Musings of an Adoptive Dad - Part 4

Concluding this series today, I thought I'd post about why we'd do adoption again, particularly international adoption, if God let us.  Of course, He just might.  But that's really up to Him and a discussion to be had later.

First comes the question about money.  Money wasn't an issue when we adopted our little Peanut.  For our part, I'll say that we had a few people contribute to the cause, but we also worked really hard on saving for it.  It was an expensive process, well over $20,000.  That's a lot of dough.  But God provided.  My lovely wife worked some extra, we cut back some, and it came together.  Amen.  We're also seeing some of that come back now through the adoption tax credit.  Amen to that too.  I know others who have struggled significantly.  I don't want to deny that or denigrate them.  I will tell you that God provides.  Faithful is He who calls you and He will bring it to pass (1 Thessalonians 5.24).  We held tightly to that Truth for so many things through this process.

Second, we'd do it again because through adoption we changed the world.  I don't mean that in some triumphal, conquering, slam-dunk sort of way.  We're way more humbled by the process than I imagined.  But I also know with great confidence that there's a little girl sitting in the next room who's eating breakfast with her brother that this same morning would've woken up next to another kid, been untied from her crib, fed porridge because she couldn't have fed herself, and played the day away with 20 others in a room supervised by 2 nannies.  Just now, she walked in having gone to the potty and letting me know that she pulled her big girl undies up "all by myshelf."  It's not that we changed the entire world.  But we changed it for her and for us and for our sons, our extended family, our church family, our neighbors, and, Lord willing, our grandkids and generations of Hendersons to come.

Third, the need isn't going away.  According to my cool friend, Jon Singletary, there are 120,000 adoptable kids in the U.S.  How about this one:  3,000,000 kids in the world ready to adopt.  The need isn't going away.  We chose China because it seems about 1,000,000 of those are in China.

Lastly, our family is better because of it.  I know some of you walked through the adoption with us and you saw the sanctifying process that we went through and, hopefully, are seeing its fruit in our lives.  I know I can.  Perspective.  Patience (?).  Trust.  Compassion.  Gospel.  Selflessness (?).  Love.

I don't know if God will let us adopt again.  I don't know if He'll let you adopt.  But it's amazing.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Musings of an Adoptive Dad - Part 3

Because I'm a pastor and think about things in spiritual terms, it's only appropriate that I spend a moment to comment on how physical adoption reinforced Gospel adoption to me.

Consider...

I didn't choose God but He chose me because of His great love (Eph. 1.4-5).

I am bought by a significant price and sacrifice on His part (Eph. 1.7).

I am experiencing a life that I never could've created on my own (Eph. 2.8-9).

I am, quite literally, a citizen of a different kind of governance (Eph. 2.11-12).

I was a foreigner to God and He took me in, calling me His own son (Eph. 2.13).

I am now a part of a family that is much bigger and cooler than I could've imagined (Eph. 2.19).



The beauty of all of this:  just as I don't have a regret in the world, neither does He.  Wow.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Musings of an Adoptive Dad - Part 2

I had some fears going into the adoption process that I'll say out loud here so that if you have them or know people who have them, you can at least say you're not alone.

First fear:  can I raise a daughter?  I grew up with two brothers.  I had two sons.  The only females in my life on any kind of closely-tied relational level were my mom and my wife.  I wasn't sure I could do it.  I'm still not sure - we haven't gotten to the puberty-stage yet.  Stay tuned.

Second (and bigger) fear:  can I love my daughter the way I love my sons?  I was there when my sons were born.  I literally saw them take their first breath.  In moments, I knew their APGAR score and was holding their swaddled bodies, singing over them, praying over them, and letting their mom kiss them when I wasn't.  That wasn't the case for my daughter.

Two things changed my fear.  The first were two pictures.

Picture 1:  We were sitting in bed one night when the email dinged on my wife's computer.  We had sent over a care package with snacks and clothes and a pillow with our pictures on it.  In an email, we got a picture of our daughter holding the pillow.  I was done.  In an instantaneous moment of divine heart surgery, I knew she was mine and I was ready to go get her.  We cried when we saw...

Picture 2:  We got our daughter's file of all the things she had recorded since being found.  Included in that was her finding photo.  I'm choked up right now just thinking about it.  I'll not post it here for reasons I will not explain, but I know what she looked like at a few days old (or a few weeks old, we're not exactly sure when it was taken).  I didn't get to hold her then but I am holding her now.  This morning she came down the stairs and into my arms, jammies wrinkled from a long, solid night of sleep and hair looking about the same.  She's mine.

And that leads to the second thing that changed my fear.  This thought hit me (and continues to do so):  there's a difference between being her father and being her dad.  It's not just semantics for me.  She's not mine, but she is.  She's not from me but she's a part of me.  She's not my flesh, but I'd give my life for her.  She's my daughter.  I may not be the guy who is responsible for her being in the world, but I am the guy who is responsible for her.  And gladly.  I may not be her father, but I am her dad.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

And as a postscript to this, should you want to talk about anything in the adoption process, feel free to contact my wife or me via email:  trent at heritage park dot org (I wrote it out to prevent spammers).

