Your First Mission Field

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” ~ Romans 10:14, 15 NIV

When I was a child my parents always led us in family devotions. We would read a Scripture and pray before bedtime. One night my mom was reading the Scripture and it dawned on me that if I were to die I would spend eternity separated from God.

I knew I had done wrong things and had not asked God to forgive me and come into my heart. As I thought about how my family would be in heaven and I would not, my eyes filled with tears. Mom asked what was wrong. I told her what I was thinking. In a matter of fact way she asked, ”Well, would you like to ask God to forgive you and come into your heart?” I answered with a tear-filled yes. We prayed sitting on my bed and my eternity was changed forever. That was not the first night we had done family devotions. We had devotion time all of my life, but that night my heart was ready. That night I had a realization of my sin and the consequences of it.

You may be like my parents and have participated in nightly family devotion time. If so, keep on. If not, now is a great time to start. It is not too late. Your children are your first mission field. You can start simply with a children’s Bible story book. As your children get older, start reading from the Bible. There are many devotion books for families at your local Christian bookstore. No matter what you choose to use, start now.

Please pray for moms and dads today.  Pray that they will draw close to the Lord and will have confidence in leading their children to know Christ.

 

Is it a Sin to Have a Large Family, Part II

Only since 1970 and the publishing of Paul Erlich’s secular book, The Population Bomb (he studied insects for a living), has the notion that having more than two children was a mortal sin against the planet become part of the modern psyche.

There is no population crisis in Western industrialized nations.  In fact, quite the opposite.  Instead, the crisis we face today is the polar opposite of what the strident environmentalists warned us about in the heyday of mood lamps, LSD, and Bob Dylan.

The alarming reality is the birth rates in all of Western Europe, Japan, Russia, and even China are in serious decline. These nations are not only failing to replace their current population but their very future existence is in doubt. In some cases they are losing people at a current popular rate of decline of 20% or more.

Responsible economists are predicting that if this population rate of decline is not reversed, it’s only a matter of decades until their economies collapse from lack of workers and a dearth of spending consumers. It might be of interest to note the Scriptures speak to such a foreboding dilemma, “A large population is a king’s glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined” Proverbs 14:28.

The United States is only sustaining its current population due to the large influx of immigrants who are having large families. Otherwise, we would be in the same sinking ship as Western Europe, Russia, or other nations, which are actually paying families to have more children.

But are we overrunning the planet? We had someone from the funeral industry once explain that if you buried all the earth’s population right next to each other it would fill up a space the size of Rhode Island and perhaps Connecticut. So if there is not a genuine overpopulation crisis at work today in our society (just the opposite is actually true), why the renewed calls for one or two children families?

We believe the current birth dearth is more a philosophical or theological crisis than an ecological or economic one. As we have turned away from the Judeo-Christian ethic to a secular and agnostic belief system, we have in the Western cultures at the same time lost faith in our purpose, meaning, and destiny as a society. If we really have no reason to exist other than to serve ourselves and our narcissistic ambitions, why have kids at all?

The false gods of materialism, hedonism, and even the worship of nature (what Francis Schaeffer called the idols of “personal peace and affluence”) have left us so empty and drifting that we have no reason to reproduce another generation. Saving the whales has become more important to us than saving our way of life or saving souls. After all, the little crying creatures can be costly, an irritating interruption, and a real nuisance if pursuing your personal space and higher standard of living are your only real goals in life.

Let us say it clearly — the threat of having too many children is not America’s looming crisis, rather it’s having too little reason to live and to create another generation that is the real problem.

Just 100 years ago, Americans faced far more disease, lack of medical resources, and harsh standards of living than we do, yet they chose to have large families. Was it simply to make sure a few kids survived or because they lacked access to contraception? Perhaps in some cases, but the primary reason was they believed in the promise of America, the joy of family, and in a faith that said God would take care of them. The result was the most prosperous, industrious, creative, forward-looking and blessed society that our world has ever seen.

Our six precious children (and our son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and grandson), are all gifts from God, and they will tell you they are glad their highly educated mother (Master’s degree) stayed home to raise them. Furthermore they will admit she did not waste her education in doing so. Instead of squandering her hard-earned resources she invested them in the next generation by providing a secure and loving environment for our children.

Twenty-five years ago when we discovered we were pregnant with our fourth child (we have six altogether), a very concerned and sincere nurse at the clinic asked us, “Are you two part of some cult?”

“No,” we answered, “We’re just making sure there is someone to pay your Social Security when you retire.”

