In this week’s episode, all four of our regular hosts are recording together to answer some rapid fire questions, round robin style. Do you want to hear about our favorite books, podcast and ministry stories? Then this episode is for you.
Listen now in your favorite podcast app!
Quick Links:
Fresh Hope for Families with Disabilities
Garett’s book recommendation: The Life We Never Expected by Andrew and Rachel Wilson
Catherine’s book recommendations: Hebrew Greek Key Word Study Bible, Bel Canto, and Cold Mountain
Beth’s book recommendation: Unexpected Blessings: The Joys and Possibilities of Life in a Special Needs Family
Sandra’s book recommendation: Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow
Beth’s app recommendations: Through the Word app, Asana, and Evernote
Garett’s app recommendations: Google Calendar and Outlook
Sandra’s podcast recommendation: The Rising Above podcast (specifically Episodes 177 and 178)
Catherine’s podcast recommendation: Blurry Creatures
Beth’s podcast recommendation: Champions 4 Parents
Garett’s podcast recommendations: Deepen with Pastor Joby and Bobby cast with Bobby Bones
Key Ministry: the Podcast Episode List
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
009: Disability is Beautiful with Beth Golik and Ryan Wolfe
22: An Interview with Laura Howe on the Church Mental Health Summit with Catherine Boyle
036: Acceptable and Accessible Churches with Chris Hulshof and Sandra Peoples
Transcript:
Sandra: Hi friends, you are listening to episode 065 of Key Ministry: the Podcast, and we have an extra fun episode planned for this week. All four of our regular hosts are recording together to answer some rapid fire questions, round robin style. Do you want to hear about our favorite books, podcast and ministry stories? Then this episode is for you. So let's jump in and get started. So, hi everybody.
Beth: Hello.
Sandra: It's so fun to see faces while we get to record voices today. This is going to be such a fun episode!
Garett: I like this better than being by myself. I'll be honest with you, this is fun.
Sandra: Yeah, I know if only our schedules worked like this to work this out every week, that would be pretty fun. So, okay, we're going to each ask each other questions and go around the circle and share our answers with our audience. And so Garett, you have the first question.
Garett: Alright, so let's kick it off with all of us sharing one of our favorite Bible stories or verses related to special needs ministry.
Garett: And I'll start us. For me, this probably changed recently, but it's Acts 3-4, I think I talked about it last month. But the story of Peter and John and them healing the man who could not walk. I've always loved the reference to Peter and John being ordinary common men and them being recognized as having been with Jesus because of the boldness. And so that, combined with the work they did to heal the man, but then obviously to allow him to be a part of what they were doing and to be a part of their ministry. Just love that and it gives me hope for what we're doing in our church and in our ministries. Alright, we're going to go on around the room. We're going to start with you, Beth.
Beth: Alright, well thank you Garett. So I'm going to actually look right up at my wall for mine because mine is actually in lettering on my wall. Not necessarily disability ministry related, but I think just a really good reminder for me in ministry and in life. And that is John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you'll bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing” and that's just a really good reminder for me. Catherine?
Catherine: So this has been one of my favorite passages for a long time and it's 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, which is the one that talks about comforting others with the comfort that you receive from God. And this can apply to so many things: I've heard this referred to for people who've gone through cancer, and they come alongside other people who are coming along behind them who have cancer. But oh boy, this so applies to what we do in disability and mental health kind of ministry as well. So Sandra, you're next.
Sandra: Alright, those are such great answers. I picked one that is very disability specific because it's a story I think that we hear a whole lot, especially around Easter, but I hadn't really put together the story with the disability aspect to it. And so it comes from Matthew 21, and this is the last week of Jesus's life and he is in the temple area and this is when he sees the money changers and he drives them out and he's turning over tables, and he's reminding them of the purpose of God's area around the temple and what its purpose is. And then the very next verse after that story is verse 14, and it says, the blind and the lame came to him in the temple. And so I mean, what we do, there are tons of obstacles for people with disabilities coming to church and having a relationship with Christ. And what we do in disability ministry is knock over those obstacles and make a way for people to come close to Jesus. And so man, just that verse, if I need a little pep, a little reminder of what we do, I read that passage and I'm like, okay, let's do it. Let's turn over some tables, let's get busy and let's make this happen. So right now that's my favorite passage.
