Family Ark Ministries

A few years ago I used a term called “mall orphans”. This was to describe children whose parents took them to the mall on Saturdays and dropped them off for the entire day. This was a selfish move so that the parents could do what they wanted to do, and not have to fulfill the responsibility of being a parent. We still have those kids today and our society is reaping the seeds of this.

There are an increasing number of parents who have children, but do not want to take the responsibility of raising them. They drop them off at entertainment venues so that the kids are out of their hair for the day. They look for any way to push their kids aside and see them as an intrusion on their free time. How selfish. How morally reprehensible this is. What a sad commentary on the state of the American family. However, as Americans turn increasingly selfish, I am afraid this will be a growing trend.

Hence, the term “ church orphans”. These are the same population of children. Their parents are pursuing their own selfish desires and don’t have time to be a parent. Children are picked up by someone from the church, or from a bus ministry and brought to our local churches. These kids are predominately from dysfunctional homes. And that is putting it mildly. Most of these kids have one or both parents that are abusing drugs or alcohol. Well over the majority are coming from divorced homes where there is only one parent at a time. Often times they shuttle between several homes if there are siblings that come from a different home. There is a shocking number of these kids who live in same sex households. 2 dads or 2 moms. No one really cares about them. The parents make a feeble attempt at caring. But honestly, they don’t know how to care for anyone but themselves. They don’t really want to learn how to care for their children because that would require work and sacrifice on their part. So, when some nice church folks ask them if they can take their kids to church, these parents are more than happy to oblige. Most of these parents don’t really care about the spiritual well-being of their children. They just want them gone.

This has given rise to an enormous number of kids at summer church camps coming from this environment. Many of the youth in our churches, and a large contingency of AWANA participants are coming from these homes. Sometimes, I think these orphans in our churches are unseen. We know they are there, but some folks ignore them. This is sad to me. These kids are already throw away kids at home. Now, they come into the Lord’s house, and they are rejected again. I have known of more than one church where the adult congregation has fought against these kids having a place in their church. It messes up the “neat and nice” church they are used to. These kids may misbehave. They don’t look clean cut. They don’t know how to act properly.

This prejudice and bigotry in some churches can reach the point of evil. This is when a church is afraid of losing power and is more concerned about money than people getting saved by Jesus. I have known churches that have wanted to stop attracting so many church orphan kids. Their parents don’t come to church. Secret unspoken message: We are not getting any money out of these kids being here. They are disruptive and there are too many of them coming now. Secret unspoken message: It is all about power. I am afraid I will lose voting power in business meetings if these hooligans outnumber us good folk in church. You may not want them in your church, but Jesus wants them in His!

Jesus died for these kids. Jesus desires that ALL people might live through Him. God sent His only begotten Son into the world so that the WHOLE world might live through Him. If you even slightly hinder these little children from coming unto Him, then you are acting evil. You need to repent of this sin, and seek out to help minister to these kids.

The church family needs to show unconditional love and unconditional acceptance to these children. Their church home is the only home where they can find this. Shouldn’t these kids be able to finally find a place where people care about them, love them, accept them just as they are? I so want these kids to see the love of Jesus shed on them. They are so hungry. They may misbehave at first. But as they receive the love of Christ given to them by Christians in the church, their behavior changes. Love always does that. Don’t look down on these precious little kids. They are so messed up. They are hurting so bad. Can’t you let your light so shine before them that they might see the Father and glorify Him? Their life is sad and pathetic. Can’t the church of the Lord Jesus Christ be a safe haven for them. A nurturing place. A healing place. Reach out. Give them a smile. Go up and talk to them. Pray with them. Help out at a youth function. If you love Jesus, you will feed his little lambs, regardless of what their wool looks like or how they smell.

I used to smile sometimes at the ludicrous statements made by drug addicts and alcoholics that were my patients. They would come to group and make statements like,
“ If the police hadn’t set up that stupid sobriety check-point, then I wouldn’t be in here.”

“ Yes, I drink too much. But you would too if you were married to my spouse.”

They would never admit that getting arrested was not the fault of the police, but their own fault for driving drunk! They could not see that their drinking was a choice they made in response to the way their spouse was treating them.

Bottom line however, it was still their own problem caused by them. This phenomena of blaming everyone else for problems you created yourself has escalated out of control. I never thought that a jury made up of sane people would actually find the cigarette company liable for someone smoking. I really never thought I would hear of a law suit where overweight people sued McDonalds for making them obese. These are the kind of things that make me shake my head. A society of blamers.

Accepting responsibility for – all that we do – for all that we say – and for all that we feel, is a sign of maturity. Many people never reach this level of maturity. Obviously, there is a large segment of the U.S. population that has never matured. They are still at an adolescent stage of development emotionally. Humans go through different stages of development. When we are small, we learn to master our walking and talking. As we mature, we are able to run and ride a bike. As teens, the physical maturity for the most part has been mastered. The last stage of development is intellectual and emotional. That’s why kids are in school. They are developing intellectually. Emotions are about the last thing to develop. This is the sticking point. Many adults have never matured into emotionally being an adult. I have seen many people from age 21 to 81 who are emotionally weak or immature. These adults are the ones who love to blame others for their own problems.

So, why is this a problem? Failure to accept responsibility for your own life’s actions creates many problems. It causes marital problems. It creates family dysfunction. It hurts almost every relationship a person can have. A person who cannot accept responsibility for themselves becomes socially retarded. They will have few friends. People will not want to be around them. This creates problems at home that are unresolved. This creates situations in a relationship that cannot be worked on because there is a failure to even admit that “I have a problem” on the part of the emotionally immature person.

Accepting the fact that I messed up and need to give or ask forgiveness is a sign of maturity. Being able to hear what a loved one is telling me about something that I do that bothers them is a sign of maturity. Criticism is not helpful or welcomed. However, if I have a trusted friend or a loved one who I know has my best interest at heart, and they tell me something I could consider changing, then I need to not get all bent out of shape. I need to see it as a growth opportunity. A challenge. A chance for personal growth. An opportunity I have for the Lord to grow me closer to the person He wants me to be. An immature person will take it as a personal attack on their self-worth and respond with anger or pouting. I might add a note of caution here. When we do tell someone we love something like this, it is an absolute requirement to do so in love. The bible says to speak the truth in love.

Some of you need to quit always rescuing your loved one from the mistakes and sins they make themselves. This actually has a name. It is called the role of the enabler. You may not even like the behavior this person is doing, but you are helping it to continue because you find an excuse for their behavior. “It’s not my son’s fault, but his wife’s. She is awful.” Maybe your son is verbally mean to his wife. But you join him in blaming her. Or maybe you allow your adult child to live with you because they can’t hold a job. It isn’t because your adult child is lazy and smokes dope. “It is that boss at the plant. Those people down there are horrible.” If you are one of these type of people, you need to stop immediately. Allow people to experience the consequences of their own choices. You are actually hurting them to always find an excuse for their behavior.

We should all ask God to help grow us into the mature adults He desires for us to be. The Holy Spirit can help give us victory over our shortcomings. In Romans 8:37 we are more than conquerors because of Jesus. You can conquer whatever ails you in the name of Jesus. Let us examine ourselves. What areas could we accept responsibility for? What areas of your life should you go to work on, but right now you blame someone else for? We need to stop blaming others for our present condition. Take charge of our own life. Grow. Change . Mature. Life will be sweeter, and our relationships will be neater when we grow up and stop blaming other people or other things for our present condition.