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October 15, 2021 6:00 am
Can you imagine you actually being a person that would save a child's life. You don't need to go anywhere. You don't need special training, but what will talk about today will literally change the lives of thousands of children and you do not want to miss working to share. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with terrific permission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians the Bible to this program were taking a break from our traditional teaching style. Living on the Edge for something a little different right now are going to feature a brand-new interview conducted recently that we hope will challenge you to realize the opportunity we all hands and leaders chapter further introduces guests to the topic of their discussion. Every now and then I'll be praying more I meet someone and you know how your mind processes and thoughts come to you and your praying. One day in the same thought keeps resonating and I had a friend introduced me to a fellow named Joe kinetic and that Joe has a very interesting experience in life and he developed a thing called care portal and I gotta tell you more about it that I want you know that everyone in the Living on the Edge family has to hear the story and every one of us has an opportunity to literally change the course of a child's life. We all know that God is told us to love him with all our heart are so her mind and strength to love our neighbor as ourselves right. That's what it is to be what I call Romans 12 Christian and the fact of the matter is, is that of all the people Jesus would say are the most vulnerable and he says suffer, not those little children to come to me. I don't know about you but when I been able to help the life of a child man. I know that God is pleased. Something deep happens in my soul and it really boils down. So that's how we love our neighbor as ourselves. So Joe, I just want to welcome you to the program. Thank you. It's an honor what's good to have you and maybe before we talk about care portal. Could you just pause and give us a bit of background about your life, so people get a mental picture of like who is this guy that Chip is talking to and where is he coming from. Well, I'm a kid that grew up in was very fortunate that I didn't end up in foster care, but grew up with no identity grew up with a chip on my shoulder, grew up with shame and wanting a way out in the Lord brought me out and I became a trial lawyer in the process of that the Lord call my wife and I to be givers and investors and children in the process. We met an amazing man and his wife who started a ministry called the global orphan project which invested in churches for churches to care for children and families in crisis with the ministry being anonymous to the children and families in crisis. And once I saw that an action I was sold and Don and I gave my life to it and so now that's what I get to do serve the bride of Christ as she serves children and families in crisis with the church being the hero will Jill this sounds honestly a little too good to be true care portal allows us to actually find out needs of children in our community and we can help them. And it sounds so simple.
It sounds like an ordinary regular person without much training could literally change the course of a child's life is so all I have to say is Joe tell us the story give us a picture of how it got birthed how it's grown what it actually does and then I'll follow up with sort of the kind of questions that I think everyone listening on the edge of the chair in a sale chip ask him about this. Ask him about that.
So we really do very very little. The good news is that the church is rising up in the shower and doing quite a bit notwithstanding what your listeners may hear in the discouragement, they may receive the best way for me to understand this independent picture is to talk about child welfare in America for just a few minutes many of us that are probably listening to this have always thought of you orphan crisis is being a Third World thing and nothing could be further from the truth. The scourge of fatherlessness is ravaging communities all over the world and so we have a major crisis of fatherlessness and family breakdown in the richest country in the world is ever now and what that means is we have about 4 million children every year in the United States at the front door of the foster care system more than 400,000 that are in the foster care system and more than 100,000 that are immediately adoptable. And if you think about the enormity of that problem.
You break it down because child welfare operates locally county by county. So is bad is that bad news is, here's the amazing thing God has gone before us. If you go to any county in America, you're gonna find an unbelievable treasure trove of care stakeholders so you're going to a county and you can find child protective services. You can find schoolteachers, social workers who interface with families breaking down in real time, and when you go around them in a county you find local churches that cross boundaries of race and class and culture with a common playbook of hey let's live this gospel in action. It is in our playbook to be those who support families in crisis and care for kids who've lost their families so you can see all of them and you can see business owners and others in the community who may or may not be believers but have a heart for children so you have all of this writing, there. Here's the problem there disconnected.
We do connection to make sure that I can get a dozen eggs dropped at my front door so I don't even have to move through an app, we have connection that I could make sure I get a private vehicle to pick me up and take me to the airport on out. We have connection for me to find a place for me to stay anywhere in the nation anywhere in the world through an app all the sharing platforms. We don't have a connecting platform for our most vulnerable children and families. So when you when you boil it all down. You think how do I tackle such a God size problem you dream big and you execute small so care portal is a shared caring platform that operates locally, it goes to the social workers who see the needs and we say to them.
Hey if you see a need of a family in crisis. It could be a grandma caring for grandkids that if she doesn't get help with the rent they have to go into the foster care system. It could be a foster family and adoptive family that are struggling and then you need a little help you enter that into care portal and then were to recruit churches and Morgan asked churches a simple question if there's a hurting child in your ZIP Code. Are you willing to see the need, you have to do anything if you don't want just to create a James moment here so we do that on a local basis.
We started in April 2015 in Austin Texas in one county. We just put this platform together.
We basically don't take this thing together made it look pretty. And then the church moved in today from one county 2443 churches in 22 states have served 82,922 children and that is increases by about 100 a day and were anonymous to it all. It's all the church being the hero to children and families in crisis and making relational connections around real-time needs.
