Ethereal Thought Train

The mp3s from the Together for Adoption Conference are linked below:

• Dan Cruver, Adoption: Making Outsiders Insiders
• Scotty Smith, The Freedom of Adoption
• Scott Roley, Adoption and the Pursuit of Racial Reconciliation
• Ed Stetzer, The Gospel, Social Justice and the Missional Church
• Michael Easley, Orphan Care and Jesus, the Great Servant of the Poor
• Russell Moore, Adoption and the Renewal of Creation

Session 3: Scott Roley – Adoption and the Pursuit of Racial Reconciliation

Scott’s basic thesis was that the greatest picture of the gospel’s work in our life is the adoption of unwanted children.  He consistently showed that it was not his strength to do what was done (adopting/fostering transracially and living in a broken community while doing it), and highlighted the power of the gospel to sustain in the midst of his own weakness and cowardice.  I was refreshed by his honesty, and his knowledge of the gospel’s power for endurance in difficulty.

Secondly, he spent a considerable amount of time talking through the community of God as one eternal community of diversity, and transracial adoption is a tangible display of the reality that every tribe, tongue and nation is adopted into God’s family.  His point is that we were meant to be God’s family of all races, and race relations are estranged because the hearts of people are still in hatred and rebellion.

This was a great pastoral talk, and definitely allowed me to see the beauty of transracial adoption and the effect it has on displaying the kingdom of God.

Session 4: Ed Stetzer – The Gospel, Social Justice, and The Missional Church

Ed Stetzer’s basic question of his talk was “how can we be the good news without losing the centrality of the proclamation of the gospel?”  The talk was a discussion on the interaction of evangelism and social justice through the lens of the ministry of Jesus and the ministry of Paul.

In Luke 4, Jesus inaugurates his public ministry by quoting Isaiah 61:1-2, essentially saying that justice is coming down to earth.  The ministry of Jesus was BOTH healing the sick and caring for the poor AND seeking and saving the lost.  One of the basic points he made is that often the The Great Commandment and The Great Commission are pitted against one another, when they are two sides of the same coin.

Stetzer used a couple examples from church history: the explosion of the early church in the 2nd and 3rd century as Christians cared for those affected by plagues and the efforts in the early 1900′s toward global evangelization.  The first was a demonstration of the power of deed ministry when coupled with word ministry – the church exploded!  The second was an example of how widening your view of evangelism to include deed based ministry can derail movements of the gospel, as it did around the turn of the century.

Stetzer landed the plane by simply stating that our mission is to join Jesus in his mission, which is one single mission with  many facets.  The church is on the same mission to serve people and proclaim that salvation is found in Christ alone, and we need a dual fidelity to that ministry.  In closing, he said “social justice is close to the heart of God and should be to ours, but we should not be so naïve to think we won’t repeat the failures of history.  Speak of justice, they will praise you, speak of Jesus they will hate you.”

We cannot speak of justice without speaking of Jesus, and we cannot speak of Jesus without speaking of justice.

–

I only caught part of Session 5 with Michael Easley, but he focused much of his time on understanding the Hebrew notion of the alien, the orphan and the widow.  Lastly, I missed the final session with Dr. Russell Moore, but heard it was excellent.  I’m going to try to catch it online this week…

I’ve been thoroughly blessed thus far by the Together for Adoption 2009 Conference.  Below are a few highlights:

Session 1 – Dan Cruver

Dan preached from James 1:27-28, arguing that there are three facets to “pure and undefiled religion”, namely controlling the tongue, visiting orphans and widows, and keeping unstained from the world.  His basic argument was that focusing on one of the three at the expense of the other two does damage to all three and in effect creates something other than the pure and undefiled religion that James speaks of.

The hope that we have comes solely from the gospel, and when we look at the gospel, we have true religion:

• The gospel bridles the tongue because it is good news for us
• The gospel allows us to visit the orphan because we were visited by Jesus in our orphaned state
• The gospel keeps us unstained from the world by freeing us from our righteous deeds AND sinful rebellion

In summary, Dan did a fantastic job of highlighting the essence of the gospel and the centrality of Jesus in orphan care.  I’m grateful for the call to focus on Christ!

Session 2 – Scotty Smith

Scotty’s talk had a great outline in three parts:

The Freedom of Legal Rights – adoption secures us in a state of objective blessings

This portion of the talk focused on our theological identity as the children of God, legally adopted into His family.  One of his best points was understanding that our legal identity is NOT a metaphor, rather an actual reality of our identity.  Additionally, he focused heavily on the idea that as legally adopted sons, we are no longer subject to God as sons, and yet the default mode of the human heart is to behave as a subject of judgment rather than son.  Great stuff to ponder!

The Freedom of Personal Delights – adoption calls us into a realm of subjective wonder

This section of his talk focused primarily on the idea that theological understanding alone is an insufficient view, because the theological perspective on our adoption necessarily leads to enjoyment of God and wonder at his grace.  This also empowers us to stop behaving as orphans, who often pine after the life of abandonment in spite of the current existing reality of our inheritance as sons.  One of the great quotes came from this section:

The quintessential action of the sinful human heart is to act as an orphan.

We act this way either through a rejection of our Fatherly love by returning to squalor, or by vigilantly pursuing the love of the Father through our own action.  Again, some great imagery that caused me to reflect on my own life.

The Freedom of a Missional Life – adoption propels us into the world with sacrificial hope

Finally, he focused on the idea that as sons, we have hope that God will indeed bring to fruition a new heaven and new earth, and it is purely our pleasure to participate in that work.  The work of the gospel in adoption is not a job to get done, but a privilege to be entered into.

Scotty did an excellent job of focusing on the full implications of a theological understanding of adoption, and I am blessed to have been able to listen to him!

–

I am excited for tomorrow to say the least…already tons of great stuff!  Check out Take Your Vitamin Z for live blogging, and go here for all the Twitter chatter.