Foster care: God’s love in action

Every week, Anglicare Sydney receives around 100 requests on behalf of vulnerable children in NSW who need a safe place to stay. The sad reality is that for various reasons, these children are unable to be cared for by their biological parents—at least for now. Some will need to stay with a foster family for just a short while; others will need to stay until they turn 18.

Christians are people who know what it means to be graciously adopted into God’s family and loved as his own dear children. This love has inspired many Christian families to open their homes and hearts to foster children, providing them with the safety and love that can help them heal from their past trauma and step into a brighter future.

Not all of us are called to be foster carers, but we all can be part of a team that ‘wraps around’ foster families with loving support. We can all do something to show the love of God to the foster kids within our churches and local communities.

In this episode of the Timeless Parenting podcast, Ann talks with Nicole Martin, Head of Foster Care, Adoption & Family Support at Anglicare, as well and two current foster mums: Robyn and Kate. Together they share a compelling vision of how churches and Christian families can show the love of God to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Ann asked our guests a number of questions including:

• Why do some children need to enter foster care?
• What is the relationship like between foster parents and birth parents?
• How has fostering impacted your own biological children?
• What are the different types of foster care?
• How can churches work together to support foster kids and their families?
• Are you allowed to share your faith with your foster children?
• Do you need special qualities to be a good foster carer?
• What training and support is available for foster carers?

This conversation will help you to see that supporting foster care is something that all Christians can do—in some surprisingly simple ways. Together, we can help vulnerable children to experience the love of God through the practical care of his people.

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Anglicare has a new Foster Care Resource Hub to help churches and individuals explore how they can get more involved.

The following is an edited version of an article by Out-Of-Home-Care Chaplain, the Rev Bethany Downes’ from the Resource Hub, republished with permission.

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Foster Care and Faith: Embracing God’s Call to Care for Vulnerable Children

In their book Home for Good, Krish and Miriam Kandiah speak about the biblical mandate and motivation for foster care. I have adopted this framework as I think it’s a helpful way for us to consider what God has to say to us regarding how we are to care for vulnerable children in foster care. As we explore this biblical mandate and motivation, we will consider what this looks like in our lives as disciples of Christ. 

The biblical mandate

When Jesus was asked ‘which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ he responded this way: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself”’ (Matthew 22:36–39). When Jesus was asked ‘and who is my neighbour?’ he went on to tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), teaching us that to love our neighbour is to offer solace and care to anyone who comes across our path who is suffering and in need of help. There are children in our communities who are in desperate need of this solace and care, they are lonely and in distress and need a family to care for them in their time of need. 

When God gave his laws and explained to Israel how they were to live as his people, he explicitly details that they are to care for the orphan in their midst. Whilst most children in the foster care system aren’t orphans, for different reasons they are unable to be cared for by their parents. God’s mandate in the Bible is clear: his call to love our neighbour, his call to care for the orphan, is a call to care for the child in foster care. It is not an optional extra.

This command wasn’t limited to God’s people in the Old Testament. James writes to the Jewish-Christian diaspora, ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (James 1:27). These verses, among others, have convicted me that caring for vulnerable children in foster care is an integral part of our worship of our heavenly Father. This is the biblical mandate we have received.

The biblical motivation

At the heart of the Christian message is God’s sacrificial love for us. Paul states that ‘God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). God’s motivation for sending Jesus into the world is his great love for us. And that love came at a great cost—the death of his beloved Son. God’s love is also the thing that motivates him to include us in his family: ‘In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves’ (Ephesians 1:4b–6). Because of God’s sacrificial love, he has adopted us as his children, with full access to all the benefits that entails. What greater motivation could we possibly have than to show that same love to some of the most vulnerable children in our communities by bringing them into our families as God has brought us into his?

Being agents of God’s sacrificial love to us is the natural outworking of what we have received. We see John exhorting the early church in this way:

‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence.’ (1 John 3:16–19)

Because Jesus laid down his life for us, how can we do anything but show that same love to others, especially those who are in need? And this love cannot be restricted to words—it must be lived out in action, in good works towards those who are in need. This is our biblical motivation. 

Living as disciples of Christ

Hopefully, you feel the weight of the biblical mandate and motivation for foster care as I do. I know, however, that considering how to help vulnerable children can feel daunting. But the good news is that Jesus didn’t leave us alone—he sent the Holy Spirit to equip us. Jesus even used the language of orphans when he promised, ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you’ (John 14:18). 

Knowing the Spirit strengthens and guides us should instil confidence to live out this calling. Does this mean that everyone is called to become a foster carer? Paul answers this in 1 Corinthians 12: ‘There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit ... to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good’ (1 Corinthians 12:4–5, 7). We’re all gifted differently, and each gift supports the body of Christ. 

This means that while we’re not all called to do the same thing, we are all called to do something. Some of us are called to become foster carers, while others can support carers through financial or material assistance, prayer, pastoral support, babysitting, cooking meals or even mowing a lawn.  

I hope you’re convicted, as I am, that God has given us a clear mandate and motivation to love vulnerable children in foster care. It’s my prayer that you and your church might seek ways to love the orphans in your midst, all to the glory of God. 

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This is an edited version of an article by Rev Bethany Downes that originally appeared on the Anglicare Foster Care Resource Hub.

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