Sandra Peoples interviews Lexi Melia on her experiences as a disability ministry intern, and they share advice for ministry leaders who are looking for an intern for next summer!
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Lexi Melia is an incoming graduate student at the University of North Texas (UNT), where she will pursue a Master's in Applied Behavior Analysis starting in the spring. With a background in ministry and extensive experience working with both children and adults with disabilities, Lexi is passionate about supporting individuals in diverse settings. She is pursuing a career in disability ministry, with the ultimate goal of becoming a consultant for churches, helping them create more inclusive environments for people with disabilities.
Sandra Peoples: Hi, friends. This is Key Ministry, the podcast, episode 128, and today we're talking about disability ministry interns. Now I know it's December and you are busy juggling all the Christmas events happening at your church, but actually it's the perfect time to talk about the next super busy season for ministry leaders this summer. And if you're interested in having an intern next summer, the time to start planning for that is now. So today I'm joined by Lexi Melia, who I got to know when she was an intern at a church in Houston last summer. So we're going to talk about her experience as an intern, the advice she would give to ministry leaders looking for interns, and even steps for students who are interested in doing an internship. So Lexi, I'm so excited to have you on with me today. Why don't you take a second and introduce yourself.
Lexi Melia: Hi. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Lexi Melia. I am a 23-year-old, soon to be grad student at UNT. I started pursuing ministry when I was in college. I was in student ministry and was trying to figure out where I fit in and then slowly fell in love with disability ministry and then started seeking out opportunities to be able to serve in that capacity.
Sandra Peoples: That's awesome. Yeah, we met a couple of years ago at a family ministry conference and you were doing student ministry at the time, and then last summer when we saw each other again, you had really pivoted to disability ministry. So I love how God kind of took you down that path and...
Lexi Melia: He did. I'm very, very grateful for it too.
Sandra Peoples: It's really cool. So last summer you were interning at Champion Forest, which is a big church here in the Houston area, and so we're going to talk about your experience there, but you and I got to spend time together because you came down to my church, which is south of Houston over the summer when we were doing disability VBS. And so you and I got to talk about that and go out to lunch. That's been part of the experience of us getting to know each other and just really, you had a really fun summer.
Lexi Melia: I did.
Sandra Peoples: You had lots of surprises, probably some things you didn't know you were signing up for. I'm going to just ask you some questions about your experience and you can talk about all the things of what that looked like for you when you were interning at Champion Forest. Okay. So the first question, how did you get connected to that church, and then what advice would you give to a ministry leader who's looking for an intern?
Lexi Melia: I got connected actually through my mom. So I mean, some people that are listening probably know my mom, her name is Dr. Melia. She does a lot of conferences and stuff, and so she has a lot of connections through the ministry world, and I really just didn't know what my next steps were. I had just graduated. I had graduated college. I had been in the work field for about a year now in a school in special needs in middle school, and summer was coming up and I just didn't know what my next steps were because I knew I didn't want to go back to the school. And I was talking to my mom and my mom had mentioned Champion Forest to me a few times.
I decided, I was like, well, why don't I just reach out to them and see if they have any opportunities? I've never worked in disability ministry before, but I have lots of experience working with kids with disabilities. And so I was like, I wonder what that would look like in a church. And so we reached out to Stephanie Chase and we did an interview, and then they found me a host home, and I went and I remember I did not want to go at first. It was not my first option. I applied for a fun internship during the summer. I wanted to go to Hawaii for the summer and have a fun summer, but that fell through last minute and then this kind of just fell in my lap. And I remember telling God, I don't want to go to Houston. I'm from Dallas. I personally still think Dallas is better, but I went anyways and that's where I spent my entire summer. So
Sandra Peoples: Yeah, that's really cool. We had an intern a few summers ago and she's now the social media manager for Key Ministry. She will be editing podcast and it was through her mom that she came to be our intern. So it's funny that her story and your story are very similar. Now, when she came and interned for us, she did a combo of children and disability because Champion Forest is a huge church, but our church is a normative sized church. So she did both. So tell us a little bit about what the ministry looked like at Champion Forest. The building, I know they have a suite for special needs disability ministry. So tell us about the environments, the ages, kind of what it looked like once you got there and saw what you were going to be over.
