Baptist Children's Homes Presentation - Clay Leonard

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Summary

Guest speaker Clay Leonard presents the mission of Baptist Children's Home, emphasizing its commitment to rescuing abandoned children and providing Christian services. He highlights the organization's extensive reach across North Carolina and Guatemala, serving over 1,300 children last year alone. Drawing from Luke 12, Leonard stresses that everyone is valuable and loved by God, encouraging the congregation to live by faith and support the ministry through prayer, giving, and involvement.

Welcome and Church Information
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All right, there it is. All right, that's all we'll do there. I'm not going to mess with any more of that. Anyway, as I was saying, my name's Clay.
You can go to that next slide there. And I'm married to Kelly, and I get to serve the greater triad region. That extends a lot of places. I am just about in the furthest northwest corner of my area. When you get on over to Wilkesboro, another person covers that area.
So I'm almost in the northwest corner. And then in the southeast corner, I got Asheboro, all the way down there. And then I go all the way up to Roxboro in the northeast. And then all the way down to Salisbury.
So all where that X is, that's where I cover. And I get a chance to go in churches and associations. I'll come speak to a WMU group. I'll come speak to a children's church group.
It doesn't make any difference to me where I get the opportunity to share that Baptist Children's Home exists to glorify God.
We exist to rescue the abandoned and to make disciples of them, to provide the highest quality of Christian services to children, but also to adults and families in a caring culture of excellence.
We are indeed many ministries that beat with one heart. And as a North Carolina Baptist Church, Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, right here in the Clingman community, you guys are partners with us on mission together, sharing hope and changing lives. So thanks again for inviting me. Let's go to the next slide there, please.
Yeah, there you go, that one right there.
So Baptist Children's Home, we were born in November of 1885.
And a lot of people, every year in November, we take an annual offering. And that's one of the ways we support the many ministries of Baptist Children's Home. And a lot of people wonder, why in the world does Baptist Children's Home take an offering in November where you're competing with Lottie Moon?
Pastors ask me that all the time. And I say, well, that's because that's when we were founded. November the 11th, 1885,
this little nine-year-old girl, this statue of her stands outside of the Mills Home Baptist Church there in Thomasville. She stepped off the train and became the first resident. This is Mary Presson, and she became the first resident of what was then called the Thomasville Orphanage. And since that day, 139 years ago,
thousands of children have come through, not just Mills Home, but a lot of other places.
Children's Home Statistics
Now, the one question I get so often is, how many kids y'all got down there at that children's home now? Everybody wants to know, how many kids you got down there at the children's home? And that's a very difficult question to answer because of what you're going to see on this next slide.
We are all over the state of North Carolina. We are not just one location in Thomasville, North Carolina. We started in Thomasville, but we actually have on this map right here, we have four, among that map are four main campus locations.
So what we have in Thomasville, we also have way down in Pembroke, North Carolina. We got one up on the other side of Asheville in Clyde, and we've also got one in Kenston. So we have four major campuses that we do long-term residential foster care, or what you might call orphan care.
But we have so much other stuff that goes on on those campuses. But all over the state, we have foster family homes.
We are training foster families all over the state of North Carolina. One of the things that the state kind of has tightened the screws on a little bit is the orphan care situation.
And so now pretty much all of who you would consider orphans, they're all considered foster children. And so we've actually developed some foster care communities.
You know, how many of you enjoyed when you were a kid, you grew up in a neighborhood, you rode your bike, you hung out with your friends, you played ball, you ran around the neighborhood. How many did that?
Okay, isn't that the highlight of your life? You look back at those times, you think, man, what a fun time that was, hanging out with my friends.
So we've developed some what we call foster care communities, where we have three or four foster family homes in like a cul-de-sac neighborhood,
that if a family would like to foster, but they don't have any space in their house, they've got their own kids, they're out of room, we can move them into one of those homes.
And the foster kids, they can keep up to four or five foster kids, and they can all grow up in a community with other friends. They can help each other.
They can watch each other's kids and so forth, and it can become like a little neighborhood. And we have those all over the state in different places. We're going to open one this weekend over in Cleveland County.
It's called River Hill Refuge. We're going to open a brand new one there. You notice there we have the state of South Carolina.
