Victoria - Welcome, we are starting to wind down now, but I'm not gonna get  upset, I'm not gonna say goodbye yet. I wanna talk about resourcing  volunteers, because you might be in leadership, you might be a volunteer, you  might be looking forward to becoming a leader in your community, but  volunteers are such a heartbeat in ministry, and so I wanna make sure that  volunteers specifically are well-equipped for the ministry with people of all  abilities, as we create congregations of belonging with people of all abilities. So  let's jump into some ways of resourcing volunteers. 

Now, think again about that shredded cheese, right? We've brought that up a  few times, and again, I'm just thinking about if church was a casserole, all of the  ingredients mixed in, and then that person who is the shredded cheese, or  maybe it's a team of people who are the shredded cheese of our church, and  maybe that's gonna be you, now that you've gone through this course, and  you're gonna be the one that can come alongside and think for worship  planning, or for children's ministry, for men's ministry, or for those outreach  events, how are we thinking for people with disabilities? But what I mean in this  context right now is these can be experts who maybe don't want to be  volunteers on a consistent or a weekly basis, but these are people whose  expertise you can lean on, and they can help you be the shredded  cheese, because maybe they are medical professionals, or special educators, or simply educators in a school setting, and so they know children very well, and  they know some educational best practices. Maybe these are individuals who  work in occupational therapy or some other kind of, maybe a pharmacist,  right? Someone who has some expertise that you can lean into. 

And so they can be consultants for you. They can come alongside you and  maybe be on call for your volunteers. So that when those volunteers have those  big behaviors or have a situation, or maybe your nursery workers have that  toddler who's not yet walking, not talking like the other children are, and they're  wondering if this is something that should be addressed, and how do they do  that, then what could they really be recording or noticing more carefully to have  an accurate view of this and to be able to support the family well? So you might  be able to call on someone who's already in your congregation, who has that  expertise. 

Maybe they ran a daycare for 20 years. Maybe they've worked with individuals  with disabilities. Maybe they have a child with Down syndrome who has now  grown up. 

And so they are willing to come alongside your volunteers to say, yeah, you

know, I'm glad you asked that question. Let's look at these factors, and then  here's how you can help the family. So you're offering that support from their  expertise, but they don't have to be the ones who are hands-on every week just  because they happen to know about this area of disability or education or  medical expertise, right? 

But they can come alongside to support people because I think volunteers feel  much more comfortable when they know they have someone to go to for  support. So when they have questions, they have someone they can ask, and  they feel much more equipped, and honestly, they'll volunteer for longer if they  have good training. And so if you can lean on those experts or if you can use  some pieces from this course or some of the resources that I've shared with you to help to train the volunteers, then they're honestly gonna feel much more  strongly equipped. 

They're gonna feel more eager to keep learning and to keep doing things  because you're feeding them, because you're supporting them, and they know  where they can go if they run stuck, right? So help people to get unstuck by  making sure that you have some experts and some support in place. So I'm  open to receiving an email from you but I think there are a lot of great experts  that you can lean on, probably in your own community, but also some  international and some around the United States as well that I wanna share with you. 

So I've been a part of a conference put on by the International Network of  Children's Ministry several times called the Children's Pastors Conference, and  that's simply one of the events that they do. But if you're thinking specifically  about children's ministry and situations involving children and youth, the  International Network of Children's Ministry has great trainings that are  online. Some are free, some you might pay for a course or even for the  certificate to say that I've completed this course, but they have great resources  on being trauma-informed and on leading children's ministry well. A lot of now also coming out in the area of disability, I've recorded a couple of  those as well as some others have. So check them out, they have great  resources and they're all over the world. With ministries, I've brought up a  couple of times, so I encourage you to have a look at their website. 

Also, Nathaniel's Hope has something called Buddy Break, which is a great  training platform. Their Buddy Break is actually a respite program so that people with disabilities come for respite once a month and they call it Buddy Break  because every person who comes for respite has a buddy during that time that  says, what do you wanna go do? Here, let me help you with this.

And it's just alongside that person the whole time. And so it gives a break for the caregivers who are usually caregiving 24-7. And these last usually about a full  morning, maybe three or four hours or sometimes an entire day, depends on  what the church does. 

But the training for Buddy Break is phenomenal. It equips people to do this  respite, to know how to interact, especially with children with disabilities, to think  for some situations, to plan for those big behaviors, to have fun things to  do. They're really great at equipping and I think Nathaniel's Hope has done a  great job to say this is a great inroads. 

And so if you can invite people in through offering respite for the caregivers and  something fun for the kids with disabilities and their siblings to do once a month,  that's gonna be a wonderful way of inviting people into the church in other  ways. And so Nathaniel's Hope Buddy Break is just a great resource if you  wanna check out some of their training materials as well. Something else I just  want you to be aware of is at least out of the United States, there is a network  called the Disability Ministry Network. 

And I'm a part of that network and so are many of the organizations that I have  mentioned like Nathaniel's Hope and With Ministries and SOAR Special Needs  and the Banquet Network and Faith Inclusion Network. There's just so many  organizations as a part of this network, all of them with resources, with experts  that you could reach out to. So look at disabilityministrynetwork.org and browse  the directory of who's involved with that network. There are organizations  serving all over the place with wonderful resources. And so if your people are  running stuck, there are some folks that you can lean on to ask some questions  of and find out some information from them, maybe even get some  training. They might even be near your area. 

So I just encourage you, look around. There are organizations eager, ready, and willing to help. Now I'm gonna play another little clip here from Barb and I just  wanna tell you that she talks about encouraging people in the conversation and  sort of launching into the idea of how do we equip one another and equipping  the congregation and the community as a whole to think about being a place of  belonging for people of all abilities. 

And she really loves true-false quizzes. And so she'd say, put your thumb up if  you think it's true, put your thumb down if you think it's false. And then she  would ask some questions and offer some statistics as a fun way of engaging  people.

So she's gonna talk about that and then I'll pick back up in a moment. So enjoy  this clip from Barb as she talks about equipping your congregation in general. 

Barb - People who work in the programs in your community, they need to know  that the people that are under your care, that this is important. So by using some of those statistics to call people into this, you just once look at the rates of  pregnancy termination for persons with Down syndrome. Use that statistic,  would you? 

And then you challenge the people in your congregation to change that statistic  by the way we honor that child before that child's ever born, by the way we talk  about who that child is gonna be in and to our community. So again, that quick  true-false of, here's a statistic, what do you think? Is it true-false? 

Give the answer. And then use that as a platform to pull people into the mission  and the opportunity that you have within your congregation. And then I would  also hasten to say, please, please, please, as you're working with any  volunteers or congregation in general, make it scripture-based. 

We talked about that. What's your platform? Why are we doing this? 

We're not doing this necessarily to meet a law of the land. We're doing this at  the direction of how God wants us to set up community, how he wants to live  with one another in community. And as we roll out that carpet, as we put out that floor mat where we are going to plant our feet and stand, we might not have all  the answers, but when we're confident on the mat we're standing on, it makes a  whole lot of difference how you interact with an individual on Sunday or on  Wednesday night. 

So again, just my thinking through my own days at Children's Ministry, training in general, and then the opportunity to have specific information around individuals through personalized plans, but then also that, oh my goodness, what do we do  sort of plan and person to go to. Shredded cheese throughout really creates that beautiful aroma to God, I know that, we got that, you remember that part, but  

also that shredded cheese is this comforting ingredient that allows your  volunteers to function even if you don't have all the answers on this day. So just  wanted to share some of those things and everything we do, let's stand on scripture and truly use your church to make heaven a noisier place. 

Victoria - Now, Barb ended that clip by bringing up some scripture, and that's  where I wanna spend the rest of this time is just thinking about some scriptures 

that really help us to think through our biblical foundation for this conversation  and equipping our community to think as a place of belonging for people of all  abilities. And so, of course, the ones you saw on the screen with her that are  some of my favorites, probably because I learned them through her, but  Romans 15:7, as we've already brought up before in this course, accept one  another than just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. And as  Barb said, let's make heaven a noisier place. 

Heaven erupts in praise when we accept one another just as Christ accepted  us. So let's make our churches a place where that happens, that our churches  are bringing praise to God simply by accepting one another. Also, think about 1  Corinthians 12:27, that God has arranged the parts of the body just as he  wanted them to be, and that could be what you put on the wall with your puzzle  piece display or your chain links. 

But launching into that conversation, just knowing that scripture tells us God's  put us together, so when he brings people with disabilities into your community,  he's done that on purpose. He's arranging the pieces. Find out those strengths  and those areas of need for support and how you can work together and be the  body that he has arranged you to be. 