Lexi Melia: So I genuinely had no idea. I grew up not in a small church, but in a medium-sized church I guess you would say. And there is nowhere in my area that has a ministry specifically for disabilities in any way. And so I genuinely had no idea what that would look like. And so when I got to Champion Forest, they have an entire suite for people with disabilities. They do ages, I think it is three up until adulthood. So every Sunday we would have a classroom for the Pre-Kers and elementary schoolers, and then we would have a classroom with our teens and a classroom with our adults. And so it was just a variety, a huge, huge range. My youngest would be three years old and my oldest would be 60-something years old. And so it was just a huge, huge range. And it was really, really cool to walk into a church that just had a space for disability ministry. I just had never seen it before. I had no idea what I was doing at all, but the fact that it was at the heart of the church and the church very much supports the ministry and is very, very passionate about it, is just something that I don't think you see a whole lot of throughout churches. I think we're getting there. I think we've made a lot of progress. But it was a little overwhelming at first, but then as the weeks went on, I started kind of getting the hang of it. But yeah,
Sandra Peoples: They had a disability ministry director, but then she stepped away before you got there, is that right?
Lexi Melia: Yeah, so she stepped away and then I was the intern for the summer, and then we had two people on Sundays who would help out on Sundays. So during the week I was the only one in the office for special needs. So it was a huge learning experience and I loved all of the challenges that I got, and I got to do a lot more than I thought I was going to get to do. So it was fun.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah. So what did you do during the week? You were under Stephanie, right? So Stephanie's the children's ministry director there. You worked most closely with her. And then besides Sunday, what were the things you did during the week at the church?
Lexi Melia: So my weeks were mostly planning for Sundays and other events. I think my second week was VBS.
Sandra Peoples: Oh, wow.
Lexi Melia: And it was the first time that they had done VBS for their disability ministry. Well, maybe it was my third week, I don't remember, but it was pretty soon when I got there that we did VBS. And so I spent a week helping plan VBS and getting materials together and making sure that the curriculum was adapted and planning where volunteers were going to be. Calling volunteers, that was a huge part of what I did was just calling people. I mean, I think I called hundreds and hundreds of people, just asking for volunteers. And then the week before VBS, we decided to open it up to adults, which is something we hadn't done before. And so I was calling every single person that had been in the last six months and being like, "Hey, we're having VBS, we want you to come." And so that was a huge part of what I did, was just connecting with people, training volunteers too. A lot of our volunteers did not have special needs background or disability background in any way. And so a lot of that was training them and preparing for Sundays. A lot of that was adapting the curriculum because we didn't have, well, we had Special Buddies, we had Special Buddies
Sandra Peoples: From Lifeway.
Lexi Melia: From Lifeway, which was great, but I wanted it to be even more accessible to a variety of people. And so I would take the Bible story and then I would go into Canva and I would create a picture story and a picture to go with every single thing. And then I would create interactive crafts and all of those things. And that was probably what consumed my time the most was laminating things and Velcro-dotting things so that people could learn about the story in different ways and a lot of sensory things, a lot of sensory bends. So a huge variety of things. And then I would also help out sometimes with some kids' ministry stuff because we were all in the same office. But yeah.
Sandra Peoples: That's a lot. What was your favorite thing that you did? I mean, whether that was an event or a role or conversations you had. What was the highlight of your internship?
