The Other 6 Days

Called To Love Them | The Other 6 Days | Episode 63

• Southwest Church • Season 3 • Episode 63

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In this episode, we are are joined by Jason Johnson — husband, father, writer, and speaker who shares his wisdom & insight from years of equipping churches and encouraging families in their foster care and adoption journeys. We discuss some current stats & information surrounding foster care & adoption as well as cultural & societal trends toward childlessness. We touch on God's heart for children and some practical ways we can participate & engage in those things. We wrap it up some helpful resources that help us engage the topic at hand. 


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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Other Six Days podcast, where we chat about life outside of Sundays and what it means to live from our gatherings, not just for them. In this episode, I'm here and we're joined by Jason Johnson, a husband, father, writer, and speaker who spent years equipping churches and encouraging families in their foster care and adoption journeys. Today we're going to dive into a few things that are close to the heart of God and that they should be on ours as well. But before we do, Jason, how about uh we get to know some of your story? And uh I would love to kick it off actually by hearing a core childhood memory that helped shape you. You know, one one of those either for good or for worse, but had a big impact in your life.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, that's a that's a that's a tough question. Um so many. Um I'll I'll give uh I'll give kind of a joking, facetious one here. Uh the one time, so my dad's a musician. I grew up in a worship pastor home. He was a worship pastor for a long time and no longer is, just different role, but so very musical home, not a big outdoorsy home. I grew up in Dallas, city boy. So a core memory of mine is the first time my dad, probably trying to be a good dad, thinking, I'm gonna take my son fishing. Well, the joke is my dad doesn't know anything about fishing. So we go out fishing, and it's I just remember as a kid thinking, I don't get it, man. I don't, it's so boring. And I apologize to the fishermen out there. But it was enough for me in that moment, maybe seven, eight years old, to make the decision that's not what I'm gonna do with my life. I'm okay being a city boy. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

No professional fisherman in your future.

SPEAKER_01:

Nope, nope. So my idea of camping is the the Hilton downtown, and don't invite me to go fishing, because it'd just be best for you if I'm not fishing with you. Yeah. So that's that's kind of I don't I don't know why that comes to the top of mind, but I like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's good. You're a man after my wife's heart. She loves the she's more of a Hilton, uh, glamping at best, but definitely not the fishing thing, it was not her. It's funny, I grew up as a fisherman, avid fisherman with my dad. Um, and that's actually part of mine was that the adventure that my parents took me on. My dad and mom were super adventurous, so that was the life I lived was camping, hiking, fishing, doing all that crazy stuff. So it really opened the world up to be really huge for me and our family. So that's kind of funny opposite of you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I don't I'm okay that my world wasn't opened up that way. I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. That's perfect. Uh, what about some good, what about a good like core memory? Do you have one that was just like, you know, you're like, man, that one just really like sits with me. That was like, you know, you're you just a time with your dad or mom or yeah, I don't know, something like that. That was impactful.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I um well, this is a little a little deep, but um, there's good here is actually what the when I learned that when when my parents felt the time was right to share with me that my dad was not actually my biological father. Uh and there was a number of years where I wasn't aware of that. Um, and then when I found that out, it was both striking, as you can imagine, as a little boy, but also my my first thought may have been, whoa. My second thought was immediately, wow. Um so this guy who's significantly younger than my mom, uh, at the age that he was around 23 years old, married my mom, who had two kids and a very, very hard story. Um, and I thought, man, what 23-year-old guy does that, you know? And so uh I would say that was that's a core memory that was a little bit of, you know, whoa, but uh a lot of wow. I mean, that's wow, yeah, it was very obviously significant shift in my story as a as a little boy, but one that I I for the most part look back on and think, wow, like that's that's pretty noble. That's unique for a young dude like that to to take that on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's profound, Jason. Wow, I can't believe that. Yeah, 23 and to to uh step up like that. And uh man, that's huge. Yeah, I can imagine the impact. Uh, there's so much more to that story for sure. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, maybe tell us a little bit about your background. Let's start, you know, kind of upbringing, hobbies, passions, your family kind of where how did you get to where you are today?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, the very, very short version is grew up in, I'm a Texas boy, grew up in Dallas. I travel the funny thing is I travel around the country and uh and speak in different environments and very frequently get feedback from people that hey, you don't sound like you're from Texas. Which on one hand, it's well, what do you think people from Texas sound like? Uh but on the other, it's because frankly, I've grown up, I've lived all my life in two of the biggest cities in the country. I've grew up in Dallas and have been in the Houston area uh since call after college. So I'm a city guy, uh, grew up in a pastor's home, a ministry kid. Uh so the the blessing and the curse of that. Uh uh and um I have got an older older sister and a younger brother and sister, and and like I shared, found out uh as a young boy that uh there was a unique dynamic to our family uh that I hadn't been aware of then and uh knew that God had really gifted me and wired me to communicate and to articulate and to like to research and develop and and teach, and uh, but also growing up watching my dad have to deal with some hard things in the ministry context. And so as a teenager telling God, I'll do whatever you want me to do, as long as it has nothing to do with that, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Ministry, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

