Thanks to everyone who contributed to making the blog such an incredible success this year! We were assisted by twenty three guest bloggers and each member of our consulting staff…Mike Woods, Shannon Dingle, Barb Dittrich and Nils Smith. We’re also grateful to our 1,100 subscribers and our 4,500+ Facebook followers who help us spread the word through sharing links to our posts. Sharing today’s post is an excellent way of introducing the blog…and Key Ministry with pastors, friends and family members who would be blessed!

Between Christmas and New Year’s, I’ll be busy caring for patients, helping to raise funds to grow the ministry and putting together plans for next year. We’ll be featuring our most popular posts from this past year through our social media accounts. Here are our top ten posts from 2014. Click here to see the most popular posts from 2013. We had two repeaters…including this year’s #1 post!

10. Oppositional Defiant Disorder…A description or a diagnosis? (4,442 views) In this post (originally published in June 2013), we looked at the changes in the diagnostic criteria for a condition commonly identified among children who chronically exhibit angry or disrespectful behavior.

9. When it’s scary to say yes… (4,526 views) Shannon shared a very personal post about her family’s experience with adoption. If we ask families in our churches to say yes to adoption, then we need to be ready to say yes to those families and their children if they need support after their yes leads to unexpected challenges.

8. Does depression result from a lack of faith? (4,572 views) While it’s possible that a lack of faith can contribute to symptoms of depression (Elijah in fear for his life from Jezebel) or sin (David), or life stresses (Jeremiah, Paul) it’s difficult to conclude from the number of Biblical illustrations in which giants of the faith struggled with hopelessness and despair that a primary cause of depression is a lack of faith or trust in God. Isn’t it possible, perhaps likely that God might use our suffering to strengthen our faith and to draw us into closer relationship with Him?

7. Asperger’s Disorder and Spiritual Development (5,368 views) This resource was developed to help support churches seeking to minister more effectively to families of kids with Asperger’s Disorder and other social disabilities. Co-authored with Mike Woods.

6. He won’t remember: Children and PTSD…Jolene Philo (6,245 views) Very few churches talk about the babies, special needs babies, who also suffer from PTSD. Because we don’t want to believe they feel pain. Very few churches talk about children already traumatized before birth or children traumatized by direct or observed trauma. Because we good church people don’t want to believe they remember.

5. Ed Stetzer is dead-on about mental illness and Christians…now what? (6,892 views) I believe we can take the healthy parts of psychology and psychiatry and use them in counseling. Furthmore, there may be physiological reality that require medical intervention. I’m concerned that many Christians appear to not see that– believing that prayer and Bible study alone can cure genuine mental illness (a view I don’t generally share, miraculous intervention an exception).

4. Updated…Why your kid’s Concerta hasn’t been working lately (8,198 views) Based on an analysis of data, FDA has concerns about whether or not two approved generic versions of Concerta tablets (methylphenidate hydrochloride extended-release tablets), used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in adults and children, are therapeutically equivalent to the brand-name drug.

3. Churches should become trauma and attachment-informed (14,418 views) So, church leaders, what can you do to become trauma- and attachment-informed and to then use that knowledge to serve adoptive and foster families well? Authored by Shannon Dingle.

2. I love adoption, but… (24,701 views) Please, church leaders and friends, be careful how you portray adoption and foster care. Especially in front of my children, who – like most kids – don’t want to be singled out as different or as being or having been needy at some point in their lives. Especially to other people in our church who while well intentioned might not be prepared or equipped to say yes to adoption or foster care, maybe not ever or maybe just not yet. Especially when so many Christian messages imply or outright present adoptive parents as the savior when we have only one Savior (and it’s not us). Authored by Shannon Dingle.

1. DSM-5: Rethinking Reactive Attachment Disorder (26,681 views through 12/20/14) When I read through the new criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder, I found myself hard pressed to think of any condition in which so great a disconnect exists between the way it is defined by academicians and community-based clinicians.

What don’t you see in the criteria that you’d expect to see, based on the common understanding of RAD in the therapeutic community and the broader culture? Any description of the pathologic behaviors that generally lead adoptive and/or foster parents to seek out mental health services for children in their care!

Thanks again for doing ministry with us in 2014! Best Wishes to you and your family for a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed and Joyous New Year.

SG

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Key Ministry depends upon financial support from individuals and churches to continue to provide FREE consultation, training, resources and support to churches seeking to minister with families impacted by disability. Giving to Key Ministry has never been easier! Just text the dollar amount you’d like to give to (440) 337-4338, and your donation will be made securely through software designed by the folks from lifechurch.tv who designed the “Bible” app you probably use on your smartphone or tablet.

Please consider a gift to Key Ministry as you consider your year-end giving!