Orphan Care and the Great Commission Resurgence
— Friday, June 26th, 2009 —
On Wednesday of this week, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted my resolution “On Adoption and Orphan Care,” while my sons stood on the platform watching. It was one of the most emotionally weighty experiences of my life.
The resolution by itself isn’t going to spark an orphan care movement among Southern Baptists. Neither is my book, and neither are a thousand manifestoes. Only the Holy Spirit can do that as local churches start to embrace a vision for orphan care.
The resolution though was meant to prompt some questions. If one messenger in the Convention hall is moved to simply pray, “Lord, how would you have me minister to orphans?” then the resolution is a success, in my view. If one pastor is prompted to ponder how he could preach on adoption, or lead a foster care ministry among his folks, then the work is starting.
I was overwhelmed with emotion on the platform to see my sons, two little ex-orphans, looking out on a sea of yellow ballots as thousands of Southern Baptists affirmed that we want to be the people who love fatherless children. I realized that, in an alternative story, my boys would still be in an orphanage, not knowing even the name of Christ Jesus. But here they are, at the Southern Baptist Convention, calling by their very presence the world’s largest Protestant denomination to recognize there are hundreds of thousands of children as helpless and alone as they once were.
There’s a long way to go. Literally one day after the resolution vote, I received correspondence from an employee of a Baptist agency saying that adoption and orphan care doesn’t fit under the “umbrella” of “evangelism and missions.” Tell that to the thousands of Southern Baptist children who know Christ today because they are growing up in Christian homes, rather than in institutions or on the streets. And tell it to Jesus who says something very different to us (James 1:27). A Great Commission Resurgence will mean moving beyond short-sighted definitions of “evangelism and missions” as rallies and revivals.
But something is afoot among Christian families and churches of virtually every kind. God is calling the people of Christ to see the face of Jesus in the faces of orphans in North America and around the world. Southern Baptists have affirmed our belief in the authority of Scripture, and the Bible tells us pure religion is defined by care for the fatherless.
We’ve been defined by our commitment to evangelism, and there is no greater field as “white unto harvest” right now as children in orphanages, group homes, and the foster care system, children who don’t know a parent’s love and who don’t know the name of Jesus.
When Satan wars against children, we should be the ones who have compassion on them, even as Jesus did and does.
My prayer is that twenty years from now there are thousands of Southern Baptist pastors, missionaries, and church leaders who started their lives as orphans, now preaching the gospel of God their Father.
Amen Dr. Moore! I was blown away by seeing your sons and the accompanying video. I pray my family will be able to adopt soon.
@Jon akin, Thank you Jon. You are a great blessing to me. I am so glad to see the gifts and the heart God has given you.
I was very encouraged to see our messengers move to adopt the resolution you proposed. If, as some may claim, adoption and orphan care don’t fit under the “umbrella” of missions and evangelism, then the last dozen or so verses of Matthew 25 are irrelevant. I share your desire to see today’s orphans become adopted into Christian homes and preaching the Gospel in the future.
@Ed Goodman, Matthew 25 seems to get skewed all sorts of ways these days. You are exactly right. Let’s pray for a surge of conviction and passion for orphans to come to know God the Father through our Brother the Lord Christ!
Certainly adoption and orphan care are spiritual concerns worthy of SBC attention. (James 1:27) However, we missed an opportunity to speak to a great many other issues. This narrow focus resulted in few resolutions of substance being passed, with most of them simply expressing appreciation and other similar formalities. Our usual prophetic voice speaking to a nation in moral decline was lacking this year.
@Rick Patrick, I couldn’t disagree with you more on this one. I thought this year’s resolutions were a perfect balance of prophetic voice and compassionate presence. There are always “appreciation” resolutions. What was missing this year was shrillness. I think that is welcome.
Yes, there are always “appreciation” resolutions, and yes, we have at times sounded too harsh. Like you, I welcome a more civil tone. However, I pray we will not reduce the breadth of our concerns only to the blandest of items no one could reasonably oppose. What next? Care for the Elderly? Love for Motherhood? Thanks to Orlando? We can be civil in tone while speaking the truth in love regarding the important controversies of our day. Too much truth crying out to be spoken on too many issues was simply left on the table. Still, I am glad the resolution on orphan care passed. May God use it to bring light to this issue and glorify His Name.
