Join Woodlands Point Community Church’s group of 27 people and many other church groups who will be attending our upcoming conference in Austin, TX. You won’t find a better opportunity for a group from your church to consider together “The Gospel, the Church, and the Global Orphan Crisis.”

Our church discount is $69 per person for groups of 6 or more. Please contact brian.morgan@TogetherforAdoption.org for instructions on how to get our church group discount. Join us!

I have actually found that smaller churches are often more effective in caring for orphans before a watching world than larger churches are. In larger churches orphan care can simply become one ministry among many, many others. But in smaller churches orphan care is much more easily seen as an essential part of who they are and what they do. It’s not as easily obscured by a forest of other ministries. As a result, smaller churches have the opportunity to lead the way by more visibly demonstrating that orphan care is not a missional add-on.

Read the entire article.

Our breakout sessions are filling up quickly as well. Quite a few of them already have over 100 signed up to attend. If you plan on attending the conference, here are some breakouts that you should check out:

A Different Kind of Picture (Esther Havens). How easy is it to get wrapped up in a person’s circumstance and forget to engage in their story? Images have the capability to convey meaning, compel thought and create movement. In this session, we will discuss Humanitarian Photography and how we can be a voice for those who need to be heard. ~Session 1 (Oct. 1, 10:30 – 11:30 am)

Your Church and the Foster Child (Todd Nighswonger – as Executive Pastor at Cornerstone Church, Todd has enjoyed the privilege of serving alongside Francis Chan) ~Session 1 (Oct. 1, 10:30 – 11:30 am)

Honoring First Families (Troy and Tara Livesay). Whether you are simply considering adoption or have been an adoptive parent for many years, this session will help you relate to your child’s first family in healthy ways. We’ll examine positive language about birth-families and ways to build your child’s security as a member in your family. their first family, and God’s family. ~Session 3 (Oct. 1: from 4:00 – 5:00 pm)

Embryo Adoption and the Protection of Life (Laura Godwin, Nightlight Christian Adoptions). There are more than 500,000 embryos in storage. What is their future? Well, there are four options for these embryos: indefinite cryopreservation; objects of research resulting in destruction; destruction; or life. As we consider adoption, some will be called to adopt newborns, some to adopt children in orphanages around the world, and some to adopt waiting embryos. All life is precious in God’s eyes. Whatever our individual emphasis may be, let us stand together in protecting and preserving all life. If you are starting the adoption journey, you may want to consider your role in giving life to one of these embryos. Your adoption will just start earlier than most and you will get to experience pregnancy and the birth of your newborn infant. ~Session 3 (Oct. 1: from 4:00 – 5:00 pm)

How to help 100 orphans for the cost of 1 (Jim Ross, VisionTrust). This session will take a look at the reality of the current global orphan situation, what the statistics mean, and especially what they don’t mean. The session will conclude with practical examples of how large numbers of orphans have been cared for in both extremely life changing AND cost effective ways around the world. ~Session 3 (Oct. 1: from 4:00 – 5:00 pm)

Orphan Sunday: Grow Commitment to Orphans in Your Church and Community (Christian Alliance for Orphans). November 7, 2010 is Orphan Sunday. Churches, community groups, pastors, lay-leaders, and students across the country will harness this day to shine a spotlight on God’s mandate to care for the orphans, and what we can do in response. Locally-led events range from sermons and Sunday School classes to concerts, fundraisers and prayer gatherings. Taken together, hundreds of simple grassroots events will echo nationwide. How can you seize the opportunities presented byOrphan Sunday? Learn how people across the country are using this day to expand energy and engagement in their churches and organizations on behalf of orphans, and how the Christian Alliance for Orphans can help you develop yourown local activities. ~Session 4  (Oct. 2, 1:15 – 2:15 pm)

Digging Deeper into the Theology of Adoption for the Sake of Orphans (Dan Cruver and Jason Kovacs). There is much more to the theology of adoption than initially meets the eye. Join us as we explore the edges of some of the vast vistas of Scripture’s teaching on adoption and their implications for mobilizing the church for orphan care. ~Session 5  (Oct. 2: from 2:30 – 3:30 pm)

Night and Day Prayer for Justice (Randy and Kelsey Bohlender, The Zoe Foundation and International House of Prayer). How prayer and worship can impact a church’s effectiveness in justice ministry. ~Session 5  (Oct. 2: from 2:30 – 3:30 pm)

