Jason Johnson - An Honest Conversation Around Church and Foster Care

Think Global, Do Justice

This week, Jason Johnson from Christian Alliance for Orphans returns to the show. Jason is a writer and speaker who encourages families and equips church and organizational leaders on their foster care and adoption journeys. In this episode, Jason names and shares many of the struggles and challenges that foster and adoptive parents go through. He encourages us to find safe spaces and communities where we can process our emotions and have open and honest conversations.

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Beyond Selfie Missions: How Missions Became All About ‘Me’ and What to do About It.

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Resources and Links from the show

Jason's Blog

Reframing Foster Care

Everyone Can Do Something

Episode 167: Jason Johnson Everyone Can Do Something

Episode 216: Poverty and Family Separation in US Child Welfare with Sarah Winograd

Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Quit by Annie Duke

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Biola Missions Conference on YouTube

Show Notes

• Jason catches us up on what he’s been doing (5:00)
• The differences in how men and women approach fostering (8:10)
• Leading and following (11:00)
• Naming the struggles and grief involved in foster care(15:50)
• Giving ourselves the permission to think and feel (18:30)
• Being able to lean into the community around us (21:30)
• Improving how we do church engagement (25:00)
• Helping churches know how to care (28:00)
• Making the church our audience (31:00)
• Engagement as partnership (33:00)
• Urgency can breed scarcity (34:00)
• Focusing on family preservation and preventative measures (43:00)
• Living within the tensions and the need for foster care (45:00)
• Reckoning with the reality (46:00)
• Gaps and the spirit of scarcity (53:00)
• Gaps in the prevention space (56:00)
• Strategic benevolence and investing in the lives of at-risk families (58:50)
• Jason’s recommendations (1:00:00)