When it comes to adoption rates, our Reformed churches aren’t unusual. While Canadian statistics are hard to come by, in the US it appears about 1% of families adopt an orphan. Our congregations may be a bit above that average, but not remarkably so.

Why is that?

There are practical considerations of course. Couples may not be able to afford the $20,000 (and more) it costs to complete an overseas adoption. They may worry about how adopted children will deal with sticking out in our church communities, where we may have a variety of hair colors, but some congregations are pretty limited in the variety of skin color.

Other considerations could be mentioned, but the expense and the potential difficulties wouldn’t explain our churches’ tepid attitude to adoption. For example, Christian schooling is also costly, and it can be more than a little difficult, and yet we as churches have embraced it because we understand how God thinks about this issue. We’ve been taught off the pulpit and in home visits, and been encouraged by family and friends, to understand the importance of educating our children to know and love the Lord (Proverbs 22:6, Deut. 6:7). We know this is what God calls us to do, so we’re willing to pay what it costs, and to struggle through whatever difficulties we might face.

So I don’t believe it’s the practical concerns that are holding us back when it comes to adoption. I wonder if it’s simply that we don’t talk about it.

Why we are so quiet

There’s a reason you likely haven’t heard your elders, or pastor, or parents, or friends talking about adoption. It’s probably the same reason I haven’t written much about it: it seems downright hypocritical for someone without adopted children to encourage others to adopt.

Your elder can teach you about the importance of a godly education for your children – no hypocrisy there, because he’s been a board member, three of his children are enrolled, and the fourth just graduated. But if he doesn’t have adopted children, wouldn’t it be strange if, during the course of a home visit, he asked you whether you’ve considered adoption?

The reason we don’t talk about adoption, the reason we don’t teach and preach about it is because we don’t do it. It seems wrong to preach what we don’t practice. So we’re quiet instead.

What God thinks about adoption

While silence saves us from hypocrisy, it also leaves us ignorant. It leaves us thinking adoption is only for those struggling with infertility. Silence has some still believing there are theological objections to adoption. Silence fosters our lukewarm approach to adoption.

But God isn’t lukewarm about adoption. We read that before Man even fell into sin, God already had a plan to use adoption to bring us back to Him: “In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will…” (Ephesians 1:5).

Theological objections to adoption? What trouble we would be in if that were so! Who are we, if not the adopted sons and daughters of God? God doesn’t just love adoption; He invented it!

If not for it, we would have remained God’s enemies. But instead, through the “Spirit of adoption” we can cry out to God and call Him, “Abba, Father.” It is through adoption that we have become children of God (Romans 8:15-16).

Imitators of God

In Psalm 68 David describes God as “a father to the fatherless” (vs. 5) who “sets the lonely in families” (vs. 6). In James 1:27 we’re told that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…”

Consider Ephesians 5:1-2:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

We are to be imitators of God because we are his children! Can we think of a better way to imitate our heavenly Father than to also be a father to the fatherless?

Does that then mean we should all adopt? No, it does not; while all Christian parents are called to teach their children the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Deut. 6:7, Ephesians 6:4), there is no similarly universal command to adopt. God doesn’t call all couples to it. And He doesn’t equip us all for it.

But a lot more of us may be equipped than we realize. We’re adopting at a rate that is comparable to the world, and yet our churches should be full of adopted children. Why? Because they already are! We are all adopted – by the grace of God we have been made His sons and daughters – so we, so much more so than the world, should be eager to go and do likewise.

Silent no more

How can we fill our churches with adopted children? It begins with teaching and preaching God’s thoughts on adoption and encouraging one another to have the conversation. While it might seem hypocritical for a pastor, or elder (or magazine editor) who has no adopted children to encourage others to adopt, it really isn’t – there’s no need for him to preach what he hasn’t practiced. Instead, he can encourage others to do what he has done (or what he now recognizes he should have done), which is to seriously and prayerfully consider it.

Bringing an orphan child into your home may be difficult, costly, even scary, but it is, above all, godly. Will you consider it?

*****

John Piper on adoption: It may be difficult but…

“The pain of adopting and rearing children is sure. It will come in one form or the other. Should that stop us from having children or adopting children? No. The self-centered world “cuts their losses” by having few or no children. (And there is way too much of that thinking in the church.) In one sense we may be very glad that such people don’t tend to have children or at least not many children. Because it means that breed of selfish person will die out more quickly since they don’t replace themselves. But on the other hand, we grieve, hoping that they will see that the grace of God is sufficient for every new day no matter how difficult, and that there is more true joy in walking with God through fire, than walking on beaches without him.”

– Piper, in an excerpt from his sermon, “Predestined for Adoption to the Praise of His Glory” which can be found online at www.DesiringGod.org.