Sandra Peoples, Beth Golik, Barb Dittrich and Dr. Steve Grcevich. Missing: Catherine Boyle
I’m pleased to announce to our readers that Barb Dittrich will be taking on an expanded role with our Key Ministry team. In addition to continuing the ministry she’s established to train and support parent mentors for families impacted by disability, Barb will become our ministry’s Director of Advancement, effective immediately.
When we discuss advancement in the context of our ministry, we’re referring to the process of identifying people with the available time, talent and treasure to support the mission to which we’ve been called…connecting families of kids with disabilities to local churches for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Prior to joining our team, Barb served as the Executive Director of SNAPPIN’ Ministries, an organization that provided outreach to help parents of children with every sort of special need, from learning and emotional disabilities to physical disabilities and chronic diseases. She was very successful over many years in procuring the volunteers and resources necessary for sustaining their ministry with families touched by disability.
I want to share with our readers why we’re asking Barb to assume this expanded role. The scope and impact of our ministry – along with the ministry done by other like-minded organizations is exploding.
- Our network of churches prepared to welcome families of kids with disabilities has more than doubled in size since the first of the year!
- We received 101 requests from churches for consultation or training from January – July 2018 compared with 112 requests for all of 2017.
- We’ve received over 160 requests for mental health ministry training or resources since releasing Mental Health and the Church this past February.
- The Facebook group we provide for for providing resources and support for special needs and disability ministry leaders now has over 1,300 members and continues to grow weekly.
- Our Inclusion Fusion Live disability ministry conference attracted more than 250 disability ministry leaders and family members. The main stage sessions made available through our Facebook page have been viewed more than 40,000 times!
Why did we need to ask Barb to take on an expanded role – for no additional pay? To borrow a term from the football training camps that have opened across our home region over the last two weeks, we’re “outkicking our coverage” - meaning that we’re providing far more ministry resources than we’re able to pay for. And we require significant help just to sustain the level of ministry training and support we’re already providing, much less to continue to grow in response to the need. We’re averaging around 20,000 unique visitors to our website per month, and approximately 40,000 page views per month across our blogs and platforms, not counting the approximately 5,000 church leaders and family members who subscribe to our blogs by e-mail.
We’re trying to do our work on a budget of roughly $7,000/month…and we brought in a little over $5,000/month for the first half of this year. We’re currently operating with a core staff of five, including two (your humble blogger and Catherine Boyle, our Mental Health Ministry Director) who volunteer all of their time to our ministry. Our team of approximately two dozen volunteer writers who create the content for churches and families also volunteer their services. We had no money to pay the speakers who came to our conference, and most had to pay their travel expenses as well to attend. We’re frugal!
Finding the money to support our ministry has been an ongoing challenge. Our two target audiences (pastors/church staff and families of kids with disabilities) are not noted for their discretionary income. I HATE bringing up the issue of finances or doing anything that makes it harder for churches with limited budgets to access the resources they need to help families. We can’t sustain what we’re doing much beyond the end of this year at our current pace. And that’s why we need to ask Barb to reallocate some of her time to help ensure we’ll have the resources we need to go forward.
We understand that many of the churches and families we serve don’t have financial resources to share. We very much appreciate your prayers and encouragement! If you do have the ability to help us financially, your support would obviously be a great blessing! We’re also looking for a few “angels”…an individual, family, foundation, corporation or church that could help with a few very large needs…
- We’d like to put on another large disability ministry conference in 2019 for church leaders and families from throughout the Eastern U.S. and Canada. We could host an excellent conference with a larger audience and broader impact than this past year’s Inclusion Fusion Live for $15,000 while making the conference available to church leaders and families for a nominal cost.
- Outside of our personnel costs, the largest ongoing expense for our ministry involves the cost of getting our resources to church leaders and families through the use of social media advertising and e-mail. We spend close to $1,000 per month between social media and e-mail distribution. An angel who could cover those costs would be a great blessing! $2,000 per month would like allow us to more than double the current reach of our ministry.
- We’d like to produce a series of high quality, brief, “on-demand” training videos for church staff and volunteers addressing the most common questions and challenges they’re likely to encounter in the course of disability ministry. The videos would be made freely available through our website and social media platforms. We would film this in conjunction with next year’s Inclusion Fusion Live conference and invite the broad range of speakers in attendance to contribute. If an “angel” would be interested in funding this project, we’ll reach out to local videographers for cost estimates.
Any “angels” interested in helping to meet our need can feel free to contact me (steve@keyministry.org) or Barb (barb@keyministry.org) with any questions or ideas.
We know God has the resources to meet the need. We appreciate your prayers for Barb in her new role and for our ministry as a whole…that we’d honor God while remaining faithful to our mission and carrying out the plans he has for us!
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Are you a pastor or ministry leader searching for resources to better understand how to support children, adults or families affected by mental illness in your church or in your community? Check out Key Ministry’s Mental Health Resources page, containing links to video, articles and topical blog series designed to help you minister with persons with common mental health conditions. Also available through the website are a free, downloadable mental health ministry planning tool designed to accompany Mental Health and the Church, along with links to recommended books, like-minded mental health ministry organizations, relevant research, sermons addressing mental illness, social media resources and a compilation of stories from families affected by mental illness.
