I almost never write a post this long but I thought it was worth the share....
“I’m so sorry, there are no available families at this time.”
It was a little over a year ago today that I remember hearing those words from my wife after getting a phone call late one evening. It was a late wintery night and we were sound asleep. Both of us were warm and cozy underneath our goose feathered down comforter when suddenly the phone rang. It was two in the morning and Shelly immediately jumped up to answer the phone. We have gotten phone calls like this one in the past, after all, my wife Shelly is a social worker and it is her job to help find placements for children in emergency situations. It is safe to say that we were kind of used to this type of situation but for some reason this night was different. It was a call for a sibling set of three. They waited after school for their parent or guardian to pick them up but they never came. It was hours later at this point and there was still no sign of a parental figure for these children who were all under the age of eight. The Social Service Department was calling around to agencies to try and find a safe, loving, and comfortable place for these kids to go temporarily or with potential permanency, depending on the outcome of the situation. As Shelly perused through her list of families she noticed that all of them were full and she was not going to be able to help these kids find a home. When she hung up the phone I couldn’t stop picturing those three young kids sitting in a waiting room, with no warm colors on the walls, no comfortable seating, and with no one to hold them or play with them and tell them that it is going to be ok. As far as we know, they are still in that waiting room today.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that during this same time that Shelly received this particular phone call I was at an unsettled place in my life, wrestling intrusively, and wondering if I was actually finding my life fit within the pages of scripture. Sure I believed in the Word of God and read it and went to church and encouraged others to do the same but there was a huge gap I felt between what I was reading in the Bible and what I was actually doing with my life. The gap in this case wasn’t defined by the deep dark sins of commission and the things I was doing in secret or in the open. In fact it had everything to do with the things I wasn’t doing, the sins of omission. It was the parts of the Bible that I read and then just turned the page without giving proper attention to the words before me. For example, there is a particular verse found in the book James that speaks specifically about caring for those children that were on the other side of the phone that night. I have read many, many times before. It is written like this, “Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress.” Did you notice those two adjectives that were chosen specifically to describe God’s design for religion, in this case meaning the church? The words are pure and faultless. Those are heavy words with enormous definition. The word pure means it is not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material, it is without any extraneous or unnecessary elements. And faultless, it means free from defect or error. Wow. Just reading these words gives you great anticipation for something so beautiful and so powerful and so genuine and yet when I think of the noun that they are describing, the church, it doesn’t quite match up. I want to be careful here. It would have been easy for me to stop right there and join the conversation of how much the church has missed the mark over the past several years and point my finger at how adulterated and stained the church really is. However, simply joining this conversation is not going to make my life, and/or the church, pure and faultless. You know what is? Actually believing and doing what the Bible says to do. In this case it is to care for the orphans and the widows. Then, after you have done these things, your faith and deep convictions will be known all around the world for generation to come as pure and faultless. That is what I want my faith to look like.
So Shelly and I started having this conversation with one another about how we could utilize our abilities and experiences in an effort to mobilize the church and the community to care for orphans and walk out the pages of scripture in a pure and faultless way. That is how New Rhythm Project came into existence. The more and more we had this conversation, the more and more we found out the need.
Did you know?
there are 163 million orphans in the world?
there are over 100,000 children available for adoption in the U.S.
there are over 4,000 children in foster care in D.C.
if 1 family in 1 in 4 churches adopted one child their would be no more waiting children in the US
if only ¼ or less of the churches in D.C. got involved, there would be no more orphans in D.C.
if you got involved there would be one less orphan in your community
Collaborative efforts are what New Rhythm is all about. We educate and mobilize communities to care for the orphans. New Rhythm goes into a community and pulls out the red carpet from the church door to the government door. I know this may sound taboo but according to the Bible it is the church’s responsibility to care for the children, not the government. That is where the new rhythm happens. So first, we connect with the local DSS and other agencies to find out the particular needs of the community and solicit partnerships. Then we join with a business organization or church and educate them on the doctrine and logistics of orphan care. Finally, we help customize plans with individuals or families, and directly connect them with specific childcare organizations according to their needs and/or desires to serve. The result equates in major community needs being met which includes: finding stable and loving homes for children to find permanent or temporary placement, healthy communication and networking between businesses and organizations, & the church finding a new rhythm, rising to produce a movement that holds credibility to the adjectives that God had in mind for it.
If you are interested in having a New Rhythm come to your church, business, or community group please contact bookings@newrhythm.org
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