Musings of an Adoptive Dad - Part 1

Since I brought it up in yesterday's sermon (audio should be available here by Wednesday or on iTunes), I thought I'd post this week about some reflections on adoption.  First out of the box and hot in my heart right now is adoption is a calling.

What I said yesterday in the sermon and I've blogged on before I stand behind:  I think every Christian couple should ask if God will let you.  But throwing the door open like that doesn't mean there's not a massive, weighty, spiritual piece to it.  Quite the contrary.  Should God allow you, you'll find yourself caught in this gravitational calling and actually depending on it.  We did.

I remember when it clicked for us.  I remember eating italian food with Ginny and talking about entry into this process.  I remember all the waiting.

We waited a year to get a match.

We waited a long time for our PA.

We waited forever for our RA.

We waited longer than anyone under the non-Hague rules for our TA (over 150 days).

We cried while waiting.

We fussed with God and our boys and one another.

We got promises from God.  None more precious than 1 Thessalonians 5.24:  Faithful is He who calls you and He will bring it to pass.  We clung to that truth like a kid to a lollipop.  Multiple times, I'd tell myself and my wife that we weren't going to stand before Jesus someday to give an account for our lives and tell Him that we quit just because the wait was long and too hard.  The temptation to give up was there.  God's promises are stronger than the promises of temptation.

I received what I thought was a word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit:  January.  Turns out that's the month in which she was born and that's the month we got matched.

We saw God move in the last minute on both our RA and our TA (posts on my wife's blog here and here).

We rode roller coasters of unbelievable heights and depths.

None of it - NONE - could we have endured without the sense of calling.  It's what sustained us.  And that sense of calling is that gravitational pull toward something, giving weight to what you do and keeping you together when everything else is going supernova around you.  We have some friends in the process right now enduring quite a bit of opposition from their family.  Harsh words.  Sinful attitudes.  Guilt.  Frustration.  Prejudice.  You don't endure those kinds of things (especially from family) with eyes on God without that settling, focusing, steadying weight of calling.

Adoption is a calling.  No denying it.  But it could be a calling for a lot more families than you know.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Sermon Notes from Sunday 3.27.11

Here are the notes from today's sermon.  We kicked off a series to emphasize our Season of Service.  This first sermon was from Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25.  To hear the sermon audio and get these notes in PDF, visit sermons.heritagepark.org.  You can also find us on iTunes and subscribe to the podcast.

Serve Like Jesus

Part 1 – Serve Like Sheep

Matthew 25.31-46

Serving Sheep are Sheep

• The big question is how sheep got to be sheep.
• It isn’t because of what they did. 
• It isn’t because of who they did it to.
• It was because of who they are.
• The way anyone comes into the Kingdom is through confidence in the King (Eph. 2.8-9).

Serving Sheep Serve

• The service flows from the identity – we are made to do good (Eph. 2.10).
• There are physical needs around us to be met.
• There are relational needs around us to be met.
• Meeting those needs means ministering to Jesus.
• It’s not always easy, but we are accountable for the good we should do.
• The issue is shalom – the wholeness and well-being of the world around us.

God cares about the poor (Proverbs 19.17).

• This is why we’re involved in Haiti.  
• Affluence doesn’t mean poverty isn’t present.

God cares about orphans and widows (Isaiah 1.23-24).

• Who around you needs help because they can’t do it themselves?
• Who around you needs investment because there are absent parents?
• How can I be involved with helping children?

Snakes are scary: You need a chair?

I really have nothing witty to say.  My observation?  People will put Jesus anywhere to sell something (just look at your local Christian bookstore).

Christian Community - last post (for now)

I did some reflecting last night and this morning about Christian community and the importance of it and why I felt so strongly to speak up about when I thought it was being maligned and mis-portrayed.

And then I got a gift as a perfect example.

I did about 90 minutes yesterday morning with a friend.  We had a rousing, helpful, insightful, passionate, and friendly discussion about life and theology.  We pondered, wondered, confronted and argued.  What was supposed to be about 45 minutes turned into 90 without a blink.

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

And that's why we need people like that in our lives.  It's why we need to consistently find ourselves in circles, gathered around the Bible for conversation that matters.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Christian Community - continued

I argued in yesterday's blog post that Christian community does indeed have a litmus test:  are we living life under the Lordship of Jesus?  To pick up a phrase that we say around Heritage Park quite a bit:  "it's okay not to be okay, it's just not okay to stay that way."

Let me try to explain that a little more.

