It was one month ago today when most Christians last experienced a Sunday worship service inside a church building. The quarantines and social distancing necessitated by the coronavirus have produced the unintended benefit of reminding us of how much we value corporate worship. I’ve seen many friends express their sense of loss on different social media platforms, especially during Easter Week.
Our experience of church over the last four weeks is what every week is like for too many families affected by disability.
Easter is celebrated this year in the middle of Autism Awareness Month. The largest studyever undertaken examining the relationship between disability status and church attendance found that families with a child with autism are 84% less likely than their friends and neighbors without disability to have set foot inside a church in the past year. The rates aren’t much better for families of children with common mental health conditions. Church attendance is:
73% less likely when a child has depression
55% less likely when a child has conduct disorder
45% less likely when a child has an anxiety disorder
36% less likely when a child has a learning disability or developmental disability
19% less likely when a child has ADHD
Our mission is to help connect churches and families of kids with disabilities for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ. We had a large conference planned for April 24th and 25th featuring over seventy speakers who were giving of their time and talent to train pastors and resource families to make church far more accessible to the disability community – especially individuals and families impacted by autism, mental illness and other “hidden disabilities.” God and our state and local government officials had other plans.
Our team wanted to do something to increase awareness of the needs of the disability community while putting their gifts and talents on display. What better way to do that on this very unique Resurrection Sunday than to put together a special worship service for families impacted by disability who don’t have a church this Easter morning?
Our Not Alone Easter Service will be streamed at 9:00 AM Eastern Time on Easter Sunday on both the Key Ministry and Not Alone Facebook pages. The service will be available all throughout the day on Easter Sunday, and we’re encouraging our followers to host watch parties for friends and neighbors on their individual Facebook pages.
This isn’t simply a worship service…it’s also intended to be a disability ministry teaching tool. Over thirty of our conference speakers had a hand in putting the service together. Barb Newman will demonstrate how to adapt teaching for all types of learners while presenting the children’s message. Ryan Wolfe has an Easter message for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
Most people appearing in the service either have a disability themselves or an immediate family member with a disability. With April having been designated Autism Awareness Month, our worship pastor (Kyle Broady) and the pastor sharing the benediction (Lee Peoples, together with his wife Sandra) have sons with autism. Our teaching pastor, Lamar Hardwick described his experience of leading a church as a person with autism in I Am Strong, Lamar is a remarkable preacher with a special message for us this Easter.
We intend for the service to demonstrate the amazing gifts and talents the church is deprived of when individuals and families impacted by disability are excluded. We hope that many taking part in the service will consider how God might use their gifts and talents in ministry to others.
We trust you’ll find encouragement and comfort in what we intend to be Key Ministry’s one and only original worship service. Our hope for next Easter is that ALL of us… persons with autism, mental health concerns, developmental disabilities or any disability will be worshiping our risen Lord together inside the churches we call home.
UPDATE: Here’s the video of our Easter Service. I couldn’t have been more pleased with how this came together. Three observations… This video serves as an object lesson in integrating persons with visible and less visible disabilities into church serves and communication. Barb Newman presented a great example of communicating a children’s ministry message in a manner that’s engaging to learners of all abilities. Finally, Ryan Wolfe did an exceptional job of demonstrating his style of preaching and teaching with adults with intellectual disabilities. Check it out and let us know what you think.
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Our team at Key Ministry has assembled a resource center for churches and families to access during this time regarding COVID-19. Find trainings and resources created by our team, along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Faith-Based Partnership Center, the Centers for Disease Control, Saddleback Church and others. Check it out today.
