In today’s podcast, Catherine Boyle interviews Doc Hunsley from SOAR Special Needs, and lets you know how you can sign up for Doc’s Disability Ministry 101 Ministry Intensive at DATC2023.
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Quick Links:
Disability and the Church 2023 Conference
Transcript:
Boyle: Well, thanks so much for joining me today on the Key Ministry podcast. I'm Catherine Boyle.
And today I'm excited because I have a special guest here to talk about his ministry that he founded many years ago, and also talk about how you have an opportunity to meet with him and learn from him as part of our Disability and the Church 2023 conference. So Doc Hunsley, welcome to the podcast today! I know that the listeners are going to want to learn a little bit more about what you do at SOAR Special Needs, and just hear how you're going to be part of Disability and The Church 2023.
Hunsley: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's my honor to be here with you and I'm very excited to to be part of the upcoming conference. I encourage everyone that that's listening or reading to make sure they sign up, because it's going to be phenomenal, whether they have been in ministry for a long time, or they're just starting ministry. We'll have something for everybody, and they need to come out and be a part of this; they won't be disappointed at all. I promise them.
Boyle: There's nothing like going to a conference—whether you've been to one before, or you've been to many—but there's just nothing like being there with a bunch of people that really get the same passion that you have, and learning from what other people are doing. There’s really nothing that compares to it.
Boyle: So I don't want to assume that anybody who's listening knows anything about Key Ministry or about your ministry. So tell us a little bit about yourself: who you are, a little about your background, and a little bit about SOAR Special Needs, this ministry that you lead.
Hunsley: Happy to. Again, I'm Doc Hunsley. Obviously, “Doc’s” not my real name. Stephen's my real name. Doc is a nickname because I'm actually a pediatrician. I was a pediatrician who worked in the emergency room, got sick from taking care of my patients, almost died, should have died taking care of them, and was forced out on long term disability. The hospital determined that I became a medical legal risk to the hospital, that I could get sick and die, and that my family could sue the hospital, so they made the determination that I could never practice medicine again and therefore. literally in a blink of an eye, they put me on long term disability and said I could never practice again, which was devastating for me. That's all I ever wanted to do since I was a first grader, was be a pediatrician. I was actually in my dream job for 26 days when I got sick. I actually spent 46 days in the intensive care unit, so I spent more time in the hospital than I did in my dream job.
Hunsley: We went through all that, and I was in the hospital two different times. Second time, shortly after that hospitalization, my second son was born. I'm blessed now with three kids, two boys and a girl, but my second son was born. Mark, who we affectionately referred to as “Bubba”—he is truly my ‘mini me’. I took a week off paternity leave to be with him. It was my first day back to work when they informed me that I could no longer practice medicine. So I took the hardest job in my life at that point, and became Mr. Mom, taking care of my two boys. Then when Mark was eight months old, he had his first seizure. It lasted over 4 hours.
Hunsley: Fast forward, by the time he was 18 months, we got the diagnosis of Dravet Syndrome, a very rare genetic seizure disorder. And by the time he was two, we got the diagnosis of autism. My wife's also a pediatrician, so we went from being physicians who take care of a lot of kids with special needs, to all of a sudden becoming a parent of a child with special needs…
Boyle: Which is not exactly the same perspective, not at all.
Hunsley: Not at all. It was the first time in our life that our eyes were opened. We saw the stress, you know, it's 24/7/365.
Hunsley: You know, Catherine, I can't tell you the number of times I've been in public now where I've had complete strangers tell me—I'm not just a bad parent, but I'm a horrible parent because my child's having an autistic meltdown or he's harming himself and I'm trying to protect him, and I have police officers come up and threaten to arrest me or threaten to tase me because they think I'm endangering my son.
Hunsley: Well, that's everyday life for all of our families that we work with. And so that was just incredibly eye opening for me.