Encouragement to Keep-On-Keeping-On (Johnny Carr, Director of Church Partnerships forBethany Christian Services). Many people who have started Orphan Care and Adoption Ministries in their churches are burned out and discouraged. We will look at what Scripture has to say about casting your net one more time. ~Session 5  (Oct. 2: from 2:30 – 3:30 pm)

Mini-Breakout Track (only sessions 4-5) – Orphan Care Partnerships: Church-to-Church and Church-to-Community (Food for the Hungry)

Session 4 (October 2, 1:15 – 2:15 pm) James 1:27 in Full: Orphans, Widows, and Defacto Orphans – a groundbreaking, multi-year partnership between churches in Austin and a community in Ethiopia. Learn how one church has launched a $700,000 community-to-community partnership (in conjunction with 17 indigenous churches and Food for the Hungry International) to serve as “virtual foster parents” for 300 orphans living alone, to serve dying widows and their defacto orphans, and to promote indigenous adoption. Pre-read the partnership’s blog at www.zewayupdate.blogspot.com

Session 5 (October 2, 2:30 – 3:30 pm) Orphan Care as True Evangelism – a multi-year orphan care partnership has become a model for evangelism and spreading the Gospel in a predominantly Muslim area of Ethiopia. Learn how meeting the physical, emotional, and intellectual needs of orphans can lead to spiritual transformation, for the orphans and those around them. From mud hut painting, to grief and loss support groups, to building libraries, see the undefiled and pure religion of caring for orphans can bring people to Christ through.

I love to tell our adoption story when I preach. During the sermon, I show pictures taken within the first few hours of James meeting us. One shows me and James laughing heartily together. Another shows him taking a nap with his new mom. One shows him and his new brother wrestling on the bed, while another has him walking hand-in-hand with his new older brother and sister. We had much the same experience with our daughter Xiaoli’s adoption.

However, what the pictures do not show is the hurt, confusion, and emotional stress our adopted children endured. James was four years old when we adopted him, and Xiaoli was six. They were both old enough to understand that something major was happening but, since they are deaf, they had no way to understand adoption.

Even for the children who do have language, how do you describe adoption? How do you fight the rumors that circulate in the orphanages about what happens to adopted children? How do you prepare them for a family who might not look like them, smell like them, act like them, or use the same language? Every adoption story is accompanied by a story of grief and loss.

With that in mind, consider this: I think we should be very careful if we are trying to create a one-to-one relationship between our spiritual salvation and the earthly adoption of a child. Adoption is only one aspect of a person being born again.

Joel Beeke, author of Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption, writes that it is important to know that adoption is not regeneration, justification, or sanctification. If you have been regenerated, then you are justified, sanctified, and adopted. If you have been adopted, then you are regenerated, justified, and sanctified. You can’t have one without the other, but each plays a different role within the salvation experience.

When we are adopted into God’s family, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us. This is where the one-to-one relationship breaks down. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to know the mind of Christ through our salvation (1 Cor. 2:10-16). We are made into a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). When children are adopted, they receive a new family and the prospect for a new life, but they are not a new creation.

Adoption does not heal a child’s past. People often say that my adopted children are “lucky” to have been adopted. I know what they are trying to communicate, but they are not grasping the totality of what my children have lived through.

Recently I read an article by Catherine Olian, writer and former producer of 60 Minutes. This is part of what she wrote about her daughter who was adopted from Ukraine:

Outside our home, she behaved herself and charmed most everyone. She did take exception when adults told her she was “lucky”. In her blossoming English she would unhesitatingly respond, “Did you lose your first brother and sister? Did you grow up cold and hungry? Did you live two lives, in two different countries? No? Then you must be the lucky one.” I’ve yet to see anyone disagree with her.

The hurt and pain that adopted children bring with them are real. Here is how the orphan care and adoption ministry of the Church may become part of the solution.

In a Christian worldview, adoption is more than one family adopting a child. Adoption ministry needs to include families who cannot (or who are not called to) adopt—as they are able to provide support for the families who have. Adoption can be a difficult journey. Sometimes it takes the body of Christ working with the adoptive family to deal with many of the issues.

As this incredible wave of orphan care and adoption ministry continues to gain momentum in churches, we must make sure that we have a good theological understanding of adoption and a good practical understanding of adoption.