South Carolina, we have adoption offices. So a lot of people don't realize that not only does Baptist Children's Home, we do foster care, and sometimes that foster care is foster to adopt, and I'll talk about that program in just a second.
But then we also have just an adoption agency that's part of Baptist Children's Home, and so we are licensed to do adoptions in North Carolina and South Carolina. So we have adoption offices in South Carolina.
And over here, this little pink-looking state is not a state. It's actually Guatemala, and we have two orphanages in Guatemala and a medical mission in Guatemala. So a lot of places.
We are more than just. So when somebody says, how many kids y'all got down there at that children's home? That's a hard question to answer because that number fluctuates all the time. Now, if you want to know, Thomasville, right now we have about 35 children that are staying in Thomasville.
In that area. But again, all over the state. Last year, we served over 1,300 children. So it didn't all happen in Thomasville. Hey, go to the next slide, please. As I said, we've got cottage homes.
A lot of those cottage homes are on our campuses. Go to the next slide, please. I'm going to try to go through this pretty quickly. We also have two things that people don't know about a lot is we have some teen camps.
Now, this is not where you send your kids for camp in the summer, okay? These camps are designed for teens, let's just say troubled teenagers who are in a family.
They're not being given up for adoption. They're not placed in foster care. But you're having a really, really, really difficult time with your 12 or 13-year-old. They're a knucklehead. They won't listen. They're getting into all kinds of mess.
And we have a camp that might be a good fit where they can go and they can learn responsibility. They will actually be educated.
We have Cameron Boys Camp. If you'll go to the next slide for boys. And then we also have Camp Duncan for girls. And the goal of these camps is to grow the teenager, to give them Jesus.
They also are educated. These are both fully accredited non-public schools, so they get their education. They can stay there up to two years. And we also work with the family to restore the family.
So a lot of these teens will go and stay at the camp for six or eight weeks. And then they'll go home for a week. And they'll put into practice the things they've learned.
And they'll go back to camp. And that can go on for up to two years. And the goal is to restore families.
Go to the next slide, please. I mentioned about Foster to Adopt. We recently went into a partnership with North Carolina Baptist.
And I know you're probably thinking, well, I thought Baptist Children's Home was North Carolina Baptist. And we are, but we are sort of a little division of all of the North Carolina Baptist churches. And so North Carolina Baptist and Baptist Children's Home combined for this Every Child Foster and Adoption Initiative.
And so what we have is we have trainers who will go all over the state, no matter where it is. And we will train and license foster families to do foster care right there in your home where you are.
And so then whenever we are in contact, DSS contacts us. They have a placement that maybe a child needs to come for a few nights. Maybe they need to come for a few weeks.
Adoption Services Overview
Then we have foster families all over the state of North Carolina. A few years ago, the number of kids in the foster care system was 17,000. We're now down to 10,000.
So that's great. We're making headway in reducing the number of foster kids in the foster care system. But there's a lot of work still to do. And so this Every Child Initiative is really helping with that. Through this initiative last year, we saw 48 children who were in foster care and then adopted.
So we saw 48 adoptions through this initiative. Like I said, there are 10,000 children in crisis. There's been as many as 17. Go to the next slide, please. Christian Adoption Services. I mentioned that we have our very own adoption agency.
And it's called Christian Adoption Services. Now, Christian Adoption Services has been around for 40 years. But in 2020, we went into a partnership with Christian Adoption Services.
So Christian Adoption Services, this wonderful Christian adoption agency, now has come underneath the umbrella of Baptist Children's Home.
And we facilitate domestic and international adoptions in North Carolina and South Carolina and in the Philippines.
When a dear friend of mine went to take over the ministry of Christian Adoption Services back in 2016, in 2016, we did not have enough families in North Carolina to adopt the babies that were being born in North
Carolina and placed into adoption. And he said, that's a problem. We were partnering with an adoption agency in Minnesota, I think it was,
Minnesota to handle a lot of our adoptions. So we were seeing a lot of babies who wanted to be placed into Christian homes, being taken to good Christian families in Minnesota.
So in just a few years' time, we were able now to cancel that partnership. And we have lots of families here in North Carolina who are waiting.
We have about 100 families in our queue, just about at all time. Average time, if you want to adopt the average time, we can get a child placed with you in around 8 to 10 months. So it's pretty good, actually.