There was more truth in our answer than we knew at the time.

For more information about the population crisis, Mentoring Moments recommends the fascinating yet chilling video Demographic Winter.

If you are viewing this post in an email and can’t see the video, you can click the linked title to view it on You Tube.

Bob & Cheryl Moeller

 

Is it a Sin to Have a Large Family?

There is much controversy these days, even among Christians, over the number of children that a married couple should have. The argument, so it goes, is that a large number of children are bad for the environment, will use an inordinate amount of the world’s resources, will leave of all things (heaven forbid) a larger carbon footprint. Oh, by the way it will also possibly cause the wife to waste her education or possibly miss having a real career.

The implications are clear: to have a large family is irresponsible, selfish and poor stewardship of our planet (and a woman’s life).

As with any idea or proposition that believers must wrestle with in life the ultimate question should always remain: what do the Scriptures say? As believers in Christ, the ultimate issue is what authority shall we live by? For Christians, the answer of ultimate authority is simple and straightforward, “As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him” Psalm 18:30.

So what do the Scriptures say about the size of one’s family?

In Genesis God gives this command to the first married couple, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it’” (Genesis 1:28). God repeats this same command to Noah and his children as they emerge from the ark, “As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it” (Genesis 9:2).

Later in the Scripture the psalmist exalts a large family as a sure sign of the blessing of God, “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them” (Psalm 147:4-5). It may be of interest to note that the quiver of a solider in that day traditionally held five arrows.

While there are numerous more Old Testament passages that exalt a large number of children as a sign of God’s blessing, in the New Testament we also find evidence of the same.

For example, we are told the family of Jesus was quite large by today’s standards. While Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born to Mary, Jesus had a large number of brothers and sisters, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us?” (Matthew 13:54-56). Even by a conservative estimate there were seven children in the family of Jesus.

What was Jesus’ attitude toward children? “But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these’” Luke 18:6.

We would simply make the point the Scriptures by both teaching and example consistently portray children, even a large number of children, as a blessing and not a curse upon families and the earth. “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him” Psalm 127:3.

While each couple must come to their own conviction as to the size of their family before God, it is important that we not condemn as irresponsible or unbiblical the desire of a family to raise a large number of children. John and Charles Wesley, two of the greatest figures in modern church history, came from a family of 17 children born to an Anglican pastor. In our family, Bob’s grandfather was one of 13 children and his mother was born to a family of seven. Cheryl’s father was raised with seven other brothers and sisters, and her mother was raised in a family of five children.

Tomorrow we will discuss the truth concerning overpopulation and the alarming reality.

Bob & Cheryl Moeller

 

 

The Birds and the Bees

It’s Spring Break in Memphis. Today my wife Lynn took our daughter Holly (11) away on a mother-daughter retreat. They’ll stay a couple of days at a friend’s lakehouse. Holly is our middle child of five so her older sister and brother have gone on this same retreat with Mom and Dad, respectively. It comes with turning 11 in the Huffman household.

The retreat reinforces a discussion we begin with each of our children when they turn 9 years of age (we have two boys and three girls—two retreats for me and three for Lynn). It’s the sex discussion. Lynn and I together have “the talk” with each child at age 9. Then at age 11, the one taking the child on the retreat goes through Family Life’s “Passport to Purity” curriculum with him/her.

That material is broken into a handful of sessions. Each session includes listening to a recorded talk by Dennis or Barbara Rainey addressing everything from pubic hair to the reason why boys shouldn’t pop girls’ bra straps at school. The child, sometimes giggling but also listening intently, takes his/her notes in a provided notebook. Afterwards the parent and child discuss what they heard, the parent adds his/her insights and experiences, and at the end of the retreat we give the child a ceremonial gift to remember the time by. We also try to do something fun too. My oldest son Caleb and I had our retreat in Branson, Missouri, and took in some of the sights there.

It’s on this retreat that we begin talking more specifically about what dating will look like and how he/she needs to prepare for navigating a highly eroticized Western society. The eroticization of our society is one reason why we have “the talk” with our children at 9 years old. By that age, third grade, they’ve already heard things about sex from media and from peers at school (oh yes, at Christian school too!).

What helped Lynn and me overcome our nervous reticence to talk to our kids about sex was realizing we were engaging them in a healthy conversation about themselves. There is no one better suited to do this than the parent. We are each one of us sexual beings and to try to deny or hide this from our kids does them no service. That some will never express themselves sexually (see Matt. 19:12; 1 Cor. 7:25-28) is something to be respected, not ridiculed or otherwise viewed as odd. That’s a cultural view of sex—that those who never have sex are somehow not fully alive—opposed to a Christian view.