Catherine: I'm question number two. This is Catherine. So share how God has confirmed to you that you should be working in disability ministry.
Catherine: So that might be answered prayer or a chain of events, something like that. So Garett, I'll start with you.
Garett: Oh goodness, you're going to put me on the spot. So for me it was a chain of events. I was a mid-career change from another career path into ministry at 41 years old. And so for me it was a chain of events of the Lord clearly leading me out of ministry and me just sort of taking steps of faith and not really knowing what I was going to walk into, but him opening doors and providing clarity with each step until literally I landed in the position I'm at now here at Southeast. And it's one of those things looking back that if I had wanted to manipulate life and create that—I couldn't have, I'm not creative enough. It was clearly the Lord confirming each step of faithfulness for me and my wife and our family.
Catherine: That's awesome. I guess I should have answered myself before pointing the finger at somebody else. So I'll go ahead and answer for me, too. So I have a business background. My husband and I very clearly felt like I should stay home with our little kids once our daughter was born. But I always knew, I had this feeling that God had something in store for me with writing or ministry, but I didn't know what and he just started opening some doors. I mean it was very simple, small in-my-church kind of things. But over time, particularly starting about nine years ago, I just really sensed that he was calling me back to ministry. I had stepped into a corporate job for a season and he just made it so abundantly clear. There was just really no getting away from the fact that he was calling me to mental health ministry of some kind. And then over time I have all these really weird connections to a project I worked on at the bank. The last big project I worked on was on a key account, and then I used a key word study bible and all these things that are related to keys. So God is very cool that way in my life and I know in y'all's lives too. So anyway, alright, whoever would like to go next.
Beth: I can go. So my first paid gig, if you will, in disability ministry, I literally felt that nudge, like that tap on the shoulder literally felt that it was not something I was pursuing or looking to reenter the workforce type of thing. So in other words, it wasn't my idea. And that's how I know God really had a plan for me to step into this role. Sandra?
Sandra: That's very cool. I love hearing your stories. That's not a question that we ask often enough, I think. How did you get into this? How did God call you into this? I grew up with a sister with Down syndrome and have a son with autism and I'm married to a pastor, so if I want to go to church, we have to create a disability ministry in the churches where we are. But it's fun to be able to see what works for our church and then encourage other churches to do that. Especially, I especially have a passion for normal sized churches who are just reaching one family and then that one family, maybe five families, and it's a little bit different to equip a small or normal sized church than it is these really big churches. And so right now that's kind of my sweet spot to help a church go from, hey, we have this family that keeps showing up and we want to do what we can and through my role with our state convention, get to help support them in that ministry.
Beth: That's actually, I love that. And it's a good segue into my question for everybody, which is because you talked about smaller or normal sized churches and no matter what the size of your church, what ministry project would you undertake if you had an unlimited budget?
Beth: And I think for me at my church, what would be really helpful is to have a dedicated space, like a sensory area, classroom type space for use for both our inclusive Sunday morning, but also just so we're not having to move things in and out in a room that's used by lots and lots of things throughout the week at the church. If we could have a wing would be lovely. Garett, how about you?
Garett: So we're a larger church and we have a dedicated space, but having seen, I dunno if any of you have been to Brentwood Baptist Church, they have a new, really large building that they use. And so seeing something like that is really neat. So there are times and I'm like, man, that would be really fun for our ministry. But I think even bigger than that, I would love to be able to offer a respite house, something like Jill's house at McLean Bible Church, the impact that has on so many families both in your church and in the community that are unchurched. I think it opens some really cool doors for ministry opportunities and that is not an easy thing to create and I love that they do it, but I think it would be really cool to have a respite house sort of facility and operation that could love on our families and help care for the family, care for the marriage, care for the siblings, care for everyone, not just our friends with the disabilities.