@Rick Patrick, Rick, I hardly think that was the case this year. The resolution on President Obama spoke prophetically against the kind of Jim Crow racism (including in our own ranks) that once made the election of an African-American president impossible. At the same time, it denounced President Obama’s unjust policies against the unborn. A resolution on human sexuality took on every possible issue from marriage to ENDA and beyond. I, for one, would welcome a resolution on “Care for the Elderly” since Southern Baptists, as well as others, are abandoning and marginalizing the elderly in large numbers even as a secularizing culture would love to see the “useless” old institutionalized or euthanized. It’s those things that seem “obvious,” I think, while being ignored, that are the most in need of saying.
I just wanted to encourage you by telling you I recently used a portion of your book in a sermon and that my wife and I are now pursuing adoption.
@Chad Vegas, Praise the Lord! I prayed this morning for you, your wife, and your future child(ren)! You will be blessed beyond measure.
Dr. Moore,
My wife and I are in the process of adopting from Rwanda and have been very encouraged by your book on the subject. I am thankful for the resolution and am joining you in prayer for a vision of 20 years from now.
Blessings,
Chase Bowers
Global Outreach Pastor
Temple Bible Church
@Chase Bowers, God’s blessings to you. I pray God opens many, many opportunities for the church to care for orphans in Rwanda. I pray for your child’s early conversion and for your blessing!
Dr. Moore I want you to know my wife has been talking about adopting for some time so I ordered your book before I left for the convention. I have not studied the topic and decided I would at least do some research on my own(I didn’t tell my wife I purchased the book). My wife went with me to the convention and we were both moved to tears over the resolution and presentation. Upon arriving back in NC the book had arrived and notified my wife and I’m prayerfully considering adoption and will be starting the book soon. So your hopes for the resolution have come to pass in my household. I am the pastor of our church and we currently have 4 children. I’m not sure what God has in store for us but we are willing to surrender to His sovereign plan. Blessings to you and your family.
@Martie Mangum, that is awesome! Praise God!
@Martie Mangum, I praise God for this message. Take it from me, you will never, never regret moving in this direction. I pray there’s an extra stocking on your mantle this Christmas!
Dr. Moore,
My name is Tracy Pace. My husband is pastor of a Southern Baptist Church here in MS. I just wanted to say…AMEN! Thank you so very much for your resolution and your heart for adoption. After our return from China in 2005 with our daughter, I was so eager to share how God had used this 9 month old little girl to radically change my life. I also wanted to draw attention to this message in our churches and denomination but felt so helpless! You have so eloquently challenged us as a Convention to do what God has called ALL of us to do. After years of trying to start a family, many procedures and empty promises from doctors, we were moved by the Holy Spirit in a profound way to adopt from China. Just as sure as God changed me from a sinner to a saint, God changed my heart. HE IS ABLE! God chose to bless us again with our now almost 2 year old biological daughter while we were in the midst of our 2nd adoption. We know that God will put us back in China again soon as we feel His hand guiding again toward adoption. There are MANY families in our churches who long for children and they need to know God has a plan for them! There are also families who would love to share the burden of finances if they only knew of the need! I am battling on the front lines along with you to share the Good News that God will provide! By the way, my “to do list” this week consists of reading your book…. I apologize for such a long post but wanted to say how thankful I am for your ministry and support. May God bless you richly!
@Tracy Pace, Tracy, I appreciate that greatly! May God bless you and your family. I am glad to know about orphan care advocates in churches in my home state!
Dr. Moore,
You spoke at a Naomi’s Fund event and I was greatly encouraged by your passion for adoption and involving the church. My husband and I have were given the beautiful opportunity to adopt through others’ generosity with Naomi’s Fund. In your resolution you spoke of commending the ministries who provide financial resources for adoption and without Naomi’s Fund we would not have been able to return this week with our beautiful daughter from Ethiopia. We praise God for such a miraculous work in our lives and may God bless those who give generously to make the orphans “ex-orphans.”
