There are many reasons! Let me give you a few:
- Foster/Adoption is working upstream of possibly every other social issue we have. Homelessness, drug addiction, child abuse and neglect, etc. Children who age out of foster care or who have abusive experiences while they are in foster care are far more likely to repeat that cycle when they are older. The Church has an opportunity to be light in their world now, and in doing so we may prevent a significant amount of those problems in the future for these children.
- Families that serve kids and their communities in this way are living out their faith, and it will forever change the way they see their faith, their communities, their churches, and themselves. People who step out in faith in big ways such as this will grow.
- The Church is the place where strong families ought to be found. We should be the families who have the most to offer our world. If we do not take up the cause of the fatherless, who does that leave to do it?
- This is not about adding an additional burden to ministry teams or pastors. We are not founding a new organization that will need a board of directors, monthly meetings, and fund-raising. This is simply the church cooperatively talking about an issue and helping our people understand how to get involved.
- This is about as good a chance to work together with other churches as we are going to get. This is a non-threatening, non-theologically divisive issue
- Kids Belong is entirely local. This is about local churches connecting local families to local needs.
- Finally, because it is Biblical! This isn’t a theme that you have to work hard to find in the Bible, it is all over the pages of scripture from beginning to end. An extremely brief summary:
- The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Lev 19:34 NIV)
- learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. (Isa 1:17 NIV)
- For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will (Eph 1:4-5 NIV)
- Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (Jam 1:27 NIV)