Beth: Before I call the next person, I want to do a P.S. to what I said because I was having too small of a vision. I mean seriously, if money was just not even an issue, being able to get the right people and the right resources together to create some type of community that includes housing and a faith component and employment. I think there's a huge need. I feel like there are a ton of families that are seeking this right now and wouldn't that be cool to help make that happen. Catherine?
Catherine: Yep, totally agree with both you and Garett. It’s a giant need. Well, I'm going to answer this in two ways. My church has just taken baby steps into official disability ministry, and so I'd love to see some funding to make that be just huge and successful in every way. I'm confident that what we are undertaking is going to be successful from God's view and also from the world's view. So that's real exciting. From a Key Ministry perspective, I've been working off and on on this project for about a year, on finding God's ministry purpose. And the reason that I love this is because I just love the transformational stories, because Jesus was the master storyteller, in addition to everything else that he is. And so many times people really are so moved by the stories of what only God can do. And so I would spend a lot more time and devote a lot of resources if we had that available to Key, to just pump out those transformational stories all day long.
Sandra: Yeah, that would be really cool. That's really cool. And I wrote down, similar to what Garett said, Jill's house at McLean, but something that I think would be really cool too is have some kind of funding available for grants that churches could apply for. I mean, like Catherine said, her church is just getting started, because a lot of churches, I mean—we all have limitations. So what we're doing, and I hate that money is a limitation to what churches can do. I hate that they sit around and say, well, we would do this, we just need money. And I mean, we serve a god of abundance and we serve a God who answers those prayers, but if there was just one place they could go and one place they could apply to and there would be just these grants that they could get and we say, okay, well we'll start you out with 10,000 or we'll start you out with 20,000 and let's just see what you can do with it. That would be, I mean, if we're dreaming big, I would say some kind of process where people apply for grant aid and we get to give it and then they get to make their ministry dreams come true, that would be really cool.
Garett: You could see Sandra. She'd be like Oprah, just you get a disability ministry. You get a disability ministry!
Sandra: Who knows, maybe somebody's listening to this podcast right now and they've got deep pockets and we can hook them up with needy churches. So that would be really cool. Okay, my question is the next one. And we're going to go from these big ideas and big dreams to what is actually happening in our lives and in our churches and in our ministries that we are excited about coming this year.
Sandra: And I wear a lot of different hats. So I have my church, I have my role through my state convention, and then I'm teaching classes at Liberty University. And so it was a little hard for me to narrow down which one I am the most excited about, but I think what would be the most helpful is for me to create some resources for the questions that I get asked over and over again. So I'm getting asked the same questions across all of these from churches and from students. And so one thing that I'm working toward this year that I'm excited about is just saying, okay, I've gotten this question five times, let me write a post about it on my website and send people there. And that way I'm not answering the same question, which I don't ever mind answering questions, but organizing the help, putting it all in one place, that's a goal that I'm excited about that could happen this year. So Catherine, what are you excited about?
Catherine: Well, I've been working on a project since the end of ‘22 with Fresh Hope for Mental Health, and it's a collaborative project between the Fresh Hope team and Key Ministry. We're calling it Fresh Hope for Families with Disabilities. We're coming to the end of our pilot period. We've had a couple of different pilot groups underway and it seems like it's gone really well with the participants and the facilitators. And so we're starting to move into that next phase of the project where we refine the curriculum, we actually roll it out. We're working on the website landing page now and that kind of thing. And there's just not a lot that's out there that supports the mental health needs of families that have disabilities. And so I think the idea was pretty genius and it really is a good representation of what Key does well, which is the mental health support with disabilities and collaboration. So we're hoping to do more of that kind of thing in the future with other organizations, too.
Sandra: That's very cool. All right, Garett, what do you have coming up this year?
