In her book, The Adoption Network, Laura provides you, the average person with a connection to adoption, with the tools to start your own adoption ministry. While Heartbeat Ministries, the ministry Laura helped create, serves infertile couples and those hoping to adopt the information in The Adoption Network could be adapted to any specific group of the adoption triad such as birthparents, adoptive parents, and even adoptees.

Just as she helped people when creating Heartbeat Ministries, Laura’s goal in writing The Adoption Network was to help people too; to give them the tools needed to create their own support ministries and groups. Laura shares her thoughts on this below.

When people experience an unplanned pregnancy, or they struggle with infertility, or they decide to become a foster/adoptive parent, the first place they should be able to turn to for support is their faith community. Yet many church leaders have no idea of how to deal with these issues.

They may desire to start a face-to-face community of support for birth/first parents, adopted people, or adoptive and foster families, but they don’t know where to start. I took all the things I had learned about what to do—and what not to do—and created a workbook that walks people step-by-step through the process of building and launching a custom-made adoption or orphan care ministry. My prayer is to get this book into as many churches across the world as possible, so people everywhere will feel more comfortable turning to their faith community for the support they need.

In the book, Laura takes you through the whole process of creating an adoption related ministry using Heartbeat Ministries as the example. Also, while Laura presents the information in the context of creating a ministry, I think much of the same information could be helpful in creating some type of community adoption support group that isn’t necessarily faith based.

Before writing this post, I read The Adoption Network and think that it would be very helpful for anyone who feels a calling or a need to start an adoption based ministry or even an adoption community support group or organization.

Laura walks you through each step necessary in creating a successful ministry or organization. The success of Heartbeat Ministries is proof that Laura knows what she is talking about. The book is organized well and the worksheets are incredibly helpful! I wish this book had been around five years ago when Lani and I were starting BirthMom Buds as it would have taken some of the guess work out of what we were doing.

As I mentioned in my first post, Laura has written two books that were both recently published. I have not read the other book, The Adoption Decision, although if it is anything like The Adoption Network then I am sure it will be educational and informational as well. Below is a little information about The Adoption Decision from Laura.

The Adoption Decision is a “how-to for the heart.” It acquaints parents (and their supporters) with the emotional and spiritual aspects of adoption and adoptive parenting and addresses questions and insecurities they have. It’s packed with fascinating stories from people whose lives are directly impacted by adoption; people tell me the book is an entertaining read and it helps them clarify what they want their own adoption to “look like.” Two of the chapters are of particular interest to birthmoms – one chapter tells the pregnancy, birth, and adoption story of our oldest son’s birthmom. Another chapter details our experiences with open adoption and provides tips for how birth and adoptive families can negotiate relationships in open adoption.

If any of you read either of these books, I’d love to know your thoughts on them!

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Related Posts:
Laura Christianson: Adoptive Mother and Author
Laura Christianson’s Heartbeat Ministries