The Hands and Feet of Jesus: How One Church Supports Foster Families

In 2020, Steven and his family moved to Georgia to take on the role of associate pastor of ministries at CFBC, and throughout his first years at the church, foster care was a recurring theme in his ministry.

“I had interactions with a number of families here that had a background of fostering, and we had been approached as a church by several faith-based placement agencies to inquire how we could partner,” Steven explained.

In April of 2023, Families 4 Families CEO Wayne Naugle visited the church. “Wayne came here and spoke in both services and shared how God cares for the vulnerable,” he said. 

After hearing Wayne’s message, Steven’s wife, Heather, and his family were touched. “Heather came out of the service and looks at me with tears coming down her face,” he shared.

“We have four teenage bio children, and they asked her, ‘When are we going to do this [fostering]?’”

The conversation to enter foster care wasn’t a new one for Steven and Heather. 

“When we were getting married, we talked about adoption and fostering at various points, but the timing wasn’t right,” he said.

Yet God continued to work in Steven and Heather’s hearts following Wayne’s visit to CFBC. 

“Two weeks after that, Kenneth [Families 4 Families Recruitment & Retention Area Director] did an informational session for any who were interested in foster care in our church,” Steven explained. “We signed up that night.”

From that informational session came a partnership between CFBC and Families 4 Families and a new journey for the James family.

“Hearing about Families 4 Families’ banner model was really an energizer for God to begin something here,” he said. “CFBC Fosters started in the fall of 2023.”

This program has united foster families in the church and created a vital support network for them. 

“Each [CFBC Fosters] team member has one or two families they check up on, and our foster moms have a GroupMe where they’re talking essentially every other day,” Steven explained. “They’re constantly updating and praying with each other and keeping up with the process of where they are with court proceedings and hearings.”

The James family joined this community and has since welcomed a foster daughter and son into their home. 

“It is a high calling, but the blessings are so real. They’re blessings that you can’t get without going down this road,” he said. “We’ve seen things about the gospel and our relationship with the Lord and His adoption of us as His children that we never grasped before.”

The James’ experience in church leadership and as a foster family allowed them to recognize the need for additional support. Steven hopes other churches will step up to meet foster care needs within their body of believers and the community as CFBC’s congregation has done. 

“Caring for orphans and widows is a huge calling for the church,” he said. “If we take what God says seriously about who He is and His character, then we as churches and families in our churches would take the banner to support foster families or become foster families, respite families or support families.”

As other families consider opening their homes, Steven challenges them to find a support network.

“Don’t wait to find community. You need a support group, and you need to find other families that are going to be resources for you, that are willing to allow you to call them at any moment,” he said. 

And to those looking to support foster families, the first step is simply asking. 

“Seek out foster families and ask them, ‘What can we do that would be a help to you?’ Don’t assume that you know what would be helpful to them, but ask them,” Steven urges.

Through his family’s entire foster care journey, Steven has been grateful for Wayne, Kenneth and the Families 4 Families team.

“We just don’t see how we would do it without Families 4 Families being our advocates and encouragement at various points through the process,” he said.

“God’s given us a passion as a family for it, and we want to continue to fan that flame and focus on the need of the church stepping in.”