So these are babies that are born in North Carolina and South Carolina. Now, with the Philippines, there are scores of children right now in the Philippines who are waiting to be adopted.
And so that is, our international ministry is one thing that we are really trying to build. Let's go to the next slide, please. Oh, another great thing about Christian Adoption Services.
And one thing that separates Christian Adoption Services from any other adoption agency is that they minister to birth moms. So what happens when a woman finds herself in a crisis pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy?
She chooses life, but knows that she cannot give that child the life that she wants them to have.
So she chooses to place them into adoption, and she can do that. But a lot of adoption agencies will take the child and say, thank you very much. We appreciate you.
You've made a courageous decision, and we'll never speak to her again unless she needs to place another child. Christian Adoption Services is different.
We say, we're going to love you, and we're going to pour into you, and we're going to minister to you as long as you will allow us to. So we have this place called the Emanuel Home.
This is a home right there in Thomasville where birth moms, if they want to get out of a situation that they're in after they've placed their child into adoption, they want to start a new life, they can come
right here to the Emanuel Home, and they can live for up to a year. We will help them find a job.
Support for Birth Mothers
We will help them complete their general education. We actually have a very generous donor who has said, any mom who comes here and wants to go to college, they will pay for their college 100%. This is a tremendous ministry. Most people don't realize, Baptist Children's Home does that? Yes, we do.
And so this young lady in the picture here, the one on the right, that's Carrie Elle, she has come through the Emanuel Home, and she is now, she came in in a very bad situation. She is now in college pursuing her degree in nursing.
We, and she's accepted the Lord Jesus as her Savior, and so we minister to birth moms. Go to the next slide, please. Every year we do a birth moms retreat. This was the one from 2023.
There were eight moms in this picture, and these are women who have placed into adoption children with us, and then every year we get a chance to send them on a retreat, a spiritual retreat, where they are poured
into, where there are women in this picture who have been coming on this retreat for 20 or 30 years. There are women in this picture who placed their child into adoption with Christian adoption services 30 years ago.
And they still come on this retreat, and they minister to the other women. They share their stories together.
Eight of these women accepted the Lord as their personal Savior. Just last month, we had our 2024 birth moms retreat. Over 50 moms went on that retreat.
17 of them gave their life to Jesus Christ. It was a tremendous, tremendous ministry. There's no other adoption agency anywhere in the world that we know of that loves birth moms the way Christian adoption services does through Baptist Children's Home. Go to the next slide, please. We have family care.
We have homes on our campuses for single moms. These are moms who are struggling.
They want to parent their child, but they're really struggling. They can come and stay in one of our family care cottages. Go to the next slide, please.
Greater Vision is another ministry of Baptist Children's Home. Greater Vision is kind of that ministry where it's like a community ministry. You know how there's a lot of places that will do handouts of food and clothing. One thing that separates Greater Vision is that Greater Vision actually enters into a client relationship.
We only have about 60 clients at one time. And our goal, every time that a client comes to receive services, get some food, get some clothing, some help, every single time they can come once a month. They receive counseling. They receive financial planning.
They receive the help. The goal is that in 12 months, they will no longer need the services of Greater Vision. Our goal is to get these people in our communities to being self-sufficient.
And then we take on new clients. It's a wonderful, wonderful ministry. Next slide, please.
Special needs adults. A lot of people don't realize that we have group homes for adults with special needs. We are also training and licensing foster care families to foster children who have special needs.
It takes some specialized training, but we are doing that. And it's such a wonderful ministry. Our ministry for intellectually and developmentally disabled adults is phenomenal.
Go to the next slide, please. You'll see these two guys right here. This is Alex and Rob. They live in one of our IDD cottages up in Asheville. And they actually went and represented North Carolina in the Special Olympics a couple years ago, the International Games.
And they played soccer and won the silver medal on behalf of the United States. And now all of our IDD adults want to go to the Special Olympics.
And so if you want to help fund that, we would love to, because we've got to be able to pay for everything and send people with them. But, man, what a joy it is. I love our IDD ministry.
Like I said, we have nine of these group homes, these cottages across the state of North Carolina, that house men and then also some for women as well that are adults with special needs. And you know what? That's such a great ministry.
If you have this adult, they have special needs. They cannot take care of themselves. They most likely will never live alone. And what happens when their parents pass away, their siblings pass away?