Kids mature at differing rates and intensities, of course, but we don’t think the age of 9 is too early in today’s cultural climate for a kid to learn facts about sex. We also don’t think we should hold anything back from them when we begin the discussion. That is we tell our children why they have gender and we tell them of God’s design and purposes for sexuality and sexual expression—the stuff of Genesis 1 and 2. But we also tell them candidly how people abuse and spoil God’s good design through sex outside of marriage, pornography, and homosexuality—the consequences of the fall, Genesis 3. We’d rather they hear about sexual aberration from us first because we’ll rightly inform them and contextualize it, whereas media and peers will not. We’re also emboldened to tell them of those realities because the Bible doesn’t hide sexual malpractice from its readers.

Part of the talk at age 9 includes an affirmation of their responsibility to confidentiality. We call them to maturely steward the knowledge we give them, telling them that they know what they know now to neither impress nor inform their friends. Caleb learned the social cost of this the hard way soon after his retreat at age 11 with me. A couple of neighbor boys were having a misinformed conversation about homosexual acts as they shot basketball in a driveway. They weren’t being curious but pejorative. Knowing he knew better what they were talking about, Caleb corrected their nonfactual ideas. They in turn promptly told their parents “what Caleb said,” and the parents informed me that Caleb was banned from socializing with their boys for a time.

I remember the phone conversation with the father of one of the boys. He said to me, with evident surprise in his voice, “Turns out what Caleb said is true, but I still don’t want [his son’s name] knowing about it.” I resisted the urge to respond tartly with, “Your boy initiated the discussion, pal—he’s already talking about it!” and instead tried to make it a teaching moment. But he was even more surprised to learn Caleb knew what he knew because Lynn and I told him about it. I think he would have right then nominated me for Reckless Parent of the Year.

Nonetheless, I think for our oldest three kids it has been better for them to know the facts of life earlier as opposed to later. Yes, you feel as a parent you’re imposing on their innocence some when you begin the discussion. But there is a difference between preserving innocence and perpetuating sentimentality. Our kids do grow up and we need to help them navigate a clouded culture concerning sex and sexuality. They need to know how to fly by the instrument panel when they can’t see the horizon.

Knowing what they know when they know it has made my kids less boy/girl-crazy. We find the kids fitting that description to often be those who’ve had their ideas and attitudes toward sex shaped predominately by media and peers, not their parents. Our kids confirm this is so as we ask about their peers. We think parents in the church are not so much chickens as ostriches about this: too many have their heads in the sand hoping puberty might go away or never arrive.

Knowing what they know when they know it has also removed some of the mystique of the opposite sex and the naivety that allows for “curiosity that kills the cat.” Our kids are still kids, red-blooded and interested in the opposite sex. We’ve told them this is good and for this we’re glad. We’ll allow them to date within intentional parameters, and we pray for their future spouses now as much as we pray for them (assuming they’ll marry). And we know our kids can still make mistakes in days to come with boyfriends and girlfriends. Imparting wisdom does not ensure against every weakness of the flesh.

But we’d rather impart and invest. So somewhere on a lakeside dock in north Alabama, the birds chirping and the bees buzzing here at the cusp of spring, Lynn is telling Holly about some things she knows and some things she doesn’t. And I’m trying to figure out what to serve her brothers and sisters for dinner tonight in Mama’s absence. Don’t worry, it won’t be Hooters.

Cole Huffman is Senior Pastor of First Evangelical Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He and his wife Lynn have five children—and one dog who thinks he’s a kid. Cole’s messages can be listened to on the church website: www.firstevan.org and he blogs at Where is the Fourth?

 

Raising Teens: Resisting the Urge to Badger

 Dad’s disgust showed on his face before his words even emerged. “I can’t believe you smell of cigarettes again.”

“Really? You can still smell it?” Justin lifts his shirt to his nose to sniff it.

“Yeah, me and probably half the folks in church tonight.”

“Huh.” Justin shrugs. “I’m surprised. I haven’t smoked since Thursday. Been trying to quit. Oh well.”

“Don’t you realize you’re polluting your body with poison every time you inhale?” He raises both hands in exasperation and finds himself saying for the 835^th time, “Don’t you know your body is a temple of the Lord?”

Suddenly Justin’s head tilts to the side. His face grows serious. His eyes grow wide as the realization of what his father said sinks in. “You mean…I…I am a temple? Really?”

