up an adoption fund to help adoptive families meet the financial requirements of adoption.  In addition, they support adoptive and foster families through prayer and other means, as well as putting on events, which help build community among the families.  “It's been great to be a part of God's work in building families through adoption,” Andrew says.  “We are thankful for the opportunity to help encourage, inform and support families through adoption and foster parenting."

The ministry’s keystone event is its annual Adoption & Foster Care Conference.  This conference connects families in any stage of adoption to resources, agencies, and expert speakers to encourage and inform them while on their adoption journeys.  In 2007, Hope for Orphans’ Executive Director, Paul Pennington, was the keynote speaker.  This year’s conference will be in early August.  More information can be found online at www.adoptionconference.net.

On the orphan care side, the ministry provides church families and Life Groups opportunities to care for orphans overseas, as well as for children in the local foster care system.  They are currently in partnership with a ministry that is providing homes in a children’s village for 44 South African orphans who are HIV positive.  In 2010, multiple orphan care initiatives are underway, including new overseas projects and strategic partnerships locally and nationally.

For more information about the Lake Pointe Adoption and Orphan Ministry, please click here.

Set Your Orphan Ministry Free

By Jason Weber

One of the things we teach at our Your Church and the Orphan Workshop is that one of the best places to learn how to set up an effective orphans ministry that will work in your church is to pay attention to other what other well-run ministries in your church are doing. 

At our church recently, one of our pastors asked the leaders of our church’s new and improved women’s ministry to come up. Now, when I think of leaders of a ministry, I usually think of 2 to 8 folks -- tops.  But when they came forward, there were a BUNCH of them – like maybe 20!  Twenty leaders of a ministry sounds like disaster . . . right?

But then they presented the plan.

They had broken up the women’s ministry into probably a dozen different very specific outreaches with dates and times for the next year already attached to each.  Each one of those outreaches was owned by 1 to 3 of those women.  The cool thing was, I could see so clearly how the outreaches were designed with each of these women’s gifts and personalities in mind.  To give you an idea of how this looked, let me give you a couple of examples:

    Breakfast at Loli’s - One Saturday morning per month, any woman in the church who wants to can show up at Loli’s house for a breakfast.

    Chicks and Flicks - One Friday night per month, one of our single women will be presenting a movie and serving popcorn - if you are female, you are invited.

There was also a lunch group for moms with kids that would be held at different kid-friendly restaurants.  The list went on.

As I was listening, the word that came to mind was “brilliant.”  There are few key things that are accomplished with this model  (I’m not even sure if our women’s ministry was even aiming at accomplishing these objectives), but here is why this could be a great model for an orphans ministry:

Avoids the Great Orphans Ministry “Fizzle-Out”

Many orphans ministries find themselves stuck (my church included) because the small group of leaders are some of the busiest people in the church.  One common problem is that the leaders often are so committed to helping orphans that they don’t have time for leading orphans ministry.  Have you or another key leader ever had to step back because of a new adoptive or foster placement?  How about those who may have to reduce commitments to effectively meet the special needs of a child they have brought into their home through foster care or adoption?  Dispersing the leadership to more people, each with less responsibility, can help to prevent the whole ministry from fizzling out.

Encourages Entrepreneurial Ownership of Ministry

Giving someone ownership and creative freedom with ministry can be a powerful (albeit scary) thing.  What I loved about the women’s ministry is that even the titles of each outreach were as individual as the women who owned them. When challenging someone to lead a specific outreach, I suggest asking them to make 3 specific commitments:
        1.  Make this outreach happen and set the dates for the next year – in my church, I’ve just asked a couple to be in charge of making sure a pre-adoption education class happens twice a year.  They will go ahead and set those dates now.  It is much easier for busy people to make time to lead something that is happening 10 months from now than it is if it starts in 3 weeks.
        2.  You don’t have to be visible leader every time this outreach is executed but you are responsible to make sure there is one.  Let’s say one of your outreaches is to have 4 foster parent recruitment info meetings a year.  The outreach leader doesn’t have to lead all four of those meetings.  They just have to coordinate who will.
        3.   If you ever feel like you can no longer run point for this outreach, commit to recruiting someone to replace you.  Of course you will be available to help in this and will want to make sure people with healthy perspectives are taking the reins on things, but by doing this you are giving the outreaches of your orphans ministry their best chance for long-term sustainable impact.

Here are a few examples of different kinds of roles that individuals within your church could begin to own.  Some of these are specific outreaches we are now considering at our church:
            -adoptive and foster parent recruiter
            -pre-adoption education coordinator
            -orphan-centered short-term missions liaison
            -adoptive and foster parent support group coordinator
            -adoption assistance fund administrator
            -Orphan Sunday coordinator
            -Foster Care prayer vigil coordinator

I would also suggest that you get all of your outreach leaders together 2-3 times a year just to celebrate what God is doing in each area and to pray together for continued impact.

It sets your orphans ministry free

This whole idea scares some of you - especially those of you with really immaculate sock drawers.  It is hard to let go of some of the control.  I totally understand that.  However, I have also seen first-hand how trying lead a ministry with a few busy people bearing the entire load actually keeps ministry from happening.  Let me put that another way:  When we hold on too tightly to control of our orphans ministries, fewer kids are helped. 

I want to be clear – we don’t believe that there is one specific type of church orphans ministry leadership structure that will work for every church.  You know your people, your church infrastructure, and your church’s leadership dynamics better than anyone.  But this is one option to consider if you, like me, have ever wondered what your church orphans ministry could change in order to help more kiddos know the love of Jesus.

Adoption Tax Credit Extended and Increased