One of the biggest problems of a ministry centered around caring for vulnerable kids is that so few people think it’s for them.  I’m too young, I’m too old, I already have too many kids.  If people aren’t in a place to have more kids in their home, they think there’s nothing they can do, or it’s not for them.  Your job is to create opportunities for every single person in your church to be involved.  This was a pivotal moment in our ministry.  Once our church leadership saw that we had something for literally, everyone in our church to be involved, they began to see the possibilities of what else we could do.  I like to think of opportunities like this: transactional, relational, incarnational.  Transactional is just like it sounds – a transaction.  That could be donating diapers, making a meal one time, packing journey bags or giving financially.  For example, we have some ladies in our church that meet twice a month to make blankets.  These blankets go to local DCS offices as well as in our journey bags.  We also have an Amazon Wishlist that we keep updated on items we need to restock our resource closet.  While these are easy for the volunteer, they can be a lot of work for the people in the ministry.  If you have a diaper drive, you need a way to collect, store, and distribute these diapers. Note about donations to other people: make sure if you’re giving donations to an agency or organization, it’s something that they actually need.  Agencies receive donations that they don’t need on a regular basis, and this creates more work for them.  Transactional opportunities also don’t do much to get the person volunteering very close to the problem, so while you may have a need met, there isn’t any heart change on the part of the volunteer.   There is definitely a place for transactional opportunities, but we need to do more than that.  This is why we love relational opportunities.  Relational opportunities put the volunteer in proximity to the problem, while also meeting specific needs of the families we serve.  Care Communities are the perfect example of a relational opportunity.  You are in relationship with a foster family, and get to do specific things to help their family like child care, meals, words of encouragement, and random acts of kindness.  We find that people who engage in relational opportunities tend to take the next step into incarnational opportunities.  It’s not uncommon for Care Community Team Members to decide to become foster parents, because they got close enough to what they thought was scary, only to realize it wasn’t.  This is why relational opportunities are so critical – it bridges the large gap between donating diapers and being foster parents.  Incarnational opportunities are the things we think about when we hear foster & adoption ministry.  Incarnation means “to embody in the flesh.”

Even more important than the opportunities themselves, is how you communicate them.  When you share opportunities, start with the why.  Instead of “we need you to fill this need” start with why it’s a need, and then the opportunity itself.  For example, instead of saying “we really need more people to be on care communities” say “God called his people to care for the vulnerable.  This family has followed God in obedience, and we’re excited to support them.  Indiana is in crisis with the need for more foster parents, and we know that 50% of foster parents quit after the first year or first placement because they weren’t supported.  You have an opportunity to have a huge impact on the life of a child in foster care without bringing one into your home.”  Do you see the difference?  And it’s not just your specific words that need to change – this idea needs to influence your written, verbal, and nonverbal communication.  This is what makes it ministry, not social work.  We aren’t just identifying and meeting needs, we’re discipling people to obedience.