Hunsley: A few years after he was born, the church we were attending—God opened the doors and God made it very clear that I should become their children's pastor. I'm like, “God, I'm just a doctor! I never did seminary.” But God said, “You're doing this.” And so I was obedient, and grew a children's ministry from about 100 kids to 1000 kids over several year period of time, about four years. About a year into it, I went to a senior pastor and said, “Hey, I got my son [with disabilities]; we've got a couple of kids in the ministry [with disabilities]. I want to start a special needs ministry, so that we can welcome these families and do something for them.
Hunsley: His immediate response to me was ‘No, I don't want those kind of families here.’ That was my first eye opener that the majority of churches in the United States don't welcome families with disabilities and they don't want them. They don't want them. They'll do anything possible not to have them.
Boyle: Yeah, it [disabilities] makes us all uncomfortable, doesn't it? It can for sure.
Hunsley: It does, and if you don't understand something, or a need, the gut reaction is just to send them away and just push them away. And that's not biblical.
Boyle: No, it’s 100% the opposite.
Hunsley: I had a lot of problems with that, for several months. Then a year and a half, two years later, he called me back in the office, because there were three adults with disabilities who were very vocal during our worship service. He called me in and said, “Get rid of them.” I didn't argue with him, I said I'd be happy to. So instead, I created an adult Sunday school class for adults with disabilities, and I created the respite program for us, and that started to grow.
Boyle: Good on you.
Hunsley: Shortly after that, which was now 12 years ago, my son Mark was cured of everything that he had, when he was born into Heaven at the age of 5 1/2. We went through 5 1/2 years of all the highs and lows of being a parent of a child with special needs, and then walked through the grief of losing the child.
Six-seven weeks after he passed away, my intestines exploded on me. I once again almost died, and God had his hand on me once again. Through all this, and during that time of my recovery and the grief with Mark, God made it clear for us to it was time to go to a new church and leave my position, which was heartbreaking, because I loved being a children's pastor.
Hunsley: But we were obedient, followed God, and He led us to the church we are at today, and that's Christ Church. I met with the children's pastor and told him in order for me to heal emotionally, physically, spiritually, I need to serve others, get my eyes off myself and on other. So shortly after that, I got a phone call from him and the senior pastor, and they said, ‘You know what, Doc? We kind of stalked you socially. We know who you are. We've heard all about you. We want to have a world class Children's ministry, but in order to do that, we need to have a special needs ministry. Would you start that for us?’
Hunsley: So that's how SOAR started. I became their disability pastor. Did that completely as a volunteer, was on staff for eight years through a ministry [that grew from] 3 individuals to over 800. In 8 years, our volunteer base grew from 20 to over 2500. And then they saw what we were doing, and launched us as an independent nonprofit three years ago. SOAR stands for Special Opportunities, Abilities and Relationships. SOAR exists to transform the lives of special families. We empower them to soar in local faith communities, and we help answer the three main questions that every family with an individual with disability has.
Hunsley: First question is, will my child ever be able to provide for themselves? Second question, who's going to take care of my child once I'm gone? And the third question is who's going to take care of me as a parent or a caregiver?
Hunsley: Those were the three questions that kept me up at night; I found out after my son passed away that these were my wife's questions, too. And every parent we talked to, those are pretty much their questions. So we answer those with our current and future programming.
Hunsley: One of the big things that we do is we firmly believe every family with an individual with a disability should be able to go to a place of faith of their choosing. So we’re passionate about training churches on how to welcome families with disabilities, whether it's creating brand new ministry or taking the ministry that they already have to the next level.
Hunsley: I've got a goal with SOAR, that we're going to train up at least 1000 churches in the next five years. To date, we've now trained over 500 churches throughout the United States and around the world.
Hunsley: So a little redheaded onery boy broke my heart for individuals and families with disabilities, and then opened my eyes to this huge need for the ‘Big C’ Church to come and welcome families. He opened my eyes to see that.
Hunsley: Jesus commands us to do it not once, but twice in Luke 14. I'm just trying to help churches live out the biblical mandate that Jesus set out for us.
