Pastor Chris Seay invites you on a journey. A 40-day journey that will disrupt your habits and your rituals. A journey that will help you identify and connect with the poor and the suffering.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

In my humble opinion, Compassion more than does its part to help children in poverty. Since I’m not part of their staff, I can say that! There are things like the letters I receive from my sponsored child and there are also the country spotlights. I’ve even received letters from pastors whose churches host the Compassion child development centers where my children are enrolled.

I was reading over some of the more recent posts on this blog and I got to thinking:

How do we get into — and stay — in our child’s world?

Compassion offers this blog, Facebook, Twitter and probably a dozen other social media outlets that I don’t know anything about. I’ve even visited a couple of kids in their home countries, met one of their parents, and met a development center director.

All of the pieces are available to help me connect with my child.

But sometimes … often … I still find myself very disconnected.

How do I stay in my child’s world?

I ask this question for a deeper reason. Sure, I want to be in tune with the lives of my sponsored kids so I can ask culture-appropriate questions in our letters and really build our sponsor-child relationship.

But more than that, I want to know how to pray for my kids. More than knowing how to pray, I want to feel a constant compulsion to have to pray for them.

In my head, I know my sponsored children need constant prayer. Let’s face it, all of us do. But unless I’m in their world, I’m ashamed to say that I don’t pray for them regularly. Or even consistently.

I don’t want to just be that supporting sponsor only when I get a reminder from Compassion. I want to be a sponsor who covers her kids in prayer all of the time.

So I’m asking you, our dear sponsors with a wealth of knowledge, experience, with some of the deepest hearts of anyone I have ever met —

How do you stay in your child’s world?

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

One of the speakers was David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group. At the end of his presentation David bluntly told everyone assembled that Compassion’s business model is out of date.

He didn’t suggest it. He declared it. As fact. “Your business model is out of date.”

He didn’t say it might happen in the future. He said it’s here.

He didn’t position it as his opinion to consider. He delivered this “truth” directly, firmly and respectfully. It was refreshing.

A month later, Jon Dale, of Dale Interactive Group, told me the same thing over lunch.

In our highly connected digital world the technology exists for you to speak directly to your sponsored children, via Skype, Facebook, Twitter, etc.. So the idea of developing a meaningful, one-to-one, cross-cultural relationship via handwritten letters that can take up to three months to travel in one direction and another few months to travel back is outdated.

There are reasons we don’t yet offer you the ability to communicate directly with your sponsored children via social media. And there are reasons we ask that you don’t accept or initiate friend requests with your sponsored children via social media.

But we know that we must replace our antiquated communication process with one that offers you compelling ways to communicate with your sponsored children. We know that we can’t wait any longer to do this.

However, it’s not just the communication process we need to address. We also have to carefully consider what one-to-one child sponsorship should look like in the digital world. How can we use the tools of technology to make your participation in the development of these children more than just financial support and writing letters?

Although we’re not a sponsor-focused organization – we’re child focused – or a sponsor development organization, we know that “we” don’t exist without “you.” We can’t succeed without God’s blessing and your support.

What do you think about what I’ve said? Do you agree with David and Jon … and me? What do you think Compassion needs to do or consider when redefining what child sponsorship delivers to you?

Now is the time to share your opinions, particularly if you don’t normally comment. As our leadership team begins to answer these questions, it’s better that they know what you think rather than make assumptions about what you think.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Until we have a better way to help you with this – which we are working on and we think you’re gonna love! – let’s make this post the home for making connections.

UPDATE: May 27, 2010 – That better way to connect we mentioned, it’s ourcompassion.org.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates