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Your Ministry Wins from 2024 & Ministry Opportunities in 2025: Podcast EP 131

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Sandra Peoples shares praise reports from churches across the country as we celebrate what God is doing through accessible churches. She also shares the biggest challenges churches say they are facing in the new year and lists resources to help with each challenge. 

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Hi, friends! I’m Sandra Peoples, one of the cohosts for Key Ministry: The Podcast. I’m excited to kick off a new year with you! I don’t always have time in that short week between Christmas and New Years to reflect on the year AND make plans or resolutions for the coming year. I ease into January still remembering what God has done and praying for what he wants me to focus on in 2025. So I thought we’d take time to do that together today! I sent out a survey to hear from podcast listeners about their biggest ministry wins from 2024 and their biggest challenges in 2025. We’re going to celebrate the wins and turn those challenges into opportunities! You’ll want to be sure to visit keyministry.org/podcast for the shownotes, because I’ll be sharing resources that will help meet those challenges a.k.a. opportunities. 

Let me start with a few of my church’s wins from 2024! My church is a normative-sized church in a suburb of Houston, TX. Since my husband became the pastor 7 years ago, the church has been supportive of our vision for a disability ministry that serves kids, teens, and adults. This year our big wins were: hosting a disability-focused VBS, opening a sensory room on the elementary hall, and adding an adult life group. Our disability ministry director, Julie Hernandez, and I talked about the details of our VBS in episode 111, which is linked in the shownotes. It was a huge win for us. We plan to do it again in 2025. Another win was opening a sensory room on our elementary hall. We’ve had a sensory room on the preschool hall, but it was getting harder to have younger kids and older kids in the same room, and it wasn’t ideal to have our big kids going up and down the preschool hall when they were dysregulated. Our church renovated a storage room that was on the elementary hall, and it has worked great. Third, we were able to launch a class for adults with disabilities. We are thankful to be able to offer this class and are praying for its growth! 

Now let’s talk about the wins from some of our listeners! 

First, many churches responded saying they started ministries in 2024! Ken from Living life Church in Firth, Nebraska launched a ministry and they had their first event in December. Tracey from Dream City Church - White Mountains in Lakeside AZ said they also got a ministry started at their church. Lee from Church Inside Out in Tulsa said his church has given their full support for the launch of a special-needs ministry and they commissioned him to lead it. One of my IRL friends at First Southern BC, Del City OK, Jeffie Jean shared inclusion steps they could take to her pastor, and he was excited to give the green light for her to run with it!  That is huge, and we are praising God with them! 

Churches also grew their ministries in 2024. At Trinity New Life Church in Trinity, FL, Emily said the participants in the disability ministry more than doubled! Tammy from Cross Church Springdale AR said her ministry doubled in size as well! Fellowship Church-Prairieville, LA moved into a bigger space to accommodate their growing ministry. Joanna from Flint Hills Church, Junction City, KS said on Easter Sunday, 1 in 5 people in attendance had a disability. That’s reflective of the recent census numbers for the U.S., so they are truly a church that reflects their community! Praise God for drawing these families to churches that are ready to welcome them and share the gospel with them! 

Many of the churches that responded let us know what additions and changes they made in 2024 to help them better serve families. Abigail from Grace Church PCA, Rochester, NY said one of their big wins was getting a universal sized changing table with help from a grant provided by Ability Ministry! 

Amber from Coastal Community Church in Florida said one of their big wins was moving up a kid who had aged out of the preschool class to a class with his same-age peers! She said he is thriving and his little sister is doing better in the preschool class now that big brother has moved up. I know that took a lot of team work for the family, teachers, and ministry leaders. That is a huge win. 

A church in Illinois said a big step for them was starting a group for parents of kids with disabilities. I’m so thankful for the support and encouragement they are providing for each other! No one understands this caregiving journey better than those who are also experiencing it!

And Jimmie from First Baptist Mansfield took some great steps with more inclusive participation for the teens and preteens in her ministry and developed consistent routines that help everyone feel more comfortable. 

And finally, churches hired leaders for the first time or added to their teams in 2024. Kara at Council Road Baptist Church, in Bethany OK was hired as the part time ministry director as they can continue to grow. And one of our favorite churches to hear from, Jacksonville Presbyterian Church, in Jacksonville, OR hired a new director of disabilities ministry. 

Y’all! That is so much to celebrate! We heard from churches in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Oregon, Florida, Arkansas, Arizona, Illinois, New York, Kansas, and Nebraska. It makes me so excited for what God is doing in churches across the country. 

Now let’s talk about the challenges, the opportunities, and the resources Key Ministry provides to help. The number one challenge is recruiting and training volunteers. Churches of every size struggle with this! There are two podcast episodes I’m going to recommend if this is a struggle for you as well. First, 057: Solutions When You Don’t Have enough Buddies and 066: 4 Steps for Success for Ministry Volunteers. These episodes will help you grow and train your volunteers. Also, Doc Hunsley at SOAR Special Needs Ministry has a great program for recruiting volunteers. You can visit their website to connect with him. And our friend Barb Stanley from Wonderful Works Ministry has videos on her website to help train volunteers. There really are great resources to help with this big challenge! 

Another big challenge is outreach into the community to support families and let them know the church is there to support them. We have podcast episodes to help with this as well! 

The third challenge we heard about was parent and caregiver support. We have two great resources to help you with this as well. The Meekins family shares resources and advice through Champions4Parents. And Becky Davidson and her team provide online support groups and much more at Rising Above Ministries. 

As we wrap up, let me share two resources that will help no matter what challenge you’re facing: First, our conference, Disability and the Church, happening April 29-May 1 at McLean Bible Church outside of Washington D.C. There are sessions that cover the challenges we’ve talked about in this episode and so much more. The other resource you can take advantage of is free consultations with Key Ministry team member Beth Golik. In the shownotes, I’ll link to the contact form to get that process started. Beth is who I reach out to when I have questions. She’s truly the best! 

Alright friends, I think we’ve covered a lot during our time together today! So many things to praise God for and so many opportunities for him to move in the new year. As Paul prayed for the church at Philippi, I pray this verse over you as well today: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Remember that God is drawing people with disabilities and their families into relationships with him and using our churches to reach and disciple them. He will provide for our needs! 

Thanks for kicking off 2025 with me today. We have a lot of great content planned for the year, and if you’ll take a few seconds to subscribe to this podcast, you won’t miss an episode. Thanks for all you do, and know that we are praying for you!