At Belmont Evangelical Church in Chicago, where my wife and I first began in singles ministry sixteen years ago, we felt it important to provide child care for single parents attending our weekly meetings. That baby-sitting service was greatly appreciated by the parents-but not by the nursery workers.

One baby sitter after another would come up to me after a meeting and say, "That does it! Those kids are so undisciplined and rebellious that I just can't take it. I'm afraid you're going to have to find someone else to take care of those kids." We tried volunteers. We tried paying attendants. It didn't matter. Most of them quit before long. The children of divorce were just uncontrollable.

It's not surprising. Think of the pain these kids have endured. They feel lost. Often their parents are struggling with emotional pains of their own, plus substandard housing or transportation or employment. We realized that when we minister to parents with broken marriages, we have to take into account ...