The phrase, “If every church raised up one foster family, we would eradicate the crisis,” has become a powerful and widely used rallying cry in foster care — and for good reason. It takes something that feels massive, complex, and often overwhelming, and reframes it into something personal, tangible and actionable.
We talk often of the importance of “shrinking the problem” for people, or making foster care feel smaller. It helps them move from paralysis to possibility.
Instead of staring at a system-wide problem with thousands of children and countless variables, this rallying cry invites a simple question: What if we just focused on one?
That kind of reframing matters. It lowers the barrier to entry and creates a sense of shared ownership. It reinforces the vision that everyone — and every church — can do something. In short, it makes the problem feel solvable.
But while “if every church raised up one foster family … ” is a compelling narrative, it’s not a complete one.
The complex math of foster care
In many ways, the logic of “if every church should raise up one foster family … ” functions like the math problems we learned as kids:
If Johnny had x apples and gave y apples to Sarah, how many apples would Johnny have left?
Clean. Predictable. Solve for the missing variable, and you’ve got your answer.
There was comfort in that kind of math — it gave us confidence that if we followed the formula, the outcome would take care of itself. And this statement mirrors that kind of simple, compelling structure: If every church, then … Simple. Direct. Motivating.
Except the math of foster care doesn’t work like that.
This is not a closed equation with fixed variables. It’s a dynamic system filled with complexity. Families step in — and sometimes step out. Every day, children come into care, return home, move placements or require levels of support that go beyond what one family can provide without the right support structures.
Even if we could “solve the equation” and empty the foster care system today, we would wake up tomorrow to new children entering care, new needs emerging, and the sobering realization that this kind of math was never meant to add up so simply.
The risks of oversimplified solutions
While the instinct to shrink the problem and make it feel straightforward by saying “if every church raised up one family” is right, the path forward is not to reduce the solution to fragmented and formulaic strategies.
We hold in tension two seemingly opposing realities: it is not simple, and it is solvable. We cannot escape this tension by oversimplifying our language or inviting every church to engage in the same way.
Importantly, the goal of mobilizing churches isn’t for them to operate in isolation from one another. And it’s not for families to foster in isolation, either. The vision is not to have one isolated family in a church navigating the complexities of foster care and another isolated foster family in another church down the road experiencing the same.
What we actually want are several foster families raised up together in a church that understands the complexity. Or a network of churches moving together, each playing its part within a larger, coordinated response to care for children and families well. This multiplies impact.
And there’s another layer we often overlook: not every church is positioned to focus on raising up a foster family.
Some churches may be positioned to do that well. Others may be far better equipped to wrap around existing foster families, provide respite care, support biological families, invest in prevention or partner with agencies in ways that strengthen the broader ecosystem of care.
When we assume every church should produce a foster family, we unintentionally flatten the diversity of gifts, contexts and callings within the Church — and in doing so, we actually undermine the “everyone can do something” vision we’re trying to advance.
Further, if we were to remove the churches for whom raising up a foster family is not the most faithful or effective expression of their engagement, we might quickly discover that the math becomes woefully inadequate. The “one-to-one” equation starts to break down even faster — same number of kids, far fewer churches.
So while the “one church, one family” idea helps people take a first step, it can unintentionally communicate that the solution is simpler than it really is.
It can imply that the solution to foster care is a single-issue focus on family recruitment, or that it’s solvable in isolated families and congregations. It tends to imply that the crisis is primarily a numerical gap rather than a relational and systemic one that requires a long-term commitment to care.
As a result, the risk of this framework isn’t just oversimplification — it’s misdirection.
Solving the problem with a richer solution
The real invitation isn’t just for each church to produce one foster family. It’s for the church to become the kind of community where foster, adoptive and biological families are consistently supported, where children and families in crisis are seen and sustained, and where engagement is not transactional but transformational.
The goal is not just to solve for x so we can get to y. It’s to recognize that this is a different kind of math altogether — one that requires multiplication of support, depth of trusted collaboration in the community and long-term faithfulness.
The heart of the statement — that this problem is solvable and every church has a role to play — is absolutely true. But setting churches up to believe that raising up a family is their next step doesn’t always send them in the right direction or build toward the vision we want for children and families in our communities.
Because in this work, focusing on “the one” is essential, but it must lead us into something far more comprehensive than a one-to-one solution.
The intent of the rallying cry has always been clarity, and the solution is not to abandon that — it’s to deepen the clarity.
For those tasked with casting vision, the goal is to move from a single-issue solution to a holistic vision that still feels actionable, but more accurately reflects the nature of the work.
Again, people don’t need less clarity — they need better clarity. They need a vision that is simple enough to step into, but expansive enough to be inclusive of the diversity of gifts and resources each individual person and church can offer children and families.
Reframing the win
Instead of anchoring the vision solely around “raising up one foster family,” leaders can cast a vision of becoming a church that consistently shows up for vulnerable children and families.
That shift matters. It moves the goal from a one-time outcome to an ongoing identity. It creates space for multiple on-ramps of engagement while still holding a clear, compelling direction. And those on-ramps can ebb and shift over time, given the church’s unique capacities, strengths and seasons of ministry.
Foster care is far more complex than a simple equation, and it requires all of us to step into a shared calling, bringing what we have, where we are. And when the Church embraces that kind of vision together, the impact moves beyond what any foster care math formula could ever produce.
– Jason Johnson is the National Director of Church Engagement and Mobilization at CAFO.
——–Looking for ways to help your community think about and engage in caring for kids and families holistically — while still making the problem feel solvable? Check out the More Than Enough dashboard for local, county-level data that includes stats like the number of family preservation cases, reunification rates and the number of children waiting for adoption where you live.