Boyle: Thank you for that, because you guys have done a lot. You have personally been through an awful lot, but like only God can do, He can Romans 8:28 those kinds of challenges, to turn them into something good if we will let him. So the fruit of that now, is all these years later, SOAR Special Needs Ministry.
Boyle: If you're listening to this podcast, there's an awful lot you can learn from Doc, no matter what your church has done, has thought about doing or has not done when talking about disability ministry. I really hope that you will connect with Doc, preferably at the conference at the end of April in Cleveland.
Boyle: I’ve got some other questions here to talk with you about, Doc, because I I know not everybody can come to the conference. So I was thinking through, what are we going to talk about? I thought it might be helpful to just focus on maybe one or two areas where ministry leaders can make a meaningful difference, even in this year. It doesn't to be like the giant program and the huge church that has 25 staff members and can accommodate 1000 people.
Boyle: What are a couple of things that you see that ministry leaders can do, primarily—or maybe in particular—for those families in the local community? It [disability ministry] may not be part of your church. But if you think that you don't have any families in the community, well, as you just talked about—having your eyes opened—you just need to open your eyes, because I promise—there are families with disabilities living around you, in every urban and suburban area. There are many families with disabilities near your church who are not part of your church. So what are a couple of things churches can do?
Hunsley: First, I want to address that last point you brought up, because so many churches think, oh, we don't have anyone with disabilities. Well, here's one of my favorite brand-new statistics out there that is truly mind-blowing.
Do you know what the largest minority group, is in the United States today? It's individuals with disabilities or special needs. They make up 26% of the US population, so 1/4 of the population are individuals with special needs and disabilities. That's one every four.
Boyle: I’m not surprised. And they're hugely unchurched as well.
Hunsley: Massively unchurched. It's estimated 90% do not go to church at all, so this unmet people group is in our own backyard. They're families with disabilities that don't go anywhere.
Hunsley: And there are three reasons they won't go to church. One, they're afraid the church isn't trained to take care of them. Well, they're largely right, because the overwhelming majority of churches don't welcome the families, and they don't know how to take care of them. Two, they're afraid their child's going to be a burden. So they don't want to be a burden to the church. And then the third one that breaks my heart: they have been asked to leave the church too many times before and can't bear to be asked to leave again so they don't go.
Hunsley: The question I ask every church—I ask them to look at the school district around the church, and see what percentage of the school district is classified as having special needs or disabilities. Whatever they term it for that school district, if that doesn't match your church population, you have to ask yourself what's wrong? What?
Because that right there is telling you they're [people living with disabilities] in your community, so we need to welcome them. They're not going to come just because you hang out a placard saying ‘come to our special needs ministry or disability ministry;’ they're not going to take your word for that.
Boyle: Right.
Hunsley: But they're going to take it from other families. So we start by serving the families you already have. For every individual we see with a disability, it's estimated to have there are another 4 individuals who have what we call hidden disabilities that you don't even recognize. They might be mental health or, you know, intellectual disability, whatever it might be. You don't know just by looking at them.
Hunsley: My son was one of those with a hidden disability. It wasn't until you spent time with him that you realized, ‘Oh, he's nonverbal. Oh, he won't look at you.’ Then you see the seizures and go, ‘Oh, okay.’
But that's why we always got ridiculed in public because everyone expected that it's bad parenting because he looked like a neurotypical child. So it's starting with what you have, welcoming those families, helping them.
Hunsley: Get engaged. The important thing to remember is when you're serving a with a family, an individual with special needs or disabilities in the church, you're not serving just that individual; you serve that entire family, right? And it's the only ministry that really needs to go throughout the entire church.
Hunsley: We need to think about that through every aspect of the church, even the worship pastor. How many times does the worship pastor come out and say, ‘Would you please stand and join us and worship?’
Boyle: Right.