It's Buber for child welfare that is actually amazing. Jonah, let me just for her listeners right now let me tell you what I think I heard so I'm really clear on this. You had this massive need that most of us are unaware of all across America, way bigger than most of us even think we don't see it, and yet inside every community you have people who want to help and it could be a business person, or a church or social worker, a schoolteacher, they see this need. They see this kid, and they go all my we gotta do something, but no one puts this thing together they could say all of us who care about children. Here's one place where we can service the needs and then you circled and then you said let's make the local church. Sort of the core responder now is that exactly what you've done. You nailed it and we call them care connections or community to be community around the needs of kids and families in crisis.
Exactly right with the local church always at the relational point of care because were really not just try to facilitate transactional support trying to catalyze relational connections at an acute moment in time for the church to be the church and then we stay anonymous in its remarkable trip. What can happen when egos and logos get put down will Joe I believe your exactly right when egos and logos get put aside when people have a mission mean the kind of mission, where you want to help a child and someone you in this case has set up a system in a way that's simple, that's clear that that we can all get involved and we can make a difference. We can do it right now. That's why I wanted you to come on the program and in ~the care portal story.
There's gotta be some pastors out there and some parents and teachers and and you know electricians and carpenters and stay-at-home moms and you people drive and in a van right now or their SUV thinking hey would you guys shut up now and tell me specifically how can I get involved I get it. I care about kids. I want to help you. Just tell me how can I help so Joe tell me 30 seconds. This is how I can get involved in care portal and see very visible needs. We would learn the church in the area and how it works and you could actually make the difference in a child's life today care portal.org and on the homepage. We've made it very simple. You'll pick what category you fit in.
There's a place for you to enter your name and then were off to the races. So it's a super intuitive platform. Just go to care portal.org and get started will put that up on her website as well and I just don't want to be harsh and don't people understand or in any way misconstrue what you're doing.
The foster care system is vital. There are kids that are abused. I mean as a pastor for over 30 years, been involved in lots of situations.
Unfortunately where I mean kids are at a place where they have to be taken out of the home for their physical or emotional safety. But what the reality is, and all the statistics tell us is that there's a lot of kids that get put in the foster care system don't need to be there if they had a bed or if the family could take care of a small neat here were small, need there.
The kids could stay in an intact family and what we know is when children stay with their parents, the probability of their life.
Success skyrockets tell us a little bit Joe about what happens statistically to children that end up in the foster care system in NY. We need to help them before they get into the system because what what you really keep saying is you know it's like being in the stream and its polluted down here and and really everything you're doing thinking why we go upstream and if we can stop the pollution the problems the struggles up there. Then you don't have an downstream and that's really what care portal does, but some of the things that you and I talked about earlier about what happens when a child ends up in the foster care system. It's hard to hear that her listeners need to hear it.
Would you share that with us.
So once they going to the system.
The outcomes are statistically set. We know there are bad outcomes because there's so much trauma involved in all of that trauma upon trauma. So once kids go into foster care.
About 75% if you went right now into the prisons in the United States and you said if you were in foster care at all.
Raise your hand if you went to girls and women who have been rescued from from sex trafficking raids and you have all the room and you said how many of you were in the foster system.
60% would raise their hand if you went to the homeless population, and you said how many were in in foster care. More than 50% would raise their hand and these people would be disproportionately black and brown. That's what you would see foster care is ground zero for systemic change in our nation. That's not me saying it. That's just stone cold stats, but I would also say is you note that we need to do more prevention wrapping around mom dad grandma before kids get dropped in the river and we also need more foster and adopt pulling Moses out of that river and care portal. Statistically, 60% of the needs that are met are prevention 40% or foster care adopted adoption and re-unifying biological family family. So we need both and and that's how we built this platform will Joe those statistics are alarming, staggering, disturbing the reason I wanted you to come on the program is those were the kind of things that I thought to myself, you people need to hear that.
And then when you begin to hear how we can make a difference. In fact, there was a story of a family and social services came and they didn't have enough beds for their kids and you know there's laws and if there's not a bed for every child they were going to take these children away from their parents and put them in the foster care system now as well intended is that is, those statistics play out and instead someone said you know my kids are grown actually got bunkbeds disassembled them put in the back of the truck brought one of their kids with them went over and gave them the bunkbeds and that family stayed intact, and that so much of what care portal does is stuff like that.
