Reasons Churches and Christians Should Be Involved in Child Care
Caring for Vulnerable Families
Hosts of Christians and dozens of agencies associated with Churches of Christ focus on helping vulnerable families and children. They especially seek to find homes for the unwanted children in our society. Many of these agencies align themselves with Christian Child and Family Services Association, a coalition with a mission to encourage excellence in care of children and families, to train and encourage those involved in such care and to advocate for Christian compassion. This series of articles is dedicated to them
Churches and Christians justify their involvement in childcare in a variety of ways. The large number of vulnerable children represents a substantial need in our communities. Helping children wins wide acclaim from the media and general population. Caring for the vulnerable gives those working in the area a significant sense of making a difference. Some find themselves perpetuating institutions that are dedicated to this task. Perhaps a few take up this cause out of tradition.
But as powerful as these motivations are, Christians should seek fundamental reasons for their work in Scripture. While rationales based on popularity or social pressure or past activity cannot be discounted, the “Christian” in Christian Child and Family Services Association touches not only a powerful motivation, but bases our work in God’s calling and teaching.
The more clearly we understand the biblical thinking behind the care for vulnerable children, the more adequately we keep our focus. Rather than let our practice drive our theology, this series suggests that our theology should prompt our actions.
This three-part series roots Christian childcare in biblical teaching about fathers. It will suggest that we find reason for caring for children when we more clearly understand the theology behind the word father. Other concepts in Scripture also ground the work with vulnerable families, so that this presentation must not be seen as exclusive, but simply as a line of thinking that forms the foundation for what those associated with Christian Childcare and Family Service seek to accomplish.
Part 1: Fathers in the Bible
The word “father” appears in the Bible over 1,500 times. Most Christians could
name dozens of biblical fathers and sons, from Adam and his sons, Cain and Abel, to Zebedee and his sons, James and John. We could cite several father and daughter relationships, including the elusive “daughters of men” in Genesis 6:2, Terah with his daughter, Sarah (Gen 20:12), and Philip with his four unmarried daughters (Acts 21:9).
Many biblical sons and daughters did not have good fathers. We can only guess at what kind of father Cain (Gen 4:17) or Eli (1 Sam 2:12; 4:17) might have been. Even the most famous father-son relationships have huge questions around them. How did Isaac raise a deceitful Jacob and vengeful Esau? The haunting failure of David with his sons, Amnon and Absalom (2 Sam 13-18), alarms every generation who hears that story.
The failure of fathers continues unabated into the current era. Many of us have experienced an unresponsive or absent father or know of such cases among friends and relatives. We don’t have to look far to find examples of what it means to be a bad father.
Yet, despite the failure of many biblical and contemporary fathers, good examples also abound. Abraham emerges as the first individual closely examined on the pages of Scripture who seeks to be a good father. When Ishmael and Isaac are born, he exhibits behavior that we both shun and follow. We wince at his sending Ishmael away (Gen 21:8f) and agonize with his desperate decision to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:1). His obvious concern for both sons and his efforts to “charge his children . . . to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice” (Gen 18:19) attracts our admiration and attention.
The entire book of Job revolves around his care for his sons and daughters, his grief over their loss, and the birth of a second family. His interest in their spiritual lives stands as a high point in biblical fatherhood (Job 1:5). His self-described lifestyle makes him a desirable man to call “dad” (Job 31).
Joseph’s loving response to Mary’s pregnancy seems consistent with the kind of father he becomes for Jesus in the all too brief glimpses provided in the gospels. The image of distraught Mary and Joseph searching Jerusalem for their twelve year-old speaks volumes about his concern.
Jesus paints a portrait of a wonderful father in the Luke 15 parable of the prodigal son. The father’s faithful waiting for the younger boy’s return, his warm welcome to the prodigal and his kind conversation with his now- alienated older son offers another high water mark for what a good father should do.
Our own experience mirrors the biblical treatment. Examples of bad fathers in our memory sit alongside fathers that seem exemplary. Whether in biblical times or in our own day, we don’t have to look far to find bad and good images of what it means to be a father.
The presentation of bad and good fathers in the Bible clearly anticipates our own situation. Not all families provide a loving and caring environment in which to raise children. We find our own troubled world reflected in the Bible. Scripture, however, resounds not just with model fathers, but with a dream for what fathers might be like. Rooted in the reality of how we do live, God in the Bible reminds us of how we might live.
