God has a heart for modern-day orphans. Scripture is replete with passages about how God (and His people) should feel about and act towards orphans and widows. There are still way too many orphans in the world today, and these verse no doubt apply to them. However, there is also a new kind of orphan that these passages (at least the heart of these passages) also applies to. Let’s take a closer look.

God Cares for Orphans and the Fatherless

As Christians, our hope and prayer is that God would continue to sanctify us and make us more like Him. It makes sense then to first examine God’s own view of orphans and the fatherless. What is God’s attitude and actions towards orphans and the fatherless? What can we learn from that when it comes to ministering to children of divorce? Later, we will examine how God instructs His people to care for orphans and the fatherless.

God is Father to the Fatherless

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Recently a leader of a divorce support group contacted me which reminded me how important it is for those in the church to know a family’s situation before drawing conclusions. She has a lady from another church in her group and she had received a call from this participant’s pastor. While the pastor was appreciative that my friend’s church was running DivorceCare he was concerned about the lady from his church. It seemed as though he thought his congregant was playing the system. While some single parents do “play the system,” my friend knew this lady was struggling in many areas of her life. My friend explained this lady was in a crisis and barely surviving.

The minister and the elders in his church thought the lady needed some help, and they had visited her home. He found that she had plenty of food, a large screen TV, a computer and several other items that he thought were “unnecessary items.” My friend asked this pastor what types of foods were in the home. She asked if it was possible the children needed the computer for homework purposes. She went onto explain that this particular single mom didn’t have a clue about budgeting. She purchased items on a whim, such as huge amounts of canned goods and fast foods.

Some single parent become overwhelmed with the divorce settlement and since their spouse had always handled the finances they may spend the money on things their children want such as a large screen TV. Or, it could be that the spouse that left intentionally left the large screen TV for the children. Other divorcing parents feel guilty and tempt to soothe the guilty feelings by purchasing extravagant gifts. While some single parents start out with nothing, many others are awarded items through the divorce courts, or even remain stuck with items that have large loans associated with them.

My friend explained that if the church wanted to help this single mom, they might find someone that could walk her through setting up a budget. The church could either purchase a few perishable items, such as milk, eggs and meat or get her a store gift card. Someone from the church might look into helping her get her children on the free lunch program at school. While we might think this is a no brainer, for some single parents free lunches are not within their realm of thought. They might be so overwhelmed with the loss of a spouse and the income that went with it, they literally can’t think beyond the moment.

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On August 11, 2011, I had the privilege of interviewing Amy Dolan for a radio show I was hosting at time. Amy is a children’s pastor / children’s ministry consultant with a passion for ministering to non-traditional families. She runs the blog Lemon Lime Kids, and has written a number of articles on the topic of non-traditional families including:

• a recent conversation on [non] traditional families
• watch your language! {non} traditional families
• (non) traditional families
• perhaps a change in direction

The following are some of the questions we covered including Amy’s responses and my commentary (shown in italics) where I thought it was appropriate. Some of my commentary is from the original program, and some I have added for purposes of clarity. Some of the questions and answers do not pertain directly to the issue of ministering to children of divorce. I have excluded some of those questions from this summary, but I would encourage you to listen to the whole interview at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cmconnect/2011/08/12/kidmin-volunteer–amy-dolan-on-non-traditional-families.

Some of Amy’s responses are word-for-word. I have also taken the liberty of editing some of the responses. This is an important conversation that you will want to hear. So, let’s get to some of the questions covered during the show.

1. Please tell our listeners about you. Where are you from? How did you come to be involved in children’s ministry? What are you doing now?

My name is Amy Dolan. I have been in children’s ministry for a long time. I originally planned on becoming an elementary school teacher, but felt God calling me into children’s ministry during my time studying at Moody Bible Institute. I have held several positions in children’s ministry including being a curriculum writer for Willow Creek Church and Children’s Director at The Chapel in Illinois. More recently, I started Lemon Lime Kids – a consulting company for children’s ministers. I live in Chicago, IL with my husband Kelly.

2. Tell us a little bit about your blog LemonLimeKids.com.

LemonLimeKids.com is my blog and reflects the name of my consulting company. The blog includes all kinds of articles written primarily from a leadership perspective to encourage other children’s ministry leaders.

3. Before we get started talking about ministering to non-traditional families, I suppose it makes sense to define the term “non-traditional” families.

“Non-traditional families” is a term that I coined to express what I was hearing at conferences, in churches and seeing in small groups. Non-traditional is defined as anything other than a one-mom plus one-dad married couple who are parenting their children. It would include single parents, divorced parents, grandparents, widowed and gay and lesbian parents.

