DALLAS — Some conservative Christians say an intense focus on hot-button issues like abortion and gay marriage has come at the expense of caring for needy children. And they're doing something about it.

Some families are leading by example — by taking in children from around the world. Parents and pastors are starting ministries. A national coalition that includes Focus on the Family aims to persuade thousands of churches to start adoption ministries. And in Texas, the state is spending $500,000 this year to encourage churchgoers to adopt and care for foster children.

The push, still in its infancy, could help recast the image of conservative Christians, broaden the appeal of the church and, consequently, find homes for children.

"For the past 80 years, the church has really abrogated its responsibility to government, adoption agencies and others," said Christopher Padbury, executive director of Project 1.27, a Colorado-based group that has placed 60 foster children for adoption in Christian homes since 2005. "God has really taken a sledgehammer and started pounding on his churches."

Padbury's group is named after the Bible verse James 1:27, which says: "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (New International Version).

"We haven't done an effective job of treasuring the lives we say are so valuable," said Staci Taylor, a member of Memorial Baptist Church in Grapevine, Texas. "I think that's a big point of the church's involvement. If we're going to talk about pro-life, we equally need to discuss pro-adoption."

She said her mother, who grew up on a West Texas cotton farm, recalls a Sunday in the late 1940s when the pastor held up an orphaned girl. Standing at the pulpit of the church in Abilene, he called on the congregation for help. Members of a church family took the child in and raised her as their own.

Now Taylor and her husband, Jeff, have responded in their own way, by adopting Ellie, a Chinese orphan.

"We thought we were finished with our family, but we began to be convinced that children were out in the world who had no hope," Staci Taylor said.

Ellie, 2, has adjusted well to her new home. Last month, she wore cowboy boots during a ceremony in Fort Worth at which she became a naturalized citizen.

"Ellie likes Mexican food better than Chinese food. She's fully Americanized now," Staci Taylor said.

And now her brother Sam, 12, and sister, Mary, 6, say they want to adopt when they grow up.

The push to encourage church members to adopt or provide foster care could have a great impact.

"If you break it down, there are over three places of worship for every child waiting to be adopted. There are 500 families for every child waiting in foster care. We can make a significant dent," said Lee Allen, spokesman for the National Council for Adoption, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that has signed on to the national coalition.

But at most churches, foster care is "not on the radar screen — yet," said Michael Monroe, a legal executive at Hunt Oil who has adopted four children — two from Texas and two from Guatemala.

He said it's not an effort to further any political agenda on behalf of the church but is a labor of love with "blood, sweat and tears."

Now, he and his wife, Amy, head the ministry for adoptive and foster families at Irving Bible Church. And last year, they helped organize The DFW Alliance, a forum for like-minded Christians to coordinate outreach efforts.

"It's been amazing," Monroe said, "to see predominantly white people in a suburban church say, `I want to get involved."'

Black pastors have long encouraged church members to adopt because of the great need created by broken homes and a high incidence of births out of wedlock.

"The crisis in the African-American community is so great that we needed to step up to the plate because of our history," said Tony Evans, senior pastor at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship.

He estimates that about 50 families have adopted as a result of his church's decade-old push, which includes two adoption and foster care fairs each year.

"You have a generation of fatherlessness where men are not in the home. You can't just say `don't abort.' You've got to have something else to provide family," he said.

Catholics and Mormons have made efforts of their own in recent decades, said Ada White, director of adoption services for the Child Welfare League of America, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

And white Protestants have been involved to some degree in other ways. For example, Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services, which started as a Baptist orphanage in Dallas, has placed more than 4,000 children since 1884.

The new emphasis for conservative Christians is growing on three levels: through local churches, through a state faith-based initiative and through a powerful national coalition.

A coalition of evangelicals and child advocacy groups is spreading the pro-adoption message on the national level.

Last November, religious broadcasters dedicated a week of airtime to adoption. Paul Pennington, director of Family Life's Hope for Orphans, estimates the blitz reached up to 10 million evangelical Christians over 10 days. "We were introducing this audience to a biblical world view of orphan care," he said. "This is not just a marketing campaign to white suburban churches."

For three days in May, Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, cheered on 350 supporters at a Colorado summit. The guests included 100 ministers who are promoting adoption from the pulpit.

Last month, Pennington chaired a meeting in Grapevine where 10 coalition leaders planned the next two years of outreach.

Pennington, who lives in Texas with three of his six children, five of whom are adopted, said the effort is a genuine push to help children around the world, not a sly attempt at a political makeover. Yet, he and others note that the adoption initiatives are drawing new people.

Texas started a program to get churches involved in foster care in 2003. Child Protective Services calls it Congregations Helping in Love and Dedication, or CHILD.

Recruiters visit churches to train and certify adults as foster parents, with the goal of preparing at least two families per congregation. "It really has been a partnership with these groups who were an untapped resource before," said Marissa Gonzales, a CPS spokeswoman.

Ninety churches have signed up to work with the state since the program was signed into law by Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

As a result of training sessions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, 32 families have been licensed and 76 children have been placed in homes, Gonzales said. Four children have been placed for permanent adoption, she said.

Concerns and stereotypes on both sides — about working with religious groups or working with government bureaucrats — stopped the program from growing.

"There's a tendency for the state to look at the church and say 'Well, they spank their kids' or 'They beat their kids.' But that's not the case. We're all about helping those kids heal using love and logic," said Matt Donovan, who helped start the Foster and Adoption Ministry at The Village Church in Highland Village.

He and his wife, Kristin, have a 3-year-old daughter and want another baby. They cared for a foster child for four months this year and hope to have another child placed in their home soon.

Carolyn Robinson, a mother of three, was the first to be certified as a foster parent at Irving Bible Church after three weekends of what she called "very intense training," including CPR certification and a background check.

"We think about the bureaucracy of calling up CPS," Robinson said. "They're bringing it to us."

Last August, the Robinsons got their first placement, a 3-day-old boy who is still in their home. "He's brought a lot of joy and spunk to our house," she said.