Hunsley: Well, what if you have someone who's in a wheelchair? Or, you know, an elderly person who just had a hip replacement or a knee replacement and they can't stand? It might be better if we say if you're able, would you please join us? Personally, I don't even like that! Why don't we get to what we really want: ‘Hey, would you please join us and worship from your heart?’ That allows everything. And you know what? It also allows Johnny, who might be a teenager who loves the drums and he wants to run up and beat on the stage with the drums; hat's his form of worship.
Hunsley: So instead of having the entire church condemn him, we can then say—the worshippers can go, “Oh, look at Johnny. I love how you're worshipping Jesus today!” Because that's what he's doing.
Hunsley: We need to learn how we can welcome who we already have, incorporate them into every aspect of our church, and help that DNA go among everyone and become a true inclusive church, so no matter who walks in or rolls into our church building, they are treated just as anyone else.
Hunsley: We expect the same things out of them [people with disabilities]. We expect them to be volunteers. We expect everything from them, no difference. But we have to be ready, and we have to be willing to meet them with where they're at. And that might mean putting extra things there, and it's okay if you don't know anything about their diagnosis. It's okay if you don't understand autism.
Hunsley: Here's the thing I always say: I'm a pediatrician. I have yet to meet a parent who's received a brand new diagnosis for their child, who at the same time was given an instruction manual on how to deal with that diagnosis.
Boyle: Right. They don't exist.
Hunsley: I always say I've got one requirement to work with an individual with special needs or disability. It's a simple question. Can you be a friend? If you can be a friend, that's all it takes. These individuals just need a friend, and you can learn everything else through training.
Hunsley: That's [training] one of the things SOAR specializes in, coming by churches and train you on how to welcome them. But just be a friend, be willing to give of yourself. So that's what I'd say to start and welcome them. And then, as the parents that you already have, they'll then tell their friends who have children with special needs, and then they'll come. That's how you start getting them in. We can also do some events that can reach your community as well, but start with what you already have in your church. And don't stick your head in the sand thinking, ‘Oh, we don't have anyone.’ Most likely you do.
Hunsley: The parents don't want to tell you that they're there because they're afraid that you're going to tell them they're not welcome anymore, so just let them know that they're loved.
Hunsley: Bottom line, we have to realize the church has to be a place of refuge where their child is loved on and taught the love of Jesus; that's the bottom line for the church. It's a place of refuge. It's not a place of judgment. That's the last thing the church needs to be, but all too frequently, when it comes to this [children with disabilities] the Church becomes a place of judgment. We've got to remove that and bring in becoming a place of refuge and welcome, because, bottom line, everyone is created in the image and likeness of God and fearfully and wonderfully made. If we truly want to be more like Jesus, well, look, let's look at Jesus.
Hunsley: When He was here, on Earth, 75% of His recorded miracles were done on individuals with disabilities and special needs. He healed the lame, He healed the blind, the deaf, you know, He spent a lot of time with him. He spent His time with children all the time.
Hunsley: Jesus really was the very first disability pastor, so if we want to be more like Jesus, we're going to welcome them into our community and serve them and show them His love.
Boyle: Right. And none of those things that you talked about really involved much of a price tag at all. That [cost] can be thought of as a big barrier, but it's really not. It's [disability ministry] much more of an approach and a mindset. It's really a change in perspective versus anything that requires a new building or new staff people or much of a budget. so.
Hunsley: Absolutely. And it's also not a big liability issue. That's always another big concern. I did huge camps; I did big respite events and we never had to add a dime of liability coverage. It's no different than your church already doing a Vacation Bible School or anything else; you're already covered.
Hunsley: So if the insurance company can view individuals with disabilities just like everyone else, why can't the church view them as everybody else?
Boyle: They should, too!
Hunsley: We are messed up! We've got to get back and look at everyone the way Christ looks at them.
Boyle: If you could rewind time and go back to when you were just getting started in disability ministry, what's maybe one thing that would have helped you shorten the path from struggling through an issue to finally conquering that, and getting onto really understanding a particular issue or struggle, or being able to minister more effectively? What's that one thing that you think could really encourage somebody just getting started in Disability Ministry today?
