• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Hope for Orphans

  • About
  • Blog
  • Training
    • ROOTED
    • If You Were Mine
    • International
    • Project LionHeart
  • Store
    • My Account
    • My Online Courses
    • Cart
  • Give
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Adoption / Gaps in Christian Orphan Ministry

March 22, 2017 By Hope for Orphans

Gaps in Christian Orphan Ministry

Survey Reveals Adoptive Families Need More Support from their Churches

What are churches doing about orphan ministry? What needs and opportunities do the women leaders in gospel-driven churches see in the growing adoption and foster care movement?

Last summer, Hope for Orphans had the opportunity to participate in the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference in Indianapolis. The Gospel Coalition (TGC) is a catalytic network representing about 7,800 churches with significant influence on reformed millennial and next-generation leaders in the Church. Women from all 50 states (plus 39 other countries) came to TGC’s 2016 Women’s Conference, which gave us an exciting chance to learn how evangelical women are thinking about adoption and orphan ministry.

Over the course of the conference, our team interviewed 63 women on a variety of subjects. Here’s what we learned:

  1. These women are deeply invested in orphan ministry

Here are a few of the key findings from our survey:

  • 32% of those interviewed were adoptive moms or foster moms
  • 27% of those interviewed report that they are currently a leader in their church’s adoption, foster-care, or direct orphan-care ministry
  • 55% of these women are currently seriously considering adopting or engaging in foster care

These results are consistent with what we have seen across many evangelical networks. Millennial women leaders see the church’s role in adoption, foster care, and orphan care as a very significant channel of ministry from a biblical worldview. And they live this perspective out, as demonstrated by how over half of these women were seriously weighing bringing a child into their own home.

  1. These women are often disappointed by how their churches are equipping them for gospel-driven orphan ministry

While the women we surveyed were deeply engaged in orphan ministry, their churches often were not. Our interviewees reported that 83% of their home churches do not really have a sustainable orphan, adoption or foster-care ministry.

This statistic is particularly troubling when 66% of these interviewees reported that their churches have adoptive families that are struggling post placement. If this reflects the greater evangelical local church experience, this represents a serious unmet need. It may also show that a lack of recognition: churches may not know about the growing number of families in post-placement crisis, or they may not know how to help and support these families. Furthermore, 85% of women in the survey said that their church needs more gospel-driven resources for supporting and helping families parenting at-risk adoptive or foster children. (If that describes your church, we’d encourage you to check out our new resource ROOTED which includes teachers like Paul Tripp and Voddie Baucham and child-wellness experts like Dr. Jon Bergeron of Austin Stone Counseling and Dr. Larry Bergstrom of the Mayo Clinic).

We also found that 86% of these women’s churches do not provide any equipping of children or students in gospel-driven orphan ministry. Resources bringing vision and methods for children to be kingdom entrepreneurs is a huge opportunity for reinforcing a view of missions in the church and helping children to see the connection between physical orphans and spiritual orphans, and Hope for Orphans is working on new resources in response to this opportunity.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Adoption, Orphan Ministry

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Use Promo Code ‘yearend’ For 50% Discount Through Dec 31
  • Is Our Vision for Children’s Ministry Big Enough?
  • What Easter Means for Orphan Care
  • Starting April 13, Get ROOTED for Just $80
  • What Does HFO Do?

Archives

  • December 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016

Categories

  • Adoption
  • Churches
  • Cuba
  • Foster Care
  • Orphan Ministry
  • Parenting
  • Uncategorized
  • Video

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Footer

Sign up today

Get updates on how God is using his church to care for orphans around the world. Includes news about HFO training and resources for churches and families.

Copyright © 2019 Hope for Orphans · Hosted by Mere Agency · Log in