A few other scriptures I wanna share are from some others. Remember I  mentioned there are organizations that have wonderful people and resources  eager and willing to help. So here are some scripture passages and thoughts  from some of those ministry leaders that I just wanna share with you, and I  encourage you to share with others or explore their resources so that you can  share with your community what God is doing in, with, and through people with  disabilities all around the world. 

So I love this one from Michael Panther. His book is called Living with Hope, and his entire ministry is called Hope Mobility International, and he really leans on  the fact that each person is created in the image of God with value and  purpose. And from Genesis 1:26, we know that God created us, and from  Ephesians 2:10, we know that God has things set for us to do. And so his book  and his ministry leans into those scriptures, as do so many other ministries. But I really loved how he does that and how he talks about that. And so check out the little video clip and some of the resources from his organization. 

I've mentioned to you before Stephanie Huback, and she wrote the beautiful  article, The Gift of People with Down Syndrome. And in that article, she says  this, Psalm 139 makes no distinctions when the psalmist reminds us so 

beautifully of God's unique, cherished design of human beings. For you have  formed my inward parts. 

You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and  wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. 

My soul knows it very well. And I want you to know that very well. I want  everyone who encounters you because you have been through this course to  know that very well. 

So just listen to Steph's words, and again, look into those resources for how you can exhibit that in everything you do. This is a great one from Dr. Lamar  Hardwick, who is known on social media as the autism pastor. And he really is a great pastor and a Bible teacher. 

And so he says, who's better to help us understand the realities of flesh versus  spirit than people with disabilities? And he talks about the Apostle Paul and his  theology from 2 Corinthians 12:9, when Paul says, God said to me, my grace is  all you need. My power is strongest when you are weak. 

So I'm very happy to brag about how weak I am, then Christ's power can rest on me. If we think about how God has designed, right, we're in this physical and  spiritual battle on this earth until our eternal future comes to pass. But our  physical bodies and our spiritual bodies are different. 

And so we're better to see that exhibited than in people with disabilities. And I  just think that's a really potent thought. So I put a link in there to actually a  podcast that you can listen to Dr. Hardwick speak about that, because I think it's  a really powerful piece, especially coming from someone who has been through  the journey of being diagnosed with having autism as an adult. And so it's a  really powerful piece and a wonderful Bible teaching. John Swinton, who I  especially mentioned when talking about dementia. And so I'm gonna use a little segment from his writing on that topic again. 

Here he says, if we allow the experience of dementia to resonate with the  experience of the psalmist, we can begin to see the importance of being  remembered by God. When God remembers us, we are held in who we are now and for eternity. I will not forget you. 

See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands, Isaiah says in Isaiah  49. And John Swinton says this, when we have forgotten who we are, when we  remember badly and lose sight of ourselves, we can rest assured that God 

continues to hold us. And again, I think about that balance of our spiritual body  and our physical body. 

And those who are living with dementia or experiencing other disabilities, God  knows us, God remembers us, God holds us, and our eternal spirit lives on. And so I just think we can listen to the Lord as we interact with people. And by being  in their presence and by being with them in the struggle, that we can know that  God is here in a very real way. 

And we can maybe come into the spiritual realm in a stronger way because our  physical limitations are causing us to be less reliant on our own mind and  body. And so I think that's a really important piece for us to hang on to. And then Leon Van Omen, he is out of the University of Aberdeen alongside his colleague there, John Swinton. 

But he says this, he says being present or being available to one another is  grounded in God's availability to creation in Christ. It starts with God. And  therefore, availability is a gift. 

We need to make ourselves available to people of all abilities. And some of us  may have more social flexibility or cognitive flexibility or physical flexibility than  others. And those of us who have that flexibility have a responsibility to be  flexible for those who do not have that level of agility. 

And so let's be available to one another just as God has made himself available  to us. And so he cites Philippians 2:5-11, and says, in your relationships with  one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. He made himself nothing. Let's be like Christ. Let's put ourselves lower than others so that we may serve  them and strengthen them. And so as you go from this, I want you to think about equipping others grounded in scripture and with strategies that are helpful and  supports that are gonna make sure that everyone thrives. 

We have one final time to go, so I'll see you next time.



पिछ्ला सुधार: शुक्रवार, 15 मई 2026, 1:34 PM