How can I get involved and help?

I received a message the other day from one of my high school classmates who has been following this blog and some of the posts on ADHD from the Key Ministry Facebook page asking that very question. I resisted the urge to respond right away. We discussed Bryan’s question yesterday at our team meeting. His question becomes more profound the more I ponder it.

Our ministry team came up with some good answers, but upon further reflection, they seemed like the typical answers you’d hear from any Christian-based organization. Pray for us. Spread the word. Support us financially so we can continue to provide our services to churches free of charge. Become a champion for an inclusive ministry to welcome families of kids with disabilities in your church. All of those responses would be both helpful and welcome, but they still felt inadequate.

I considered the question of how I hope people will respond when they’re exposed to our people, training and ministry resources. Ultimately, I’d want folks to respond by looking for where God might be at work in the unique intersection of their experiences, talents, giftedness and circumstances in providing opportunities to build His Kingdom. There are no coincidences. Anyone moved to ponder the question that serves as the title of this post is asking because they’ve been positioned in a specific time and place to share God’s love with a little piece of a broken and hurting world.

Let me take the four suggestions generated at our team meeting and look at each suggestion with a different twist…

Pray: The process of answering the “How can I get involved and help” question is honoring to God. After all, God placed such an extraordinarily high priority on relationship with us that He sent His Son to die for us in order to re-establish the possibility that we could have a relationship with Him. God wants us to spend time with Him in prayer and through other spiritual disciplines sorting out questions like this one.

Two observations…God probably isn’t going to guide you into something significant that He hasn’t wired you for well in advance and prepared you for through earlier life experience. I’m a big fan of Wi-Fi, Hi-Def, air conditioning and comfortable clothing, and I’d probably have a hard time hanging a picture on a wall. God’s probably not going to ask me to go build huts or dig wells in some Third World country. Second, if  you’re wondering whether God may be asking you to make a major commitment to helping with a movement such as the one we’re a part of, it’s probably not a God thing if you can do it from your own talents, resources and experiencing without becoming more dependent upon Him.

Spread the Word: Obviously, we appreciate the willingness of our ministry supporters to share links to our blogs, spread the word about our training opportunities and share our Facebook and Twitter posts. But that’s all meaningless unless somebody actually does something with our resources to help other people.

One way to help is to not just spread the word, but to “do the Word.” Look for families in need within your sphere of influence and do something to help them experience God’s love. You don’t need your church to launch a “program” to offer to watch your neighbor’s kids for a few hours if they have a child with ADHD or a developmental disability and might benefit from a night out together to go out to eat, go to the movies, or enjoy a little uninterrupted conversation. Check out the first response in the “Comments” section to yesterday’s post from Shannon Dingle. One person or one family taking the initiative to help meet immediate needs would have had greater impact for “Anonymous” than ten years of well-crafted sermons.

Be a good steward…of not just treasure: While we very much appreciate the financial support our ministry supporters provide…and have lots of cool ideas for investing more…I’d much rather have the gift of someone’s time and talents. In the 8-plus years our team has been engaged in this ministry adventure, the activity that’s given me the most personal satisfaction (and resulted in the greatest fruit) is offering folks the opportunity to engage in worship by providing them the opportunity to use their gifts and talents to share Christ’s love with other people and advance His Kingdom. Nowhere in the New Testament can I find evidence that ministry is the work of ‘professional Christians.” We’re looking for folks who want to “be the church”…what could be more awesome (and significant) than to have the opportunity to use one’s gifts and talents while playing a meaningful role on God’s team?

Become a “Champion”: Being a “Champion” isn’t necessarily limited to launching a “program” or some initiative at your church toward becoming more inclusive. Some folks go to really good churches where the senior leadership doesn’t see this type of ministry as a priority. I’ll catch a lot of flack from my disability ministry friends for this statement, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re disobeying God, or that they’re bad or insensitive people. In case you haven’t noticed, the world is really messed up, and opportunities for sharing the Gospel and helping other people are plentiful. God may be leading those churches to focus on other Kingdom priorities. Maybe He’s leading you to another church that would support intentional ministry to families of kids with disabilities. Being a champion could involve persuading your small group to tutor kids with learning disabilities after school. Or inviting the brother of the kid down the street with autism who never gets out to do anything to join you and your kids when you have an extra ticket for the baseball game. Or offering to join with another family to offer child care when five families of kids with disabilities want to get together for a Bible study or a support group.

I can be pretty confident in promising that God will put opportunities in front of you to get involved and help if you’re asking the question and praying about the answer. The key is learning to become aware of the opportunities He’ll provide in the context of your circumstances.

If you’d like to specifically discuss how you might get involved with and help Key Ministry, feel free to contact me at steve@keyministry.org, or Rebecca Hamilton, our Executive Director at rebecca@keyministry.org  or by calling her directly at (440) 708-4488. Feel free to “like” us on Facebook and leave a message there.