Lexi Melia: I would say VBS. I remember it being a very, very hard and stressful week because I'm a perfectionist. So when I plan something, if it doesn't go the way that I plan, then I can get upset with myself. So the first few days were kind of adapting to a new environment. These kids don't know me, these volunteers don't know me. And it was stressful at first, and then I started to get the hang of it. And then at the end of the week, we had one of our kids with autism who I shared the gospel with dinosaur stickers. So sometimes you have to be creative. And he went home one day and he told his mom that he wanted to be baptized. So we do a massive baptism thing at the end of VBS, and he ended up getting baptized. And so he was a teenager and he was one of our ones that you would not have expected him. It's like we didn't even know you were listening, but it was super, super sweet. He was the first kid with a disability ever to be baptized at VBS. And so it was a pretty big moment. And when he was being baptized, I remember I was crying, his mom was crying, everyone was crying. He had this dinosaur plushy that he carried with him everywhere. So in the video, in the baptistry, you see a little dinosaur come out first.
Sandra Peoples: Oh, I love that.
Lexi Melia: Look around to make sure. And then he goes in and they ask him the questions and he says yes. And so for all of that stress that I experienced at the beginning of the week, that moment was what made I think all of it worth it was just that one moment,
Sandra Peoples: Which is, I mean, for all of us in ministry, that's what those moments like that and the fruit that we get to see from all the effort and especially VBS effort, like next level kind of thing. And really, I mean, they wouldn't have been able to pull off what they pulled off without your help. I mean, you were really important to what they did that summer. And that's what I love about this. When I dream about what our summer's going to look like or then I think, well, we can't do it unless an intern comes in or a volunteer really steps up for more hours. So I think churches sometimes don't want to ask for more help or give an opportunity for internships, but when they do, man, God can just really work through that effort and they can really see fruit from that.
Lexi Melia: And we had several other interns too that were helping as well. They were more of the, I had been a year out of college and they were still in college, and so they were helping with kids' ministry and then sometimes they would come and help me with the disability ministry. So everyone kind of helped and work together.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah. That's cool. So they had a host home for you logistically, so you lived with a family while you were and that worked out well?
Lexi Melia: Yeah, I lived with someone and she is a widow, and so it was just her was, and she and I the whole summer she was very, very sweet, very, very welcoming. Her name was Ms. Carol, and that's what she does for the church now that she's kind of retired and she doesn't have anyone to care for anymore. She just opens up her home and the church kind of just sends whoever they need to stay there. And she loves it. She loves having someone to talk to and she wants to bless others with what she has. And so it was great.
Sandra Peoples: That's really cool. I also love one of the things that you did that I loved, obviously coming down to see our church, that was fun. But Stephanie introduced you to other ministry leaders, Kathy, up at Prestonwood, and I think that can be a really important, especially in disability ministry, where we can feel kind of isolated or lonely. I like that. That was part of what you did too, was visit other, I don't know if you visited other churches, but just making connections I think was really important.
Lexi Melia: Yeah, I got to do, that was also one of my favorite things was that I was able to go to different churches and see how they ran their disability ministry. So I went to First Houston, I went to Prestonwood, I went to your church, and I got to see either how they did VBS for their kids or I got to see how they did a Sunday morning. And so it was good for me and Stephanie because I would get to go and I'd get to take notes, and then I would come back to Stephanie and I'd be like, okay, here's what they did. And they're like, we're going to take that. So just kind of learning from all of them and then just making connections too.
Sandra Peoples: That's really cool. So what advice would you give to a ministry leader who wants to have a summer intern next year? Reflecting on what you did and the opportunities you had, is there a sense of welcoming or something specific that you would say, Hey, make sure your intern gets to do this? Just what advice would you give in general?
Lexi Melia: I think just asking. I think there are so many, especially young people in communities where churches are, that are kind of not lost in a sense where they don't know Jesus, but they just don't know what their next thing is. And so advertising a program of we're going to invest in you so that you can invest in others, I think is huge in that. And just asking, I think there's a lot more people out there than churches realize that are willing to do something like this.
Sandra Peoples: I agree with that for sure. And when Elaina came to our church, she stayed with our children's minister who lived in a parsonage on campus, and she was single at the time, so she had housing, and then we paid her, and I'm just talking logistics, so in case people have questions about it, but she helped with VBS, regular VBS, and she went to camp. And so we paid her for those two weeks. And then she had opportunities for babysitting so she could make extra money babysitting for families if she wanted to. And so logistically, that's how, and then I know sometimes if you're in school, you can get school credit for it, and the school has requirements that you have to meet, whether that's reading a book or turning in weekly reports.
