I skimmed through hundreds of photos of ministry events we’ve been involved with over twenty years to try to find one that captured what we were trying to do. I settled on this one of Beth Golik, presenting in front of a jam-packed group of leaders at the 2022 Children’s Pastors Conference. An incredible opportunity to help churches understand how they might best welcome and serve kids with disabilities and their families.
Christmas Eve 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the founding of Key Ministry. In honor of the occasion, I thought I’d share a few reflections on where our ministry has been over the last twenty years, some thoughts about where our organization and the disability ministry movement in general may be impactful in the next twenty years, along with some stuff I’ve learned along the way serving as part of the ministry’s leadership team.
Writing something to commemorate Key Ministry’s twentieth birthday has been very challenging. I’ve been a “bivocational” ministry leader from the very beginning. I typed out these ideas on a Christmas Eve morning when I got up so mentally exhausted from my job as a child and adolescent psychiatrist that I couldn’t get anything “productive” done. It feels like our medical system and mental health care system are hopelessly broken. My exhaustion comes from all the stuff I must do when I’m NOT meeting with kids or parents. If the system feels so broken to me, I can’t imagine what it’s like for a parent of a kid with a chronic illness or disability or mental health condition trying to get their child the services they need nowadays. I remind myself that I’m going to church tonight with my wife and younger daughter with the hope that I’ll get a little encouragement from something I hear in the service tonight or someone I get to see. After twenty years, too many families served by practices like mine won’t get to do that. That thought keeps me going.
In 2002, our assumption was that being part of church was a “normal” activity most everybody wants to take part in and having a child or teen with a disability was an impediment to that. Being part of church is no longer a normative activity, and in some circles, being publicly identified as Christian - or belonging to a church that isn’t falling all over itself to affirm the changes in mores resulting from the sexual revolution - is going to be an added burden to families that struggle with so much already. How will we demonstrate the value of being part of a church in a future when there may be a price to be paid for being associated with the church? I think the way we answer that question for families impacted with disabilities is integral to how the church in the future demonstrates its value to the culture at large.
Our ministry (and ministries like ours) takes on a new importance at a time when Christianity is viewed as foundational to systems of oppression by the institutions and influencers that shape the culture. If we’re going to reverse perceptions about Christ and Christianity, the way we as to church responds to and cares for vulnerable people will be central to our witness. The early church overcame the power of the pagan culture in which they found themselves through demonstrating the value of human life by caring for the sick and taking in the unwanted children who were the byproducts of the sexual freedom that affirmed and reproduced the social order in their culture.
I celebrate having had the opportunity to serve as leaders in a work of God that’s literally grown from a mustard seed to a movement. When we started out, our founding Executive Director was searching out churches with publicly identifiable disability inclusion ministries and seeking out other organizations operating in this space. Maybe she identified ten? The presence of nearly 2,500 enrollees in the online forum we moderate for disability ministry leaders is most definitely a sign of growth.
The one thing I’ve learned that I’d most want to pass on to other leaders in the church… Our “secret sauce” was recognizing how many passionate, gifted and spiritually mature Christians were out there with a call to do this ministry who wanted someone to give them a platform for sharing their gifts with others. We’ve tapped into them as a resource to provide a breadth and depth of content and resources we could have never afforded to create on our own. I love that Key Ministry helps leaders with great ideas serving in relative obscurity become better known in the church. The church wastes so much talent by failing to come alongside people with a vision for innovative ministry. What I enjoyed most in the past twenty years is providing others with opportunities to use their gifts, talents and passion to honor God in a meaningful way, and networking them with other like-minded leaders.
The most encouraging thing I’ve seen this year - nearly 120 applications from speakers wanting to be part of our Disability and the Church conference to be held from April 27-29, 2023.
My greatest frustrations in twenty years of this ministry…
· Our inability to break out of our disability ministry silos and access platforms to influence others in the church. We spend way too much time talking with and to other disability ministry leaders. We need to be talking with senior pastors, children’s ministry leaders and student ministry leaders.
· The rapidly declining influence of Christianity in the culture suggests to me that too many churches are largely failing at making disciples. Our mission is to connect churches and families of kids with disabilities for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ. Our presumption is that discipleship takes place in churches and that our job is to help churches identify and witness to them and help them to grow in faith. Based upon my conversations with teens and young adults from Christian families passing through my practice, I worry that our youth aren’t sufficiently grounded in their faith to withstand the pushback they’ll face upon entering the world.
· The Mental Health and the Church book hasn’t had the impact I’d hoped in shifting the church from viewing mental health ministry primarily as support for folks who are already part of church to a broader vision encompassing an incredible opportunity to share the Gospel with a massively underserved population within the communities they serve.
What I’m most grateful for in twenty years of serving in leadership with Key Ministry…
· That I was part of a church that gave me a chance to pursue this ministry.
· The leaders I’ve had the opportunity to serve alongside over twenty years.
· The friends I’ve made along the way who see the same needs that I do.
What would I want to find under my tree tomorrow morning to bring to use in ministry? A very affluent donor who provided me with the means to walk away from my day job to pursue this ministry full-time and allow the other members of our team to do the same. I’m working on plans to “retire to” this ministry, but I’ve wondered what we might accomplish if we were all doing this full-time with a budget sufficient to produce high quality content and disseminate the content as wide an audience as possible through strategic use of advertising and social media.
What’s my greatest hope for the next twenty years? If I’m not here to witness it personally, it would involve being greeted by Jesus and having him start the conversation with something along the lines of “well done, good and faithful servant.” If I’m still here on December 24, 2042 it would be that the church was growing in impact and influence and a key catalyst to that impact was the decision to prioritize our witness to the most vulnerable kids and families in our culture, and that God would use prominently followers with disabilities and followers from families impacted by disability to lead the charge.
I’d like to close by expressing my gratitude to all who have made this ministry possible over the last twenty years through your generosity with your time, talent, treasure, wisdom and prayer. Our team would very much appreciate hearing from you if you’ve been blessed by this ministry, either directly or through a church we’ve served over the last twenty years.
Best Wishes to all for a Blessed and Joyous Christmas!
Dr. G