While I will continue to show the sweet pictures of our adoption journeys during my sermons, I will also take the time to educate families about the grief and loss that is always part of adoption. Healing can take place, and for many children, it starts with adoption…but it doesn’t end there—it never does.

[Johnny will be leading a breakout session at Together for Adoption "Encouragement to Keep-On-Keeping-On." See our breakout listing. Johnny's is a Session 5 breakout.]

A Home for Every Orphan is a partnership between ten Ukrainian, Russian and American Christian orphancare organizations who are spearheading a nationally led initiative supporting adoption and foster care by believers within their own countries. To give you perspective, the Ukraine and Russia, share over 4 million orphans.

Through this initiative, in the last 2 years over 1000 orphans have been placed in Ukrainian and Russian Christian homes! Glory to God!

I have been encouraged to hear others talking about this as well. And it is happening – the highlight for me at Summit VI was the testimony of an Ukranian pastor who shared how God gripped his heart for the orphans in his own country and how he was led to adopt a child. He is now leading a movement of other pastors to mobilize the Ukranian church to adopt the orphans in their country. Not only that, they are now going to Russia to encourage pastors there to do the same!

Along with the Ukraine, there are movements in the US, Australia, and Sweden that are gaining momentum to see every waiting child adopted. God is moving in the hearts of His people! Let us join together in praying that this kind of movement would be sparked within every country in the world where orphans exist.

God is big. He can do it. He cares more about the orphan than all of us put together!

Mattias will be attending our upcoming conference in Austin. He has a long trip ahead of him! If you’ll be at the conference, make sure you look him up. Learn from him about what God is doing in Sweden in the area of orphan care and adoption ministry. Here’s Mattias’ letter:

Why the Together for Adoption conference is important for Europe and especially Sweden.

There are three important things that make Together for Adoption and your orphan and adoption ministry a good example for Europe and Sweden’s Christian.

1. You preach it

2. You believe it

3. You do it

In many Christian contexts in Europe and in Sweden they do not preach about it, there is no teaching of God’s plan for the orphans or adoption. That is why so many Christians adopt without knowing what the Bible says.

One reason is that the word adoption is not in our translations. It says: to raise as their own. But not many know that it means adoption. It is learned only in the adoption courses. In the English translation, it is clear what it is all about and that it is part of God’s plan.

It is so clear that your commitment to orphan care and adoption is based on biblical ground, actions and commitment to God. There is also thorough and professional in many aspects.

America’s churches have for centuries influenced the churches in Europe and Sweden. Not least in the baptism and the Pentecostal revival. Sweden has since then spread the gospel to most of Latin America for example. The gospel had a ripple effect.

My wish and prayer is that Togheter for Adopting conference and your church orphan and adoption ministry shall create a positive effect for many people, that your work will have ripple effect even to Europe and Sweden.

Your faith, and practical work is a good example for Christians in Sweden to see the work for orphans and adoption from a Christian perspective, by God’s Word, through Jesus Christ.

Therefore, we follow each week, good examples so we can be good example! It is not models we need, that is not organization we need. We need to see children in need and children without parents, through the faith in Jesus Christ and through God’s love!

I look forward to seeing you all in Austin!
Best regards

Mattias Abom
Director for Sweden’s first orphan and adoption ministry

”Change Children’s life!”
www.twitter.com/MattiasAbom
www.himmelskaadoptioner.se/En/Home.html

If you are a pastor who has registered for our upcoming conference, we’d like to give you a free copy of each of the books listed below. To receive your free copies you must be one of the first 50 pastors to send an email to books@TogetherforAdoption.org (put “Registered / Free Books” in the Subject line). The first 50 pastors to send an email in will receive their books when they check in for the conference on October 1st.

Surprise by Grace by Tullian Tchividjian
Rescuing Ambition by Dave Harvey
Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt
Adopted for Life by Russell Moore
Introverts in the Church by Adam McHugh
Priceless by Tom Davis

If you haven’t registered yet, do so ASAP and send that email in!

If you haven’t yet heard, our pre-conference event is with Dr. Karyn Purvis and Michael and Amy Monroe. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with Empowered To Connect to present this Pre-Conference workshop on Thursday, September 30, 2010 in Austin, Texas.

Please help us spread the word about these two events through facebook, Twitter, email, and your blog. If you are on facebook, join our T4A facebook group and invite your friends to do the same.

We hope to see you in October!