Garett: Yeah, so we're still in the early stages of it. We've talked about it. We've met with some of our families and some of our volunteers, but it's something we're calling our Family Care initiative. We're fortunate we've created a lot of programming and a lot of pathways into the church for our kids, teens and adults with disabilities. But one area that we want to really come alongside more aggressively are the families and the volunteers in our ministry. How do we shepherd them more effectively in their lives? And so specific to families, one thing I didn't mention was how the Lord led me and confirmed I'm in ministry is I also have a son with Down syndrome and autism and Sensory processing disorder and church was hard for us. Church is still hard for us, even though I'm on staff at a church where we are super equipped for families like ours, it's still hard and it strains the marriage and it puts a strain on siblings and it's a challenge.
And so how do we create intentional pathways for our families for the healthy marriage and the siblings: are those workshops, are those short or long-term Bible studies? Are those respite events, whatever. We are still trying to figure that out, but just a higher level of intentionality as a church and as a ministry to better shepherd the families in our ministry. And again, the same thing with our volunteers. We have so many volunteers on the weekend, in their community, supporting our ministry in so many ways, and so how do we shepherd them? How do we equip them? How do we come alongside them in life so that they're more than just a person who serves 90 minutes or two hours every week? They know that we care about them the other six days of the week. And so, it's kind of a big undertaking, but it's exciting because it speaks to me, I mean, as a husband, as a dad of a family impacted by disability, how do we as the church do more to shepherd these families?
Sandra: Yeah, that's awesome. That's really helpful. That'll be cool. You'll have to give us updates on your progress on that. That would be interesting to all of us. Okay. Beth, what are you excited about?
Beth: Wow. So you all know that Key Ministry puts on conferences, Disability and The Church, and I'm pretty excited about what we'll be announcing soon in regard to conferences for 2024. So that's all I can say about that right now. But stay tuned.
Sandra: Hey, if you're excited, we're excited because we know it's going to be good news if you're excited about it. So that's very cool. All right, Garett, do you have the next question?
Garett: I don't love that Beth rolled the grenade out there but left the pin in it. You actually left the pin in the grenade! It's not going to—okay, that's fine. Beth, you do that to us. That's fine. All right, next question for everybody. What is your favorite book, Sandra?
Garett: This was a question you suggested and I rolled with it and then I thought, do I actually have a favorite book? I have a lot of books I like, and so I'll start with a book that I've read recently that really landed in obvious ways for me was The Life We Never Expected by Andrew and Rachel Wilson. Andrew's a pastor in the UK and he and his wife Rachel have two kiddos with autism. And I love the book: A. because it's a bunch of very small chapters and as someone who just reads better with that kind of short attention span, but it is the type of book that I think it resonates with a family like mine, but B. I also think it is written in a way that can help create a better understanding and sort of that pathway from sympathy to empathy to compassion for pastors and church leaders, and people who maybe don't understand our world to better understand how to come alongside our families and just love on us.
It's not always fix-it mode, but it's always never fix-it mode. It is just sort of how to be able to sympathize and empathize and then obviously have compassion where action's needed. And so love the way the book's written and it just resonates with me and my family. My wife and I both have read it and she was like, whoa, this book is so good. I'm like, I told you.
Sandra: It is a good one. I recommend it, too.
Garett: Oh, I'm supposed to go next. Beth, what's your favorite book?
Beth: I have some titles. I'm in a book club and it's not disability ministry related, it's not even ministry related. So to me, whatever has the most discussion. So it doesn't mean everybody likes the book; usually it means that there are people that really don't like the book, some that really do like the book. As far as disability ministry related books go, I'll say this, but you're going to make fun of me for this, but I love Sandra People's book, Unexpected Blessings: The Joys and Possibilities of Life in a Special Needs Family, and I actually, I just give that book to people, especially if there's a family with a new diagnosis. So I'm not being cheesy. I really do like that book.
Sandra: Thank you.
Garett: That's a terrific answer. Terrific answer. We've given it to our families here as well, but it is, it's not ironic that she's on the screen.
Beth: I know.
Garett: Catherine, what about you?