With ministry. And uh it in part is because my dad did it really well, and yeah, but I saw how much he still had to deal with, and I thought, that seems weird that you want to serve people really well, but you get you oftentimes get treated a certain way. Uh no, thanks. Uh so I was on the fast track to go to uh pre pre-law and go to law school and thought I can use those gifts and those passions that I enjoy, but in a different context. And and then God radically interrupted my life. Um, I I got saved about 47 times as a kid. I, you know, kidding, but I prayed the prayer a lot. Um and so I don't know that I have a moment where I'd say this is the moment, but I do have several moments where I'd say this was a significant shift. Uh God introduced a shift, and it was uh near the near my the end of my freshman year of college, and some some sophomores who led my Bible study, I was in said, Hey, you should you should consider coming and working at this camp. It's a Christian summer camp. And we just talked about how like that's the opposite of what I want to do is be in a camp and fishing. And no. So my answer was, what are you taught? No, not a chance. And they said, Well, it's a it's a sports camp and they need tennis instructors, and that was my life, tennis. I said, Well, I can do that. So I spent I spent a summer at a Christian camp in Missouri uh with seventh grade boys, and it was just awful. It was just awful. Everything about the camp is amazing. I was trapped in a cabin with seventh grade boys for for a summer and just thought, what am I doing here? So I'm coming back from that camp thinking, God, what was that all about, man? Like what that was random. And shortly after getting back, I got a call from a guy in Houston who was a youth pastor, and he said, Hey, I got your name from this camp. Uh, and I'd like to talk to you about coming and working for me. And it was one of those so random, maybe it's not random things that some of us have, you know. Maybe God's maybe this this is worth tracking down. And so I drove in and I I had lunch with him at a Chili's. I'll never forget. I actually still drive by that chilies often. Uh, and that's when Chili's was cool and then it wasn't cool. And I think actually I've heard now it's starting, it's cool again. It's cool again. It's cool again, yeah. So um, it wasn't when it was not cool. We were still cool and we went to chill. And and I drive by it and I I I I think of it that's an Ebenezer moment for me, like that Chili's in North Houston, because I met this guy that shifted the trajectory of my life. And uh, for the first time, I saw a guy that had a temperament and a personality like I did, who I felt like was doing ministry really well. Because my thing, I would sit on the front row as a kid and I would watch people on stage, and I would think, wait a second, I know you offstage, and that's not how you talk, it's not how you act. I feel like there's this character, and I don't have the personality to play a character, and I don't want to do that. So I guess I can't. And and I met this guy, and I thought, man, this guy is the same on and off, like just very matter of fact. And maybe if he can do it, I can do it too. And so he gave me a shot. And so at 19 years old, I started working in ministry at a church, and and that shifted everything. And a lot of times, people we think about social circles we run in, and there's another concept out there that talks about social pyramids that we live in. And at the top of our pyramid is often a person or an experience that because of that, most everything else, you know, as our life goes on and expands, points back to all I know these people and I'm doing these things because of this moment or this person. And this guy is the top of my pyramid in a lot of ways. And so I got involved in the ministry and um and never looked back. And um uh senior year of college, met a girl in class, and uh, we were married uh less than 10 months later. Uh I just knew, I knew immediately. And uh so we got married right after our our our uh after we graduated and were in Houston doing ministry and started having babies, and and uh we now have four girls uh and fast track uh ministry evolved into church planting. Actually, the guy that hired me in in Houston ended up moving to Austin in Texas and planting a church that's just a significant church in the city. And they came alongside and said, Hey, we want to help you plant. And so we planted a church 2008, 2009, and our little girls at the time were uh uh like three and one, and a third one on the way. And a couple years into that, we've got five, three and one-year-old, and my wife says, uh, hey, now's the perfect time for us to become foster parents. And and that had become that had become a big deal in our church, um, unexpectedly, and there was a lot of big culture of that and a lot of people, and it was something the concept was on our hearts for a long time. Adoption certainly was. Uh, foster care shifted it a little bit, but uh so when our girls were were six, four, and two, we welcomed our first placement into our home in Houston. And uh I say life as we knew it leading up to April 25th, 2012, effectively ended. The world as we knew it ended, and a completely new one was introduced to us that night. And it's one that we've now lived in for almost 14 years. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, that's uh that's you well, thank you for sharing that. And uh yeah, obviously that was uh it impacted in uh in in uh ways that you anticipated and ways that you didn't anticipate.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this little this this little girl who our first placement never left, so she ended up becoming our daughter, and there's a there's a beauty and a and a brokenness in it. This we love that she's our our daughter and that we get to be her mommy and daddy. We we don't love that any of this ever had to happen. We don't love that this is her story. Um uh and so there's always this this push and pull and this tension. But yeah, you're right. Uh she she radically changed our family and uh uh ultimately would radically change the trajectory of even what I do uh for work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's I was gonna say, yeah, what you do now comes obviously from those moments. So well, that's kind of the goal that leads into the goal for our episode here, really, is to hopefully bring some inside education, awareness, all those things. And then maybe even at the end, hopefully some heart level action when it comes to things like foster care, adoption, and you know, general equity of children in God's economy. So maybe start, let's start by addressing probably some of the practical realities and issues at hand, you know, some of the things that you became aware of and that have kind of set you on the course of where you are today.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, for sure. Um what we became aware of is is at the time, a lot of conversation around the church and church plans in back then, uh, which was really spearheaded by um a guy who's now passed away, but he was an older pastor and just theologian in New York City. A lot of the language was for the city. Um and we want to be a church for the city. And we realized um what does it mean to be a church for the city of Houston? And now we've become aware of this thing called foster care. Well, we can't be a church for the city and pretend like this isn't a thing. Like yeah, uh and and then as as time goes on and we learn this thing doesn't stand in a vacuum. It's it is a part of a much larger, more nuanced system. So uh in an imagery we often use to kind of help paint a broad sweeping stroke picture is imagine three guys come up to a river and they see kids and families flowing down the river. The first guy jumps into the middle because, as anybody would, there's people right in front of us and the crisis. I need to intervene, right? Uh the second guy runs downstream because he knows enough about the river to know at the end of this river, at some point in this river, there's a there's a waterfall, there's a cliff. And if if people make it too far down, it it's a tragic ending. And the third guy says, My buddies are jumping in here and here, and that's good. People need to jump in there. He says, My question is, how are these people getting in the water in the first place? And is there anything that I can do to stop it? And so he runs upstream uh to figure out what's going on up there. So now what you've got is is three guys all jumping into the same river, but at three very different points of the river. And so this river is kind of a continuum that illustrates uh the vulnerability of kids and families in every city in America. Um, you we can't get away from it. Uh and the reality is that there are upstream issues that are perpetuating downstream issues. Um largely we would say foster care sits as a midstream thing. Something has happened upstream that has necessitated the removal of a child placed in a temporary foster home. And intervention is necessary. Um, but it's a it's also a hinge. So there's two significant parts of the continuum on either side. Downstream, what we find is that the further downstream people make it with uh a lack of stability, um, a lack of family infrastructure, a lack of resources, the more they end up, and the statistics show in some very common places like home homelessness or incarceration or poverty or teen pregnancy, a lot of places downstream that the church for generations has been engaged in. Um a lot of churches are serving in that capacity. But it's helpful to now know that it's not, it doesn't stand in isolation. It is connected to some upstream issues. Uh or trafficking um is largely a downstream issue to some of the upstream issues uh in in most states and most cities that are that are high on the list of of um uh cities where there's a lot of trafficking that takes place, uh the vast majority of females that are trafficked are are products of the child welfare system and aged out, meaning they have no family and they're looking for a place to belong, and there's instability and there's vulnerability, and they've got a bullseye on their bank.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01:

