// Together for Adoption

I had the privilege of preaching at Grace Church of Memphis yesterday on the cosmic significance of adoption within the story of redemption. You can listen to it here.

Kevin Boling, host of the radio program “Knowing the Truth” and one of our great conference exhibitors, interviewed Tullian Tchividjian, Rick Phillips, Carl Robbins, Jason Kovacs, and me yesterday about Together for Adoption Conference 2008 (Russell Moore was not able to join us for the program). Each of the speakers introduces his conference topic. If you are interested in finding out how spiritually rich this conference will be, make sure you listen to the interview.

To stream/listen to the interview, click here.
To download the MP3 to your PC, click here.

Click on the image below to see the great lineup of interviews that Kevin Boling has already done. Good stuff.

Russell Moore, whose session at our upcoming conference is entitled “God’s Joy in Adoption,” talks about how churches can promote adoption awareness.

 
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Learn more about Together for Adoption Conference 2008:

• Conference Page
• Conference Workshops
• Who should attend Conference 2008?
• Conference Schedule
• Conference Poster (can be used as bulletin insert)
• Planting Gospel Seeds: Why You Should Support the T4A Conference
• Endorsements
• Registration

If you live near Tupelo, MS/Memphis, TN, come see us at our Together for Adoption Saturday event. We would love to meet you. It will be held at Hope Church this Saturday, October 11th from 3:00 P.M. to 8:15 P.M. Click on the image to the right for the Adoption Saturday brochure. Here’s the event schedule (There is no charge to attend):

3:00 P.M. — Recovering Scripture’s Teaching on Adoption (Dan Cruver)

4:00 P.M. — Break

4:10 P.M. — Glorifying the Father of the Fatherless (Jason Kovacs)

5:00 P.M. — Supper Break

6:15 P.M. — Adopting Outside Your Skin Color: A Gospel-Centered Look at Transracial Identity Issues (Dan Cruver)

7:10 P.M. — Break

7:20 P.M. — Stewarding God’s Resources for the Sake of the Orphan (Jason Kovacs)

The adoption weekend will continue on Sunday, October 12th, at Grace Church of Memphis, Tennessee, where I will preach on our adoption in Christ. If you are interested in hosting a similar event at your church, please contact us: dan.cruver@Togetherforadoption(dot)org.

Carl Robbins, one of our conference speakers, discusses the history of transracial adoption.  The title of his conference sermon is “Adoption and the Multi-Ethnic Family of God.”

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Learn more about Together for Adoption Conference 2008:

• Conference Page
• Who should attend Conference 2008?
• Conference Schedule
• Conference Poster (can be used as bulletin insert)
• Planting Gospel Seeds: Why You Should Support the T4A Conference
• Endorsements
• Registration

We are now offering a fourth workshop option at our upcoming conference.  It’s entitled “Foster Care, Adoption, and the Church” and will consider how churches and Christians can get involved in foster care and foster care adoption.  Our four workshops will run from 4:15 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. to complete the conference day. If you would like to attend one of these workshops, please register by sending an e-mail indicating your first, second, and third workshop preferences to Steve Cruver at steve.cruver@TogetherforAdoption (dot) org.  Seating is limited and workshops are expected to fill quickly.  So please register as soon as possible.

Workshop 1 — Fulfilling the Mandate: What Churches Are Doing to Care for Orphans by Maridel Sandberg and Andy Lehman, Christian Alliance for Orphans board members - This workshop will provide examples of what churches are doing to care for orphans, both domestically (foster care) and internationally, and explain how the Christian Alliance for Orphans is seeking to serve these churches.

Workshop 2 — Stewarding God’s Resources for Adoption by Jason Kovacs - For most couples, the greatest obstacle to adoption is the cost. This workshop will look at a Biblical and practical perspective on how to fund an adoption. We will cover God’s promises and God’s provisions through interest-free adoption loans, tax-credits, grants, and creative fundraisers. We will also look at the benefits of establishing local church adoption funds.  

Workshop 3 — Strengthening the Church by Engaging and Moblizing for Orphan Care by Alan Hunt from World Orphans - What if the church needs the orphan as much as the orphan needs the church? Come to this workshop to learn about the greatest kingdom building opportunity in our lifetime. God has an army of 143,000,000 orphans strategically positioned throughout the least reached places on the earth. Come hear how you and your church are being called to respond.

