Meet Revolution Church

We recently started featuring FaithBridge church partners with you and you can find the first post here. The stories that these churches have shared have been so unique to their context and inspirational.

Today we are excited to feature Revolution Church, located in Canton, GA (they also have a campus in Jasper). They had so much to share about their thriving foster care ministry and ways that the program has grown since it started.

Doing Life Together. One family shared that because of the church’s Community of Care® (CoC), they are currently fostering the baby sister of a sibling group placed with another foster family at the church. This placement was at the request of Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS).

When they knew a baby would be coming in to care, DFCS did not want to place the baby in the home with her older siblings for some specific reasons. They also knew the siblings’ foster parents were well supported in their church’s CoC and asked if there was another family who could take placement of the baby.

Now these siblings see each other regularly in a familiar and uplifting environment — weekly at church! It has been a successful situation and was made possible because foster families at Revolution do life together.

All In. The support team at Revolution is passionate about the foster care ministry and the pastor clearly teaches that when you are loving others, you are living for the Lord; opening your life to a misplaced child or teen is to love as Jesus loves, and when they see that love they can begin to accept Christ’s love for them as well.

Mandie Summers, Revolution’s support team coordinator, shared a personal story about when the ministry was launched. She said, “It was the right timing — God’s timing.” She and her husband had started fostering through FaithBridge and Revolution did not yet have a Community of Care. At the time they were paired with another church in their area that had a well-established foster ministry, partnering with FaithBridge and they were so thankful for it but couldn’t help longing for their home church to partner as well.

When they began asking the church leadership about starting a foster care support ministry, God had already been working on the hearts of the pastoral staff to partner in some way with foster parents.

Future Growth. Revolution Church hopes that the culture of their foster care ministry is so strong that more families will step into foster care. Lynette Ezell, their support team director shared that her desire is that when a family is considering foster care they see such deep support and engagement that there would be no room for fear of fostering.

For other churches, she hopes that those who are considering foster care ministry will just start. “It doesn’t have to be big or grand,” says Lynette. “All foster families need to begin is a safe and supportive place to do life with other people who respite or foster. If the church could start there, providing space to meet this need, it is a huge win. From there, they could add things like meals, family fun events, parents’ nights out, etc. However, those things can come in time as the ministry grows and more volunteers are established.”

The program at Revolution is robust and their church does a fun event at Christmas that still worked really well during the pandemic. They do family pictures with Santa and the cost of the picture is a gift card for a foster family. Those gift cards are collected and shared with our Revolution foster families when they receive a new placement. They are also used to enclose with notes of encouragement throughout the year.

According to Lynette, if you want to see this kind of ministry happen at your church then ask the Lord to raise up one foster family within your church then support them richly! The support team at Revolution thinks this can be a catalyst and you will see other families begin to find their place in foster care.

“These kids are just like other kids — they want to be loved and feel safe, they have hopes and dreams, and a beautiful life to live for Jesus,” says Mandie. “Kids in care just need someone to care enough to show them the way. Who better to deliver Christ’s unconditional love than the Body of Christ?”

Revolution also loved the opportunity to share images about their ministry. Check them out at our Instagram account.