Catherine: Well, as somebody who has a gazillion books, I am a very fast reader and I read extremely broadly. So I know a little bit about a lot of different things, but that makes me an expert in basically nothing! But I'm a total bible nerd. I mentioned earlier I have a Hebrew Greek key word study Bible, and so I have done serious numbers of hours in learning the context of scripture and that kind of thing. So I've read lots and lots of books that are around understanding obscure things in the Bible that I always say that nobody cares about but me. But that's not entirely true because there's books out there about them. I love things that are about prophecy and understanding obscure things in the Old Testament. And then I like really, really well-written fiction. I don't read very much fiction, but every now and then there's like—it used to be, before people had electronic readers, you'd see people with a book that was really popular and that was kind of like, oh, I'm seeing that everywhere. I should probably look into that. And so my two favorites from long ago before E-readers were Bel Canto and Cold Mountain.
Sandra: Very cool. I haven't read either one of your fiction favorites, so—
Catherine: I highly recommend—very different books from one another.
Sandra: Yeah, good. Okay. So my favorite book, in fact, we did this, we had a book club at church this summer and I got to pick the book for the ladies to read, and I picked one that I read at least once a year. It is just a go-to book for me. In fact, as I read it this summer, I thought I didn't even know all of the things that I had absorbed from this book and just made mine because I had read it so often. And it is by Linda Dillow and it is called Calm My Anxious Heart. And so I think it fits really well for parents of kids with disabilities. We have a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry. There's a chapter on comparison. You compare your life to somebody else's life and how that can make you feel jealous. And so it works really well as a parent. It works really well as a ministry leader. Lots of things that are outside of our control, especially in disability ministry where you just don't know what kids are going to show up on a Sunday and how you're going to meet all those needs. And so anyway, that's my favorite go-to, read it once a year. It's called Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow.
Catherine: We have that book. We have lots of books.
Sandra: Yeah, it's one of the many on your shelf. Good one.
Catherine: Okay, so I'm up next. So my question is share your favorite ministry story.
Catherine: Could be a success, could be a failure, could be God showing up in a big way. So I'll go ahead and answer this. So years ago, one of the first big ministry things that God led me to was to lead the women's retreat at my church. And we went off campus once a year. Usually there was like a hundred to 125 women who would go. We had a speaker come from outside, etc. And so it was basically a much smaller version of event management that we do for DATC. Anyway, we had a lot of people that wanted to come but were not able to for financial reasons. And we had a very limited scholarship budget. And so it got to the point where I just knew that God was leading us—through all the prayer and all the energy we had poured into this—to let as many people as possible come to this retreat.
And I mean, I am very frugal. And so it was like—if we personally have to make up the difference after the retreat, then I am committed to doing that. And so anyway, we got to the retreat weekend and it was just beautiful weather Friday, Saturday, and it's up in the mountains of Virginia. And Sunday morning we woke up to five inches of snow and it was coming down hard. And so the retreat people, our schedule was to stay through lunchtime. The retreat people made us leave before lunch. They gave us no choice. And because they made us leave, they said, well, we're going to refund you for the cost of the lunch. And I said, no, no, no, you have paid for this. You have staff here. Oh, no, they insisted. And so who's not going to be surprised that when all of the finances were cleared, we were positive like $99 as a result of being refunded for that lunch. So it was something only God can do. And I knew even then that he was honoring our commitment to people and all of the prayer that had been put in to that work that was so important. Okay, so Sandra, what's your favorite ministry story?
Sandra: Well, I mentioned earlier that my husband's a pastor and when he interviewed at the church where we are now, he's up in front of the whole [church], so there's a whole process, and for a long time you're just meeting with the committee and then when the committee likes you, you get to go up before the church and we call it ‘preaching in view of a call.’ And you do that, and then you do a question and answer. And this was my part too, so I got to be part of the question and answer. And so we're asking each other questions. It's kind of like dating, right? We're getting to know you, you're getting to know us. And so one of my questions was, do you have a disability ministry at this church? Because they were taking on, I wasn't going to be a pastor's wife who sat at home with James, Sunday after Sunday; there needed to be a ministry so that we could attend. And they said, no, we don't have a ministry. And I said, okay, well if you hire Lee, you'll have to have a ministry. And they said, great, sign us up. We'll do it.
