Assisting Children in Need of Families

One in four couples have considered adoption or foster care, either because of infertility, or to expand their family to provide a permanent home for a child.

That’s why this month, Saddleback launched informational seminars, called Exploring Adoption or Foster Care for My Family. Hosted at several of our campuses—as well as other locations including Friends Church in Orange County—these workshops are a place to get accurate information, simple overviews, and have questions answered in a no-pressure environment.

On May 19, the Orphan Care Initiative released a complete event kit with tools and teachings on adoption and foster care from a biblical perspective. This easy-to-follow guideline allows any church or organization to host an informational seminar to help find families. Seminars at our Saddleback campuses feature adoptive and foster parents who share their insights on how the journey has impacted their families.

This “seminar in a box” is part two of a three-part series featuring the already released The Connection: Where Hearts Meet, which provides support for parents to build lasting, loving connection with their children. The last in the series, God’s Heart for Vulnerable Children, will equip and deploy volunteers with radical compassion for at-risk kids. It is scheduled to be released just in time for the PEACE Summit in September.

At the time of this writing, three Saddleback campuses have successfully hosted the second seminar, with other campuses like South Bay, Corona, Los Angles, Yorba Linda, San Diego, Newport Mesa, and Aliso Viejo, and Irvine South set to host in June. In total, 15 of Saddleback’s campuses will be sharing this powerful seminar over the summer.

“Volunteers can now go to a campus and share the seminar to help families,” says Saddleback’s Orphan Care Manager, Max McGhee. “The goal was to decentralize the seminar so that it can be shared at all of our campuses. So far, we’ve received really good feedback.”

The goal is not to influence a person’s decision, but rather to give the information needed to make a prayerful decision about whether or not adoption or foster care is right for their lives.

To learn more, or to attend an upcoming event hosted by adoptive and foster families from our church, visit saddleback.com/exploringadoption.

(Photo by Thiago Cerqueira on Unsplash)