Ministering to families who are impacted by disability was especially difficult for pastors during the start of the COVID pandemic. As if these families didn’t already suffer from tremendous financial burdens, lack of resources, marital stress, isolation, and lack of self-care, COVID just exacerbated all of that. So in June of 2020, when I got word that our church would not be reopening as we had hoped, I was crushed, and so were our families. For three months they had been looking forward to virtual school being over, neighborhood pools reopening, being able to go on vacation, and especially looking forward to their time of refreshment and respite that they received each week at church on Sunday. And then the announcement came that “out of an abundance of caution,” we would delay reopening our church building and our special needs ministry.
It was at that point that I began to seek the Lord for a way that we could keep everyone physically safe, obey CDC health guidelines and provide the community that the people so desperately needed. Mental health was suffering. Hopelessness was settling in. Parents were already tired of watching church in their pajamas online. Kids were sound asleep in their beds, because it wasn’t worth the fight to force them to have more screen time at the beginning of a daunting virtual school week. So with the direction of the Lord, I began to come up with a new model that would meet the needs of our families, honor our church plan, and obey health and government guidelines. We continued our ministry in the form of what we simply called “house church”.
The Lord began to give me a great vision that seemed quite impossible at the time. Lucky for me, He began by giving me the name of one of our special needs families—Carolyn. I decided to go to my computer and play around with our church database to find out if there was a way to look up any families who lived near Carolyn’s address. And there it was!
I discovered a feature where I could type in any address and search all of the addresses that were in a certain radius. I typed the address and searched for all of the people who lived within a 5 mile radius of her home. As I looked through the list, I wrote down any name of families or volunteers who lived within that radius and were involved with our ministry. By the time I got done making the list, I had six families who I knew very well who lived near Carolyn, for a total of 20 people. By this point, it was no surprise that this was the maximum number of people that the CDC allowed to gather in one place.
Photo credit: Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com.
I know what you’re thinking: “So you just called a special needs family, who has all of this life pressure already, and invited yourself and a bunch of other people to their house?” My thoughts exactly! And so I wrestled with the Lord in prayer asking Him the same thing.
After four days of praying and not obeying, Carolyn called me! I heard her voice on the other end of the line saying, “I know this is going to sound weird, but my husband and I were talking and we are so desperate to see people, that I was wondering if you and your family would come to our house on Sunday morning to just watch church with us.” I thought I was going to fall out of my seat! My response? Not only will we come over, but can I invite a few others as well? And that began my journey in developing house churches for our special needs ministry.
No logo. No big promotional period. No planning. Just a few phone calls and a living room. What started as one small gathering with 20 people during a pandemic is now a whole ministry of people with 170 families, over 100 volunteers, and 33 house churches.
House church has been a welcome change for many of our families. While some of them are going back to the traditional church model, this option has afforded many families a new opportunity to hear the gospel and build relationships with other families who are like them. What I have discovered through the process of building this model is that it actually provides greater room for growth of the ministry, as well as new opportunities for deeper discipleship for the parents and the kids. It also allows families to invite neighbors or other families whose kids go to school with the host family’s children.
For our ministry, this model is providing another differentiated but inclusive model to meet the needs of every family. As we look to the unpredictable future, I encourage disability leaders to be on the forefront of leading the change, rather than being at the back of the line going where everyone else is going. Let’s take this opportunity to be the change that we want to see in church, so that people with disabilities can find the place where they belong in the faith community.
Guest blogger Jillian Palmiotto is the owner of Together We Care, a nonprofit located in Atlanta, GA that ministers to the disability community through providing inclusion training to churches, offering free resources to families impacted by disability, and helping adults with disabilities walk in their God-given purpose. Jillian holds a bachelor's and master's degree in education and is a licensed minister. Her background includes being an educator, pastor of the Unlimited Special Needs Ministry at Mount Paran Church, as well as being the founder of the Together Ministry Conference. You can find out more information about her nonprofit by visiting www.TogetherWeCareGA.org.
