How can the church address fatherlessness?

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)

Manhood Restored by Eric Mason is an great book. I will post a review of it soon. But as I was reading it I came across this quote:

“The astonishing fact is reflected in many statistics, but here are the two most important. Tonight about 40 percent of American children will go to sleep in homes in which their fathers do not live. Before they reach the age of eighteen more than half of our nation’s children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhoods living apart from their fathers. Never before in this country have so many children grown up without knowing what it means to have a father”–David Blankenhorn from Fatherless America

This book was written in the mid 1990’s and I don’t see the situation getting any better. We are facing an epidemic and it’s become so normal everyone is becoming desensitized to it. Fatherlessness is not the way God intended families to work. And if the family is off track then the nation is off track.

If we are to speak into this culture fatherlessness is a key issue that needs to be addressed. Not just from the pulpit but on the ground level. We need to roll up our sleeves and grab the fatherless and love on them. Not just with words but with actions.

There is a great organization called GRIP outreach here in the Chicago area that is doing fantastic work mentoring youth. Beyond that any local church can get involved with addressing this reality and mentoring kids who desperately need a father figure in their life. This is one way we can mobilize men into action and not just laying around on the pews or sitting at home playing Xbox.

Something to chew on, pray on, and take action on.

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/78147607@N00/3065251086″>HEB Parade 2008 B124T.jpg</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a&gt; <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a&gt;