The light in the dimly lit kitchen begins to brighten. Amazing Grace begins to play in the background. Justin’s mother enters the doorway and smiles as she sees what his father said begin to sink in. “Why Dad…I get it now! I shouldn’t smoke! I shouldn’t harm my own body…my…temple.  Why I can see it so clearly now. I’ve…been…bad.”

<music beomes louder and all in the room begin to cry in joy>

This scenario has never and will never play itself out anywhere but in fiction. And yet there we often are, just like this father, saying the same thing over and over again.  If we know that saying the same things, even true things, over and over again is never going to produce the desired result, why do we continue to do it? The truth is we have crossed over from advising to badgering. In advising mode, we are sharing a new idea with someone who might find the information helpful. But in badgering, we are simply repeating our views ad nauseum to make sure the listener hasn’t forgotten how much we disapprove. Advising is a caring act. Badgering is an assault. We are throwing our repeated words at them yet again because we are annoyed that we have shared our learned and wise thoughts with them, and they have simply rejected them and, in essence, us.

Sharing a basic truth often is sufficient to obtain change in others. Most people want to alter their choices in light of new and true information. But when it is not sufficient, when a truth that should propel a person toward change does nothing, then we must own the fact that something else is at work here. It would be far better to spend our energies trying to find out what that “something else” is.

Your children may not have the slightest clue why they are doing what they are doing. The mix of things constantly rolling through their heads may be almost impossible for them to make sense of. Repeating instructions over and over is simply adding to the noise.

So what should you do?

Change the dance. Bring some calm. Speak the truth. They already know how you feel about smoking or drugs or premarital sex. So acknowledge that. Try instead, “Well, you already know how I feel about such things. I’m sure that repeating it would only annoy you. But I’ll always love you. You will always be my son.”

Several good things happen with those statements.

1. It takes the pressure off this kid to produce a clear answer for a very unclear behavior. If he doesn’t yet know why he’s making these self-destructive choices, it will only bring frustration (or lies) when he tries to give you a reason from his confused thinking.
2. It makes clear that there is always a path back home. Even when what he does makes no sense, his Dad loves him. (gee…does that sound familiar?) He can hold firmly to that truth, so that when the day finally comes in which the fruit of his bad decisions becomes apparent, he’ll see a way back home.
3. It removes a bad energy from the process. When much of their energy has to be spent justifying themselves to you, it’s like an unruly dog that is constantly straining against the leash of its owner. They can only think about the powers holding them back. They haven’t yet begun to think about just what would happen if they rushed headlong into the places they are trying to go.

This straining against the “leash” comes to define them. It also becomes their excuse for their behaviors. “If my parents would just get off my back…”  By stopping the badgering, you are now officially “off [their] back.” When you release the leash, they realize that where they are is due to their decisions. The energy that they’ve spent battling your words of judgment is now freed up to do something more positive.

It also makes something clear to them. They are free to go wherever they want. Life will now be good, they muse. But of course, the bad things in their life that they’ve believed were due to your over-direction are somehow still around. Turns out it’s not because you’ve been “on [their] backs.”  If that were true, then life should be so much better now. Yet somehow, life is still difficult. And once they realize this, they will be better able to start the process of focusing on the true causes of their life’s situation.

Change the dance. Bring calm. Speak the truth.

 Carol Barnier is a popular Christian conference speaker. She is the author of four books, including Engaging Today’s Prodigal, dozens of articles, and a frequent radio guest. Her objective is to have the wit of Erma Bombeck crossed with the depth of C.S. Lewis, but admits that on most days, she only achieves a solid Lucy Ricardo with a bit of Bob the Tomato.  Follow her blog at Carolbarnier.com or her free on-line community for parents with highly distractible kids, www.SizzleBop.com.

Adoption Resources

The Lord has been changing my heart toward adoption this year.  Close friends are adopting a child from China and our family is learning more about God’s heart for the fatherless as we seek to pray for and support our friends.  Here are some of the resources I have found most helpful.

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans – Trailer from Rescued The Movie on Vimeo.

What would Christ’s church look like if we acted upon James 1:27 which states that “Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”? How can the church come alongside families who have chosen to adopt? Do adoption and missions have a common thread? 

We invited our church and other family friends to watch the movie in our home and join in a time of prayer for our friends who are adopting.  This film is available through Freedom Web Store.