Some people talk about, well, it must be easier to work at a church and get what you want for your disability ministry when your husband's the pastor. And I'm like, well, he's not the only decision maker. And he wasn't the decision maker that day. The whole church had to be on board to hire somebody when they knew they would have to start a new ministry in order to meet that pastor's needs. And so it was just such an affirmation to say, okay, this is the right place for us because they're willing. Now, of course, you don't know everything you're saying yes to when you say yes at that stage, but the first step is willingness and saying, yeah, I'm going to put my yes on the table and we're going to see where God takes us. And so it just felt like this church was going to be our home because they were willing to say yes to every member of our family during that interview process.
Catherine: That's really cool. Okay, Beth, what's your story?
Beth: So as you probably know, in addition to being on the staff at Key Ministry, I'm also on staff at a church as a director of disability engagement. And part of in my role, I get to run the respite events. And I realized recently that some of our volunteers serving at respite are former guests in our respite events. So either they were kids with disabilities or the siblings of the kids with disabilities. And I just think it's so cool, it's kind of come full circle and just the opportunity for everyone to, I just think it's just so cool to watch and it's cool to see these, they're teens and adults now, but I knew them as kids and now they're serving.
Catherine: That's awesome. Okay. Garett, what's your favorite ministry story?
Garett: Yeah, one, it's about a family that came to us, gosh, it's been about two years now. They lived in Hawaii and they have multiple kids, but they have, their youngest is a daughter with Down syndrome and they lived in Hawaii, and one of their other daughters lived here in Louisville and had been to Southeast a little bit where we're at, but started learning more, heard about us launching our cafe, and the family was struggling to find community for their daughter with Down syndrome in Hawaii. She was about to be 18 years old and they were just struggling. They were struggling in their church, and they decided to come to Louisville and visit the other daughter and her family and to see the church. They decided to come visit as we were launching the cafe; I remember the day they came in and they literally stayed around the cafe almost all day.
They went to our ministry space and saw it, and in that journey, they made the decision to sell everything they had and quit their jobs. The dad owned a landscaping business in Hawaii. He sold out and they decided to pick up and move. And it was mom, dad, daughter, grandmother, grandfather. The whole crew moved from Hawaii to Louisville. And a big part of the reason why they moved was our church and our ministry. Louisville has a great support system for Down syndrome, Down Syndrome of Louisville is a great partner of our church. And so there was all of these resources, but when they came in and saw the church and saw opportunities for the daughter to serve in the cafe and to be poured into and to find community, I mean, I remember mom was basically in tears walking around the church, and then a week later they came back and she said, you have no idea the impact that was, because she said, we heard later from people in Hawaii who were praying specifically for some of the things that we saw in your church that we didn't even know until we told them.
And so it was just really cool to see God put puzzle pieces together for this family, and their willingness to just say, Hey, we're going to move across the country because our daughter needs more than what we can give them in this community. And our church was a piece in that puzzle. It wasn't the only piece, but to see the Lord use that is cool. Now she serves in the cafe, she's in our classes, they're super immersed in our church, and it's really cool to see them growing spiritually and to see how the Lord used our ministry as a vital piece in that.
Beth: Love that. That's really cool. All right, well, I get to ask the next question. And I know the three of you are all very busy people. You have families, you wear multiple hats, many of you have multiple jobs. So what is one app or one strategy that you use to stay organized in your ministry or in your life?
Beth: I'll go first. So I have a couple of apps that I use every single day. I do my quiet time in the morning in the Through the Word app, but then I use Asana to organize my life and I use Evernote to keep track of some of—you can kind of store records and things in there. So I am constantly looking at those two apps and I have them on my phone, on my laptop and everything else. So let's see. Sandra, I'll pick on you next. I know you like yourself an app every now and then.
