Fair warning: You are about to learn more than you ever wanted to know about something you might not care much about. But I promise, it will be worth it.
Lucha Libre is Mexican professional wrestling. It has been around since the early 20th century and is characterized by high-speed action, high flying athletic maneuvers, and colorful masks and capes (the best part in my humble opinion). Lucha Libre wrestlers are called Luchadors. As with American professional wrestling, it is complete with dramatic storylines and, of course, a lot of smack talk. One of the most important facets of Lucha Libre wrestling are tag team matches that often include 3 wrestlers to a team. In summary, larger than life warriors (in stretchy pants) triumphantly march toward the ring in a battle between good and evil.
We believe the single most important battle we can be doing on behalf of kids and families involved in foster care is the battle of prayer. Foster care activity has existed in this country for decades. It has done a lot of good, but we find ourselves in a place where we constantly have more kids than families, more needs than time to meet them and more brokenness than we can bear. Over the past several years, we’ve seen something beyond foster care activity emerge in communities all over the country. We’ve seen foster care movement. This is where groups of churches set aside minor theological and philosophical differences and work together on something they all agree on: kids in our communities need safe, loving families and it is our job to provide them.
We believe that foster care movement is different from a campaign or a fad; it is a spiritual movement initiated and sustained by God. And no spiritual movement in history has happened apart from prayer.
Jonathan Edwards once wrote, “There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the works of God and advance the kingdom of God as by prayer.”
This is where you (and wrestling) come in.
We have launched an initiative to ensure that small faithful groups of prayer warriors in every state are praying together for MORE THAN ENOUGH for kids and families in foster care on a weekly basis. Each of these calls is 15 minutes long and only requires 4 committed leaders to launch. We are calling it our National Foster Care Prayer Call Summer Smackdown! We want to see all 50 states plus Washington, DC raise up a group of at least 4 prayer warriors and launch a weekly 15-minute prayer call.
How do we plan on accomplishing that?
Smack talk, of course.
There are 20 states who already have weekly prayer calls launched. That is awesome, but we need the rest of you in the ring.
Hey New York — New Jersey has already launched . . . just sayin’.
Hey Dakotas — at the time of this writing, you both have exactly zero folks signed up so far. Which of you wants it more?
Michigan and Ohio? You both have already launched . . . good job (and no, I’m not telling you which one of you was first).
For everyone else, you can check out the most current smackdown standings by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
We asked one of our long-time current prayer call leaders, Shelly, what her state’s call has meant to her. This what she had to say:
“I think knowing that there are these incredible prayer warriors that I get to pray with every week is just a huge source of encouragement to continue praying and continue to see God work. On the weeks that I feel like I’m tired, I’m weary — somehow it just makes me go, ‘I’m tired and I’m weary but we’re carrying this together. We’re praying for this together and it is so exciting.’”
So, to sum up:
- This is a battle.
- The battle is best fought with a “tag team” of other warriors who are willing to fight in prayer together for kids and families in foster care.
Once you’re in, we need you to gather a tag team of 4 from your state and GET IN THE RING.
And if you want to wear a mask, cape, and stretchy pants in the process, that’s your business.
To learn the status of your state and how you can get in the ring, click here.
This post originally appeared in our Foster Roster e-newsletter which is delivered each Friday. We keep it short and sweet and fill it with practical articles, videos, blog posts and other tools for leaders like you working to help kids and families in foster care. To sign up, go to http://bit.ly/1rwn6eO.