Interview with Lisa Winton:  In this interview, Andrea Schwartz speaks with Lisa Winton about her journey from being the mother of two to adding to her family by means of adoption. Her family made the documentary film Rescued, referenced above.  Lisa shares openly in this podcast about how the Lord led them to adopt two special needs children from the foster care system.  Her testimony of God’s grace in the life of her family is powerful and encouraging.

Adoption sermon by Voddie Baucham

Voddie Baucham is the teaching pastor at Grace Family Baptist Church, and one of my favorite speakers.  He is bold, biblical, and he pulls no punches.  He and his wife have adopted several children and in this free sermon he presents compelling biblical truth regarding how the church should think about adoption.

Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches by Russell D. Moore

Three of my friends who have adopted told me this is one of the best books out there regarding our adoption in Christ and its ramifications on Christian adoption.  I decided to read it myself, and I could hardly put it down.  It is encouraging, touching, and theologically rich.  I literally laughed out loud and wept while reading this book.  Most importantly, I gained new insights into the beauty of the Gospel, and began to see that adoption is a thread that runs through the Bible, much more prominently than I had ever realized.  Moore challenges the church that our adoption in Christ should cause us to be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans in this country and around the world.  He demonstrates why adoption is part of the Great Commission mandate and tells how the culture of the church should reflect that.

Over Land and Sea by Steven Layne, illustrated by Jan Bower

This beautifully illustrated children’s book tells a story of international adoption.  This makes a beautiful gift for an adoptive family.

In the Fullness of Time

I can’t believe I started this journey more than two years ago. Two years and I’m still not finished. But I’m closer—much closer.

From the time I was little girl, I knew I wanted to adopt. That desire has grown stronger as I’ve grown. Two years ago as a single young woman, I took the first step and signed up for adoption classes. Every week, I looked online for children to adopt. I read bio after bio and flagged the ones I thought would be a good match. After several months, I successfully completed all the requirements.

Surely I would be matched with a prospective child in no time! Not so.

In fact, I waited and watched as the children I was interested in were no longer available. Such great news for them!

As for me, I waited.

God brought the man into my life whom I would later marry. Actually, he had been there all along; I just hadn’t noticed him. As we got to know each other, we quickly learned that each of us had considered adoption well before meeting each other. Only God can bring two people together who are equally passionate about adoption. Later that year, he proposed, and our attention turned to wedding planning.

We attended additional adoption and positive parenting classes and even took the adoption class again—this time as husband and wife.

We waited.

During our adoption classes, we saw a photo of five beautiful children who needed a forever family. Four brothers and one sister.  At that very moment, we looked at each other and knew that God had chosen them for us and us for them. They even look like us!

Once again, we successfully completed the adoption classes and all other requirements and were ready to have the sibling group visit with us for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

We waited.

The New Year began and still no news.

One morning I received a call from an unknown number. I rarely answer when I don’t know who is calling, but this time, I clicked “Talk.” It was the call we had been waiting for: we were a great match, and they wanted us to meet the children.

The past three weeks have moved at lightning speed. We’ve visited with the children every weekend and had them for an overnight visit this past weekend. Lord willing, we will have them in our home permanently in mid-March, with finalization in June. Yes, June.

I would have wanted it to be sooner, but my time is not God’s time. This is the time He had planned. This is the time He wanted to bring us all together. This is the fullness of time!

I don’t know what you’ve been waiting for—or how long. It might seem that time is dragging on—and sometimes it does. But in the fullness of time, God’s plan unfolds. It was so in the years, months, weeks, and days before Jesus (Galatians 4:4-5), and it is so today.

Daphne Tarango is a freelance writer and speaker who comforts others with the comfort she herself has received from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). She lives in the Southeastern U.S., where she is a leader in a Bible-based recovery program. Visit Daphne’s blog at http://blog.daphnewrites.com/.

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans

We recently showed the movie Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans (Wintons Motion Pictures and Hedrick Brothers Productions) in our home during a night of encouragement and prayer for friends who are adopting.  I knew the movie would be a great blessing to them as they embark on a new chapter in their lives, but I did not expect to be so powerfully impacted myself.

The movie combines interviews with several adoptive families and teaching about “caring for orphans and widows in their distress”, the definition of true religion in James 1:27.  I was challenged in three ways as I watched the movie.

First, I realized as I watched Rescued that adoption is a valid way to participate in the Great Commission.  Jesus said to “Go and make disciples, baptizing them….and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”  When Jesus gave that command, he never said that we couldn’t bring the nations home to us!  As a former missionary, this was a profound revelation for me.