The Together for Adoption Team

“The ultimate content of family nurture in this tradition is in order that our own children in faith have front and center in their vision the protection of orphans, a concern that is defining for faith. Family nurture in this tradition cannot be a narrow little enterprise about purity and safety; rather, it concerns inculcation into the peculiar ethical patterns of our faith.”

Read the entire post.

If I had known what amazing things we would learn and experience through the course of our adoptions and sharing our lives with our adopted children – I never would have hesitated for a second.

I did not know, however, and I did hesitate.

One of the reasons I held back was that I shared a common misconception and fear with many others who have considered adoption – the idea that an adopted child might not be as loved or cherished as a biological child. Before I say another word (and if this is the only thing I said about the matter) let me say this – ridiculous and completely untrue.

The feelings of love and attachment I have for Isaac, Hope, and Phoebe are no different than what I feel towards Brittany, Paige, Noah, or Lydia. Each one of them is an absolute miracle and testament to God’s power, beauty, creativity, and grace. I am blessed and humbled and thrilled that I get to fill in as earthly father for each of them.

The miracle of birth is no more amazing to me than the miracles I witnessed as God led us to adopt, and the miracles that resulted in placing these children in our family.

• It was miraculous how God revealed the needs of waiting children in Haiti and around the world to us.
• It is miraculous how our hearts have been changed by the adoption experience.
• It is miraculous that we have learned so much and understand so much more about our world and our relationship with our Heavenly Father because of adoption.
• It is miraculous that God turned my selfish desire to have a son into something so beautiful and life-changing.
• It was miraculous how God provided financially for our adoptions.
• It was miraculous that our son was standing up in his crib with arms wide open and smile beaming at us when we arrived at his orphanage in Port au Prince the first time.
• It is miraculous that these adoptions ever get completed in the face of powers and principalities that are in the control of the enemy who desires to crush these precious children.
• It is miraculous how God can impart His supernatural and transcending love to us and empower us to share it with others.

This list could go on forever – because God is real and God is still doing miracles.

You will experience miracles in your life if you enter into His plan and desire to be a ‘father to the fatherless’ (Psalm 68:5), ‘defend the cause of orphans’ (Isaiah 1:17), and ‘care for orphans in distress’ (James 1:27). This is God’s heart for the lost and lonely children of the world. This is His desire for us who have been adopted into His family – that we in turn would show the same grace and love for the lost in this world that He showed to us.

Adoption is one part of reaching this lost world for Christ. In our experience, it was instrumental in opening our eyes to countless other ways that we have changed and grown in order to be more fully involved in the advancement of God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Our adopted children make this family complete. They have helped us all understand our place in God’s family better, and reminded us how fragile and broken our relationships and lives here on earth are without God’s saving grace and power. They are a daily reminder of God’s love and care for us. Thank you God, and thank you Isaac, Hope, and Phoebe.

20,000 people gathered for TheCall Kansas City on December 31, 2007 – a day of repentance on behalf of our nation. During that season, I was giving direction to TheCall’s events, so I stood backstage helping manage stage traffic.

On stage, worship leader Jason Upton led the crowd in a song he’d written that highlights the unique adoptive relationship with have with God. Though there are several verses, it’s the chorus that brought the crowd to a crescendo. For twenty minutes, first with the band, and then no musical accompaniment at all, the 20,000 lifted their voices singing, “Sons and daughters of the living God…Sons and daughters of the living God.”

No matter what is happening onstage during TheCall, the backstage area is a beehive of activity. Radios crackle, equipment is moved, and people mill around waiting to go on stage or having just come off. For most of those twenty minutes, though, almost all activity ceased. It was as if the physical world was tentative of interrupting the Spirit.

As the crowd sang the refrain over and over, ”Sons and daughters of the living God…” I listened through the black fabric stage backdrop. TheCall has known some historic moments with larger crowds in more epic venues, but no moment has ever matched the enthusiasm that seemed to come out of the very depths of those gathered in that crowded event hall. They sang unreservedly the one lyric illustrating all they ever wanted: to be a son or a daughter of the living God.

Romans 8:22-23: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”

Believers all anxiously await the finalization of their own adoption into the family of God. That’s not to downplay what He’s done in redeeming us thus far. Becoming a child of God is an instantaneous work of grace, but many still struggle with identity, a propensity to sin, and a tendency to reflect the nature with which we were born. We are fully saved and yet there is an element of finalization that we long for. That longing is reflective of an inward knowledge of a coming age.

