2.5 years ago I left my last church because the head pastor decided he wanted to build an empire, secretly hired a church marketing firm and lost his focus on God.  His teaching had always been shallow, but I stayed because I loved the over 55 crowd and usually hung out with them and went to their Sunday school class.  I even was honored to teach one of their small groups for awhile.  The Sunday that I walked in and saw that the pastor had placed a pirate’s treasure chest on the alter with a spot light illuminating it in order to start funding the eternally-worthless things the marketing group was telling him to do in order to build an empire, the Holy Spirit released me.  A lot of people left.

For 2.5 years, I visited churches and grieved over the fact that church in America seems to be little more than a social club or joke.  It’s rarely transformative.  Especially here in the Bible belt people go and play church one or two days a week, but they generally buck against any real accountability or weekday holiness.

A little over a month ago, I visited Northplace church.  The teaching was deeper than I’d found at most churches.  The pastor didn’t seem to shy away from speaking truth.  Then I found out the church had a heart for orphans, foster care kids, and special needs kids.  I knew this was the place for me.  During my second visit, I felt God speak to me about surrendering all and moving forward with foster-to-adopt despite my fear.  He told me that this was not about me.  It was about Him and the kids who will come to me.

So, I chose a Christian agency to work with and in the midst of my paperwork I was asked for a pastoral recommendation.  I called my new church.  I knew there was no way the Pastor could recommend me right now since I’d only been there 5 weeks, so I asked if I could meet with him so he could start to get to know me.  I was told that he travels so much that meeting with him is almost impossible.  That gave me pause.  Pastors are meant to shepherd a flock.  The New Testament shows us that even Paul shepherded various flocks while on the road spreading the gospel.  However, Paul was primarily an evangelist.  He left behind leaders to shepherd the people.  Still Northplace has a heart for foster kids, so I’m not giving up on it yet.  They suggested I call a pastor at my old church.

I couldn’t call the head pastor at my old church because he has nothing to do with those of us who left, so I called the pastor of the senior citizens who I sat under in Sunday School and who sat in several of the small group sessions that I taught.  He too had left our old church and during the first 1.5 years I tried to keep in touch with he and his wife.  The only disagreement we’d ever had was when I said the head pastor at the old church wasn’t following God and the pastor of seniors got mad and said he had seen the head pastor pray and cry out to God.  I thought, “Yep and the Pharisees made sure people saw them pray and cry out too, but Jesus condemned them for having hearts far from God and praying only for show.”  In the interest of peace, I let it go.  Earlier this year, I was forced to cut off contact because his wife had referred a client to me.  Whenever she sends someone to me, she feels she has a right to their privileged information and she has a very bad habit of badgering me for privileged information.  This time, to maintain professional ethical integrity, after she did it once I felt I had no choice but to cut off contact for the duration of the case.  Eight months later, when I called her husband for a pastoral recommendation, I was happy and joyful and assumed he’d say yes.  After all, he’d seen me teach, I’d listened to his teaching, and we’d done life together.  It never occurred to me that his answer would be anything other than yes.  After listening to what I’m doing and why I feel God has lead me this direction, he said that I’d been out of their lives too long for him to be able to do a recommendation that would carry any weight.  I said I understood, but the truth is I was deeply hurt.

Many, many times through the Old and New Testament we are told to take care of orphans and the fatherless.  This is clearly a people group close to the heart of God and as Christians, they should be close to our hearts as well.  I’m not trying to say that I’m super holy for fostering.  The truth is that I’m scared to DEATH.  However, I’m not asking for a recommendation for a 6-figure job.  I’m asking for a recommendation to take a child who’s been abused, abandoned or neglected into my home and give that child safety and love.  Then, if their parents get it together, I will be called to let go of that child regardless of how much it breaks my heart.  There are absolutely no guarantees I’ll ever get to adopt.  I’m terrified of the potential for heartbreak.  However, I know I heard God say that it is not about me.  It’s about Him and being His hands, feet and heart to a child who needs safety and love.  I asked one pastor to get to know me so I could get a recommendation and his handlers said he has no time for such things.  I asked a second pastor who does know me and he refused because I’d had to cut his wife out of my life for the duration of the case she sent to me.

I know that anytime we are about to do something big – something eternally worthwhile – the Enemy will fight against us.  I’ve been struggling with an unholy fear from him since I began to move forward, but what could be more eternally worthwhile than giving a child a safe and loving home – either temporarily or permanently?  Now I understand that as I follow Jesus through the fear, the Enemy will attack in other ways.  Now I see that the Enemy will even use other Christians to try to block an eternally good and God-ordained work.  It’s interesting to me that the Church has been my biggest roadblock in trying to fulfill God’s command to take care of orphans.  When I looked at private adoption, I found that:  1. Christian non-profit agencies tend to be among the most expensive agencies, 2. most grants are given out by churches and Christian groups and 3. I was ineligible for most of them because I am unmarried.  When I looked at embryo adoption, I knew the kind of condemnation I’d get from Christians and how much and how often I’d have to explain the situation and why I was unmarried and pregnant.  That didn’t stop me.  I was simply aware of it.  Now trying to foster-to-adopt, which means I’m a foster parent unless or until a child in my care becomes free for me to adopt, the lack of a pastoral recommendation could stand in my way of using a Christian agency to accomplish what the Bible clearly commands.

Morale of the story (and I’m saying this to myself first and foremost):

Christians, make sure you are standing with God!  For example:  When a person who loves Jesus is willing provide a safe and loving home for a needy child in accordance with Biblical commands and you choose to stand in the way by withholding something you could easily give, then ask yourself whether you are on God’s side or are being used by Satan.

UPDATE:  The agency said that they have a lot of families who cannot get pastoral recommendations because pastors are so uninvolved with their flocks in big churches and/or the families have started going to new churches, so it shouldn’t be a problem after all!  (Yet people would probably be shocked that I still think church in America is a joke.)