Next, I was challenged that adoption is not an act of charity, but an act of spiritual warfare.  Many orphans will never hear the Gospel, nor even meet a Christian.  This is particularly true in foreign lands, where Christians are few and far between.  Orphans want homes, love, families, medical care, and other earthly needs met, but their greatest need—like ours—is salvation.  Their temporal losses will be nothing compared to their eternal suffering  if they don’t put their trust in Christ.  And “how can they believe in Him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10: 14).  When purposeful Christian families adopt, they invade the enemy’s territory, and that is an act of war.

Finally, I grasped for the first time that adoption is something Christians do out of their love for others and their love for Christ—not in order to fulfill their own needs.  As a mother of five children, I have no sense of “felt need” to adopt a child for my own sake.  However, our family has many spiritual, emotional, and material resources to offer.  If true religion is caring for orphans and widows in their distress, what am I doing about that?  As a Christian, I know that children are a blessing from the Lord, be they adopted or flesh of my flesh.  When Christians adopt, the Lord blesses both the child and the family in unforeseen ways.

This film makes it clear that not all Christians are called to adopt, just as all Christians won’t be called to the mission field.  All Christians must be involved in the missionary cause, however, and likewise we should all be involved in caring for orphans through prayer, giving, and offering support to other Christians who are adopting.

My calling to the mission field was not an overly-emotional experience of “sensing God’s Will.”  I simply heard someone preach about fields white unto harvest and the great need for workers to go out into the harvest field.  I offered myself to God with Isaiah’s words:  “Here am I.  Send me.”  If the Lord had a use for me, I was willing to go.  Rescued opened my heart to see adoption in a similar light.  That must always be our attitude as Christians:  to ask what the Lord would have us do and to be willing to do it for the sake of the Gospel.

Rescuedreceived 5 stars from the Dove Foundation and is a semi-finalist in the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, competing for a $101,000 “Best of Festival” award alongside other high profile films including “Courageous” and Ray Comfort’s  “180 Movie.”  You can be a part of the nationwide premiere of this important film in your community by signing up to host a movie night for Rescued in your home, church, or other venue.  A project of Freedom Film Distributors, National Movie Night provides Movie Night Hosts with planning and promotional tools to set up and promote their movie night and with discounts for the DVD.

 

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans – Trailer from Rescued The Movie on Vimeo.

If you are reading this in an email and do not see a video, click here to watch the Rescued trailer.

Fulfilling the Great Commission Through Adoption

Our dear friends are adopting a child from China next month.  They already have four biological children, but the Lord has moved them to express our adoption in Christ in a tangible way.

Their adoption will be a visible testimony to all who know them of God’s  pursuing love for His children.  As the old hymn proclaims, “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.  He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood.”  Our friends will bring a stranger into their home and confer on him all the rights of a son.

This adoption will also be a daily preaching of the Gospel to their own hearts and to their other children, as each will see in a new way what a profound thing the Lord has done for us.  It won’t be an easy road, but raising a child never is.

And what about the little boy? A precious soul will be brought out of a pagan nation, taught the Scriptures, and raised to follow Christ.  By God’s grace, I trust this little orphan will one day know the joy of two adoptions: first, into an earthly family and later as a child of God and fellow heir with  Christ.

Adoption is a picture of the Gospel to the world, to the church, to the family, and to the child.  When Christians adopt, they go as workers into the harvest field.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Luke 10:2 (ESV)

Be a Voice

God created each of us. All of us. We are not various races of people, we are one…the human race, created by a loving God.

Over the ages, a tiny little lie took root and grew. A lie that says all human life is not equal, not precious, not a right bestowed by a loving Creator.

It is not a political issue; it is a human rights issue.

It is a God issue.

This is Sanctity of Human Life month and Sunday, January 22nd, is Sanctity of Human Life Day. For Mentoring Moments it is more than a month or even a special day, it is a call.  As women of God, we are called to teach and train. This year we will be providing ongoing education into humans rights, specifically in the areas of abortion, slavery and human trafficking, adoption, special needs children and adults, widows and orphans.

If you are a blogger or even use Facebook and Twitter, we encourage you to join us and become a voice too.  Share the facts, the information, the call to help, and be a voice (even if you feel like you are only a small voice crying in the vast internet wilderness). Feel free to share the videos and articles that will be posted. Be a voice for those without a voice in 2012.

Focus on the Family has put together a marvelous video in honor of Sanctity of Human Life month. Watch it. Share it. Be a voice.

If you are reading this via email and do not see the video, click here.

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