Workshop 4 — Foster Care, Adoption, and the Church by Ashley Abreu, Adoption Specialist, South Carolina Department of Social Services - This workshop will consider how churches and Christians can get involved in foster care and foster care adoption.

Don’t forget to register for the workshops we are offering at Together for Adoption Conference 2008.  Since seating for each of these is limited, not everyone who attends the conference will be able to attend a workshop. See the workshops we’re offering and register here.

From Henry Institute Rapid Fire: “Recently Ashland Avenue Baptist Church hosted their first “Mars Hill Conversation,” talking about the subject of adoption with Russell Moore and Randy Stinson. Ashland Avenue’s pastor, David Prince, preached this past Sunday from Eph 1:3-14, a sermon entitled, “Sovereignly Planned Parenthood: Adoption and the Gospel.” You can listen to this excellent exposition of the Scripture here. (Robert E. Sagers)”

Each Friday we’ve been highlighting an orphan care or adoption ministry that is exhibiting at our upcoming conference.  We are very thankful that God has provided us with exhibitors whose ministries are centered on him and his heart for the orphan.  Today’s Ministry Spotlight is on Caroline’s Promise.

The purpose of Caroline’s Promise is to Reclaim Hope for Orphans through:

• Adoptive Family Assistance: Providing guidance and assistance to North Carolina Christian couples through the adoption process by providing education, resources, financial assistance and prayer support.
• Orphan Care: Meeting the physical and spiritual needs of children throughout the world with the hope of those children accepting Christ as their Savior.
• Education: Educating the community about adoption.

Click on the image below to learn more about the ministry of Caroline’s Promise:
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We are now offering three (possibly four) excellent workshops at our upcoming Together for Adoption Conference 2008. The workshops will run from 4:15 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. to complete the conference day. If you would like to attend one of these workshops, please register by sending an e-mail indicating your first, second, and third workshop preferences to Steve Cruver at steve.cruver@TogetherforAdoption (dot) org.  Seating is limited and workshops are expected to fill quickly.  So please register as soon as possible.

Workshop 1 — Fulfilling the Mandate: What Churches Are Doing to Care for Orphans by Maridel Sandberg and Andy Lehman, Christian Alliance for Orphans board members - This workshop will provide examples of what churches are doing to care for orphans, both domestically (foster care) and internationally, and explain how the Christian Alliance for Orphans is seeking to serve these churches.

Workshop 2 — Stewarding God’s Resources for Adoption by Jason Kovacs - For most couples, the greatest obstacle to adoption is the cost. This workshop will look at a Biblical and practical perspective on how to fund an adoption. We will cover God’s promises and God’s provisions through interest-free adoption loans, tax-credits, grants, and creative fundraisers. We will also look at the benefits of establishing local church adoption funds.  

Workshop 3 — Strengthening the Church by Engaging and Moblizing for Orphan Care by Alan Hunt from World Orphans - What if the church needs the orphan as much as the orphan needs the church? Come to this workshop to learn about the greatest kingdom building opportunity in our lifetime. God has an army of 143,000,000 orphans strategically positioned throughout the least reached places on the earth. Come hear how you and your church are being called to respond.

*We may be offering a fourth workshop on foster care.  Check back later this week to find out.
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Learn more about Together for Adoption Conference 2008:

• Conference Page
• Who should attend Conference 2008?
• Conference Schedule
• Conference Poster (can be used as bulletin insert)
• Planting Gospel Seeds: Why You Should Support the T4A Conference
• Endorsements
• Registration

As all of you who frequent this blog know, we have our first Together for Adoption conference on November 1st. A couple months ago a few people asked me this question, “Who should consider attending your conference?” Here’s my answer to this great question: Our conference is for anyone who has been adopted. In other words, if you are a Christian we want you to consider attending Conference 2008. Every Christian has entered God’s household through adoption (Ephesians 1:6; 2:19).

