Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is advocating transracial adoption on his blog (http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=1504). Here is a small sample of what he is saying:
"Given the vast number of at-risk orphans in the world--now numbering in the millions--this resurgence in adoption among American evangelicals should be a matter of public celebration. In the United States, 127,000 children are considered 'unadoptable,' and many of these are racial minorities. Shouldn't the adoption of these children be a priority for the church?"
Although I don't expect public celebration (as Dr. Mohler explains in his post, some social workers are pushing segregation of the races), I agree with Dr. Mohler that Christians should consider it a priority to care for children who need homes, no matter the racial background of the children or the parents. Dr. Mohler has been a consistent supporter of adoption, racial harmony, and biblical ethics.
(I need to credit Adam Faughn at http://www.faughnblog.blogspot.com/ for pointing me toward Albert Mohler's blog post. Thanks, Adam!)
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
A Challenge for Labor Day
"'So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,' says the LORD Almighty" (Malachi 3:5).
I had intended to write an encouraging post about Labor Day for this weekend. I was searching the Internet, looking for a good story about Christians who had made a positive difference for people who were laboring under oppressive conditions. When I stumbled across the historical documents at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/race/haymes41.html, I was disturbed by what I read.
I discovered the story of a white minister who had married a Hispanic woman in the 1960s. They were serving a community of Hispanic farm workers in south Texas when the young minister became aware of the injustices faced by his fellow Christians on the job. Trying to make a difference for the people he was seeing mistreated, he joined a labor union's march to increase wages for the farm workers. Leaders from a church that supported his outreach to the Spanish-speaking world were upset that he would participate in an event organized by a labor union. As a result, he was ordered to stop trying to help improve the living conditions of the Hispanic workers. He perceived it to be his duty as a human being to help the people who were struggling. Eventually, he lost the support of the large and influential congregation; his wife was driven to suicide; and he became a skeptic who rejected the miraculous accounts found in the Bible.
In my previous two posts, I called on Christians to respect the poor, the unhealthy, and the uneducated because it reflects the heart of God. In this story, I discovered a principle I did not expect to find: If we disrespect the poor and turn away from them when they are mistreated, we are harming people emotionally and spiritually. In significant ways, Christians (and especially Christian leaders) represent God to the world around them. When people are expecting God to be a God of compassion and justice, but they see uncaring Christians who either side with injustice or are blind to injustice, they can be devastated. Emotional barriers can be erected which may never come down.
If believers can be men and women of compassion and justice, God will be honored. Barriers to faith will not be built. Perhaps they will even be removed. Perhaps healing will begin in the lives of the oppressed, and in the lives of other decent people who have witnessed wrongdoing but who have never seen the people of God help in any meaningful way. Let's honor God by caring for people who are hurting and disrespected.
I had intended to write an encouraging post about Labor Day for this weekend. I was searching the Internet, looking for a good story about Christians who had made a positive difference for people who were laboring under oppressive conditions. When I stumbled across the historical documents at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/race/haymes41.html, I was disturbed by what I read.
I discovered the story of a white minister who had married a Hispanic woman in the 1960s. They were serving a community of Hispanic farm workers in south Texas when the young minister became aware of the injustices faced by his fellow Christians on the job. Trying to make a difference for the people he was seeing mistreated, he joined a labor union's march to increase wages for the farm workers. Leaders from a church that supported his outreach to the Spanish-speaking world were upset that he would participate in an event organized by a labor union. As a result, he was ordered to stop trying to help improve the living conditions of the Hispanic workers. He perceived it to be his duty as a human being to help the people who were struggling. Eventually, he lost the support of the large and influential congregation; his wife was driven to suicide; and he became a skeptic who rejected the miraculous accounts found in the Bible.