Who will take them? Who will care for them? Baptist Children's Home says, we'll do it. And we'll care for them for the rest of their life, or until they have medical needs that necessitates them going to a medical center to have greater medical care.
Go to the next slide, please. North Carolina Baptist Aging Ministry. Did you know that Baptist Children's Home cares for senior adults?
Baptist Children's Home is more about, we're more Baptist Children's Home for all of God's children. As a matter of fact, you're not going to find a more pro-life organization anywhere around here.
We're the largest one in the state of North Carolina. We care for people from the first heartbeat to the last heartbeat. We are pro-life,
whole life for all of life. And so we care for the aging through North Carolina BAM. And this is something where we connect churches to senior adults in their communities.
We're in cooperation with a lot of senior service centers and Department of Social Services with their senior division to make sure that people can be connected to local churches who would go out and maybe build a ramp for
them, place some safety bars in their bathrooms so that they don't fall, make sure that they have a hot meal every day, and just to make sure that there are smoke alarms and things like that. So if you have people in your church that are willing to do those things,
then you call NC BAM and say, Hey, we're up here in Cleman Community.
If you've got any jobs up here around our area, we'll be glad to take them. You just tell us.
And so NC BAM will help to give you the resources so that you can minister to senior adults in your own community. It is a tremendous, tremendous ministry. Next slide, please.
So we believe the church is the answer. Go to the next slide, please. And we do several things through believing the church is the answer. Number one, we have an annual offering.
We take that in November. And our annual offering last year was in November, and it'll be again this year coming up.
Go to the next slide, please. Another way the church can help is through Food Roundup. We do Food Roundup every spring.
We kind of focus it in April. But honestly, a church can take up food anytime they want to and send it to us. We supply food to a lot of those different homes and places all over the state.
We collect about 80% of all of our non-perishable food items and our cleaning supplies and paper products during the month of April. 80%.
We also collect gift cards where we can buy fresh fruit and fresh vegetables and meats and dairy products that we can give to our cottage parents and those who are in charge, and they can go buy fresh things for them.
So Food Roundup is a huge ministry. Again, it doesn't have to be done in April. It can be done anytime. A lot of churches choose to do that as a Vacation Bible School mission project. So VBS mission project, they'll collect things, and then they'll call us up and say, hey, what can we do with it? And we'll say,
well, bring it on down to Thomasville, or we'll work out some way to come get it. But anyway, that's Food Roundup.
Go to the next slide. We also have a fundraiser called Ride to Clyde. If you're into motorcycles and you like to ride, it's a three-day event. It starts in Southport down at Oak Island,
Caswell, Fort Caswell down there. Starts there, and they ride the whole state all the way to Clyde, North Carolina, which is on the other side of Asheville. And they ride the state, raise funds, and see the ministry.
And so it's a great event. It happens every year in May, and it's a good fundraiser. Go to the next slide, please. We also have Friends of Children Day.
If you want to take a mission trip, but you can't go out of the country, man, you can come down to Thomasville. And we have in September a one-day mission project where you can bring a group down there. You can have a project that you'll do on our campus there in Thomasville.
And then we'll give everybody a tour, feed you lunch, and you'll learn more about our ministry. So these Friends of Children Day. Let's go to the next slide, please. Last year in 2023, total all across all of our ministries, we impacted 117,000.
502 lives in some form or fashion. Go to the next one. One of the greatest things that I'm proudest of is 2023 was a tough year for a lot of people.
Professions of Faith
It was tough for Baptist Children's Home, but God blessed us with 316 professions of faith throughout our ministry last year. What a phenomenal number. Go to the next one, please. We have had 844 professions of faith over the past five years.
We are in this to give the gospel. That is why we exist, to give the gospel and to rescue the abandoned and make disciples. Go to the next slide. So you can pray. You can give. You can go.
If anybody wants to talk to me about any of those things, then you can see me afterwards. Take one of my cards.
Some people perhaps might be interested in legacy giving or in becoming a partner with us in some way, shape, or form, or maybe just giving through your church, which is fine. It makes no difference. I'm not here today to take any money.
But these are ways you can do that, and you're welcome to contact me. Again, you can grab one of my cards after I'm done. Next slide.
And so we thank you. We thank you for letting me come here today. Now, what I'm going to do next is I'm going to show another short video. It's about three minutes. This was our annual offering video.
