Contextualize the Need: Mobilizing Your Church

Does your church have a passion for orphans, widows, fatherless, and those in the foster care community? It can be easy to get fired up around this cause on days like Orphan Sunday, but then feel like it fizzles out the other 364 days of the year.

If this sounds familiar, we want you to know that we’ve been there. Numerous churches, members, and regular attendees would like to get more involved in the foster care community but they just don’t know how.

That’s where you come in!

Each and every week, our team has the honor of supporting our TFI Advocates across the nation in bridging the gap between churches and foster care agencies to meet the needs of the foster care community. In order to accomplish this goal, our Advocates have to understand how to motivate people, create connections, and mobilize churches to take action.

This requires presenting the mission field in a way that shows others how they can play a vital role. Too often we present information that is too big, and while this can provide a helpful scope of the size of the issue, it makes the challenges feel out of reach. Our small actions can feel like a single droplet of water put on a raging forest fire.

If you’ve been struggling to start a foster care ministry or would like to see more of a response within your church, try these simple shifts to help contextualize the need in your area:

1. Use relatable data.

Did you know that nationally there are over 400,000 children in foster care?

This is a statistic we often talk about in some of the content we share. You have probably heard pastors, speakers, and other foster care ministries use it as well.

While a huge statistic like this is helpful on a large scale, these wide-reaching numbers often do little to help mobilize your church.

Do you know the number of children in foster care in your state? In your county? Or in your town?

How much more actionable does it sound when you can tell your church that there are 28 children in foster in your small town? Or 650 children in foster care in your county? Even if your congregation has an average attendance of 200 people, the data for your county feels far more relatable and mobilizing than the national statistics.

2. Share stories of God redeeming lives in the foster care community.

Stories are powerful tools. Often, the world of foster care can feel so overwhelming. The brokenness and complexity can make even the most well-intentioned feel the pull to look away. It is easy to put the biological parent, the agency worker, the child in foster care, the foster parent into neat little buckets. But story allows people to have their hearts and souls engaged. Story allows the people of God to recognize that the crisis of foster care is not happening in some far-off place, but right outside their doors in their neighborhoods, schools, and churches.

Story can encourage people to step in and be a part of the work God is doing to transform lives! Families are being restored, the chains of addiction and generational trauma healed, and the vulnerable are being strengthened by the power of our King.

3. Inform people about the unique challenges that exist within your community.

Have you considered the unique challenges of your local community? Depending on your geographic location, the size of your community, and so much more, people in your area will face complex challenges. There are many reasons why children and families experience foster care. What are the common challenges that exist that often lead to foster care in your area?

This allows you to consider how you can support families before they are impacted by foster care. This also allows you to educate your congregation so they better understand the community as a whole.

4. Educate.

Every person has something to offer in supporting the foster care community. But oftentimes, stepping into brokenness without educating ourselves about who it is we are serving can lead to more harm than help. Providing education that equips your members to understand the complexity of foster care can be a great first step towards seeing congregations meet real needs in their community.

As an example, if your community needed tutors for children in foster care, why not hold training to answer questions and offer resources to equip members to tutor several subjects and ages? You might even consider inviting experts and resources for foster parents and supportive roles.

You also may want to host some informational meetings for your church to become educated about the world of foster care. Who is the foster care community, and why might a child need to enter the foster care system? What can our church do to see families made whole, and healing for those hurting?

Whether you are informing your entire church congregation about the needs of the foster care community or having a conversation with just a few people, it’s important to contextualize the need to help stir the hearts of God’s people. We are big believers that awareness leads to action. By bringing awareness about the contextual issues that exist in your community, you are making it possible for people in your church to step into the work God is doing to care for the vulnerable.

Looking to take the next step in serving the foster care community in your area? Take the next step to become a TFI Advocate—Applications will open next month, and you can click here to sign-up to be notified when they go live!