Hunsley: I'm actually going to cheat. I'm going to give you 2 because they're hand in hand with each other, and I kind of touched on it a little bit earlier. There's a myth that's out there; I bought into that myth when I was first starting. I was concerned about it too much, concerned that I was not able to do ministry the right way at the beginning.
Hunsley: That myth is—'if you build it, they will come.’ If you hang the placard “Disability Ministry,” everyone's going to start coming.
Hunsley: Well, I then learned ‘shame on me.’ I should have known better. I'm a parent and as a parent, I know my child with special needs. I wasn't about to take my son Mark somewhere unless I knew they could take care of him. There was no way I would drop him off unless I knew for sure they'd be able to do that.
Hunsley: So just because the church says, ‘Oh, we've got this disability ministry,’ I'm not going to take their word for it. Whose word will I take? I will take my friend’s word, who has a child with special needs, who goes to your church, and they say ‘You ought to come visit our church. They do a fabulous job with their disability ministry. They take care of my daughter Susie, and it's great. You know what? They can handle her.’
Hunsley: I’ll think, I think they can handle my son. I'll try it out. And so it grows slowly. Don’t be concerned that, oh, we've got to be ready for this huge thing.
Hunsley: Sometimes we try to build this huge mass of volunteers before we get that and so we make it a lot harder. What I have found, it grows slow. A lot of people go, “Hold up. Doc, you built it. They came.”
Hunsley: Yeah, we went from 3 to 800. That took eight years and went slow. And then as we got bigger, it really exploded and it grew because we had more people sharing more. It's not because we were promoting.
Hunsley: But what it comes down to: just take care of who you already have and really focus on them. What I have found, out of all the 500 plus churches I've worked with, God will always provide you the volunteers. They'll always provide you the volunteers.
Boyle: Yes, high school students—no matter where they go to school, they need volunteer hours.
Hunsley: They do, they do.
Boyle: That's a huge resource that most communities have access to in some way.
Hunsley: the other thing that I wish I knew at the very beginning—I'm actually going to do a talk on this at the conference, so I'm not going to give it all away, but I'm going to do it today!
Boyle: Oh, no, don't give away all the goodies!
Hunsley: I'm going to give a quick take for it [this topic], but it's the four most important letters when it comes to volunteer recruitment. It's ICNU. You have to come and watch in the Quick Takes. You can either come to the conference, and those are also though being recorded in stream.
Hunsley: So you’ve got a chance to be able to see that, even if you can't be there in person.
Boyle: That's right.
Hunsley: So you'll find out at the conference what ICNU means when it comes to volunteer recruitment—that's something I wish I knew at day one, because it's made my life so much easier in recruiting volunteers. I have a 90 to 95% success rate using those four important letters.
Boyle: That's a pretty high percentage right there, Doc! And that’s a great lead into what we started talking about, and that's the conference. Key Ministry’s national disability ministry conference called Disability And The Church 2023, or DATC 2023, is going to be the weekend of April 28th and 29th in Cleveland, but Doc is going to actually be available on Thursday, April 27th for what we're calling an intensive on Disability Ministry 101.
Boyle: If you are a ministry leader who either has never been involved in disability ministry, or you just really want to learn from somebody who knows his stuff, Doc has worked with over 500 churches to this point. He's done a lot of different things in disability ministry, and really helped push the movement forward. It would be a great add-on to the conference for you to be able to come that afternoon and attend his presentation, be able to learn from others, and learn from Doc directly.
Boyle: If you are just getting ready to start a disability ministry, this is really something that we hope you will consider and take advantage of this opportunity.
Boyle: To wrap up today, Doc, why do you want the listeners to attend Disability And The Church 2023 that last weekend of April?
Hunsley: One of the first things why everybody should come to this amazing conference—the 1st and most important one I'd say is the networking. You're going to be able to meet other people who are like-minded and realize you're not all alone.
