Reactivate the Family

In 2009, my husband and I began a journey that ended up with us bringing two little foster daughters into our home in December. We had wrestled with knowing that's where God was leading but it was that fanatical freak Francis Chan at Orange '09 (my fave) that finally brought us to the edge of the cliff and incited us to jump. And through the process we found out something incredibly intriguing: our state's Department of Human Services is turning a shade of Orange too. When I pictured being a foster family I thought mostly of showing a child the love of Christ while they were in our home. But the state is now training the next generation of what they call Bridge Resource Families. We are a resource for the birth parents, not just the kids. We are a part of the team that helps love and train and support their journey to be able to reunite with their kids.

So this element of Orange is something I need to learn from personally right now. When I flip through this chapter in Reggie Joiner's book Think Orange, I see just tremendous challenges to all of us involved in ministering to families, whether it's with the megaphone of my role in my church or the whisper of new relationship with my girls' birth mom one-on-one. Here are the headings that really punched me in the face. Just let them sink in.

Act like every parent is your partner.
Act like every parent can be a better parent.
Act like every parent will do something.
Act like every parent you meet is coming to your church on Sunday.

You know what? If you had been a fly on the wall in all of the planning meetings I've been in for the last six years, other than being completely exhausted, you would have overheard all kinds of closed door talk that didn't line up with these statement. And really, I'm not just saying I'm two-faced, I didn't honestly want to act like those statements were true because I didn't really believe them.

But after sitting in a Human Services Center conference room on Friday across the table from a case worker and a woman who had her kids taken from her home, I realized that I really do believe those statements now. Against all odds, this poor woman with the deck stacked against her, who was raised by a foster mother herself, asked if we would come get her and take her to church with us so she could, "Learn about God and stuff with her kids. That's what we really need."

There is always hope because there is always a Savior at work interceding for the hearts of every family. No matter what families God has brought through your doors, He is at work in them and through them. He chose them to be the most influential voice in the next generation. So we must believe in His plan. We can never give up hope for the family. And more than that, we need to act like we believe that every parent has the potential to raise a houseful of zealots.