In my previous two posts, I called on Christians to respect the poor, the unhealthy, and the uneducated because it reflects the heart of God. In this story, I discovered a principle I did not expect to find: If we disrespect the poor and turn away from them when they are mistreated, we are harming people emotionally and spiritually. In significant ways, Christians (and especially Christian leaders) represent God to the world around them. When people are expecting God to be a God of compassion and justice, but they see uncaring Christians who either side with injustice or are blind to injustice, they can be devastated. Emotional barriers can be erected which may never come down.
If believers can be men and women of compassion and justice, God will be honored. Barriers to faith will not be built. Perhaps they will even be removed. Perhaps healing will begin in the lives of the oppressed, and in the lives of other decent people who have witnessed wrongdoing but who have never seen the people of God help in any meaningful way. Let's honor God by caring for people who are hurting and disrespected.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
A Church that Respects the Poor
In my previous post, I encouraged churches to respect those who are unhealthy, poor, and uneducated. Mike from the Upper Room blog asked me for more information about how to do it. (By the way, he is one of the most thoughtful bloggers around. Check it out at http://theupperroom.typepad.com.) In response, I will be quoting from Up Close and Personal: Embracing the Poor by Harold Shank, Anthony Wood, and Ron Bergeron. The three ministers had found that they were able to lead people in poverty to Christ, but they could not keep them in their middle-class, suburban-style congregations. As a result, they started an urban ministry to plant churches in inner-city Memphis, Tennessee.
"We learned three things in starting inner-city churches. First, respect inner-city culture. Effective missionaries study the culture first. We mistakenly believe inner-city dwellers are either just like us or inferior to us. Neither is true. Each urban center has its own culture, values, and language that must be learned through study and observation.
"Insensitivity to different cultures creates barriers instead of bridges. Missionaries learned to bring Christ, not their hometown culture, to a new country. Jesus loved people by respecting them. We will do the same. Here are a few ways to get started:
1) Educate your church biblically, culturally, and missiologically concerning urban church planting and ministry. Read books like Ray Bakke's The Urban Christian or William Pannell's The Gospel from the Bottom Up.
2) Visit an existing inner-city church that is reaching the urban poor to appreciate the faith practiced in cultural diversity. Research what others have done.
3) Ask people knowledgeable about the local poor to guide you through the existing outreach programs in your city.
4) Ask a poor person for honest answers about why he doesn't attend church where you do. Brace yourself for the truth. Then ask your new friend, 'If there was a church in your neighborhood that you would go to every week, what would it be like?'
"Second, expect inner-city leadership. We found more sense of community in the poorer areas of town than we've ever experienced in the affluent sections. The inner-city neighborhood has a social structure and leadership network. There is a saying in our inner-city, 'It takes a whole community to raise a child.' Family, school, social service, and church all connect. Networks flourish in the inner city. Church workers can connect to these networks. Our goal is to establish a fellowship of inner-city churches with local leadership designed to serve their communities. The church must be built according to this urban blueprint. Our inner-city brothers and sisters are better equipped to take back their neighborhoods for Christ by using their own networks to build God's church community.
"Third, expect inner-city theologians to arise. The Bible established doctrine, but Christians develop traditions. We establish the order of a Sunday morning service, decide how long the sermon should be, work out details on who can spend church money. Suburban preachers speak to issues that confront the average middle-class American. While fundamental doctrines do not vary, their application...varies, depending on the situation of the local Christians.
"In our suburban church, ushers stand at the back of the auditorium to serve. If a homeless woman tried to walk to the front during the sermon, they would stop her and talk with her in the foyer. To suburbanites, that seems a reasonable and loving policy. To inner-city Christians, that policy is offensive and unacceptable. They know that people often come into the service as a last resort. To turn away a homeless woman at that critical time may lead her to drugs or to her seeking help from different people. They value an uninterrupted sermon just like the people in the suburbs, but they understand the rejection of forcing a homeless person to wait" (pp. 60-62).
Thanks for the question, Mike. And thanks for reading!
"We learned three things in starting inner-city churches. First, respect inner-city culture. Effective missionaries study the culture first. We mistakenly believe inner-city dwellers are either just like us or inferior to us. Neither is true. Each urban center has its own culture, values, and language that must be learned through study and observation.
