A Culture of Adoption in Your Church

Jason Kovacs:

Today, around the country, churches of all denominations are taking serious God’s call to care for the fatherless and starting orphan care and adoption ministries. This is very exciting – for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the millions of children that are waiting for a family, and for these churches!

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.

Read the rest to see how he fleshes this out.