Evangelicals and the Foster Care System

Evangelicals are called to foster a culture of life. Within the pro-life movement we celebrate life by working to end the destruction of unborn babies. We advocate the care of vulnerable expectant mothers and highlight adoption as the compassionate alternative to abortion. But in our passionate efforts to advocate adoption, might we forget to mention foster care?

Last year, 265,000 children entered foster care systems across the United States, reported the Children’s Bureau, a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As of October 2014, a total of 415,000 children were counted in foster care. For Evangelicals, this data represents a mission field of kids abandoned and abused in desperate need of spiritual, physical, and emotional nurturing.

“If any child needs to experience unconditional love, it is a child in foster care,” said Mark Upton, an Evangelical Christian and Christian Family Care Agency President and CEO. “Who best to provide that care than a Christian who knows personally the unconditional love of Jesus Christ?”

After encountering a 12-year-old boy who experienced abuse in and out of foster homes, Upton made it his ministry to equip Christian couples to share the love of Christ “by providing temporary care to children who have experienced the impact of neglect, trauma, and abuse.”

I met Upton and his wife Lorraine at the World Congress of Families IX, a global gathering of experts, activists, and students promoting the natural family. Over breakfast, Upton explained to me how long-term and short-term foster care acts as a launching pad for the Church. “Christians are exhorted in James 1:27 to care for the orphan and to serve those who are considered the ‘least of these’ [Matthew 25:40] – the abused, abandoned and neglected children and distressed families,” he said. “At one time in America the church was the leader in caring for children and families in crisis. What happened, we abdicated that role to the government.”

Also sitting at our breakfast table was Warren Cole Smith, Colson Center Vice President of Mission Advancement. Smith pointed me towards Baylor Professor Rodney Stark’s book entitled, “The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries.”  In his book, Starks attributes the numerical and sustainable growth of the Church to Christianity’s ethical guidelines prompting Christians to share the Good News through charitable social services to the poor, widows, and orphans.

“I believe the foster care system represents a huge – and under-utilized – opportunity for the church to serve,” Smith shared. He and his wife provide “respite care,” which is short-term relief child care for long-term foster families.

Evangelicals have big hearts and do seek to serve. For us, faithfully following Christ means following his example and caring for those in need. Complicating things, however, is our inherent desires to prioritize our own concerns above those of foster children. Perhaps our biggest pitfall when it comes to foster care parenting is fear of heartbreak.

As I have thought deeply through Evangelicals engaging the foster care system, I’ve been convicted by my own reluctances to seek training and certification. I fear becoming attached to the children I will nurture to the best of my abilities and then feel grief and loss when those children are taken from me and, prayerfully, adopted into a permanent home.

Despite my sensitivities, these worries are self-centered instead of child-centered.

The Holy Spirit convicted me further during this morning devotion, when I read Romans 15:1-3 instructions, “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. For even Christ did not please Himself…”

“Did you know that if every church in America opened their heart and home to just one or two foster children, every child in foster care could discover the love of a Christ-centered family,” Upton asked me last week.

What a marvelous mental image! The Church changing America’s trajectory of self-destruction by acting selfless, opening our homes and hearts, and demonstrating the love of our Heavenly Father.

Christian Family Care Agency is currently working with over 50 Evangelical churches, Upton reports, to implement foster care outreach ministries and prevention care services to at-risk families. You can learn more and get involved in Christian Family Care Agency’s foster care ministry at www.cfcare.org and www.connectonenow.org.