The Global Orphan Crisis impacts the lives of 143 million children every day.
Join me tonight at the Saddleback Civil Forum on Adoption and Orphan Care. Pastor Rick Warren will be facilitating a discussion on this urgent global issue—joined by Dr. Russel D. Moore, Michel Riley, Elizabeth Styffe and Susan Hillis. The event kicks off tonight at 7pm at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA.
Why adoption?
During my days of working alongside Kay Warren at Acts of Mercy—a church-based initiative that fights Christian apathy toward widows, orphans and those affected by HIV/AIDS— God developed a burning passion in me for the millions of orphaned children, left abandoned, alone and scattered throughout the globe.
More recently, I read the book Adopted for Life, by one of tonight’s panelists Dr. Russell D. Moore, and the book Adopted Into God’s Family, by Trevor Burke. They both humbled me and rocked my world. I cannot recommend Dr. Moore’s book enough. Consider this passage from the book’s foreword, written by C.J. Mahaney:
I was adopted when I was eighteen years old. I wasn’t an orphan, the way most people think of that term. I wasn’t an abandoned child. But I was in a condition far more serious: I was a stranger to the family of God, a slave to sin, and an object of the justified wrath of God.
And I didn’t even realize it until my friend Bob began to share with me the good news that Christ died for my sins. As I listened, God opened my heart to understand and believe the gospel. I turned from my sin and trusted in Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death for my sins. In that moment, I was adopted into a new family. God the righteous Judge became my merciful Father.
And if you are a Christian, if you have trusted in Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for your sins, you too have been adopted.
It would have been extraordinary enough for God simply to redeem us, to forgive our sins, to declare us righteous. But he does not stop here—he makes us his children (Gal. 4:4–7). Christian, if you have ever wondered whether God loves you, wonder no longer. God the Father has adopted you as his son or daughter through the person and work of Christ. Here you will find the richest proof of God’s personal, particular, and passionate love for you.
Adoption is important because God first adopted us. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is called to adopt, but it does mean that everyone is called to care and consider.
Because without adoption, the Christian would not even be a Christian. The Christian would remain in his or her natural state of unregenerated sinfulness. Lost. Alone. Abandoned. Scattered throughout the globe. Left for dead…
So we praise God for adoption. And we ask our great God, who made us in his image and conforms into the likeness of his own Son: Break my heart for what breaks yours. Will you now lead me?
I hope to see you tonight.
4 Comments on "TONIGHT: Saddleback Civil Forum on Adoption and Orphan Care"
Thanks for the reminder Chris! Chase and I will be there tonight.
Duuuuude. Upset that I just saw this. How was it?
It was rad. I got to meet Russell Moore. Was blessed.
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