Catalyst
When you start to notice, it’s hard not to be blown away at the multiplicity of ways God is stirring His people to stand for the orphan. Last week in Atlanta, the Catalyst conference devoted an entire section of the program for its 13,000 participants to orphan ministry. You can see some of the remarkable videos they produced here, including one of a portion of the program described as “one of the most powerful moments in Catalyst history.” Why powerful? The simple truth is, when God’s people start acting on the things He cares most about, everyone involved is changed. Yes, ministry to orphans meets tangible needs. But in the process it also transforms—and blurs the lines between—giver, recipient, and onlooker. That’s true catalysis!
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I was just talking with a gentleman from New Jersey who traveled by faith to this conference and said it was AWESOME. He said he and his wife left the conference with a committment to devote their lives to orphan ministry, and their first step is to promote Orphan Sunday events in New Jersey! Praise the Lord!
I am a big supporter of what you and others are doing in the way of orphan care and adoption. And I am an adoptive father myself. I am leaving this comment because I was very disappointed, confused, and concerned about the clip from Catalyst that you referred to and referenced as “one of the most powerful moments in Catalyst history.” After watching the video, it would have been more accurate to refer to it as one of the most exploitive moments I have ever seen. It is disgraceful to have put this young man from Kenya up on stage and then pull a TV talk-show-like surprise on him by bringing him face-to-face for the first time with his sponor of 19 years in front of thousands of strangers. This was something that should have been done first back stage and in private, not on display in front of thousands of people just so the smooth, scripted, Ryan Seacrest-like facilitator on stage could get a big reaction. Really. Think about it. I do not think the way this was done considered fully the dignity of the young man from Kenya. Unbelievable. Very American, paternalistic, arrogant, presumptive, insensitive, lacking in class, etc. Very disappointing. I would have expected better. The point could have been made just as well by having these two meet first behind closed doors and then come out to share about that encounter. It would have made both of them feel and look less awkward… and could have made the same point calling people to sponsor compassion kids. Let’s not exploit these vulnerable people any more than they already are exploited – and certainly let’s not do that just to try to create some extreme emotional moment in a desperate attempt to wake up prosperous Americans from our slumber on the sofa of the world as children starve and die all around us. Are we really that fast asleep, that dead to the world around us that we have to do something as distasteful and explotive as this like this? Well, probably so. God have mercy on us.