This is the story of Tyrell. When you saw the slide a few moments ago, it said Tyrell accepted Christ. And so I want you to see his story. It is a very impactful story.
And as soon as that's done, I'm going to come back, and we're going to preach a short message and get into God's Word. Tyrell was 13 years old when we learned about his story.
When we first started working with Baptist Children's Home, we were very connected with Jessie Chilson.
Then she brought Tyrell's case to us, and our hearts were bonded, and Jessie brought Tyrell to our home. I'll never forget when that door opened.
He got out, and he gave us hugs, and he walked towards the house. He had no shoes on. His feet were wrapped up because he had wounds, and they gave him a walker. He walked in through that door, brought his walker down, and never used it again.
He owned it. When he walked in this house, there was no looking back. He just walked in and became part of the house. Tyrell's past basically has been defined by neglect. But he had nothing.
The only toys we know about was a set of blocks. Every aspect of his life, we've had to train him.
Tyrell had never been to school. When his family members were asked why they didn't send him to school,
they said it was because... because he wasn't worth the gasp to take him.
I cried when I heard that. As a previous teacher, I just really wanted to see him grow up and have an opportunity of life.
When he first came, his verbal skills were lacking. It was mostly pointing and saying a word.
I would work with him a little bit in the morning before I'd go to work.
Then John would work with Tyrell during the day a little bit, and then I'd come back home and work with him a little bit more. His first year of school was doing second grade, and he has completed a whole year of second grade and has done well, and now he's doing third grade.
We try to do a lot of activities. I have a fishing boat, so we go fishing. He loves fishing. He loves catfish.
I got one! Reel it in. Reel it all the way up. Tyrell's life direction is changed.
He's got a whole life ahead of him, and the direction of it has been changed because of the people that have given to Baptist Children's Home. That has multiplied greatly because there are so many other children that Baptist Children's Home ministers to.
I don't think we can do this without Baptist Children's Home. It's touching so many lives, and those lives are able to be pointed to Jesus.
For God is so the love of the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, then whosoever shall believe in him and not perish, but have ever seen life.
That story of Tyrell is an amazing story, and I wish I could tell you that that was a story that happened in Raleigh or Charlotte or Durham or Fayetteville, but no, it happened in a rural community in eastern
North Carolina. This is a rural community in northwestern North Carolina, isn't it?
It happened in a community just like this, where Tyrell was basically, from the time he was born, he was locked in his bedroom for about 11 years, and he was given, all we know that he was given to eat at any point in time was some rice. That was it.
He was given rice every day. He was so weak, and it took, and he was raised by his mother and grandmother. And so a mom and a grandma let this happen and had virtually no toys. DSS finally became aware of the situation,
rescued him out of that, and this sweet, sweet family was ready to take him in. And, of course, they have since adopted him fully into their family, and it's just a tremendous, tremendous story.
So these things are happening all over the place, not just in the Charlottes and the Raleighs and the Durhams and the Fayettevilles.
Message on Value and Worth
They're happening in rural communities all over them. Take your Bible.
I want you to join me in Luke chapter 12. I promise this is a short message.
I try to have a short message when I do presentations like this, but I do want to share with you a few truths today, and these are truths that fuel our ministry.
And if I could be honest with you, these three truths I want to share with you today are truths that should fuel your life. So here we go.
We're going to look at Luke chapter 12 and just a few truths that are at the heart of the gospel, the heart of the ministry of Baptist Children's Home. Look in verse...
We're going to begin in verse 4 of Luke chapter 12, where Jesus speaking, he says, I say to you, my friends, don't fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more, but I will show you the one to fear.
Fear him who has authority to throw people into hell after death. Yes, I say to you, this is the one you should fear. So that means fear God. And then he goes on to say these very two very interesting verses. He says, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are counted. So don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.
Now, in Luke chapter 12, the context of that is is that Jesus was warning his disciples about persecution that may come.
And in verses 4 and 5, as we read, he warned them, Hey, you're going to be persecuted. But he told them, he said, You do not have to fear persecution because there is one who can take care of you. There's one who cares for you, and it is God.
There's one who has the power to even cast judgment upon their soul.
And Jesus knew about this persecution. He said, Hey, there's only one. And that one is God. And he knows the very hairs on your head. He says, and he declares in verses 6 and 7 there about what a great value that they, his disciples, his followers are to God.
