How does/should the gospel impact our view, actions, and response to adoption? Dan Cruver has posted an interview with J.B. Watkins addressing this issue focusing on transracial adoptions.
In our own church (small congregation of about 120) adoption has become a very vital part of the gospel, with a total of seventeen children adopted domestically, internationally, cross-culturally, and interracially--by only seven families in the past eight years--to God be the glory!
In our own experience, adopting cross-culturally (Russia) had/has many challenges but over time the visible differences (language, culture, habits, preferences) tend to fade or disappear. Not so with transracial adoptions--how should the Church respond AND support these families as they live out and share the gospel before the world?
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By making them as much a part of your church family as any other persons! When we joined our current church, they were just starting a youth SS class, with a new youth pastor. We broke them in right away with 8 new members (the other three were not of the youth group age yet), from four different countries other than the US. They embraced our family and made us feel welcome and right at home. We were never treated "differently", but accepted with warm and open arms.
Now that we are in a new building, in a new location, we are seeing more visitors come to our church. It has been a delight to see our girls now embrace a mixed racial couple with four children who have started attending our church.
I guess my answer would be to make these people feel as much a part of the church family as you do - inviting them into your home, having your children do things together, bringing them into the discipleship relationships, etc.
Blessings
Ramona
Greetings!
I stumbled across your blog(s) just checking comment links from Pulpit Magazine, if I remember correctly. My wife and I have adopted two sons (now six and three) and have a biological son (one). Our middle son is Latino.
We love to read others' stories and experiences - there are MANY out there - but it is more rare when adoption comes from a standpoint of theology. This combination is more my passion than my wife's. We're sure to be reading your blog all the way through!
Our experience may be a bit different than somebody from the midwest - I don't know where you live exactly. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area and are surrounded by inter-ethnic marriages and adoptions. The race issue really isn't much of a race issue as far as I can tell in our [church] culture. (Our church recently ordained our first elder in our 13 year history that didn't have a mixed-ethnic marriage).
We get some occasional looks when we're out in public, or maybe some questions, but our church is integrated enough with various ethnic groups and inter-ethnic marriages that it's rarely an issue at all. In fact, we've had great support from some Latin people in our congregation. Our pastor's mother did translation work between us and the birth mother. But we're not ignoring the issue of race or culture; we try to integrate it into our son's life. There are two El Salvadoran restaurants close by that we can patronize, for example. I'm sure we'll learn about the issue of identy as he grows up.
Peace.
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