And so then you look upstream and you ask the questions what are the issues in our city that are perpetuating vulnerability and causing some of these downstream issues, things like poverty and and teen pregnancy and and uh addiction is obviously is obviously a big one. And what does it look like for us to be engaged at a more preventative level and to bring healing and restoration upstream? Uh but what we find, and I'll I'll this this I'll end with this, is the stream isn't a long, perpetual, um, infinite straight line. It's actually cyclical. Um and so the further downstream you make it, the more likely you are to see generational cycles repeat themselves. And um uh and ultimately what we're doing when we jump into this river is we're saying uh what be it preventative, be it midstream foster care issues, downstream risk restorative issues, um we we want to be a part of breaking generational cycles. It stops now. That's what the church is saying. We're stepping in, and as if we have anything to do about it or anything to say about it, the cycle stops now and a new trajectory and a new a new shift uh starts here. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Jeez, and that paints probably the most holistic, like uh best illustration and picture that I've ever heard for the whole uh like holistically for what's going on, especially the waterfall analogy. Yeah, that it's all needed, you know, it's all great, but there's preventative, and then at the end, what the church has been doing, you know, at the bottom of the waterfall and then the cyclical component of it. Yeah. I mean, I've never heard it articulated like that. I'm like, this makes so much sense to me. That's really that's that's very helpful.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's awesome to hear. And it it's helpful to just humanize the whole thing. Where now, when we talk about foster care, maybe some perceptions at at some point for some people have been, well, there's bad people doing bad things to kids and we need to go rescue them. Well, that's true, it it but in in very short supply. Like those are the stories that make the news because they're the shock and awe stories, and they're real and they're evil, and we call them what they are. However, the vast majority of stories uh are um young moms, especially who who would essentially say, not in these words, but what they what they experience is I I grew up in the water, all I've ever known is the water. My mom grew up this way, my mom's mom grew up this way. Uh, I know how to survive in the water. I don't know how to survive in in routine and comfort. I I know how to live in this world, but I desperately don't want my kids to grow up in the water. But I don't know what to do. And I don't know. And there's some old, I don't know, I'll just make this up like a Chinese proverb, or I don't know. It's probably not a Chinese proverb. But basically, like when the uh a new fish, um a new fish uh swims past an old fish and asks, How's the water today? And the old fish, having been in the water for years, says, What water? What water? Yeah, because you know no different, you know. Yeah. So our our journey actually evolved into taking little girls into our home to actually bringing moms with babies into our home, young moms. And boy, did we learn very quickly that there is there is a whole context and community of people who would say, what water? What are you talking about? Because it's it's this is how my mom grew up, it's how my mom's mom grew up, it's how I grew up. I don't want my kids to grow up this way, but I know how to survive in this world. And and the only difference really I have found it we you know, we like to draw distinctions just in human terms to help make sense of things, but this collision of worlds frankly obliterates all human distinctions that we try to draw. It's like, oh, we're actually a lot more similar than we are different. Uh, you love your kids just like I do, you have hopes and dreams for yourself just like I do. Uh for for me, like we're more of the same. The primary difference I found actually struck me several years ago. My my wife came in from the garage, we ate dinner, she's leaving to take one of our girls somewhere, probably volleyball, to live, you know, we Uber our kids around to live their best life. And that's yeah. And so that was happening a normal Wednesday, and she comes back in from the garage and says, Um, hey, good news, bad news. And that whole thing is funny. Like research shows in the good news, bad news dynamic, the recipient of the news always wants the bad news first. Because I want the good, I want the good news last.

SPEAKER_00:

And on the high note. And on the high note, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the deliverer of the news wants to lead on a high note, give the good news. Oh, okay. And they don't care how you feel after, they just want to leave something good. It's off my chest, yeah. Yeah. So I knew this, I've read about this, and so she comes in and says good news, bad news. Well, I want the tell me the bad news first because I want to end on the high note. But of course, she tells me the good news first, because that's what the the deliverer wants to do. So she says, good news is we have money to pay for it. I thought, and this is why I want the good news to lax. Lord knows what's about to follow, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Now we have we only have girls in our house, and I I fully recognize that in a boy home, we only have money, we good news we have money to pay for it. It's something entirely different that happened, right? There's holes in the wall and and lamps broken and all that. So she says, We have money to pay for it, and I say, Great, what is it? She says the car won't start. Um, and say, Oh gosh, you know, so we all know hopefully it's just the battery, like that's the easiest thing. Uh and so I check the battery, seems dead, take it to the auto parts store. They check it, it's dead, get a new battery, take, bring it home, put it in. Uh, about an hour of inconvenience um and a little bit of money. That's it. Just a blip, right? In the meantime, we have uh teenagers, we have our daughters are teenagers, a couple of drivers, like there's literally extra cars in the driveway for my wife to take. No problem. You know, blip on the radar, uh, versus um like a particular mom we had in our home who um was really trying to build a life where she had a job and dropped her kids off at daycare and was was developing these rhythms, but didn't have reliable transportation. And that became a massive barrier to her trying to build her life. And a family in our church donated a vehicle to her. And it just struck me that um if we go out to our car and it doesn't start, minor in she goes out to her car and it doesn't start. She can't get her kids dropped off at daycare on time, which is a subsidized daycare. And if if the you know you're late three times, they can't come for five days. Well, if they can't come, then she can't go to her hourly job because she doesn't have child care. And if she can't go to her hourly job, her boss, who has no business being a boss of anyone ever, anywhere, you know, fires her. Uh, and then she gets fired and she doesn't have an income, which means she can't stay in her subsidized apartment because she has to have months, like all these trickle-down effects of if my car doesn't start, big deal. You know, yeah. Uh, if her car doesn't start, potentially devastating. Catastrophic. And so we are so much more the same. The primary difference that I have found is that it's all about the infrastructures of support underneath us. When I fall, I don't fall, fall, I don't fall far, long, or alone. There's not a scenario in which I'm ever going to be homeless, ever. Uh the the moms that we've had in our home have lived most of their days right on the brink of homelessness, or just hold on in it, you know. And it's not because there's something wrong with them. It's mostly the infrastructure when they fall, they don't stop falling. When I fall, I stop pretty quickly, you know. Yeah. And what we're doing, kind of at a grand scale, is we're looking at this continuum in the river, and we're all making decisions about what unique ways has God gifted me and called me and resourced me and given me a passion to step in at different points of this continuum to come along and up underneath people to to build systems of support for them that don't say, I'm here, you're never gonna fall again, all is right, everything's fixed. No, but instead it's saying, Hey, I'm I'm gonna track with you through life uh from this point forward, and we're gonna stumble along the way, but I I can guarantee not on my watch do you ever fall uh far along or alone ever again.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, wow. Man, you're bringing those things that could be catastrophic in their life to something that's just more of an inconvenience, potentially, and it's a perspective shift too, because I didn't even think about that. Those moms are thinking it's there's too a mental mindset potentially that says it's not if it's when these things will happen again. Because they, like you said, they're on the brink of these quite often. That's right. And you're going, well, you know, minor inconvenience, I'm good. Like, wow, what a huge shift.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and the and these things are cycle breaking. Um and it really comes down to relationships. Um, you know, it's we found um throwing people opportunities who have their arms tied behind their back and can't grab them. That's unfair, borderline cruel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, it's like it's like someone who's drowning with their arms tied behind their back and throwing them a life preserver saying, just grab it. The opportunity is right in front of you.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I can't.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't. So it's not enough just to throw opportunity at people. I think opportunity paired with meaningful relationship that says, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me forever. Uh, we're doing this thing together. That is the cycle breaker right there.

SPEAKER_00:

Gosh. Yeah. Yeah. When we're talking about it here at the church, like serving the marginalized a lot, we use the language, you know, instead of a handout, we want to do a hand up, you know, and we want to bring them along towards more long-term solutions. Then, you know, and obviously you have the short term is helpful, but it does it doesn't take it all the way. So this is more of a long-term solution stuff. So that's right. Wow, that's really good. Yeah, that's helpful. Um, well, we always talk about, we say this all the time, that these matters are on the heart of God, so they should be on our heart as well. And so um, let's, you know, not let's unpack not only some of the biblical mandates regarding these, you know, we see it all throughout New Testament and scripture, but even like you've kind of you've mentioned already, but cultural, societal, ethical, and even practical implications of us showing up well, uh, like what happens if we do these well, and what happens if we don't?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's great. Um, I think it's very obviously very important theologically how we frame this, because that's gonna drive the words that we use, and words are important and words are powerful. Uh, and uh for for a long time in the church, and and again, I grew up 80s kid in the church, and you know, 80s church, man. Like that was that was I was right there with you. I was a kid. Yeah, and and I'm here's broad sweeping strokes. I'm gonna generalize, I'm gonna way overgeneralize, but yeah at that point, you saw a family caring for a kid that wasn't biologically theirs, and it almost exclusively was international adoption. That was really the impetus and the focus in that generation of church, early nine, early 90s. You start to see a shift, not away from that, but just an expansion towards domestic adoption. You see a lot of domestic adoption uh organizations form in the 90s, early 2000s. And then in the late 2000s, early 2010s is when you really start to see an awareness of this thing called foster care and for the city and vulnerable people in our city. And um, and while our our focus shifted and expanded, our the way that we talked about it theologically didn't change much and it started to create some problems. So I'll again I'm way overgeneralizing, but let's say in the 70s, 80s, early 90s, the theology was we've all been adopted by God, therefore we should all consider adopting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I mean that's cute and sweet. And it it worked at the time because the the call to action and the primary, the application was adoption focused. But when we fast track to foster care, the goal of foster care isn't adoption. It's it's reunification, it's restoration. Sometimes it leads to adoption, and that's filled with tension, like I like I mentioned earlier. But but what I found was um uh it's not that we need to change our theology, but we were just tripping over it for a few years where we've all been adopted by God, and again, I'm generalizing. Yeah, so we so here's foster care, but then it turned into the 80s, early 90s micro machine commercials. If anyone's old enough, at the very the guy who talked really fast. Yeah, we started to have to give disclaimers like, but but don't get involved in foster care if your goal is to adopt the goal is an adoption, the goal is restored. It's like, and I as a as a pastor in Houston, I thought there's something wrong with the way. We're talking about this theologically if we have to disclaimer it so much. So I think a really helpful way for us to frame this theologically is not let's throw the baby out with the bath water. Like, no, we can't talk about theology of adoption anymore because there's still something that's too in foster care. We're opening our families, we're inviting people in. That sometimes does lead. But I think I think most helpful is this idea of incarnation, frankly. Um, the idea that God moved towards, wrapped himself up in the person of Jesus, took on our humanity, and wrapped himself up in our story, uh, and he moved towards us. And we want to be celebrators of the fact that God moves towards us in our brokenness, but we can't be celebrators of that and refuse to be demonstrators of that. So when we look at the continuum of the river, the invitation is um in where is God inviting you to live out incarnation, to move towards? And it's not all gonna be the same, and it's not all going to look the same. Yeah, and so that kind of leads to another big overarching theological component of this, which is really rooted in the body of Christ. That some are ears, some are eyes, some are hands, some are feet. That we're not all called to do the same thing, but everyone can do something, and it's not all gonna look the same. Yeah. So the idea of moving towards hard and broken, because that's what Jesus has done for us, but doing that in unique and diversive, diverse and creative ways, because some of us are gonna be ears, some eyes, some hands, some feet.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. That's uh I think that that illustration that you gave, that you've been giving about the river and at the different points allows people to step in, like you've been saying, at that different point to uh to participate in that redemptive and restorative story. And you can see that all is needed, and but what are you being called to as part of the body of Christ, which I think is the beautiful piece that it's not a one size fits all or this is the solution. Um, you see a more holistic picture, which I ah, gosh, I love that so much.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely, absolutely. And one of the cool things about that is is we can all find and do our unique something, but not being done in isolation. So you can be engaged with people deeply in need of restoration, far downstream, just trapped in in vices and needing to be restored. And someone else can be upstream working to uh bring health and healing and stability to families who are most likely to be vulnerable. And someone else can become a foster parent, and we can all look at each other and say, we're doing we're doing very different things. But but here's the cool thing: we're all doing the same thing. We're all engaging in the same river, and the same thing is we are breaking generational cycles or we are building infrastructures of support underneath people, but we're just doing that in different ways. So there's this unity and the vision for even an individual church to say, hey, that thing we're doing over there, and that thing we're doing way over there, and that thing we're doing right here, these are not separate, mutually exclusive things. They're all part of the same thing, just different applications of it.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that because you gave me a different vision, even just for the preventative work being done, let's say upstream, that I'm just like, wow, that is that is huge. And it's a, you know, I want to know more about that. I want to be more invested in it because it actually informs and helps some of the things that we tend to be doing more downstream, you know, as you know, uh typically in the church and stuff. So that's great. Well, what would you say, Jason? Is there any uh I know there's a lot of challenges to all this, obviously, and you have a ton of stories. Is there anything that you could share? You know, maybe a family, even in your family that stepped in, churches who surrounded foster parents. I know you've got a million of them, or you know, you've just seen some redemption to broken uh, you know, situations that just like stand out to you, that you're like, hey, this is what happens when we show up.

SPEAKER_01:

Like that's good. Yeah. What happens when we show up is that you eventually feel isolated and alone because you show up at your office or at your school or you live in your neighborhood, or even your small group in your church, and no one else can relate to the experiences that you're walking through. Wow. And the natural trajectory of a family, let's just isolate it to who fosters or adopts. Um eventually at some point feels like no one around me understands me, and no one can relate to me. Uh and now I've brought kids from hard places with unique challenges into my home. And I'm now bringing those kids into my church, and they don't know how to handle them. And so now everywhere I turn, no one can relate to me, no one understands me, and no one knows how to handle us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're a burden. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're a burden. And so eventually people just start checking out. And so I think uh for a number of years, the the stats may have shifted some, but for a number of years, uh the average lifespan of a foster family was roughly 12 months. Um meaning they spent years, months, or even years thinking about it and praying about it, then months getting trained and licensed to do it. And then they lasted for about 12 months. And there's a number of factors associated with that. But the number one above all was has been um that feeling of we don't, we just we don't have the support that we feel like. We're we're on an island. So a lot of organizations over the over the last handful of years have really leaned in hard to that. We we don't want to be inviting families to open their home without us simultaneously having infrastructures of support around them to help them not just survive, but flourish, frankly. So there's actually a particular organization out there based out of Atlanta that does work with churches all over the country. And they have found they have enough data under their belt now to be able to say churches that engage with us and that we we work with and kind of help and implement part of some of the wraparound support system that we help train them on, they see statistics go from roughly um 12 months to roughly 36 months. Uh and so what we want to see is not let's just get more people faster, is we want the right people in it longer. And so there's this both and of some people, and this is perfect in the diversity of the body of Christ. Some people need to open their homes and a bunch of people don't. That's not your best and highest use. Your best and highest use is to be the absolute best wraparound support friend that you can be. And you don't have to make it up. Like there's actually resources out there that help you really know what that looks like, what does that mean? How do we do that well? Uh, so it's a great time to be alive in this space because I'd say 10, 15 years ago, we just didn't have the resources for churches like we do now. Um, and so there's that that's a dynamic that's important that families are bringing kiddos with unique challenges into their home, and it's bringing unique challenges into their family. It's also bringing unique challenges into their community and into their church. Um, and so we're all in this thing together on some level.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. There's so much opportunity for everybody wherever you're at to participate. And I think that opens it up because it you're right, it you it is this dynamic of well, you made that choice or great for you. And you know, all you know, kudos, but I I, you know, I don't I don't have a part in your decision as you participate in that. And so to be educated, to have community and support structures and all of that is so helpful. Yeah. Wow, that is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. I'll tell a story real quick about um, I always tell the story because I love it. It's it's it's a few years ago, I was at a large foster parent appreciation banquet, and there were several hundred foster parents in the room in Kansas City, and it was hosted by a church that had zero foster families. Kind of your traditional big, beautiful downtown old Baptist church building. Average age member of that church was probably like 113 years old. Uh, and there were like nine of them left, you know, like that kind of church. Uh, so zero foster families, and but a big, beautiful building. And so this is a church that said, we know what we can't do, but we know what we can do. We can host a really beautiful dinner to honor foster families from around the city. And so they did. Love it. Uh, it was catered by a barbecue restaurant. At the end of the night, this big burly man comes up to me and introduces himself as the owner of the best barbecue restaurant in Kansas City, which is a bold claim in Kansas City. They love barbecue and Patrick Mahomes about equally, I think. And uh he says, I own the best barbecue restaurant in Kansas City. And in my head, I thought, that's a bold claim, man. All right. And uh, and then he said, and I've told organizations and ministries like this anytime there's a function like this for foster families, or a family brings a new placement into their home, call us, and we're going to deliver and cater the best barbecue in Kansas City for free. And so here's a guy who uh who says to me, Um, uh, I know what I can do, I know what my something is. And he hasn't opened his home to a child. He was very clear he never will. And uh, and to him, I would say, Great, don't. Like that's not your best and highest use. But here's a guy who said, I know what I can't do, and I don't feel bad about that, but I know what I can do. And I'm gonna do that really, really well for this community. And I think everybody has a barbecue story. Everybody's got some barbecue story, and and what we need is just a little bit of room to think creatively about how God has wired us and gifted us, uh, and a little bit of space to do it. And that's where we see the body of Christ in churches all over the country really coming alive and saying, I might not be able to do the same thing that somebody else is doing, but I can do something and I'm gonna do my something really well.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. I'm gonna use that like what's your barbecue story.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's so good. That's so well. Wait till after I'm there because that I'm gonna tell that story when I preach there. You can't steal it from me.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, just this isn't going out until after you preach, so hopefully that it will we'll be good. So um, yeah, we usually follow this podcast up on the heels of you coming out and doing that and uh just to kind of because there'll be stuff that we get to say here that you don't get to talk about from the stage. And so it's a great opportunity. But um, so what would you say to us uh as we kind of wrap this thing up, uh Jason, what would you say like uh practically to like encourage and challenge people? What what can they go do like today? What would you say are some things that you just you you know you'd lay out there for people?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would say um find I would say pray about what God might have you think about or or do in this in this space. And I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on how you pray. I find, not just in this space, but in Christian life in general, we can sometimes mask or delay our ob we can mask our disobedience in spirituality. So uh it can be, well, we're still praying about it, we're still seeking the Lord on it. And at some point it's like, why? Like what questions are left unanswered? Um, so if I told my girls clean your room, and three weeks later their room isn't clean, and they come and they ask for clarity, hey, what can you really explain to us what you wanted us to do? I'd say, This is really weird, but I want you to clean why you I want you to clean your room. Uh and then two weeks later they come back and say, uh, just to be clear, what do you want us to do? At some point, as a dad, I say, Well, what I want you to do is stop talking to me about this, and I just want you to do it. The conversation's over. And so when we pray, God, what would you have me do? Uh at some point I want to challenge people, stop asking for clarity. He's made it clear in his word, he'll make it clear in your heart. He's given you resources, ideas. And what we need to start praying for is courage to do the thing that he's made clear. Uh, so I would say start praying. I would say, uh, ask your church leadership. Do we have do we what foster families, adoptive families do we know in our church? I would love to just hear their story. I would love to get a little bit closer to it because there's a proximity issue. It's far away for a lot of people. I would love to meet them and and and um, but not use them as like a token, you know, like can I hear your story to for my own person? But just I want to get a little bit closer to this and I want to learn from people that are that have lived it, because I I believe maybe God is inviting me to get involved somehow. And I guarantee a foster adoptive family would say, absolutely, yeah, if that's that's your heart for sure. Um, maybe connect with a local agency or church leadership and say, who do we already have a relationship with? Who do we have a partnership with? And what does it look like for me to serve through our church with this partnership we have? And again, going back to the river, I get obviously your church has partnerships and relationships with with organizations doing good work at different parts of the river. So it might just be sit down with your church leadership and say, help me understand what our church is doing at different points of this continuum. And because I want to get involved and and I don't need to reinvent the wheel. You got we already have relationships. Point me in the right direction of what that might look like. So I guess the big the big overarching theme would be pray and then intentionally seek out ways to increase proximity between you and whatever it is, because a lot of these things we keep at a distance. Um, and it's scary to get a little bit closer because when you get closer, you see it for what it is. And once you see it for what it is, you can't pretend like you never saw it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's so good. I love that you said uh the challenge there. Well, first off, that you said pray for courage, and that you said delayed obedience is disobedience, you know, at some point. And so um, man, what a great challenge. So um, wow, challenges me too. So I appreciate that. Well, as always, we hope that these conversations are engaging and helpful. Um, any books, podcasts, or resources that you'd like to point people to that they might find beneficial?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh there's a few books online that um yeah, jasonjohnsonblog.com uh that you guys can link to. Um, and there's some blogs and and some different things on there that could be helpful.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yeah, I'll put a whole bunch of stuff in the show notes, connect everybody to your stuff that you've written and some of the things that you've done, some of the organizations you partner with, uh, as well as some of our local ones as well. So those will be in the show notes if you're interested. Uh Jason, any final thoughts or comments, encouragement, encouragements as we wrap this up?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I'm just grateful for this time and for your church that this would be something that you'd say we want to lean into this really well with our people and in our community. And uh just hold on to the big idea that we're not all called to do the same thing. Uh we certainly aren't capable of fixing everything, but I do believe everyone can do something. And when we all do our somethings together, we really can make a significant impact.

SPEAKER_00:

Amen. Wow. Well, there you have it. Jason, thank you so much for all that you're doing and just uh for providing us that much-needed encouragement and wisdom today, and uh as well as the resources. And just uh thank you for the work that you're doing for the marginalized and for those that are unseen. Um, and just uh thank you for uh being with us. Absolutely. My pleasure. Yep. Well, there you go. Uh, thank you all for joining us on another episode of the Other Six Days podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe, follow, share, and like. And as always, take what you've heard and turn it into something you can do to further the gospel and the world around you. Until next time. Thanks.