And that's the truth that I want you to get first is you are valuable to God. You are valuable. Every one of us are valuable to God. What is your value? What is your worth?
Now, I've met a lot of people in my life who out of sort of a sense of humility, they would say something like, Well, I ain't worth much. I ain't worth much today. How many of you have even said that? I'm sure a lot of us said, Had a bad day.
Well, I ain't worth too much today. Somebody, the conversation usually goes something like, How you doing? And that person says, Well, I ain't doing too good. I ain't worth a plug nickel. I've heard that more times than I can count. Friends, don't ever think that about yourself.
The value or the worth of anything is determined by what? By what someone is willing to pay for it.
I love to watch a show on television, on the History Channel. I love to watch American Pickers. I love those guys.
They go all over the country, and they find this stuff. Man, they'll go in a barn, and they'll find a rusty old sign. They'll pay thousands of dollars for it. And you sit there wondering, Why in the world would anybody pay $1,000 for a rusty old sign? Well, you know why?
Because to them, it's worth it.
I recently sold my truck. I drove a truck. It was like 20 years old, a 20-year-old Ford F-150. It had a bunch of miles on it. It was a nice truck. It was in good condition. But I parked it out in front of the house and just stuck a for sale sign on it. And I wrote on that little sign,
I'll make a reasonable offer. I mean, that's what I said. You know, every person that called me said, How much do you want for it? How much do you want for it? I just said, Make an offer, man. If you want it, it's for sale. Make an offer.
I said, If it's reasonable, I'll tell you. And if it's not, I'll tell you that too. And we'll talk about it. And I said, I'm not here to make an enemy. I mean, if you want to buy a truck, I'll let you buy a truck.
So finally I had somebody come by and we talked about it. And I said, Make an offer. And so they did. And I said, Well, how about this?
And they said, Well, I'll go to this number. And I said, All right, that'll be good. I'll take it.
I'll take it. So we shook hands. And I didn't hear from them for a couple days. And they said they would get back with me the next day. And so they didn't. So then I got a phone call from a guy. And he said,
Of course, he said, How much do you want for you? And I said, May I make an offer?
I said, But I will tell you this. I got an offer on the table of this amount of money. I said, I'm going to tell you right now. The first person with that much cash is going to buy it.
He said, Can I come in 30 minutes? I'll be there in 30 minutes. I said, Absolutely.
Come on. So why did he buy it for that? Well, it's because it was worth it to him. He determined it was worth it. And so a value or the worth of anything is determined by what somebody's willing to pay for it. Honestly, that is how that value is determined.
See, you may not feel like you're worth very much. Sometimes you don't feel like you're worth very much to yourself.
You may feel like you're not worth very much to somebody else. But friends, understand this. The God of the universe, who created all things with the spoken words out of his mouth, who created you and formed your inward most being, who created man from the dust of the ground,
that God says that your life is worth the life of his one and only son.
No matter what it is that you are facing in your life, God knows your value. He has placed value on your life because he's the one who has declared your value when he paid the price for your life,
and that was with the life of his son. You are valuable to God. But we don't always acknowledge that, do we? We don't always acknowledge our value, especially when we face difficult times. When we face trials, we face roadblocks, we face barriers in our life.
They come into our life sometimes because of our own doing. Sometimes, hey, we just mess up and we put ourselves in a bad situation, but sometimes there are things beyond our control. I want you to consider some different types of roadblocks or persecution or trials. Think about things like abandonment,
uncertainty, anger, lack of self-worth. Man, our ministries at Baptist Children's Home,
we want to restore value and worth to every person we come in contact with. Joshua is an interesting story.
A young man, a young African-American teenager. He lives on one of our campuses. His father deserted him, does not ever visit.
His mother actually lives in the same town and does not ever come to see him. He is living in foster care on one of our campuses. And he realizes that the older he gets, he feels like that he is less likely to find a forever home and be adopted.
This is what he shared with somebody on our staff. This is what he said, and I'm quoting him. He said, Who on earth is going to want a 6'3 black kid in their home? Nobody wants me in their home. Well, to that, Joshua, we say that we do. We do.
We at Baptist Children's Home, we do.