Boyle: That's right.
Hunsley: So many times we can feel we’re the only one who's dealing with a problem, but that's not true. [At the conference] you'll realize that there's a lot of resources; you'll realize, ‘Oh my gosh, I can pick up a phone and call Doc anytime and he can help me; Oh my gosh, I now know people at Key Ministry and they can help me, and all the other great speakers.’
Hunsley: Trust me, I'm great friends with all of them. They will all talk with you and help you. We've all got an amazing heart to help you through everything.
Hunsley: The other thing too, let's talk about just disability ministry as a whole: why you need to be at this conference, whether you already have a ministry, or you're thinking about starting one or you don't even know if you should do it or not.
Hunsley: Let's look again real fast at Luke 14. Luke 14 is where we get the biblical command to welcome individuals with disabilities into the church, and it's so important that Jesus gives the command not once, but twice.
Boyle: That's right.
Hunsley: But there's two parts of that I want to hit real fast. One is the very first part that gets skipped over all the time. Jesus says, ‘Go Now, go now into the streets and bring in the lane, the blind and give them a seat at the table, in the church.’ Jesus doesn't say, ‘Go when you're ready, go when you have the money, go when you have the volunteers,’ He says, ‘Go now. Get them there now.’
Hunsley: Because the Church needs those with disabilities as much as those with disabilities needs the church.
Hunsley: Then my other favorite part that everybody misses out on—and I'm tired of seeing the Church just miss out on this—at the end of it, Jesus later says, ‘Give individuals with disabilities a seat of honor at the table of the church.’ Let them be seen. Don't just hide them, but let them be seen. Have them be actively involved. Why? He goes on and says ‘So that you will be blessed. So that the church will be [blessed].’
Hunsley: People, if you are not doing this, your church is missing out on blessing. What am I talking about? I already gave a perfect example. My church went from 3 individuals to 800, 20 volunteers to 2500. We went from 1000 to 5000 at one campus, to three campuses, plus an online community. That's blessing.
Hunsley: I've got another small church that had 100 people in it. They felt God calling them to do this. They started a disability ministry. They now have a disability ministry with 25 people in it and their church now has 150. That's blessing! It doesn't matter if you've got a small church or large. I've helped churches as small as 5-10 people and as large as 30,000.
Hunsley: God calls all of us to welcome families and individuals with disabilities. This conference will give you the tool belt that you need to be able to welcome them in any environment, and you'll have continued networking that you'll be able to meet with people, have multiple things going on.
Hunsley: Key Ministry has multiple things, SOAR has multiple things where you continue to meet with others and continue to get answers to your questions and be built up. We will always have questions, we might always have that difficult individual that we don't know what to do with. But that's easy. Just make a phone call. Send an e-mail, and all of a sudden ,you've got a this entire army who will help you out, because the last thing we ever want to do is send somebody away and say they're not welcome.
Boyle: That's right.
Hunsley: This conference will help empower you to learn how you can welcome everybody.
Boyle: Absolutely. If you are a young ministry leader out there listening to this, or a young person who's looking for a direction and ministry, this is kind of where the action is, in my opinion, in the Church right now. The world is waking up to the fact that people with disabilities exist and that we have been neglecting people who not only need to know about Jesus, but have ministry gifts to give the body of Christ as well.
Boyle: So if you're a young leader, this is a great opportunity to come learn from some pioneers who have made the way forward for the Church as a whole, like Doc, and many, many others who will be at the conference that last weekend of April.
Boyle: Doc, thank you so much for your time today. And I do encourage you to go to the Key Ministry website, keyministry.org and check out the tab for Disability And The Church, or DATC 2023. You'll find information about Doc, his presentations, as well as all the other speakers and opportunities for you to sign up and join us that last weekend of April in Cleveland.
Boyle: For the Key Ministry team, I'm Catherine Boyle. Thank you so much for joining me today, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Hunsley: Thank you.