Our conference is first about vertical adoption (i.e., God adopting us in Christ). It is second about orphan care and horizontal adoption (i.e., couples adopting children). If you desire to learn more about what it means to be adopted by God, you will find this conference to be very profitable. We are convinced that the more we think about God’s gracious provision of vertical adoption, the more we will see and appreciate His glory, grace, beauty, love, etc. Adoption is first about the glorious God of the universe coming to profoundly needy people in the person of His Son to give us the adoption as sons (Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5). When we grow in our understanding of who this God of grace is and what He has done to adopt us through Jesus Christ, we will find our love for and our pursuit of Him progressively increasing. So, ultimately, we want to see people grow in their enjoyment of God as their Father to the “praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). If this kind of talk resonates with you, let us encourage you to consider attending our upcoming conference. You will not be disappointed.

Even though our conference is first about vertical adoption, don’t think that orphan care and horizontal adoption will be a conference afterthought. No, we believe that Christians who are deepening in their understanding of God’s gracious provision of adoption as sons will find themselves joyfully compelled to extend this same kind of compassion to orphans, both here and abroad. Christians who love the wonderful provision of vertical adoption will become increasingly passionate about “visiting orphans in their affliction” (James 1:27), whether through short-term mission efforts, humanitarian assistance, adopting a child, or assisting others in the adoption process in some way. Certainly, God does not call every Christian couple to adopt, but He does call the church to care for orphans—adoption being one way that the church can fulfill this calling.

So if you have been adopted by God and believe that God has called the church to care for orphans, let us strongly encourage you to prayerfully consider attending Conference 2008. We believe that you will walk away from this conference better understanding why it is that vertical adoption is the highest blessing of the gospel, rejoicing afresh in God’s grace to you in the gospel, and joyfully motivated to act on James 1:27, both locally and globally.

You may register here.

Here are several interview clips that consider a few of the topics our upcoming conference will address.
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Russell Moore: When did you first begin thinking theologically about adoption?

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Russell Moore on the Trinity’s Involvement in Adoption

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Russell Moore on His Family’s Adoption Story

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Rick Phillips: Are adopted children second-class children?

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Carl Robbins: In what way is the family of God a multi-ethnic household?

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Kevin Twit: How Important is Adoption to Understanding Christianity?

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Learn more about Together for Adoption Conference 2008:

• Conference Page
• Who should attend Conference 2008?
• Conference Schedule
• Conference Poster (can be used as bulletin insert)
• Planting Gospel Seeds: Why You Should Support the T4A Conference
• Endorsements
• Registration

The following quotation is from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon entitled “The Excellency of Christ.” It is powerfully beautiful.

“Christ has brought it to pass, that those whom the Father has given him shall be brought into the household of God; that he and his Father, and his people, should be as one society, one family; that the church should be as it were admitted into the society of the blessed Trinity.”

As I consider our quickly approaching conference, I must say that I am not only very thankful for the speakers God has provided us, but also for the exhibitors who will be there.  Our aim for this conference has been three-fold: to exult in the God who has adopted us in Christ, to deepen our understanding of God’s heart for the orphan, and to consider how we might visit orphans in their affliction.  So we invited speakers and exhibitors that we believed would help us achieve this three-fold aim; and God graciously provided them.

Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) is one of God’s provisions to help us achieve our conference aim. Both Maridel Sandberg, President of CAFO, and Andy Lehman, CAFO board member and Vice President of Lifesong for Oprhans, will be joining us for the conference.  In addition to being an exhibitor, Maridel will also present the Alliance’s vision for orphan ministry at the start of the day.  

Here is a great article from the Christian Leadership Alliance in their Aug/Sept 2008 Outcomes Magazine about CAFO: Allies for Orphans.  Click on the image below to learn more about the Alliance.

In his book Knowing God the Father Through the Old Testament, Christopher Wright has a very helpful section entitled “God—The Father Who Adopts.”  In it he shows how the Old Testament calls us to find our security in God by portraying him as “the Father who adopts the homeless or fatherless.”  For example, commenting on two Psalms that compare God with a human father (Psalm 27:9-10; 68:4-6), he writes:

“They have in common the idea that God will step in as an adoptive father in circumstances where human parents have either disowned their child, or have left him orphaned.  God, as Father, takes over where human fatherhood fails for one reason or another” (36).

