Pure Religion Sunday, November 10, 2024, challenges us to join God and others in caring for the vulnerable.
| October 21, 2024 | WesLife
When you think of the foster care system in your county, what comes to mind? In my experience, most answers boil down to not enough resources, not enough families and not enough support to meet the overwhelming needs of vulnerable children.
As a vulnerable child ministry leader in a local Wesleyan church and Hephzibah62:4’s director, I am inspired by colleagues and friends behind the More Than Enough initiative, who boldly assert that in the United States’ 3,143 counties it is possible to achieve more than enough:
- Foster and kinship families for every child to have an ideal placement,
- Adoptive families for every child waiting for adoption,
- Help for biological families trying to stabilize and reunify,
- Wrap-around support from the church for all of these families.[1]
It’s exciting to witness miracles moving us closer to these more than enough goals in my local community, a three-county area of West Michigan.
On February 1, 2021, several ministry colleagues from local churches met for the first of many online prayer gatherings. The problems we were working on seemed overwhelming. We needed fresh movement from God and committed to praying together weekly for more than enough for West Michigan’s vulnerable children and families.
God honored our prayers; within weeks new doors began to open along with renewed energy for the work ahead.
One immediate answer to prayer came through the clarity of opportunity to work together to launch a powerful technology tool in our three-county area called CarePortal.
Wesleyan and other local church leaders and CarePortal staff who have been part of the West Michigan CarePortal launch gathered to celebrate their nomination as a top three finalist for the 2024 CarePortal Community of the Year award in April of this year.
CarePortal creates opportunities for local churches to be at the point of connection with kids and families in crisis. Requests come from child serving professionals and resources to meet needs can come from a variety of community responders. Each request represents at minimum one caseworker, one child and one family, and multiple opportunities for prayerful, loving, personal support from at least one local church responder while tangible needs are being met.
Since CarePortal launched in West Michigan in April 2022, the early impact of our responses to requests has been astounding. Within the three-county area, 70 response teams (most from local churches) have served over 5,000 children and made an estimated economic impact of over $800,000!
Of those 70 current response teams, the impact from just six Wesleyan churches is significant. So far these Michigan churches include Central Wesleyan Church, Holland, Friendship Wesleyan Church, Plainwell, Impact Church, Lowell, Kentwood Community Church, Kentwood, The Local Church, Grand Rapids and Voyage Community Church, Wyoming.
While these Wesleyan churches represent less than 9% of the CarePortal response teams in our area, they represent 42% of the impact made by needs met through CarePortal requests in this area. Considering financial investment, value of tangible items donated and volunteer hours, the economic impact of these six churches’ responses has been estimated by CarePortal to be over $378,000! The kingdom value is impossible to quantify.
In my church, Stand Sunday 2021 (now part of Pure Religion Sunday), was the perfect opportunity to create awareness, recruit and train a team committed to meeting the kids’ and families’ needs at the heart of CarePortal requests. Since then, we have been blown away by how God has grown us as disciples and in relationship with each other as we offer our unique gifts, talents and resources to bless others.
Here are a few ways that answering these requests have impacted our community:
A 16-year-old young man entered foster care and moved hours from his home county to live with a willing relative. A cold weather gear request was entered into CarePortal. The church volunteer who responded knew the difficulty to personally connect given the distance. She decided to include a personal note along with the items that the caseworker would deliver. After the delivery, the caseworker e-mailed, “He could not believe you guys would do that for him. The smile on his face made me choke up. He really loved the letter also. If you guys want to continue to write him, I think he would really love that!” Since then, the volunteer sends him a card each month, letting him know he is prayed for and loved, and hopes they can meet someday.
A mom with six children was in financial crisis after being left as the family’s sole provider. A church responded to a CarePortal request and helped pay some bills. After months of a volunteer occasionally connecting to offer prayer and encouragement, the mom visited the church with her children. When an invitation to come forward for prayer was given, the mom went with tears streaming down her face. She texted later, “I want my faith to grow and redefine itself. I feel incapable of life and the things I’m facing. It feels impossible right now. I needed to be there today, and I know God brought you to me to help me get there.”
A caseworker visited a local church and met a CarePortal Response Team member after the Sunday service. The caseworker explained she had not been attending church regularly for five years. But she was motivated to get back to church because of the ways churches were responding to CarePortal requests and partnering in caring for the moms and kids she serves!
CarePortal testifies that “real, systemic change is occurring in communities to reverse our nation’s foster care crisis as a result of the meaningful connections formed through CarePortal. Not through more programs. Not through more taxes. But through connection among a pre-existing network of caring people and local churches engaging in cross-sector collaboration, working together to facilitate local, proactive, and effective care for kids.”[2]
Until there is more than enough for vulnerable kids and families, how is God calling you and your church to deepen your understanding of and response to James 1:27 on Pure Religion Sunday, November 10, 2024, and throughout the year?
From the legacy of Orphan Sunday + Stand Sunday, Pure Religion Sunday is a day of unity to reflect God’s heart for the orphaned and vulnerable. Rooted in James 1:27 and reflected throughout all of Scripture, this special day encourages your church to engage deeply in adoption, foster care, global orphan care and wrap-around family support year-round — central to living as disciples of Christ. Host a Pure Religion Sunday event on or near the second Sunday in November each year to help your church and community engage in caring for vulnerable children and families where you live.
Jodi Lewis is the director of Hephzibah62:4, a subsidiary of The Wesleyan Church dedicated to equipping and mobilizing local Wesleyan churches to transform the lives of vulnerable children. She also serves as a lay leader of Families of Promise at Kentwood Community Church, a Hephzibah62:4 partner church.