Baptist Children’s Homes (BCH) is leading a virtual breakout session about foster care and adoption and the integral role the church can play.
Entitled Building God’s Kingdom by Connecting Vulnerable Children with Christian Families, the breakout session goes live on Monday, November 9 at www.ncannualmeeting.org/ breakouts beginning at 9:00 a.m. It shares partnership opportunities and ways for churches to be involved in ministering to children in North Carolina’s foster care system.
The session is a part of the Annual Meeting of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) that takes place in November. Because of the pandemic, the Annual Meeting, like similar gatherings, has become largely virtual. BCH quickly shifted its plans to creating a video version of its session on foster care and adoption.
“We will definitely miss the live interaction, but this has allowed us to come away with a multi-faceted presentation that can reach a pastor or church leader regardless of whether they could have attended an in-person meeting or not,” said Keith Henry, BCH Chief Operating Officer.
Henry is one of the three people leading the breakout session. He is joined by David Powell, Senior Pastor of Salem Baptist Church in Dobson, and Kevin Qualls, Senior Director of Christian Adoption Services (CAS). BCH acquired Christian Adoption Services, and CAS became an official ministry of BCH beginning October 1.
All three leaders have seen the needs of North Carolina children up close. There are approximately 16,000 children in the state’s foster care system who have been removed from their families’ custody for their well-being and safety. They see the church as the answer for ministering to these boys and girls and ensuring they receive the caring families and homes they deserve.
“We see in scripture that God has called the church to invest in children,” Powell said. “And we’re part of the solution of the heart of Jesus that wants children to be up in His lap to bless. We are to be part of that.”
Powell’s church began partnering with BCH almost two years ago to begin a foster care and adoption ministry that has seen couples in his congregation step forward and become foster and adoptive families. BCH’s staff provided the training and licensing classes the couples needed and assisted with child placements. In one case, six siblings were able to be placed with three different foster care couples in the church in order for the children to have contact with one another.
A couple in the church also took in an international child with very specific medical needs. Christian Adoption Services helped make the placement possible.
In the breakout session, the partnership between Salem Baptist and BCH highlights how North Carolina Baptists are stronger when working together to minister to the needs of children.
“I believe what BCH is doing is helping us as a church do what we are already called to do, but helping us get there,” Powell explained.
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