Children Are Waiting...

-
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27

A few weeks ago I came across this article about the crisis within the foster care system in Canada. I felt sad and I prayed. Then, this weekend, I went to the justice conference and one of our speakers asked a question. He pointed to the american foster care system and noted that there were more children needing care than foster parents to care for them. Then he asked the question: "Why, if the religion God finds pure and faultless is to care for widows and orphans, are there so many orphans in our country with no one to care for them? Why, in a nation with millions of Christians, are there children going uncared for and how can this make us look like anything but hypocrites?" And my mind flipped back to this article, and I realized that we in Canada are in the same place. Overcrowded, underfunded, and filled with marginalized children, our system looks the same. But where are the Christians who heed the words of James?

Dare we ask about the situation of the world as a whole? 

When will we take these words of scripture seriously? 

Several years ago at a youth conference my wife and I began sponsoring a chlid through Compassion. I don't know if you could be a foster parent, or adopt a child, or in some other way care for widows and orphans. Find a way. Somehow, obey this word from James. And as you do, seek to stretch to obey it more and more. One place to start is with sponsoring a child through an organization like Compassion. 

You could begin here, or you could begin with your local adoption agency (in B.C. go here) but whatever you do begin somewhere. 



Comments

Anonymous said…
Posted this on FB hopefully it works here. I want to encourage ppl to investigate local BC MCFD adoption. It is free, much quicker than over seas, incredible resources, and for the most part over looked. We have had an amazing experience working with the ministry and in actuality find that it is ppl's misperceptions that deter them from considering this type of adoption.
8:47 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty

-
Image
Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt , and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1995. 105 pgs. In this gem of a book Newbigin takes the reader on a journey away from the idea of Cartesian certainty and towards a more proper scaffolding for thought and belief. He denies the possibility of ideal certainty with no doubt and concludes that seeking this ideal can only to skepticism (of an extreme sort) and Nihilism. The thesis of this book might best best be stated as follows: the proper confidence of a Christian is not the possession of indubitable knowledge but the confidence of one who has heard and answered God's call of 'Follow me.' In order to demonstrate this point, Newbigin first examines three 'paths' whose titles, which are his first three chapter titles, seem somewhat counter-intuitive. In the first chapter, 'Faith as the Way to Knowledge,' Newbigin argues that if knowledge, and God, are ultim
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more