Starting and growing a foster care ministry in your church can feel overwhelming. After all, the needs of children and families in your community seem endless and the path to getting traction inside your church is unclear. How do you know if you are doing it right, and what in the world do you do if you think you are doing it wrong? That is why a group of church and organizational leaders from across the country worked together to clearly define six key pillars of foster care ministry for any church who would like to be actively engaged.
In this first episode of The Fostering Church Podcast, the Jasons talk with Adrien Lewis, the Chief Innovation officer at CarePortal. Adrien facilitated the discussion of that initial team of leaders from across the country to help more clearly define church engagement in foster care. Adrien joins us to help provide a foundational overview of all six pillars that will serve as a jumping-off point for the rest of this limited podcast series.
If you are looking for some clarity, this is where it starts.
Key Quote
“When we started thinking about defining actively engaged churches, we knew that we needed to bring in a variety of perspectives to try to answer that question. So we had church leaders from big and small churches, ministry leaders, and child welfare professionals who were a part of this team . . .we met weekly to try to make clear what are the key ingredients that any church who is getting involved needs to have their mind set on."
Resources and Guests
In 2008, alongside a core team of people in the North Houston area, Jason had the privilege of planting and leading a church with the Acts29 Network through which we founded a non-profit committed to serving, supporting and equipping foster and adoptive families in the city of Houston. In 2013, combined with 14 years of church-based ministry and leadership experience and his family’s foster and adoptive journey, Jason began working for an organization helping church leaders implement structures and strategies of ministry within their churches and developing resources to encourage and support foster and adoptive parents along their journeys. This ultimately led him to his current role as the Director of Church Ministry Initiatives with Christian Alliance for Orphans.