Sandra: I do like an app. I do have an overarching theory though that kind of guides it. And I wrote it down, I thought it was worth sharing. It's from David Allen, who's a guy who's really great at time Management, and he says, “your mind is for having ideas, not for holding them.” And I thought that's pretty helpful. I'm putting too much pressure on my brain to remember all the things. And so it was kind of permission to say, my brain can have the ideas, but it doesn't have to hold the ideas. And so I like a lot of different apps, but my most favorite thing is just a legal pad that I keep next to my laptop and I am just, every meeting I have and everything I do, I draw a line and then I take notes for the next meeting. And then all of those notes can go to the different apps that they need to, whether that's into Google's somewhere like a shared Google document where we use one of those to play in this podcast. That's a really helpful tool, all those different tools. But everything that comes to my mind first goes old school analog legal pad. I use a pencil and not even a pen so that I can erase things. But that's my most favorite tool right now.
Beth: I use that tool as well, although I have a certain pen that I use, but I have to list things out and I love crossing things off the list. So in Asana I can actually check mark and cross things off the list. So let's see. Garett.
Garett: Yeah, so I probably need to research some of these apps you're talking about. So for just my daily schedule, I just use Outlook because it just goes in my calendar and there it is. And I am very electronic with everything I do, although I used to write everything down and then I would find that I didn't have that particular notepad with me when I wanted to see what I'd written down. And so I use Google Calendar a lot for just ideas or tasks or projects, a, because I have a lot of ongoing weekly tasks. And so you can just set it up to, Hey, every Monday I have this set of things, but I also really just being able to see what I'm doing and put a date on it. I am—I like to say I'm deadline driven, when I'm really just a procrastinator. And so if I don't put it on a date, it's less likely that I will actually do it. And so I can write a million things down, but if it's not done with a date and I can't trick myself into thinking there's a deadline, then I won't do it. And so I really benefit from putting things in Google Calendar and putting it on a date and just saying, Hey, this is when this is due. And it just helps me sort of be able to track what I'm doing and all my tasks and projects and whatever.
Beth: That is extremely relatable. And Catherine and I work pretty closely together in Key Ministry and she knows I am much better if you give me a date to have it done, it's more likely to get done. Catherine?
Catherine: So I've been using Asana now for I guess over a year. And it's incredibly helpful for a lot of the things that we do in Key Ministry since we aren't together very often. Our team is—everybody lives in a different city except for Beth and Steve, and Asana is hugely helpful for big project management. And so I really like that for things like DATC and some of the other things we have going on; we used a similar kind of thing for this Fresh Hope for Families with Disabilities project that we have underway. I'm old school, too. I keep a notebook by my laptop all the time and take notes, and then I make copies and file things where they go. It just helps me if I use the pen to actually write down the thoughts, it helps me remember a lot better. And then I also use the calendar app that's on my phone all the time. I've kept things in a calendar ever since it was a paper calendar notebook kind of thing 30 years ago, that was my intermediate filing system, and it's still sort of like that with the digital calendar today.
Sandra: Those are super helpful. Thank you for everybody sharing those. Okay, I have the last question, and it could be the shortest answer because it's what podcast— besides our podcast—what podcast is your favorite one to listen to?
And so my favorite, I'm glad I get to go first on this one because we may all have very similar favorites. So my favorite one, Catherine's shaking her head because she is going to be the outlier, which surprises no one! So my favorite is The Rising Above podcast. Becky Davidson is the—I think she is one of the best podcast podcast hosts out there. I mean, I've told her to her face that she is so good, but she and Kim Thorpe, who works with her, they did two episodes a couple of weeks ago about just anxiety and trauma and how they experienced those as special needs moms.
And Kim shares, her daughter had a traumatic birth and she kind of held on to some things that she didn't even realize she was holding onto. So I recommend that podcast just across the board, but if you're looking for a place to start with that podcast, go back just a few weeks and do those two episodes with Becky and Kim. And then on the second one, their therapist is the guest and she talks about it. And so I mean, it was just really helpful to hear people say, this is what anxiety looks like in me and this is how I'm processing trauma and here's helped. And I think that benefits a lot of special needs parents and some things that they may have just been stuffing down and not processing, but the change between you do it and after you do it before God works in your life and after is just amazing. So that's the podcast I recommend. So Catherine, why don't you go next on this one?