Here is what he says about Psalm 68:5 in particular (”A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy habitation”):

God’s special concern for the orphan and widow is well documented, of course, throughout the Law and the Prophets, in the wisdom tradition (as for example in Job’s echo of this text in Job 29:12-16), and in narratives such as Elijah’s temporary accommodation with the widow of Zarephath or the story of Ruth.  But here the concept is expressed not merely in the form of commands to human action (to care for the orphan and widows), but in picturing Yahweh himself as the adoptive father who takes care of the orphan, and the defending advocate who represents the widow in court and sees that she gets justice.

It is striking that in one of the very few Old Testament texts that actually speak directly of God as ‘father,’ the prime focus is on God’s loving, protecting and defending stance toward the weak and vulnerable in human society—as typified in the most vulnerable of all, orphaned children. God is Father to those who have lost the natural bonds of human protection, whether because of rejection, or because of natural bereavement” (37).

If you live near Tupelo, Mississippi, we would like to invite you to a Together for Adoption Saturday event. It will be held at Hope Church on Saturday, October 11th from 3:00 P.M. to 8:15 P.M. Click on the image to the right for the Adoption Saturday brochure.  Here’s the event schedule (There is no charge to attend):

3:00 P.M. — Recovering Scripture’s Teaching on Adoption (Dan Cruver)

4:00 P.M. — Break

4:10 P.M. — Glorifying the Father of the Fatherless (Jason Kovacs)

5:00 P.M. — Supper Break

6:15 P.M. — Adopting Outside Your Skin Color: A Gospel-Centered Look at Transracial Identity Issues (Dan Cruver)

7:10 P.M. — Break

7:20 P.M. — Stewarding God’s Resources for the Sake of the Orphan (Jason Kovacs)

The adoption weekend will continue on Sunday, October 12th, at Grace Church of Memphis, Tennessee, where I will preach on “The Beauties of Our Adoption in Christ.” If you are interested in hosting a similar event at your church, please contact us.

Below is a video segment from The Privileged Planet.  If you want to wonder afresh at your adoption by God, please use the next 7 minutes to watch this video.  They will be minutes well spent.

Once you have finished watching it (and not before), click here.

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One of the ways our family seeks to serve orphans is by praying for them at supper time.  I’ve had the opportunity to travel to orphanages in China and Ethiopia.  So I printed out pictures of orphans I’ve had the privilege of meeting on those trips and put them on our refrigerator.  Each time we eat supper our children choose a different orphan to pray for.  Once they’ve made their choice and have the picture of their orphan in hand, we talk about what it means for God to be a “father of the fatherless” and how He adopts us into His family. We then take turns praying for each of their orphans.

On Saturday our youngest (4) prayed for the little girl pictured in the middle of the far right column.  Here’s what he prayed:

“Father, thank you for my wonderful family; and I love the orphan that I chose today.  Give her a mommy and a daddy, some toys, a couch, and lots of food to eat for her tummy.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

If you are a blogger and would like free copies of Dr. Joel Beeke’s book, Heirs with Christ: The Puritans on Adoption, here’s your opportunity to win some.

Here are the Together for Adoption giveaway rules:

• For every blog post you publish about Together for Adoption’s website resources (articles, video interviews, text interviews, sermons, and quotations page), you will receive 1 entry.  The blog post should include an explanation of why you found the resource helpful.  There is no limit to how many entries you may receive. 



• If you put our green conference button in your blog’s sidebar (visible without having to scroll down) by Friday, September 26, you will receive 3 entries; by Friday, October 3, you’ll receive 2 entries; by Friday, October 10, 1 entry.  We only ask that you leave the button on your blog until November 1, 2008.

Please send me an e-mail at dan.cruver@togetherforadoption(dot)org when you post our conference button and each time you blog about T4A resources.

This contest ends Friday, October 31, 2008 at 11:59 EST. 

The following will be awarded to the top 3 entry winners to be used or given away however they wish:

• 1st place: 7 copies of Heirs with Christ
• 2nd place: 5 copies
• 3rd place: 3 copies

This contest was inspired by this FREE ESV Study Bible giveaway.