Becoming an Adoption-Friendly Church

By CP Guest Contributor, Sunday, February 21, 2010

14. Create email list serves of adoptive parents for support and encouragement. The adoption process can run the roller coaster of emotions. Staying connected by email can prove helpful especially when the couple needs a timely word of encouragement.

15. Connect with local social service agencies. Most every county and parish has child welfare programs and foster care programs that Christians should be involved. Many times there is financial assistance for those families who are foster parents or are in foster-adopt programs.

16. Utilize attorneys or case workers within the church family. There may be lawyers specializing in family law that would be willing to donate their time and expertise to assist a church family with the legal documents for the adoption. This provides peace of mind to the adoptive couple knowing their legal expert is a Christian attorney. The financial savings resulting from the pro bono work could be significant.

17. Sponsor a child. Support EBM's Bethesda Outreach's ministry to AIDS orphans in South Africa. Find a ministry of like faith that you know and trust - encourage others to do what they can to pray for and financially support orphan and adoption ministries.

18. Participate in mission trips to orphanages abroad. What better way to raise awareness for adoption than to experience the desperate living conditions of so many children worldwide.

19. Maximize special holidays to emphasize adoption. There needs to be sensitivity and discernment in the way it is presented, but Mother's Day (and even Father's Day) can be an ideal service to raise awareness of adoption. A special offering could be collected for an adoptive couple. An adopted child or adoptive parent could give testimony to God's gift of a family to them. The annual Sanctity of Life day is observed the third Sunday each January. This can be a poignant reminder to the church of the devastation of abortion, yet a powerful prompting for the church to become an adoption-friendly church.

20. Celebrate adoption as a church family. Affirm those who pray and encourage others to adopt. Praise those who give financially to adoptive parents. Celebrate the living object lesson of Ephesians 1:3-6.

Adoption is the ultimate expression and outworking of loving the modern day orphan. While not every Christian will be led by God to adopt, the church can and should do what it can to encourage and facilitate adoption. How will you and your church live out James 1:27? Will you help your church be an adoption-friendly church?