Orphan Sunday at our church

My heart is so full after this Sunday's Orphan Sunday service.  I am honored to be part of an amazing congregation who shares God's heart for the fatherless.  The service was also a wonderful reminder that we are ALL adopted into God's Heavenly family.  That is a true blessing and the best truth I can think of.  I am so thankful for the church staff, the volunteers, the adoptive families of our church, and the worship band that totally rocked the praise music.  So many people helped to make Orphan Sunday what it was.  God was glorified and I know He will continue to do BIG THINGS with this day.  Trusting in Him to lead the way for our church.

Below was the one and only picture I snapped during the service, but it really was such a powerful moment.  Our "Children of God" music video was finishing up and the band members had just revealed their "adopted" t-shirts too.  They performed the song live while the video played on the screens.  I love that you can also see the shoe demonstration laying at the front of the stage ... I led a group that brought up a total of 240 pairs of shoes throughout the service to represent the 240 children that were orphaned around the world just during the hour of the service.  Powerful stuff.  HERE is the message that our children's minister delivered (click on the Orphan Sunday message from 3/17/13).  She did a fantastic job explaining our adoption into God's family using scripture, as well as explaining that God calls us to care for orphans of the world.  She talked about a few ways to care for orphans that do not include adoption, and as a result, the congregation sponsored 18 new children through Compassion after the services!

If you have any questions about how we did our Orphan Sunday service, please shoot me an email - I'm happy to help in any way I can.  We also did an interview video with four of the church's adoptive families (us included) that included a very emotional clip from a little girl who was old enough to remember her time at her adoption center.