4. Where does your interest in non-traditional families stem from?

I come from a very traditional family. I am the oldest of five kids who all grew up in the church. My mom and dad are still married, and all of my siblings are Christians married to other Christians. I went to Bible College and married a Christian guy from a Christian family. However, I have had a lot of friends who come from, or who are currently part of, non-traditional families. My experience is that I have seen my friends consistently excluded from the church. Most of these friends are spiritual and would consider themselves Christians. For them to be excluded from the church has been eye-opening and disheartening.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with a gay Christian friend who told me that despite leaving the church he still had a very strong spiritual faith and wished he could grow spiritually in a church community. He wasn’t able to find a place to encourage his growth. That was eye-opening to me because I hadn’t seen my other friends have that experience. I became very passionate about changing the way that we approach people at the church so that church could become a place for all kinds of people to raise great families. Continue reading

The Rise of Cohabitation

On August 16th, 2011, the 3rd edition, in their Why Marriage Matters (a joint publication of The National Marriage Project and The Center for Marriage and Families) was released. This report subtitled, “Thirty Conclusions from the Social Sciences,” puts most of its focus on the issue of cohabitation.  The report starts with a startling observation:

Today, the rise of cohabiting households with children is the largest unrecognized threat to the quality and stability of children’s family lives.

The report explains that cohabitation has seen an unprecedented fourteen-fold increase since 1970. A child today is more likely to spend time in a cohabiting household than experience their parents’ divorce as reflected in the following chart:

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There is not doubt that families are changing. In his article 5 Facts You Need to Know About American Families, Dale Hudson shares five statistics about how families have changed and offers advice on how to make sure your church is relevant to today’s families.

Questions for Further Reflection or Discussion

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Attached is a pdf file with the notes from my breakout session at the 2015 CMConnect Conference titled Kids in Crisis: Ministering to Kids from Modern Families. Almost 100 showed up t learn about kids in modern families and how their churches and they individually can minister to Modern Day Orphans. If you were there and need a copy of the notes or weren’t there and are interested in learning more, the files linked below will help you.

Part of the breakout was a ten question quiz. Take the quiz first, then click on the answers pdf for the answers to the questions and see how you did!

CLICK HERE for the Handout.

CLICK HERE for the Answers. Continue reading

Over the last ten to twenty years, there has been significant research on the effect of divorce on kids. In more recent years, the volume of studies on children from other family types (cohabiting families, grandparent led families, complex families) and family transitions has increased. There is still much study which needs to be done, however the consensus seems to be that our kids are growing up in increasing complex families, and experiencing (on average) multiple transitions in the families in which they reside, and reflecting worse outcomes than kids raised in traditional two-parent married biological parent families. I wrote this article as the result of one recent study which examined the life course of a group of children.

Do you know the kids in your ministry? Do you know what types of families they are living in? Do you know what types of family transitions they have lived through? Consider the following example:

Suzie was born ten years ago to a single mother. At the time she was born, her mom Angie (who was 22 at the time) was living with a man named Bernie who was not her biological father. Bernie loved Angie though, and so did his parents. Bernie was there as she learned to walk and talk and was potty trained. However, when Bernie was two years old, Angie and Bernie split up. One day he was there, and the next day he wasn’t. Suzie never saw him again – or his parents (the only grandparents she had ever known as Angie’s parents had disowned her).

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A young single mom entered my class one Sunday close to Christmas. She was almost trembling and I could tell she was very upset. She just stood there looking at me and when I asked,

What’s wrong?

She said,

I need a hug.

Single parenting is tough almost all the time, but Sundays seem particularly hard for single parents. It could be that they are exhausted from the week and don’t have to rise as early as on the weekday so they sleep in for a few minutes or an hour. Then, it’s hard to get out of bed and face getting the children dressed, fed and in the car by yourself. Or perhaps it is attending church where it seems like everyone is part of a couple.

Christmas time is no exception, and many times worse, because of the added stress of it being Christmas. The single mom above was one such mom. Added to the stress of Christmas was the birthday of her daughter who turned one year old a few days before Christmas. She had been parenting alone since before the baby was born. Plus she had a two year old.

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One of the most significant obstacles we face in ministering to hurting kids and children from disrupted homes is that they don’t tend to come to our churches. Statistically, children from ANY type of family other than married biological parents are significantly less likely to attend church. So, if you’re serious about ministering to these hurting kids, and there are tons of them no matter where you live, you have to get outside the walls of your church and take your ministry to them. Fortunately, through my work with these kids and speaking at various conferences, I have been fortunate enough to meet a handful of people who are doing just that. Rachael Groll is the Children’s Ministry Director at Living Waters Church (http://www.livingwaterschurch.tv/) in Meadville, PA. She has started a program through her church that goes out and finds these kids where they live and ministers to them. Rachael was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the ministry she started, why it works and how it impacts the kids she is ministering to and the church.

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Q: Hi Rachael. Why don’t you start by telling a little bit about yourself and your church?

A: HI Wayne. Thanks for the opportunity. I currently am the Children’s Director at Living Waters Church. I oversee all programming of children, from birth through age twelve. This includes our Bus Ministry, Sidewalk Ministry, Wednesday night programming, and Sunday morning services. Living Waters is unique in our area, in that our focus is really to seek out the lost and bring them Jesus. You see this throughout every area of our church. We have a mobile food pantry, evangelism teams that go out into the community, a foster and adoption ministry, and we host several community events throughout the year. One of the things we focus on as a staff is really getting outside the four walls, and ministering to the community.

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How is your church doing in meeting the special needs of step families (sometimes called blended families)? Recent government statistics show that in the United States almost 9% of all kids live in a step family (this does not include children living with cohabiting, but unmarried, couples). In his article Understanding the unique needs of step families, Ron Deal explains the importance of ministering to step families.

Ideas for Further Discussion About Step Families

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