@Hollie Colwick, Naomi’s Fund is a phenomenal project. I am behind it wholeheartedly! I pray churches all over the country would “plagiarize” the idea! RDM
My wife and I have been planning to adopt for some time now, but it has always been something we’d do “in the future.” The Lord has used your book to give us an even greater burden for these children, and we have recently decided to pursue adoption from Ethiopia! Thank you for shining light on this issue.
@Nick Hunn, Praise the Lord! I’m praying your child/ren will be with you before the year’s out.
Mr. Moore - I’ve not been able to read your book unfortunately although have glanced at it - what is your position on singles adopting children? This is the big elephant in the middle of the room in terms of the whole Christian adoption movement and I am amazed at how many folks refuse to take a position or comment on it. Many others quietly oppose singles adopting children and refuse to support those who do so I’m wondering what your slant is
@Julia Duin, Please forgive me for taking so long to respond. I’ve been out of town without computer access. I talk about single adoption in the book and would be glad to send you a copy, if you’ll email me your address to rmoore at sbts dot edu
Thank you for bringing this to the forefront. I posted this response on my website.
I applaud Russell Moore’s 33 Responses to “On Adoption and Orphan Care: A Proposed
Resolution.”
Jesus said in John 14:18, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” According to the U.N., there are approximately 145 million orphans in the world today.
Can we be like Jesus, opening our beating hearts and stretching our empty arms across the oceans to help destitute orphans who need our love? Can we risk a little to sacrificially give these little ones the knowledge of the Real Hope Giver? Can we love until it hurts? Can we remove ourselves from our comfort zone of blackberries, iPhones, plasma TV screens, and Starbucks Lattes to feel an orphan’s pain and hear her stifled cries for love? If only for a moment, can we enter into the presence of God and allow Him to stir our hearts and move us in ways not our own?
But for the grace of God, go I. Without Jesus, we are all orphans. Let’s show the world that Christians are indeed known by their love—enough to change the world one life at a time.
Pray how God would lead you. Pray that He would prompt you to open your wallet. Pray that He would show you how to get involved. Let Him touch your heart as He whispers to your soul. Someday, when you stand before the Heavenly Father’s throne, when all else has been left behind but the souls for which Jesus died, you will be able to say, “I surrendered my heart and mind to the endless possibilities You gave me, Lord Jesus. I saved one child out of hopelessness, just as You saved me.”
Don let it be, if only.
@Lorilyn Roberts, Amen!
I wanted to applaud the SBC for realizing the church’s obligation to care for those who have no parents. The other side of this is that there are many Christian families, like ours, who have been approved to adopt, are willing to take older, minority, behavior/development challenged children, and are still waiting after many months. Sadly, some have even given up due to the long waiting period, even though there are many children in the “system”. Adopting from foster care is a ministry that requires patience and faith and dependence upon the Lord’s timing, as well as a certain level of tolerance for working with the overburdened, overwhelmed caseworkers and adoption coordinators. Yes, there is a need for more families, but we also need some type of system that says once a family is approved and can provide a good, stable, Christian home, those children who are waiting for forever families need to be able to go HOME as soon as possible. Often, there are more requirements for an adoptive placement than would ever be imposed upon a birth family. We are praying for these issues as we continue to wait for the child/children the Lord would add to our family.
Blessings to you.
Great Resolution Russ. One of the finest I’ve seen coming from the SBC ever. Are you familiar with Children’s Hopechest (and author/speaker C Thomas Davis)? Their vision is for a Million Orphan Army of Evangelist someday in Africa. I withdrew from IMB consideration when I was told there were essentially no jobs in Eastern Europe (or anywhere else) working with Orphans.
Mr. Moore - I got your book and only found one sentence - on page 101 - that dealt with singles. You said they should pray to be married first. With ratios of single women to men as high as 5:1 in many churches, you must know how impossible that is for many Christian women who vastly outnumber the men. What is your response to these women; that they should just wither up in a corner somewhere and resign themselves to never having a family? Are you saying that merely being single disqualifies one from being a parent? That would have disqualified Jesus’ mother, Mary, as Joseph is believed to have died some time in Jesus’ teens or early 20s.
If this is what you believe, you need to come out and say it.