I’d like to offer a big thank you to all of our readers…our team at Key Ministry very much appreciates your willingness to share our blog posts throughout 2015 with your friends and colleagues.

Over the course of the year, we acquire lots of new followers. Many have missed out on posts from earlier in the year and 8,000+ friends who access the blog through the Key Ministry Facebook page may only see a small percentage of the content we post. In the event you may have missed something that was quite popular among your fellow readers, today we share the ten most viewed posts of 2015.

While we try to post new content several times each week, half of the ten most popular posts were published in earlier years. Fully half were also among the most viewed posts in 2014, and one was the most viewed post in 2013. The ten posts were written by four different authors, and were viewed from 193 countries.

#1 What if the church destroyed the foster care system as we know it? Shannon’s commentary from September 30th inspired a record number of comments for any post (148) and cast a vision for how the church in America might impact the foster care system.

#2 Please don’t say “all kids do that” to adoptive and foster families… In this piece from January, Shannon discusses words that minimize the challenges parents face in caring for kids coming from hard places.

#3 What we know about kids who do what Josh Duggar did This post offers a review of the research examining kids who sexually offend other children.

#4 DSM-5: Rethinking Reactive Attachment Disorder (#2 in 2014, #1 in 2013) This post examines the the decision in the DSM-5 to redefine the diagnostic criteria for Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and the shift among professionals to view what had been defined as attachment disorders as manifestations of trauma.

#5 Dr. Oren Mason…Wondering what a pill will do to me? Dr. Oren Mason, a highly respected physician and author shared a first-person account of his personal experience of taking medication for ADHD.

#6 Shannon Dingle…Why do you keep writing about how broken kids in foster or adoptive placements are? Shannon explains her rationale for telling the whole story of loving children and families in the midst of both the beauty and the brokenness of adoption and foster care.

#7 He won’t remember: Children and PTSD…Jolene Philo (#6 in 2014) Jolene writes about the long term complications of medical trauma in newborns.

#8 I love adoption but  (#1 in 2014) Shannon encourages the church to be careful in the picture they portray of adoption and foster care.

#9 Churches should become trauma and attachment-informed (#3 in 2014) Shannon shares seven steps church leaders might pursue to become trauma and attachment-informed and to use that knowledge to serve adoptive and foster families well

#10 Updated…Why your kid’s Concerta hasn’t been working lately (#4 in 2014) This post examines the research demonstrating that generic formulations of the most popular medication prescribed to teens in the U.S. are associated with serious shortcomings compared with the branded version of the drug.

Before we go, a few words on how you can help us maximize the impact of the blog in the months and years ahead.

• “Like” and comment on our Facebook posts. The likelihood our followers will see anything we post through Facebook is contingent upon readers leaving comments and sharing with their friends. The more “interesting” our posts are, the more likely it is that other followers will see the posts.

• Share our posts through other social media platforms (Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus).

• Consider becoming an advertiser or sponsor of the blog. We have two exciting announcements to make in the remainder of 2015 about the exposure the blog is receiving and a sizable addition to our roster of blog contributors.

Best Wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Joyous New Year from your friends at Key Ministry!

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Key Ministry’s Annual Fund helps to support free training, consultation and support for churches seeking to welcome, serve and include families of kids with disabilities, and allows us to provide this blog as a resource for over 40,000 visitors each month. Please keep our team in your prayers as we prepare for 2016 and consider a generous financial gift to support the ongoing work of our ministry team.