There is a day coming when our process of adoption comes to a grand finale. The book of Revelation speaks of the great Day of the Lord when all history culminates in the coming of the King. He is coming to bring justice to the earth and in a very real sense, to finalize the adoption He initiated in our hearts. Our adoption finalization is marked by our receiving a new name that only God knows to call us because only God can see what we shall be on that day.

Though we long for this finalization, we still struggling with the dichotomy of knowing we are a son or daughter of God while still legally being a resident of the current age. We know the love of the Father, but we process it through an identity of one who remembers too much pain and sorrow to fully comprehend what has happened to us through adoption. On that day when the King returns, we will no longer be known as lonely, frightened, angry or defeated. Isaiah 25:8 prophecies of a day when He will wipe away every tear and make all things right.

Much has been made of the idea of “going to heaven”. As children, we were never given a lot of details but assumed it involved some harp playing and cloud riding. We smiled and pretended to be excited. Inwardly, we wondered, “Is that all there is?” It’s not. There is more.

This idea of escaping to a cloud sells short the full plan of God, which is not that we all go to heaven, but rather that heaven comes to earth. Ephesians 1:9-10 promises that He’ll make known to us the mystery of His will, which will come into fulfillment as He “brings all things in heaven and on earth together under one head even Christ.” Romans 8:17 goes on to say, “If we are His children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”

He’s not making a way for us to escape this realm, He’s preparing to reign over the nations and invites us to join Him! He will rule the earth in righteousness and justice and we will serve at His side.

As we all wait for that day, adoption in the natural is an act of Kingdom prophecy. With each movement of the heart, faithfully committing to give a child a home, a family and a future, we prophesy what God has done for us. Adoption prophesies life, love, eternity and the Kingdom of God. The God of all creation is looking for those who will be a part of this movement and prophesy about a good Father to all the world.

Troy as the Dean of Students, was doing as he commonly did, picking up future students of this small Bible College in Los Angeles from the airport and showing them around town and the campus. He showed me the dorms, the chapel, the good places to eat, and we wrapped up our time together that weekend in his office just talking about life. Troy shared with me his story, that he was adopted at birth to some amazing parents that were missionaries in Australia.

It was September 7, 1961 that Troy was born to a young mother in Snyder, Texas, and because of the closed adoption he doesn’t know much more than that about his fraternal parents. Simultaneously to this woman’s pregnancy, a young couple had battled several miscarriages and were urged by a local pastor in Snyder to consider adoption – particularly the adoption of Troy. They quickly realized that this was their “gift from God.”

Today, Troy puts it in his own words, “They were his gift from God.” Troy explained to me in a recent interview that he never went through rejection, he was accepted as the only child bearing now the family name, “Matthews.” The places God has taken him are nothing short of amazing and could only be God-purposed. From the age of 8, he was in Australia, learning the heart of ministry serving along side his parents missionary work.  It was there he realized his calling in life to educate the future generations. He pursued an undergrad degree at Baptist Bible College in Missouri and shortly after graduation, he married. Continuing his education, he received a masters from Liberty University, and a doctorate degree from Argosy University.

God moved Troy and his family from teaching in Australia, to teaching in Southern California, to now Professorship at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia – which is recognized as the world’s largest and fastest growing evangelical school in the world. Dr. Matthews is now a professor of “Contemporary Issues”, a course required by all majors at Liberty. The subject matter directly approaches one’s world view – affirming a Biblical world view and also applying it. Topics such as adoption, abortion, and a Christian’s moral responsibility to such topics and understanding of absolute truth’s found in Scripture. These courses are designed to affirm a believers responsibility to the world around them.

I asked Dr. Matthews, what excited him about being a professor, he quickly responded, “The potential to change the world…what a privilege to influence students and enhance their relationship with Christ. I can be a champion, and I can reinvest in others to be young champions as well. – just as I was invested in.”

I had the distinct privilege of telling Dr. Matthews over the phone, “thank you for investing in me.” His story has encouraged me to go into the highways and byways proclaiming the good news, who knows what is still to come…
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As the T4A Conference Coordinator, I’m praying that God raises up the next generation’s leader, by challenging and encouraging parents to continue to step out in faith, invest greatly and anticipate God to work out the details in their adoption process. Every precious child has a purpose in this vast world, what will your role be in making that a reality?

Attend the National Conference this October 1st and 2nd, and let God work through you.