Jim Hukill has been a leader in the disability ministry movement before I became aware that there was a disability ministry movement. For the past fourteen years Jim has served as Executive Director of Lift Disability Network, the successor organization to the Christian Council on Persons With Disabilities. He was one of the first speakers to sign on for Inclusion Fusion.  We’re pleased to announce that Jim will be speaking on the topic…Renovate: Transforming a Disability Movement.

In this workshop Jim will discuss the idea of building a movement that establishes trends by understanding the foundational problems of the disability life and engaging in a passion of restoration that is bigger than individual ministry or a personal legacy. He’ll address the question of whether the Christian disability movement fallen into a melancholy, ‘live among the rubble’ state? Has the movement become a reactionary community without the ability to be a real change agent?

The plight of Jerusalem at the beginning of the book of Nehemiah was they lived among ruins. No one rushed to fix the problem. How striking that for generations they conformed to their surroundings and lived in among what was left over. And, no one showed them a better life until Nehemiah. Who will be the “Nehemiahs” of the disability ministry movement?

Before the age of two, Jim was diagnosed with a neuro-muscular disease, a form of Muscular Dystrophy, a disease that has steadily weakened the muscles of his body and has left him dependent on the use of a wheelchair. However, the limitation of Jim’s physical body has not dictated the limits of his life. Jim says, “If you dream big dreams, you will live bigger realities”. With a life expectancy of less than ten years and a diagnosis of life-long respiratory problems, Jim has experienced living well beyond this early prognosis. Today he celebrates more than five decades of “life-miracles” and bigger realities. To hear him communicate his life-experience, you quickly become aware of the vitality that resonates from every breath as you see …God’s strength…being made perfect…in weakness.

More than twenty leaders in children’s ministry and disability ministry are coming together on November 3rd-5th to put on a FREE Special Needs Ministry Web Summit to connect church staff, volunteers, family members and caregivers everywhere. That’s Inclusion Fusion, Key Ministry’s First Annual Special Needs Ministry Web Summit, featuring Keynote Speaker Chuck Swindoll. Register here for the Summit!