Ashland Avenue Baptist Church is served by a pastoral team that is made up of three pastors. David Prince is the Pastor of Preaching and Vision. Nate BeVier is the Pastor of Music and Community. Jeremy Haskins is the Pastor of Administration and The Mission. These three men have an amazing unity in the gospel and are committed to knowing nothing but Christ and Him crucified.

The three Pastors a complimented by an wonderful support staff.

Visiting orphans in their time of need is not a task that must be left to women who are nurturing by nature.  Men who are protectors and defenders by nature must lead the charge.

I want to personally invite the folks of AABC to consider attending Together for Adoption with me on October 2-3, 2009.  The Conference will be held a Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Together for Adoption features some great preachers.  There will also be tons of information from adoption and orphan care organizations, information that will be vital for our church as we seek to serve the 132 million orphans worldwide. You can register for the conference here or simply contact me.  There are discounts for church groups as well as college students interested in attending the conference.  Who would not want to spend a weekend in Tennessee of all places considering this glorious subject?

By Pastor Jeremy Haskins

On January 4, 2009, Ashland Avenue Baptist Church kicked off the year with the theme “2009: The Year of Living Upside Down.”  Pastor David Prince’s first sermon of the year was a challenge to live like the disciples in Acts 17:5 who were described as, “those who turned the world upside down.”  As I listened to the sermon, I began to reflect on the opportunity adoption provides to live upside down.

For our family, adoption has turned our lives upside down in a variety of ways.  Since September 2008, we have been consumed with the task of rescuing two orphans from Ethiopia. Our days have been spent reading and re-reading, again and again, the various checklists of tasks needed to be accomplished. Constantly before us, are stacks of letters, forms, and legal documents all needing to be properly authenticated.

Once we finished our home study and thought we could breath we had to get right to work on our dossier.  Once we finished our dossier and thought the paperwork was finally done, our agency gave us a list of other documents that needed to be completed.  Once we completed those documents, we began the process of applying to ten different organizations for grants and interest free loans.  My name, financial history, and all my traffic violations clutter my house on what must be hundreds of documents.  On top of this, we still have many hours of adoption education to get done in a few short weeks.    

Many who have traveled this road before us warned that the workload can easily be compared to a part-time job.  But it is not just the workload. We helplessly have no control over the process at this point.  Our thoughts are consumed with what is in the hands of others on the other side of the world so that we can go get two new sons. We strive not to stress about a May 6^th court date but we known just about anything could happen.  We wonder if the judge will ask for more information.  We pray that the orphanage finds the needed representative and actually gets them to court on time.  We worry about whether or not we will have all the needed forms for the embassy. The pressure churns within us on a daily basis.       

Seeking to trust the Lord, constantly fighting off anxiety, swimming in background checks, medical exams, financial forms, and family pictures, we have often stopped and asked, “Why?” 

Why would we go through all this trouble?  Why would we spend time and energy rearranging the house, raising support, and enduring such a thorough investigation of our family?   Why would we put ourselves through such an opportunity for stress? Why are we doing this?  Such questioning can make little set backs seem like the perfect time to give up and settle for life as we know it or once knew it.

The Haskins are not exempt from the natural tendency in every fallen human to want to settle for mediocrity.  We fight against the desire to have lives that accommodate less stress and more comfort.   Yet God graciously continues to teach us that the gospel calls us to live in a radically different way.  The call Jesus issues to anyone who chooses to follow Him is one that challenges cultural norms and a life of ease.

The message of the Bible is about a King who is flipping the work of Satan on its head.  He is redeeming a world that has been turned upside down through the invasion of sin and death.   When we believe this message we become a part of a Kingdom whose power is actively confronting all that is ungodly in the world. This includes the reality of children who have been abandoned.

There are two little boys in Ethiopia right now whose lives have been turned wrong side up.  Born into extreme poverty, they were orphaned.  They have eleven other brothers and sisters and they will never get to see them.  Four of their siblings have died due to malnutrition.  God’s good gift of family is unknown to them.  What God intended for their good has been taken away, twisted, turned inside out, and flipped upside down.   

It would be easy for us to close our hearts and lives to such a tragedy. After all, there are folks with less challenging life situations who could adopt these boys, families with more room in their house and more time on their hands.  But what would the upside down message of the gospel call us to do?

As citizens of the Kingdom of Christ we are called to mirror the King of the Universe.  Jesus has flipped the wisdom of the world by willfully choosing to be born to a teenage girl and adopted by a carpenter from Nazareth.  Jesus, the One who had no place to lay His head, was abandoned to die as a criminal outside Jerusalem on a trash heap.  Holy God became a man to die for His sinful enemies.  None of it makes sense! 

According to the wisdom of this world, it’s backward and upside down.  But it’s this sort of logic that saves the world.  It’s just the thing that will eventually turn the whole world upside down or from God’s perspective right side up again.

So if it means for a time flipping our home, lives, and family upside down so that these two precious boys might one day enjoy the goodness of family according to God’s design, count us in!

While our hearts may be willing, our flesh is weak.  As we move forward, we need to be more and more convinced that living upside down is a path to greater joy. And that this path is worth walking against the grain, fighting the status quo, and killing the soul shrinking mediocrity that threatens our lives every day.  After all, we are called to follow one who suffered for the joy that was set before Him.  To follow in His way we must trust the Spirit of adoption who continually reminds us that God really is at work and will finally make all this right again. Spiritual orphans who believe in Jesus will know the joy of having brothers who overcome sin and death.  Abandoned sinners will know an eternal family.  

Maybe God is calling you to do something radical for Jesus.  For us it is adoption.  It may be the same for you.  It may mean giving more so others can adopt.  It may be becoming a committed advocate for orphans and orphan care around the world.   It may mean something all together different for you and your family.  However, for all Christ-followers the gravity of the gospel is pulling you to live upside down in some way that turns the wisdom of the world on its head.  May it be said of us this year and for eternity, these are they who turned the world upside down.