Elaina sits down and shares a few of the many reasons we have to celebrate here at Key Ministry this year. We are so grateful for all that the Lord has done in and through our ministry in 2024, and we can’t wait to see what he does in 2025!
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Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining us again on the Key Ministry Podcast. We cannot believe that 2024 is already coming to a close. We feel like it was just yesterday, we were making our resolutions and writing in our planners for this year. God has been so faithful to us this year and he has done so much for his kingdom through Key Ministry and in Key Ministry. But today I wanted to share some specific reasons we have to celebrate over here at Key Ministry. If you like this content, as always, make sure to subscribe anywhere you listen to the podcast, and we are always interested in hearing your thoughts, potential topics you would like to hear about and questions as they come up. So please make sure and email us at contact@keyministry.org or message us or comment on any of our social media platforms.
Okay, so we're going to start with one of the biggest blessings, one of the biggest reasons we have to celebrate this year, and that is this year's Disability and the Church conference. This conference took place in Orlando, Florida, which was the first time we hosted it in Orlando, and we had an incredible turnout. God used this conference to work in people's hearts, churches and relationships with each other and other ministry leaders. We had over 500 pastors, ministry leaders, and interested Christians. That is a 40% increase in attendance from our 2023 conference. We can't wait to see how God continues to grow this conference for his glory and our good. This year, we also hired a new operations director, Larah Roberts, who is already making incredible strides for Key Ministry, brings so much to the table and so many things that we have been praying for years.
We know that God will continue to use her this next year in our ministry for His glory. We cannot wait to see what else he has in store. Also, this year, president Steve Grcevich spoke at a number of conferences. Some of these conferences included D6, Children's Pastors Conference, Compelling, Incredible Witness, the Church and Youth Mental Health at Denver Seminary. Along with the compelling Incredible Witness Conference at the Colson Center and the Together Conference, he also joined the family's Physician Resource Council. Now, Beth Golik, our incredible ministry director, attended many of these same conferences along with a few new ones with Dr. Grcevich and they both together were able to collaborate with other ministry leaders, work together on solutions, and share the gospel and share all of the resources that we have to offer from Key Ministry on Disability Ministry, Mental Health Ministry, and Trauma Ministry.
We're so thankful that these two incredible people are representing Key Ministry in many, many parts of the country. Also, this year we were invited to the annual meeting of the In His Steps Foundation, where our Key Ministry Team received a grant to fund a regional disability ministry conference in Northeast Ohio. This conference will serve the prototype for our Disability and the Church tour stops that will be launched in 2026. So please pray for us as we prepare what this will look like and keep an eye out and see if any of these tour stops are close to where you live! We also this year, had our first ever Mental Health and the Church conference. This is something that we have been wanting to do for many years, and God graciously allowed us to finally put it up this year. Now, this was our first National Mental Health Ministry Conference.
We hosted over 100 attendees from across the country for two days of training and networking at Bay Presbyterian Church in suburban Cleveland. We are so thankful for the ways that God used this conference to connect us, to share information, to collaborate, to pray together, and to look at the future of Mental Health Ministry, not only in Key Ministry, but in other churches and other areas around the world. But by far, the biggest reason to celebrate is all of you. We're so thankful for every single person that looks at our content, uses our resources, contributes to our idea shares, disability ministry video round tables (DMVR), listens to our podcast and leaves, comments, reviews, and all of the different things that you guys are a part of. We're just so thankful that so many people have the same heart to pursue Disability Ministry and Mental Health Ministry. We know that this next year will be incredible because God is in control. He is the one spearheading all of these efforts and we are nothing without him. Our team is praying and excited to see what happens next year, and we fully trust that God will use it for His glory. We are just so thankful for you. Thank you so much for joining us on Key Ministry, the podcast. We cannot wait to talk to you next week.
For more of an in-depth look of all God has done through Key Ministry this year, see Dr. Grcevich’s blog post here; https://www.keyministry.org/church4everychild/2024/12/13/key-ministry-in-2024-a-year-of-unprecedented-impact