Lexi Melia: And sometimes you can get scholarships too.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah. Oh, that would be cool. Yeah,
Lexi Melia: I've gotten scholarships before for working or doing other internships for student ministry. So I mean, there's so many different ways that a church could go about it in supporting their intern, but yeah, there's a lot of different ways.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah, I think so too. Our son, David, who's a freshman at Dallas Baptist now, he was our music intern last year. And then we had another intern who was just a general ministry intern, but both David still lived at home and the other guy that came, his parents go to our church. So they both lived at home and then served our church. And so that was fun for David and Gideon to kind of get to experience all of that. So it doesn't even have to be somebody that comes from far away and comes sometimes it can be part of your church family.
Lexi Melia: Yeah, not at all.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where, like you said, just put it out there, ask some questions and see who responds. So what advice would you give to someone who is planning to intern if they want to intern in a disability ministry? What advice or encouragement would you give them?
Lexi Melia: I think praying about where you need to go and then just saying yes. I think we can overthink it. And I mean, just saying yes to God and to whatever opportunity comes your way and not to be hesitant about it. If you have a call to ministry, then you may have to go somewhere you don't really want to go. And that's what happened to me. I didn't really want to go to Houston, but I am very, very, very thankful that I did and that I ended up listening to where God wanted me to go, even though it was not my first choice. And I mean, it was just one of the best things that I could have done. So just say yes, really.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah. Even if you have to come to Houston, I mean, we do have some good, good things happening.
Lexi Melia: Y'all are by the beach, so…
Sandra Peoples: We are by the beach. Yeah. When Elaina came, her family lived in Missouri, and so we sent her a welcome to Texas box of all Whataburger and those kinds of things. And I was like, it's going to be hot, but just accept it and push through. You can do it.
Lexi Melia: Yes, it is pretty muggy there.
Sandra Peoples: Every summer we live here, we're like, why do we live here? But like you said, we said yes to God when we moved here, and he has kept us here for all those years. So we are still saying yes! That's really cool. Okay. Anything else as we wrap up? Any questions I didn't ask that you want to jump in with or you feel like we covered? I feel like we covered a lot. I really enjoyed hearing you talk about it. It sounded like a lot of fun!
Lexi Melia: No, I think that's it. Thank you for having me.
Sandra Peoples: Oh, for sure. For sure. This was fun. Let me tell the listeners that one way that I thought of that they may be able to find an intern is Key Ministry has a Facebook group that has lots of disability ministry leaders. And so I'll put a link for that in the show notes, and then they can go there and maybe even start a post of, "Hey, we're looking for an intern!" And then other people can hop in, or if somebody wants an internship, they can join that Facebook group and just post on there. It's one of those places where people are asking questions and getting answers all the time, so it's really fun. So thank you for being our guest today and joining us. It's funny to talk about summer things in December. But the timeline for these things. Sometimes you got to make the decisions early.
Lexi Melia: Oh, I went to the Special Friends retreat for, I don't know when it was. It was a couple months ago, but that was really cool. It was like a whole retreat for people with disabilities, and that was, I volunteered there...
Sandra Peoples: Oh, awesome. Yeah, for the BGCT for Texas. Yeah. Awesome. I've heard of that. That sounds really cool. I'm glad you got to do that. Yeah. There may be opportunities through Joni and Friends too. They have a summer camp and they're always looking for short-term missionaries. They call them... So there's really lots of opportunity, whether it's saying yes to a whole summer or saying yes to a week of camp or something.
Lexi Melia: I'm trying to network and I don't know. I want to eventually do consulting for churches and how to do...all that stuff.
Sandra Peoples: Yeah, it's fun. It's a fun gig. Awesome. Well, thanks for being with us, Lexi. I appreciate your time.
Lexi Melia: Yeah, thank you!
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