Catherine: Blurry Creatures. Check it out. It's one of these—it is incredibly popular right now, not lying, but it's about all these weird things in the Bible with people who've done the 10,000 or 20,000 hours researching and studying and understanding ancient structures, civilizations, blah, blah, blah. And also a lot of fringe kind of things in our culture right now. Okay, cool. It's good combination.
Sandra: Blurry creatures, you said? Blurry creatures. Okay. Very cool. Beth, what's yours?
Beth: So I love champions 4 parents, and that's Tom and Julie Meekins. They are delightful. They're just so relatable and it's a podcast for parents of kids with disabilities, but also for ministry leaders. So that's a favorite of mine. And then in non ministry, I'm a big fan of the office ladies.
Sandra: That's a good choice. That's a fun one. You need all those behind the scenes secrets that they share, right? Exactly.
Beth: Exactly.
Sandra: You got to be in the know. Very good. All right, Garett, what's your favorite?
Garett: Yeah, so my favorite, I'm going to do two because it's the last question and I'm the last answer. The first one, it's not special needs ministry related, but it's certainly faith in spiritual called Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. His church is Church of what's it called? Church 1122. It's in Jacksonville. It's just super—sort of what you were talking about, Catherine, I think when you were talking about, I think it was you, just one of you who mentioned just being the vine and being connected. It's just such a great podcast to just help me stay grounded in the most important thing, which is just being fueled by the Holy Spirit. And it sort of is a compliment to what they do as a church, but you don't have to be attending there. For instance, they went through nine weeks where they studied through Philippians, and so he had the sermon and then they did the podcast that went with it, to go deeper in what they were studying in Philippians.
And it is so good—which I love the book of Philippians. So if you do nothing else, just go back and listen to that, because just the way he teaches and the way he’s just so practical and applicable, and whether you're walking in special needs world or ministry or just trying to navigate this crazy life we have, it's super helpful. The other one, which is not ministry-related at all is the Bobby cast with Bobby Bones. I love music. I have no musical talent whatsoever, but I love hearing artists and songwriters talk about the process of what they do. And I think there's probably some jealousy for me in there because I'm not great at that, but I just love hearing the nuts and bolts of how songwriting and music and that stuff. And so Bobby's just a great host. He's had a lot of Christian artists and people in sort of ministry-related circles, spiritual circles lately, which is interesting. You can analyze that however you want, but it's pretty cool. He's had Chris Tomlin, For King and Country, different guys on there, but I'm a Bobby Bones fan, so there you go.
Sandra: That's cool. I've heard of Bobby Bones, but I didn't know that was what he did on his podcast. I just have seen him out there. But that's super interesting.
Garett: He just sits down and talks with somebody. It's just like an hour. It's long and it's literally just walking through, whether it's certain songs—I mean it's people in all various areas of the music industry, whether it's people in songwriting or in the corporate side or the artists themselves, and it's just cool.
Sandra: That is very cool. Alright, co-hosts, thanks for hanging out together, for making time. This was really fun. I feel like we got to know each other better. We have a list of things that we've mentioned that we want to check into. In fact, all the links that we mentioned are going to be in the show notes. And so our audience can go to keyministry.org/podcast and they'll find the show notes there and there'll be links to the podcasts that we mentioned, books that we mentioned, apps that we mentioned. All the things will be there in one spot, just like always. And so that is super helpful and we are so thankful that you joined us today. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a five star rating; that helps other people find us and know that listening to us is worth their time. Thanks for listening. We hope you have a great week. We're so excited that you join us week after week and just know, I mean, seriously friends, we pray for you guys. We pray for you as listeners, we want to be a resource for you. The people that you heard from today are an incredible resource in my life. And through this podcast, we get to reach more and more churches and ministry leaders and it's an awesome responsibility and we are so thankful that God gives us the opportunity to meet here week after week and spend time with you. And so just know that we are cheering for you, we're praying for you, and we are so thankful that you listen week after week.