The high standard set for families in Scripture prompts ministry to those from homes that fall far short of that goal. Out of that, we desire to provide a more holistic family setting for children without parents and young ones unwanted and uncared for by a mother or father. From the fifth commandment about honoring parents to the household codes in Paul’s epistles explaining marital and parenting relationships, Scripture calls us to a higher standard for all families. In that call to include honor, love and proper nurture in each family, Christians and churches associated with Christian Child and Family Services Association find their marching orders.
Part 2: God as Father
God as Father is well known to most Christians. In the New Testament, God is called father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 15:6 and several other texts), father of mercies and all comfort (2 Cor 1:3) and father of glory (Eph 1:17). God is also father of spirits (Heb 12:9), of lights (James 1:17) and father of us all (Eph 4:6). In the Old Testament, God is father of Israel (Isa 64:8), of Abraham (Isa 63:16) and of the king (Psalm 2:6-7).
Indeed, some of our favorite lines of scripture call God our Father. The line “Our Father, who is in Heaven” begins the Lord’s Prayer. We have been baptized in the “name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit” according to Jesus’ great commission. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
The disparate legacy of human fathers mentioned in Part 1 initially seems at odds with God’s desire to be called Father. We understand him as lord, creator, the holy one of Israel, and redeemer, but in light of the experiences that so many inside and outside the Bible have with their parents, why would God seek to be our father?
Here is a crucial point: The Bible never uses a human example to explain God as father. God does not say “I want to be your father like Abraham was Isaac’s father” or “Let me be to you as David was to Solomon” or “You can see me as James and John looked at Zebedee.” God as father is not based on a specific human father and his children.
God as our father is based on the relationship Jesus had with God. At age 12, when Joseph and Mary found him in the temple, Jesus asked “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). In John 10:15, Jesus said, “just as the Father knows me . . . I know the Father.” Later, he claims to be one with the Father (John 10:30), and no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). In John 15:1, he says his Father is the gardener, and in his prayers near the end of his earthly life, he addresses God as Father (John 17:1; Matt 26:39). On the cross, Jesus cries, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).
The perfect, healthy, mutually-beneficial father-son relationship which existed between God and Jesus becomes the model for our relationship with God and for our roles as earthly fathers. Whatever our relationship with our own biological father, we rest our lives in the way God the father cared for Jesus the son. Although we may experience anguish or regret in our own relationships with our earthly fathers, we can find satisfaction and joy in developing the kind of loving relationship that God modeled with Jesus.
The lasting legacy of the perfect father-child relationship between God and Jesus belongs to every child. Not only can fathers from intact families use that model, but that ideal relationship motivates all in Christian childcare to help children whose parent-child relationship is broken or non-existent.
Not only do we have biblical teaching about family as a motivation for our work with vulnerable families and children, we also have God, father of Jesus, as a model for the way in which we achieve those standards. This ideal father-son relationship provides a deep resource from which we draw as we seek to help those in difficult situations
Part 3: God as Father of the Fatherless
The Bible calls God the father of the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). About forty times, the Old Testament describes orphaned children as fatherless. Perhaps they were called fatherless because the high casualty rates in the numerous Old Testament wars left them with mothers, but no fathers. Orphans became known as the fatherless. Yet the Bible hastens to make clear that, despite the loss of their biological fathers, these children are not completely fatherless. They join the ranks of Abraham (Isa. 63:16) and the king (Psalm 2:6-7) in having God as their father. Children without fathers join the family of those who have God as their father.
As we explore core concepts in which our faith is centered, we must not forget one group that remains on the margin of the picture: those who have no biological fathers. Perhaps no group is more open to finding a father, no segment of society more in need of such a father than those parentless children among us.
We should not be a church family with God as our Father and ignore those who have no father. Every time we pray, “Dear Father” we do so in a world where thousands of children have no father at all, biological or spiritual. Every time we lay claim to this deeply desired relationship, we must be aware of those who cry out for the same comfort out of exceedingly deep hurt.
If God chose to make himself father of the fatherless, those who follow him should continue that legacy. We, as Christian communities, embrace what our God embraces. Since God owned the children without earthly parents, we find justification for owning the same children today.
Every Christian couple who adopts a child imitates God in a unique way. Each time a Christian childcare agency places a child in an adoptive family, it participates in a practice initiated by God himself. We walk on holy ground in giving vulnerable children a parent, following the footsteps of God himself who claimed to be the father of children in similar circumstances.
Churches and Christians may find many reasons to care for unwanted children. One of our most fundamental biblical motivations is found in God himself, the first father of the fatherless.
Copyright © 2007 by Harold Shank. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author with the exception that brief quotations may be used in critical articles and reviews. A further exception is that this publication can be used in non-commercial publications to promote Christian child care. All such copies must include this copyright notice.