Coming Alongside Families With Grace and Love

“I think churches know that the cause of the fatherless is near and dear to the heart of God,” shares Jenn Hook, a member of All Saints Dallas. But, she adds, “A lot of times churches encourage families to foster or adopt, and then that’s kind of it—except it’s not. When a family says yes to a child, the church really needs to say yes to that family, because it’s a hard road.”

Jenn and other members of All Saints are saying yes to families in numerous ways, including getting involved in a ministry Jenn began nearly 15 years ago.

Jenn’s eyes were first opened to the challenges foster families face while working as a trauma therapist in the foster care system. “I saw a lot of really well-intentioned foster parents wanting to support kids and just feeling so in over their heads and under-supported and then just giving up, not for lack of desire or passion or heart, but because they just felt like they couldn’t do it,” she recalls. She concluded, “If we’re going to rally around these kids, we’ve got to rally around the families.”

While attending a Good Friday Service at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, she received a prophetic word that eventually led to the birth of Replanted Ministry, an organization that helps foster and adoptive families heal, connect and thrive, in 2012. In 2017, Replanted began replicating its model nationally.

Replanted hosts an annual conference, held in two locations, that provides support and encouragement to families. But at the core of Replanted’s work year round are support groups that provide connection and support for these families. Since its founding, over a thousand families have benefited from these groups.

Soon this will include families in the Dallas area through a new Replanted group from All Saints, begun by a mom in the congregation who recognized her own family’s need to connect with others involved in foster care. Members of the church recently completed Replanted’s training cohort, and the group will launch this fall.

“We’ve created a model where we say, ‘Replanted will come alongside you,’” Jenn shares. “We provide you with everything you need, from how to build a leadership team to the curriculum to supply boxes to launch your groups. … You stay part of our team as volunteers, but you launch a group in your community.”

One of the organization’s mottos is “Same Here,” which expresses the desire for parents and families to connect with others who’ve had similar experiences. “We wanted to create support groups where parents could talk and share their feelings with one another, but kids could also do the same thing,” Jenn says. “Support is the number one predictor of family outcomes. … Nationwide, about 50% of foster parents quit after the first year, and it’s primarily due to lack of support. … Support has to be part of what we’re offering.”

Jenn shares the story of a couple who unexpectedly chose to become foster parents when a child they knew was going into foster care. “It was a lot harder than they ever thought it would be. … They were in over their heads.”

But they found and joined a Replanted group. “They were plugged in, their kids loved it, they were part of that community, and when they finished the ministry year with us, they said, ‘We would not have survived this journey without Replanted.’ They would have given notice to have that child removed from their home. But because they were plugged into the Replanted community and had support, they didn’t,” Jenn recalls. “That child’s gone home now, and they’re so all in because of the support they got that now they serve as mentors for the group.”

She continues, “You’ll hear that a lot from families in Replanted groups, that it’s a lifeline for them. They found their best friends in these groups. [The kids] look forward to their monthly meeting because it’s the one time they can fully be themselves and be with other kids that get their journey.”

Jenn emphasizes three aspects of support that together help families thrive: becoming trauma-informed, meeting tangible needs and emotional and spiritual support. “Ultimately, having something for all three pieces of the pie is really what’s going to set families up for success. … If you have a plant and you’re only watering it, but you’re not giving it sunlight or good soil, it’s not going to survive, right? It needs all three in balance, and so I would encourage churches to see how they can provide that support or point people to support that exists in their community that would meet all three of those needs.”

That first aspect, becoming trauma-informed, is an area in which Jenn says many churches can grow. Children who come into a family through foster care and adoption carry the deep grief of losing their first families, and yet, “People don’t always understand trauma and the impact it has on kids and how that plays out. A lot of times they’ll leave our foster and adoptive families really isolated and misunderstood and alone. And their kids are, a lot of times, misunderstood and labeled as the defiant, troubled, bad kids when they’re not. … When kids can’t talk out, they act out, and so it’s very common to see kids have behavioral and emotional challenges because of their trauma.”

Sadly, she shares, “I think sometimes the church is actually the place that hurts our families the most.” Over and over, she hears of foster parents being told that the children in their care aren’t welcome in Sunday School or youth group because those groups can’t meet their needs. “Churches, I think, just aren’t prepared and don’t understand the impact of trauma, and so that becomes a bit of a pattern that we’ve seen quite often,” Jenn explains. “They’re not trying to hurt our families. They just don’t know what to do.”

But at All Saints, members who’ve been trained in Replanted’s five-month trauma-informed cohort are ready to come alongside families like these. As this new Replanted group prepares to launch, Jenn shares, “I’m excited to bring this to Dallas because nothing like this quite exists here yet. It’s really needed. A lot of families are drowning right now, and so hopefully this will become a lifeline.”

As is the case for everyone who participates in a Replanted group, “We want them to leave feeling more supported, encouraged and closer to Jesus than when they first arrived.” Jenn shares. “We can create these networks where families can find new best friends, where kids can find new best friends, where they can encounter Jesus, they can find these safe spaces to process their experiences and feel seen and known and loved and ultimately just a support that’s going to keep them going. … Our hope long term, too, is that as these groups do become these safe places, we see a decrease in failed placements, that we see increased retention for foster parents.”

Jenn advises other churches seeking to minister to foster and adoptive families to sit down with them and learn what they need. She also encourages congregations to get involved with organizations like Replanted that are already serving these families.

In all of it, Jenn emphasizes the importance of taking a posture of grace toward everyone involved. “I firmly believe Jesus is cheering for everyone, and that includes birth parents, for them to experience healing and reconciliation,” Jenn states. “These families and these kids have experienced trauma, and we need to come alongside them with grace and love.”

Learn more about Replanted Ministry, including conferences and launching groups at replantedministry.org.

For others in All Saints, caring for the fatherless has involved adopting children from the other side of the world. Click here to watch as Megan shares how she and her husband, Hunter, navigated a long, difficult adoption process so they could welcome two girls from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and what it was like to bring these children into their family.

Click here to learn how members of Grace Northridge are serving foster and adoptive families.