The fact is we all, to the man, woman, and child, are not okay.  We're born separated from God, sinners by nature and choice.  We have issues and idols, complications and complaints, lostness and lusts, pain and problems, habits and hurts, smallness and selfishness.  The beautiful part about the church is the ability to say that out loud because it's true.  No hiding.  No pretending.  All really have sinned.  And to stand in front of any group of people and say we're all messed up is stating what everyone knows by observation.  In that sense, it's okay not to be okay because we all are precisely that.  I am 100% for accepting people as they are and no matter where they come from or what baggage they're carrying.  Our church is made up of stories that are scarred, colorful, and ugly.  Frankly, I think we do a very good job at taking people as they are and where they are.

But that's not what makes it Christian community.

To think that staying in the same broken and busted life is an okay thing is deceptive and dishonoring.  "It's not okay to stay that way" means that accepting people as they are is only half the story.  There is the issue of Jesus dying and rising again to cleanse us from our past and give us a new kind of life.  Learning from Him, who has the best possible answers to the most important questions, how to live life means that transformation is a normal (if supernatural) part of the Christian experience.  And the commitment to that, or as I stated earlier, the submission to the Lordship of Jesus, is the determining factor of Christian community.

His Lordship means that He gets to determine who we accept (everyone), how we accept people (as broken) and what agenda we pursue together (transformation).  But that certainly is a litmus test, one determined by His Lordship.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Christian Community

Let me start this entry by confessing my appreciation for Eugene Peterson.  I know many a person who's down on the man.  They don't like that he translated his own version of the Bible called The Message.  They don't like that he is (possibly) doctrinally soft in some places or has as broad of a tent as he has.  They don't like that he's got that old, grizzled, wizened, Jedi thing going for him.  


But I'm a fan.


I've read several of his books.  I have The Message on my shelf and crack it open at times.  We don't always see eye to eye, but I don't have to.  He reminds me a lot of my mentor and friend Bill Treadwell (read more here), who also had that old, grizzled, wizened, Jedi thing going for him.


In an interview this past week with Timothy Dalrymple, Peterson implied that to have community means not having a litmus test.  Here's the exact quote:

But the people who are against Rob Bell are not going to reexamine anything.  They have a litmus test for who is a Christian and who is not.  But that’s not what it means to live in community.

Here's my issue with that:  it seems that throughout the NT and in particular the last-half of Paul's letters, community is defined by the litmus test of Christ as Lord of all my life.  The Christian church is in submission to Jesus' authority over every area, such as:

• Sexuality (1 Thes. 4.3-8)
• Speech (Eph. 4.29)
• Money (1 Tim. 6.17-19)
• Marriage (Col. 3.18-19)
• Parenting (Col. 3.20-21)
• Emotions (Eph. 4.31)
• Freedom (Gal. 5.13)
• Government (Rom. 13.1-7)

And I could go on and on.


What's more, in the disciplinary passages (e.g. 1 Cor. 5), we see the call to remove people who are out of line with Christ's lordship and unrepentant in that sin.


I recognize that it's popular and culturally acceptable to say we ought to accept everyone.  In a sense, I can see how that's a good thing.  But I also know that the Christian community who live under the Lordship of Jesus does indeed have a litmus test:  is what Jesus wants done getting done?


But that's just me thinking thoughts...

Seminary?

I've been thinking about this post for quite a while now.  I know several folks who have asked about seminary, about when to go, where to go, how to go, etc.  I know people who teach at seminaries now.  And I know people who wish they would've gone or gone to a different seminary.

It's only my opinion, but there is one crucial question you have to ask and answer about seminary:  what is their litmus test?

Every seminary has one.  It can be spoken or unspoken, written or unwritten, explicit or sensed.  One of my friends started his M.A. at RTS but didn't finish.  I asked why and he replied that he was told that he wasn't "reformed enough."  Hello, Litmus Test.  I went to a seminary where the right answer on women in ministry was (and is) that they're perfectly equal and women senior pastors are not only possible but were even encouraged (and at times pushed).  Litmus Test.

So if you're thinking about seminary you need to able to identify the litmus test and determine if you can live with that and its consequences.  I'll give you an example from my own experience.  I was pretty ignorant of the whole litmus test thing going into my seminary schooling.  I knew I needed to go to seminary and I knew I had one in the same town.  2+2=4, right?

I pretty quickly figured out that I was one of the two most conservative people on campus.  I didn't fit theologically because I can't read the New Testament and reach the conclusion that female senior pastors are okay.  I won't do all the argumentation here but will simply say that, while I can't reach the one conclusion in line my seminary's urging, neither do I see the NT making little of women in ministry, classifying them as a second class.

The question I had to come to grips with was whether or not I was okay at being the contrarian in almost every class I took.  I was okay with it, so I stuck it out.

The corollary is whether or not I would be okay with the consequences of having a degree from there.  I was almost struck from the pastoral search process at Heritage Park, where I'm serving now, because of the seminary name next to my M.Div. because they had "heard about" that seminary.  God's obviously bigger than a seminary degree because I'm here.

So if you're thinking about seminary, just remember the litmus test.  There are other important questions, things to consider, and mindsets to take with you.  But the first question about seminary for me is the litmus test.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...