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Feeding, providing potable water, clothing, housing, education, and access to healthcare for orphans and vulnerable children will provide the United Methodist Church its
raison d'ê·tre for the 21
st century and beyond. It will serve to re-unite and re-ignite the Wesleyan flame that flickers tentatively today.
Who Will Care for the Orphan: If you are a United Methodist, It Could Be You is more than simply a title. It is an invitation to authentic Christian discipleship.
Caring for orphans and vulnerable children is Biblically-based: the Bible commands its readers to care for orphans (often coupled with caring for widows and resident aliens) thirty-one times, as seen in this well-known but oft-ignored passage: ¿Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world¿ (James 1:27).
Service to orphans and vulnerable children is consistent with John Wesley¿s two-pronged means of grace, consisting of the works of piety and the works of mercy. Wesley himself wrote these words to George Whitefield: ¿Can anything on earth be a greater charity, than to bring up orphans?¿
Who Will Care for the Orphan offers United Methodists an alternative to the bitter infighting that has defined, divided, and created deep divisions within the denomination for the past forty years. Suggesting that United Methodist must agree to disagree on some political and theological positions, this proposed path forward replaces internal debate with service to the least, the last, and the lost. Dr. Lavender, drawing from decades of pastoral leadership, personal stories, and extensive research, presents the compelling needs of orphans and vulnerable children around the planet, laying out the case that caring for these little ones is a key to true peace with justice.
List of contents
Foreword - Ken Carder
Introduction
Chapter I - Whither the UMC
Chapter II - Recipe for a Denomination in Decline: John Wesley Redux
Chapter III - Methodists and Orphans
Chapter IV - Peacebuilding Within and Beyond the UMC
Chapter V - A Better Way
Chapter VI - Organizing to Defeat the Spiritual Forces of Evil
Conclusion
Appendix I
Appendix II
References
About the author
Wayne Lavender is a United Methodist pastor dedicated to creating a world of peace and justice for all people. In addition to serving churches in Connecticut for 20 years, he is a teacher (having served as a professor at universities in Iraq and the US), author (Who Will Care for The Orphan will be his fifth book) and speaker (Wayne has led over 200 workshops on peace with justice). Wayne serves as the executive director of the Foundation 4 Orphans, a 501 c 3 approved non-profit whose mission is to serve the educational, emotional, physical and spiritual needs of orphans and vulnerable children. A winner of the Harry E. Denman Evangelism Award in 2004, he earned his B.A. degree from Drew University, a M.Div. and M.A. from the Pacific School of Religion, and a Ph.D. from the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.
Summary
This book is an important contribution for all United Methodists concerned that their denomination is approaching irrelevance. Within its pages Dr. Lavender offers a Biblical, Wesleyan and means-tested approach that both saves the lives of millions of orphans and vulnerable children and inspires evangelical hope for the church.
