We've been home from sunny (well, sunny for one day) California for 5 days now and I've been putting off writing some sort of reflection. Not because I don't want to, but I'm truly at a loss for words. I have no clue how to capture our experience.
The atmosphere.
The people.
The speakers.
The thousands of hearts for orphans.
The wonderful organizations.
The music and time of worship.
The time with my hubby.
And on and on.
Honestly, I'm at a loss. So instead, I'm going to share some of my favorite quotes or points from the awesome speakers and let them do my thinking...
The Bible is clear about caring for orphans...AND it tells us to DO what is SAYS.
God will be blessed if you are a DOER.
James 1:27=private purity+public charity
--Dennis Rainey
The Gospel is focused on justice. The Gospel is the reason WHY--our source of deliverance--which should be lived in the verb form.
We need to bring them (orphans) home and demonstrate the TRUTH of the Gospel.
--Crawford Loritts
How do we communicate the truth??
We must make grace TOUCHABLE (word became flesh).
Loving orphans is making the gospel visible.
--Jedd Medefind
The gospel moves us to declare it AND demonstrate it.
Caring for the broken and fatherless is the best way to display the gospel.
One cannot be walking too closely with Jesus without thinking about and wanting to reach out to the less fortunate.
--Jason Kovacs
How can we be so casual about this (orphan care) if this is true religion (James 1:27).
A lot of our lives just don't make sense with the scriptures.
If you believe the Bible then how can you live the way you are? (Mat 25:40)
--Francis Chan
Ask yourself, "Who will take care of my children when I die."
You wouldn't want "orphanage" to be your answer. You'd want a mom and dad that would love them.
Home+Church=answer to orphan needs
All those notes alone are too much to take in and wrap your mind around. Then add in all the breakout sessions we attended (multicultural family, orphan ministry, missional living, etc), the hundreds of booths of organizations with ministries toward orphan care, the SUPERB music/worship, and the insight from all the great families we met.
Summit
was
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
I've said it before and I'll say it a million times more....when we started this journey we had no clue how much God would reveal to us. We had no clue how much our lives would be changed. We are not adopting or doing foster care to get a pat on the back. We are not doing it to be part of a "fad." We are doing it to do what God told us to do and to do what HE does for US.
What's a post without a few photos?!?!?
The atmosphere.
The people.
The speakers.
The thousands of hearts for orphans.
The wonderful organizations.
The music and time of worship.
The time with my hubby.
And on and on.
Honestly, I'm at a loss. So instead, I'm going to share some of my favorite quotes or points from the awesome speakers and let them do my thinking...
The Bible is clear about caring for orphans...AND it tells us to DO what is SAYS.
God will be blessed if you are a DOER.
James 1:27=private purity+public charity
--Dennis Rainey
The Gospel is focused on justice. The Gospel is the reason WHY--our source of deliverance--which should be lived in the verb form.
We need to bring them (orphans) home and demonstrate the TRUTH of the Gospel.
--Crawford Loritts
How do we communicate the truth??
We must make grace TOUCHABLE (word became flesh).
Loving orphans is making the gospel visible.
--Jedd Medefind
The gospel moves us to declare it AND demonstrate it.
Caring for the broken and fatherless is the best way to display the gospel.
One cannot be walking too closely with Jesus without thinking about and wanting to reach out to the less fortunate.
--Jason Kovacs
How can we be so casual about this (orphan care) if this is true religion (James 1:27).
A lot of our lives just don't make sense with the scriptures.
If you believe the Bible then how can you live the way you are? (Mat 25:40)
--Francis Chan
Ask yourself, "Who will take care of my children when I die."
You wouldn't want "orphanage" to be your answer. You'd want a mom and dad that would love them.
Home+Church=answer to orphan needs
- We cannot just help orphanages and give the children things....but must unite the children with LIFELONG FAMILIES
- We cannot just educate and medicate....but CURE
- We cannot just find a shelter for them...but a HOME
- Our goal must not be to work on the crisis but to END the crisis
- There are 168 million orphans and 2.4 billion Christians....YOU DO THE MATH
All those notes alone are too much to take in and wrap your mind around. Then add in all the breakout sessions we attended (multicultural family, orphan ministry, missional living, etc), the hundreds of booths of organizations with ministries toward orphan care, the SUPERB music/worship, and the insight from all the great families we met.
Summit
was
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
I've said it before and I'll say it a million times more....when we started this journey we had no clue how much God would reveal to us. We had no clue how much our lives would be changed. We are not adopting or doing foster care to get a pat on the back. We are not doing it to be part of a "fad." We are doing it to do what God told us to do and to do what HE does for US.
What's a post without a few photos?!?!?
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