"Insensitivity to different cultures creates barriers instead of bridges. Missionaries learned to bring Christ, not their hometown culture, to a new country. Jesus loved people by respecting them. We will do the same. Here are a few ways to get started:
1) Educate your church biblically, culturally, and missiologically concerning urban church planting and ministry. Read books like Ray Bakke's The Urban Christian or William Pannell's The Gospel from the Bottom Up.
2) Visit an existing inner-city church that is reaching the urban poor to appreciate the faith practiced in cultural diversity. Research what others have done.
3) Ask people knowledgeable about the local poor to guide you through the existing outreach programs in your city.
4) Ask a poor person for honest answers about why he doesn't attend church where you do. Brace yourself for the truth. Then ask your new friend, 'If there was a church in your neighborhood that you would go to every week, what would it be like?'
"Second, expect inner-city leadership. We found more sense of community in the poorer areas of town than we've ever experienced in the affluent sections. The inner-city neighborhood has a social structure and leadership network. There is a saying in our inner-city, 'It takes a whole community to raise a child.' Family, school, social service, and church all connect. Networks flourish in the inner city. Church workers can connect to these networks. Our goal is to establish a fellowship of inner-city churches with local leadership designed to serve their communities. The church must be built according to this urban blueprint. Our inner-city brothers and sisters are better equipped to take back their neighborhoods for Christ by using their own networks to build God's church community.
"Third, expect inner-city theologians to arise. The Bible established doctrine, but Christians develop traditions. We establish the order of a Sunday morning service, decide how long the sermon should be, work out details on who can spend church money. Suburban preachers speak to issues that confront the average middle-class American. While fundamental doctrines do not vary, their application...varies, depending on the situation of the local Christians.
"In our suburban church, ushers stand at the back of the auditorium to serve. If a homeless woman tried to walk to the front during the sermon, they would stop her and talk with her in the foyer. To suburbanites, that seems a reasonable and loving policy. To inner-city Christians, that policy is offensive and unacceptable. They know that people often come into the service as a last resort. To turn away a homeless woman at that critical time may lead her to drugs or to her seeking help from different people. They value an uninterrupted sermon just like the people in the suburbs, but they understand the rejection of forcing a homeless person to wait" (pp. 60-62).
Thanks for the question, Mike. And thanks for reading!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Are We Thinking Like the World?
I have been thinking for about a week about how God views people differently than how we are conditioned to view people. We tend to be overly impressed with healthy, wealthy, and educated people. We tend to disrespect unhealthy, poor, and uneducated people. Why? I'm not sure, but I notice who gets their photographs on the cover of People magazine and who gets interviewed in the Wall Street Journal. I also notice who doesn't.
Are churches immune to our culture's over-emphasis on such superficial characteristics? I'm not advocating that we disrespect healthy, wealthy, and educated people. But I wonder if we unintentionally disrespect unhealthy, poor, and uneducated people in churches? For example, would we hire a minister with AIDS? Would we appoint an elder living in a trailer park? Would we accept a deacon with a GED?
The words of the early Christian leader James are challenging to the church in every culture and every generation. He wrote,
"My dear friends, don't let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, 'Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!' and either ignore the street person or say, 'Better sit here in the back row,' haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted?
"Listen, dear friends. Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn't it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind? Aren't they the ones who scorn the new name--'Christian'--used in your baptisms?
"You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: 'Love others as you love yourself.' But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it" (James 2, The Message).
Will churches be guided by the worldview of our society or by the worldview of the inspired Scriptures? Will we meet the challenge as churches and as individuals to see people as God sees them? Will we refuse to discriminate on the basis of social standing?
Are churches immune to our culture's over-emphasis on such superficial characteristics? I'm not advocating that we disrespect healthy, wealthy, and educated people. But I wonder if we unintentionally disrespect unhealthy, poor, and uneducated people in churches? For example, would we hire a minister with AIDS? Would we appoint an elder living in a trailer park? Would we accept a deacon with a GED?
