A Passion for the Fatherless: Developing a God-Centered Ministry to Orphans

A Passion for the Fatherless exposes believers to the Scriptural mandate to care for orphans, helps them understand why God has issued that call, and equips them to joyfully respond to that call. Bennett provides a sturdy theological foundation for a ministry to the disenfranchised–the orphan–and then shows how churches can build on these biblical foundations to implement or improve an orphan care program and to equip care-givers. With how-to practicality, this book focuses on total orphan care ministry and not just adoption, including a wide range of activities intended to get the whole church involved: domestic and international adoption, foster care, counseling, congregational funding, overseas mission trips, prayer ministry, and so on. The temptation in a church can be to see orphan care as a ministry for couples of child-bearing age. This approach fails to make wise use of the incredible resources of energetic young people, empty-nesters with newfound freedom, or older saints who have some time with which they desire to be good stewards.

A Passion for the Fatherless includes practical and encouraging stories of how other churches and believers have cared for orphans, and each chapter contains a study guide so that a group leader could use the book in a small-group bible study. It encourages the church to retain its strong biblical philosophy of ministry while simultaneously being obedient in so-called social ministries, like orphan care.