And quite honestly, as I was getting to know you and vetting you in making sure I just between you and me is this really legit because it was so amazing and and the numbers of children you're helping and how it's grown, it's the hand of God, beautifully stated that is what care portal does. It facilitates relational micro partnerships with the church at the relational point of care for real-time needs of real kids and families in your story is correct, the number one need entered into care portal by child welfare professionals are beds because in the in the child welfare system. Even when you think about the big issues of our day. Issues of racial reconciliation which are huge issues of the day when you go to low income communities often black and brown neighborhoods there if if I went up and down this street of the church that I go to, which happens to be in a low income neighborhood and I just did a survey of how many children have their own bed. It would not be hundred percent. I assure you, and it would not be abnormal. It wouldn't be there would be anything wrong with what's happening in most families there healthy families that are fighting and scratching and clawing to survive but the rules get written often by those who see it differently and they've decided this is kind of a Huxtable's thing. Every child must have a bad otherwise it's neglect or abuse. And so when a child welfare worker is in their he or she is not some mean over, you know that's doing that they're just gonna follow their rules and are like hey look breaks their hearts were like. I wanted to grandma's grant grandkids. She's an amazing grandma can somebody help her with beds and that better yet, get into a relationship with grandma and go to the church and actually say hey guys, can you walk this walk could this not be the evangelism portal. Could this be the care portal and let's let God be God because he does amazing things when there is sincerity in the connection so beds are entered in more than any other need and in their bills beds and so you really nailed it in there so many not everybody can say chip if I want to a church with 200 members and said who will be a foster parent.
You might get two or three, but I for one of that church and said who is willing to help meet the needs of real children and families.
Real-time including beds and mentor Shippen bills may be 50 raise their hand. I'll be on that team and then go back a year later and ask those 50 who have now had cross-cultural relationships and say and think they know more now, and we know this because we have data we know this not because were just behave whimsically saying yeah we have eight a university studying it. 85% of those who responded care portal needs say that they're now going to be more active in 51% report they made a meaningful ongoing connection. If I go back a year later and said who is willing to be a foster and adoptive parents have more response in him and have better quality responses because the veneer of emotion has been removed and people now have a genuine heart and a better understanding so beds bills relationships can reverse the foster crisis in America, by the power of Jesus through the church sermon would that be seven years from now, front page news New York Times, CNN, Fox News, I don't know what to make of this Jesus character, but it turns out the church in America has united in concerted action and has reversed the foster care crisis in this country, and of all things racial reconciliation is breaking out, of all things. Unification of the church is breaking out. This is about far more than the children.
In fact, I'll go this far. I don't think the church is being sent to the children. I believe the children are being sent to the church to purify and unify the church and the church is rising up and saying yes, it's beautiful.
While Joe, it's amazing how God works and it's amazing how he's working.
When Jesus says suffer not the little children to come to me.
I think basically we have a command to make a difference. Can I encourage you don't just listen and think about that's interesting and I'm so glad I turned into living on the androgen. Isn't that wonderful. Would you today. I mean today go to care portal.org put in your ZIP Code and realize you can be a difference maker today. Joe, thanks so much for being with us and may your tribe increase. Thank you for listening to Living on the Edge with shipping chips just for this program is been joking that it the organization care portal website again is care portal.org elders chip with some final thoughts as we wrap up today's program. I hope that this interview inspired you, encourage you see I believe that being a fully committed follower of Jesus demands at three things have to be operating and relevant in our life around here we call it bio just for short bio for life and the B is for coming before God. I really believe that people have to have a regular diet of renewing their mind in the Scriptures reading the Scriptures studying the Scriptures memorizing key passages renewing our mind and the I in bio is for in community that's we have to do life with fellow believers at every command of Scripture in the New Testament is in the second person plural. In other words, chip love your wife.
I can do that by myself chip live a holy life. I can do that by myself. It's impossible to do what God calls me to do and calls you to do is a follower of Jesus apart from authentic deep relationships of support, love, accountability and course that's that's a family of course. But it's also some kind of a smaller group or mentoring relationship and then the O in bio is for on mission and I believe that we need to come before God daily. We need to be in community weekly and I think God calls us to be on mission 24 seven. In other words, it can't be about. I'm just getting more holy or more loving, and it can't be all about me and my family are my church. We were called to make disciples as you go it it's about this light. This grace this love that has to pour out of us into others, and today was about helping you get on mission. It was about any person of any maturity you could've trusted Christ yesterday.
You could be a believer for 30 years and be an elder or a pastor or a women's Bible teacher, it doesn't matter.
You could go to care portal.org and put your ZIP Code in and you and your roommate or you and your family or you and your friend could actually make the difference in a child's life today and that's being on mission and Lord I thank you for Joe, thank you for his faith commitment. The team, their integrity and I thank you that you have called him to love children and that we get the opportunity to team up with him to love children and Lord, we know because of what you've said and how you acted that you find great delight when these vulnerable marginalized children get rescued. We pray this in Jesus name, amen.
Before we go. Let me remind you to sign up for our new daily discipleship with chip true spirituality based in Romans chapter 12 for 17 days you and ship will walk through with a genuine relationship with Jesus looks like and how you can put these truths into practice when you register for this study will send you our friend Lance Witt's devotional based on Romans 12 called leave ordinary behind at no cost. Sign up all this offer lasts by going to LivingontheEdge.org or by calling AAA 333-6003 that's AAA 333-6003 or go to LivingontheEdge.org hapless nurse just tap discipleship intellects time this is Dave saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge