The church has a biblical invitation to care for vulnerable children.

1. Having compassion, seeking justice, and living out Jesus’ commandment to love our God and love our neighbor, including vulnerable children, is part of our discipleship.

• Micah 6:8 | He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?
• Matthew 22:36-40 | “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

2. Every child matters in the Kingdom of God.

• Mark 10:13-16, 13 | People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

3. Both adoption and foster care exist because of a fallen world. Even when we acknowledge the blessing of having a foster or adoptive child in the family, it’s still a gift that comes from a brokenness and fallenness. We must understand that by participating in adoption and foster care, we are not fixing something, but we are instead a part of the care and nurture of children in that broken system.

• Adoption and foster care come from spaces of trauma, and as such foster and adoptive families can participate in the trauma
• Quest is a church that is committed to being honest about both the joys and beauty and the challenges and messiness of adoption and foster care.

4. Quest is committed to walking alongside families who foster and those who adopt. We are also committed to helping kids stay in first families.

• We avoid framing adoption or foster parenting as a Plan B if biological children don’t come. (Adopted children are not afterthoughts or “last chance” kids). Many families do choose adoption after infertility. But when that’s how adoption is framed, children who are present to hear this might feel like they aren’t as wanted or preferred as biological children. Many families choose to adopt or foster without ever experiencing infertility.

Our understanding of family is broad and includes the diversity of families. We see in our community and throughout history how God has knit families together in unique ways. The family of God is interconnected and interdependent. The knitting together of our earthly families is also a complex web of relationships.
Romans 12:4-5 | “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ, we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”