The Bible says that true spirituality involves caring for orphans and widows. But how much do we actually take this seriously?
James 1:27 (New International Version)
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
LongHollow Church, a multi-site church in Tennessee, has decided on a Crazy Love fund-raising campaign that aims to, among other things, raise $200K for a Haiti orphanage, and $10K to create means for helping people adopt orphans (doesn't that sound backwards? – Shouldn't they spend MORE money on the means to make them ex-orphans?).
Also, the Catalyst Podcast is focusing on adoption, trying to get American churches to really pursue adoption of orphans – they're pushing Orphans and the Church, a Rick Warren/Saddleback effort. Here's an interview with Kay Warren talking about it. She discusses how she became passionate about it as she was researching how to help HIV victims in Africa. Really interesting.
You can also check out Kay Warren's book Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God. You can also check out my interesting afterthought after the break.
AFTERTHOUGHT
We all have our place in the work of God, but I wonder if we (*I*) should stop fighting with hard-hearted atheists and doubters in
the west, abandon them to their hardness (as God does in Romans 1, or as Jesus instructed in the 'shake the dust off your feet' passage in Matthew 10), and serve those who are the
most needy.
However, the reason I do not do that is because:
- I like to argue and fight (that can be both spiritual and carnal ;)
- It is easier to argue than to love (definitely carnal ;)
- God actually loves us hard-hearted types – I was once an 'intellectual' agnostic unbeliever
- There are plenty of people who are not hard hearted who watch these debates, and we need smart people to defend the faith against the 'vain philosophies' of this world, which includes atheism.