Church, we have to do everything we can to make those who feel abandoned and unwanted and loved that they are truly loved and that they are wanted and that they are worthy. At Baptist Children's Home, all of our ministries are set up to demonstrate just how worthy people are that we serve.
Our ministries give hope. They give opportunities to our residents to discover their worth.
And we do it in a lot of ways. We've got a young lady in our foster care system, in our foster care within our care family that we'll call her Elizabeth. She's 16 years old.
She lives in a military town. She's cared for in a foster family in a military town. And the time came, as it is about this time of the year, where the military ball, the annual dance was coming. And she did not have a dress to go.
And she wanted to go so bad. She had been invited, but she had told her foster parents, I don't have a dress. I don't have anything to do. So the foster parents went. They went to the church.
They said, hey, we've got to find a dress for Elizabeth. Do you know that not one but 26 dresses showed up for her to choose from? We want to find tangible ways to help our kids in care, help our children feel a sense of pride and confidence and worth and value.
Friends, Joshua is valuable. Elizabeth is valuable. But you are valuable. I am valuable. We are more valuable than the birds of the air. We've been created by God. We've been created in the image of God. We've been created on purpose, with a purpose, bought with a price. You and I are worthy. Second truth I want you to see today.
God's Love and Value
Not only are you worthy, but you are loved. You are loved. Do you know why someone would choose to pay such a high price for something? It's because they truly love it. They truly love it.
That's one of the things about that show I mentioned, American Pickers. Those guys, they buy the things because they're drawn to it. They love it. They have a sense in which they want to rescue that thing. Do you know that's the same love and effort that God put in to rescuing us?
He loves us so much. He was willing to pay the price to rescue us. Over in Isaiah chapter 48, you don't have to turn there, but Isaiah is sharing with the people that God has not forgotten them. Verses 15 and 16 of Isaiah 48 says,
Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely she might forget. Yet, he says, God is saying, I will not forget you. And then in verse 16 of Isaiah 48, it says, See, I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand. It's a foreshadowing of the cross.
Now, Israel at this time believed that God had forgotten them. But he's speaking clearly through the prophet Isaiah that he had not forgotten them. As a matter of fact, he has inscribed and engraved them on the palms of his hands. And he has engraved us on the palms of his hands.
John 3, 16, we know it well. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal, everlasting life.
Romans chapter 5, verse 8, But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, what did Christ do?
He died for us. The nail scars in Jesus' hands are the proof of love that was in the heart of God when he said, I love you.
Baptist Children's Homes in North Carolina is a ministry that lets children that are in our residential care, our foster care,
residents in our camps, and even in our special needs homes for adults, they know that they are valuable to God, that they are not forgotten by God, that they are worthy, and most of all, that they are loved by God through Jesus.
You know, I mentioned a few moments ago that last year we had 316 decisions for Christ, 844 over the past five years.
Now, I served as a pastor of a small, or I won't say a small, it was about this size, it's not small, of a rural, in a small rural community in eastern North Carolina.
And I pastored this church, and I tell you, we had, over the course of my few years there, we had quite a few people that came to know Jesus as their Savior. And we baptized some folks, and I'm sure you have too. But, I can promise you, it wasn't 844.
How long would it take for Pleasant Grove Baptist Church to reach 844 lives for Christ? It may take a long time.
I know the church I pastored, we were around, we've been around for 100 years, or they have been, I say we, they have been around for 100 years, and I can promise you, I don't know if they've reached 844 people in 100 years.
It would take a long time. But, as a partner with Baptist Children's Home, you can be part of that. We get to be part of reaching that many people. As one of our partners,
Pleasant Grove Baptist Church helps us share the gospel and show the love of God.
And people know, and they need to know, that they are engraved on the palms of Jesus' hands.
So you're on our team, and we're on mission together. So when the world sees something as worthless, God sees it as worthy, and we want to communicate that. So you're worthy, you're valuable, you are loved, and the third truth, because we are valuable, and because we are loved,
we can live in faith. One of the things that I read in that passage in Luke was he was talking about you don't have to fear. You don't have to fear because you're valuable. You don't have to fear because you're worthy. See, fear is the opposite of faith so many times.
Quoted in several places throughout the New Testament is the truth that actually came from Habakkuk, the prophet,
when he first said, the righteous will live by faith.
Everybody who is made righteous by the shed blood of Jesus Christ will live out all the days of their life by faith.
