my oneBIGidea from Summit9

William and I were super blessed to be able to attend Summit9 in Nashville last week. Several months back a friend gifted us with some funds to get away by ourselves and we thought this was the perfect opportunity! (Thanks bro!;-)

We focused on the community based orphan care track but also heard speakers on everything from homeschooling to "connecting while correcting" with kids from hard places. I walked away with oneBIGidea...

Relationship is the cornerstone of orphan care because it's the method God used to redeem us. He came as a man who could walk with us, relate to us, speak with us, eat with us, weep with us. He came to us.

How obvious. Jesus' model of redemption is the best practice for reaching those close to the heart of God.

Go to them.
Love them.
Serve them.
Lay down your life for them.

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How will the foster care system ever be able to restore families and birth parents without a meaningful relationship with those birth parents?

How can we as foster/adoptive parents connect with our kids from hard places if relationship is not valued as more important than having a clean house or "normal family" or social media or fill-in-the-blank?

How can we as Christians even consider reintegrating third world street kids with their families if we don't invest the blood, sweat and tears necessary to form relationships with them?

How can we create effective community based orphan care for vulnerable children in poor lawless countries without going and living among them, walking in their shoes and laying down our lives for them?

How can we show the watching world the love of Jesus when we as Christians sling virtual mud at each other, putting aside our relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ, in order to voice our own agendas on how to best care for the least of these?

I'm no expert. No seminary degree here, but it seems embarrassingly obvious that if we are to show these children, these families, that their lives are redeemable, that restoration is possible, that beauty can come from ashes and freedom can be found... then our model must reflect the One who makes all of those things a reality.