The words of the early Christian leader James are challenging to the church in every culture and every generation. He wrote,
"My dear friends, don't let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, 'Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!' and either ignore the street person or say, 'Better sit here in the back row,' haven't you segregated God's children and proved that you are judges who can't be trusted?
"Listen, dear friends. Isn't it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world's down-and-out as the kingdom's first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn't it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind? Aren't they the ones who scorn the new name--'Christian'--used in your baptisms?
"You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: 'Love others as you love yourself.' But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it" (James 2, The Message).
Will churches be guided by the worldview of our society or by the worldview of the inspired Scriptures? Will we meet the challenge as churches and as individuals to see people as God sees them? Will we refuse to discriminate on the basis of social standing?
Monday, August 25, 2008
Prepare to be Moved
Rex posted a link on his blog (http://kingdomseeking.wordpress.com/) that I would like to share. Every follower of Jesus Christ has a testimony. I found the cardboard testimonies of the Richland Hills Church of Christ to be especially moving at http://www.rhchurch.org/pages/cardboard-testimonies. I hope you will like them, too.
After you have viewed the video, please post your cardboard testimony in my comments section, if you feel comfortable with it. I believe our testimony would say something like: "Infertility...Frustration...Depression/God Blessed Us with the Adoption of Our Son."
Thanks, Rex!
After you have viewed the video, please post your cardboard testimony in my comments section, if you feel comfortable with it. I believe our testimony would say something like: "Infertility...Frustration...Depression/God Blessed Us with the Adoption of Our Son."
Thanks, Rex!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Joy of Teaching Children
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).
We have been working on memorizing 2 Timothy 3:16.
At the breakfast table this morning, Christopher repeated the verse for us. Wanting to make sure he knew what he was repeating, I asked him, "Do you know what rebuking means?"
He answered, "Throwing up."
I responded, "No. That's puking."
I'm glad I asked.
We have been working on memorizing 2 Timothy 3:16.
At the breakfast table this morning, Christopher repeated the verse for us. Wanting to make sure he knew what he was repeating, I asked him, "Do you know what rebuking means?"
He answered, "Throwing up."
I responded, "No. That's puking."
I'm glad I asked.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
You Help Us by Your Prayers
"On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many" (2 Corinthians 1:10-11).
The unknown heroes of the church are the men, women, and children who devote themselves to prayer. They are the people of faith. They know that they are dependent upon God. Usually we do not know that they are praying, and we do not recognize it when their prayers are answered.
*We see sinners being saved.
*We see the sick being healed.
*We witness the immature developing into godly men and women of wisdom.
*We watch as the former Soviet bloc allows missionaries to reach their people.
*We hear about the explosive growth of independent churches in China.
But we do not see the many devoted disciples of Christ who secretly spend hours each week asking God for his kingdom to come and for his will to be done.
They do not receive praise, but neither do they seek it. They do not appear to accomplish much, but appearances can be deceptive. They are essential to the health and growth of the church of God. If you pray for the kingdom of God, thank you! Your help is indispensable. If you pray for me, a special thank you! Your helpful prayers are greatly appreciated.
The unknown heroes of the church are the men, women, and children who devote themselves to prayer. They are the people of faith. They know that they are dependent upon God. Usually we do not know that they are praying, and we do not recognize it when their prayers are answered.
*We see sinners being saved.
*We see the sick being healed.
*We witness the immature developing into godly men and women of wisdom.
*We watch as the former Soviet bloc allows missionaries to reach their people.
*We hear about the explosive growth of independent churches in China.
But we do not see the many devoted disciples of Christ who secretly spend hours each week asking God for his kingdom to come and for his will to be done.
They do not receive praise, but neither do they seek it. They do not appear to accomplish much, but appearances can be deceptive. They are essential to the health and growth of the church of God. If you pray for the kingdom of God, thank you! Your help is indispensable. If you pray for me, a special thank you! Your helpful prayers are greatly appreciated.
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