Because you are valuable to God, you have been created with a plan and with a purpose, and because you are loved by God, you have been bought with a price, your name is inscribed, engraved on the palms of His hands, you can now live by faith and not in fear.
Us Christians, man, we are saved by faith, aren't we? Ephesians chapter 2 tells us that. We walk by faith and not by sight. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 tells us that. So a life of faith is very, very possible.
But it's not easy. I'm not here to say that a life of faith is easy. Because we face a lot of outside influences. We face a lot of things that Satan likes to use to get in our mind and attack us and derail us and cloud our hearts.
And Jesus spoke about it. And in Matthew chapter 6, He says in verse 25, He says, Therefore I'm going to tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
Don't be anxious about what you're going to eat or what you're going to drink or about your body, what you're going to put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They don't sow. They don't reap. They don't gather into barns.
Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they are?
If any of you here, don't raise your hand, but I want to just ask, have you ever struggled with anxiety, with worry?
You know, it's real easy to stand in a church in front of Christian people and say, hey, don't be anxious. Don't worry. Pray about it. Seek the Lord.
And a lot of times us Christians, we say, yeah, you're right. I don't need to worry about that. God's in control. He's got a hold of this. Let me tell you something. Many of the children and the teenagers and the adults that we minister to, they come to us very anxious.
It is easy to develop high levels of anxiety when people who are supposed to love and protect you are using you as a punching bag and an ashtray.
Like one of the children who recently came into our care whose dad was a raging alcoholic.
His dad liked to play dodgeball with him except the dad played with beer bottles and beer cans and would throw them at his son as he made him run across throughout the living room. It's a true story.
High levels of anxiety are expected when you get children who come from situations like that.
Trying to tell a child from that background, hey, don't be anxious. Don't worry.
Man, it's got to be done with prayer. It's got to be done with patience, love, with all the things that are necessary to communicate this truth because this is true.
We don't have to worry. We don't have to be anxious because in God's care things are going to be okay.
But it's hard to tell someone like that. So our mission is to use all the resources we can to let these people know just how worthy they are, how loved they are to demonstrate that so that their fear can come down and they can walk by faith.
80% of all the people that we serve are unchurched.
Living by faith as a disciple who is made righteous by the blood of Jesus, that's the ultimate goal of Baptist Children's Home. The ultimate goal is to see people live and walk by faith.
Call to Action and Prayer
And we might have to rescue the abandoned. We might have to feed and clothe the needy. We may have to love the abused and we may have to sit with the lonely but we aim to make disciples who live by faith. So as I close today I ask the question what about you? Are you a disciple
who lives and walks by faith? If you are then you understand the truths that we've talked about today. You understand the truth that you're valuable. You understand the truth that you are loved. You are cared for.
But if you don't understand those truths, if you don't know how valuable you are, you don't know how loved you are, then I would be glad to talk to you about that today.
I would be glad to help you understand that Jesus has come to forgive your sin and give you eternal life and communicate just how loved and valuable that you are.
I would be glad to share that with you today. Jesus will forgive your sin.
He will give you eternal life and full of love and abundant in faith. Just a few moments, we're going to move into a time of response. And I would offer to anyone here today, if you want to know Jesus as your Savior, I'd love to talk to you.
I'm sure there may be some Sunday school teachers or some moms and dads that would also love to talk to people around here. I'm sure that there are people here who would love to talk to you about Jesus. We can do that during this time of response.
But also during this time of response, you may know Jesus as your Savior and you may say, you know what, I've gotten a burden today for Baptist Children's Home. I'm just going to extend to you this simple ask, would you pray for us?
Would you pray for us as we reach the unloved and the abandoned and the abused? Would you pray for us? So during this time of response, that's what another response that we're calling you to is to pray for us and pray for our ministry. Pray for ministry partners and other churches.
Pray that God would work through all of the ways that we can and to show others how valuable they are and how loved they are and how precious they are. Please be our prayer partner today. Take a moment as we, this brother over here is going to play. We're going to stand together.
If you want to come to this altar and pray, you may. If you want to come and talk with me, you may. You may choose to make the altar that you're standing or sitting at, a place of prayer, however you choose to do.
Closing Remarks
We're going to take just a few moments and we're going to respond to God today. Thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio of Pleasant Grove. Please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week.