The Church and Disability:
Equipping God’s Masterpieces

Starting a disability ministry can be both rewarding and challenging. In this session, "The Do's and Don'ts of Starting a Disability Ministry," you'll learn practical tips and essential guidelines for launching a ministry that serves individuals with disabilities and their families. We'll cover best practices, common pitfalls to avoid, and how to create an inclusive environment that reflects the heart of Christ. Whether you're just getting started or looking to improve your existing efforts, this session will equip you with the tools to build a welcoming and effective disability ministry.

Effective communication with nonspeaking people requires creativity, patience, and empathy. Whether due to a developmental condition, physical impairment, or other factors, nonspeaking individuals often find alternative ways to connect.

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why does this child act like that?" or "Why can't I get this child to behave?" While all children (and adults!) may struggle with their behavior, challenging behavior is especially common among many individuals with disabilities. In this session, we will discuss foundational principles for understanding human behavior and how differences due to disability can result in challenging behaviors in children that are often resistant to typical behavior management or disciplinary approaches.

As a follow-up to the discussion on the basic principles of behavior, this session focuses on applying these principles within a church setting. We will discuss a variety of strategies to support individuals with disabilities across church contexts (in the service, in sunday school, etc.). The session will be interactive and is intended to be highly practical.

The Church intentionally stepping into the world of disabilities isn't just a nice thing to do or an act of Christian charity. Rather, it is an imperative and a direct commandment for the Church from Jesus. Failure to act is actually an act of disobedience. Learn the scriptural basis for why the Church must ensure it is a place of belonging for people of ALL abilities and the amazing Kingdom movement God promises can happen when it helps ALL people live into purpose.

Gratefully, the focus on serving children and adults with disabilities in churches is growing. We have more work to do, but more conferences like this one are popping up to empower church leaders and volunteers. But, “What About the Parents?” What are we doing as churches to come alongside the parents who have a unique and often challenging road of 1) raising children who have disabilities (both hidden and obvious) and, 2) setting up long term plans for their children who are growing or have grown into adults? Tom, Julie, and Amy Meekins of Champions4Parents invite you to the conversation to explore how you can help families affected by disability to belong and to be strong in the church.

A thoughtfully structured environment is critical for ensuring the success of children and adults with disabilities. In this session, we will discuss ways to structure the sunday school classroom or other similar setting to allow all people to be successful. By applying these practices you can prevent problems, encourage expected behavior, and enable all people to connect meaningfully with God and with others in their church community regardless of their ability.

Programs have value, for ministry to and with adults with disabilities to be most effective, we must follow Jesus’s relational model and invest in people’s lives. This incarnational approach means we will walk alongside friends and together move through both the beauty and the messiness of life. This style of ministry is often harder than building programs, but it also has more potential to lead to meaningful discipleship and to the co-laboring stage we all long to experience. For nearly 3 years, the staff of Masterpiece Alliance has been living incarnationally with adults with disabilities in Southwest Virginia. Hear and be inspired by their journey, while also learning from their mistakes and being made aware of the difficulties faced when building these types of relationships. But most importantly, be reminded that we are blessed to be children of a God who cares about ALL of our lives, no matter how messy they get!

"Next Steps in Faith" is designed to inspire and challenge church leaders to reflect on the posture of Jesus towards those at the margins. By focusing on the disability community as a critical yet often overlooked field for mission work, this workshop will reveal how this engagement is central to the Church's mission. Attendees will be invited to consider how the principles of inclusion, accessibility, and accompaniment can serve as catalysts for spiritual growth and community transformation. Interactive sessions will provide tools for creating more inclusive faith communities that welcome and value everyone, demonstrating that our mission is most powerful when it includes those whom society often neglects.

Capernaum's mission statement is to create spaces of belonging to help introduce students with intellectual and developmental disabilites to Jesus and help them grow in their faith. Our vision statement is inviting teens and young adults with and without disabilities to discover authentic friendship, growth, and purpose. Our hope is that Capernaum in the Roanoke Valley would be a catalyst for blurring the lines and barriers that disabilities can often bring. Join us in this vision - especially with the youth already in your church bodies!

Amy Meekins is almost 30 years old. Her prognosis was rather bleak. Her development was delayed. BUT GOD did an amazing thing. Amy, and her parents, Tom and Julie, invite you to hear Amy’s story and to celebrate her victories throughout the years (including writing a book!) but also to enter into the conversation of how YOU can be equipped as a leader or volunteer. Come explore some practical tips and tools the Meekins of Champions4Parents.com have learned along the way and that you may want to implement as you journey with people living with disabilities and their families. You can be part of helping someone achieve something meaningful.

This session is designed to share Fellowship Community Church's journey to loving all people. FCC believes the body of Christ is not complete without all people, which includes those with disabilities. The presenters, who oversee FCC's Unlimited Ministry, will share the why behind their ministry with people with special needs as well as practical lessons learned along the way. They will share what has worked for them as they love children and adults with special needs as well as love and support their parents in practical ways. They will offer the Biblical perspective of disability ministry as well encouragement for you, no matter where you are in the journey of disability ministry.

One of the biggest issues in the disability community is a lack of support and empathy from others resulting, primarily, from a of lack of knowledge. Walking in someone’s shoes, even for a moment, can bring understanding and connection. This interactive workshop is designed to foster understanding by providing a glimpse of what people with disabilities face daily.

Many neurodivergent people find it exhausting to live in a neurotypical world, and they must plan for regular rest and retreat--and still they often find peace of mind and peace of schedule elusive. This session will provide an introduction to neurodiversity, e.g., the autism spectrum and ADHD. We'll look at Christian teaching on the goodness of differences in gifting and the realities of human limitations and life in a fallen world. The session is for the person, the family, and the helper.

Using her personal experience as a baseline, Emmie Lo shares the tension experienced by blind people in a typical church setting. On the one hand, there is a desire to be viewed as competent and not have blindness take center stage. On the other hand, it only takes a few intentional changes to make the church a more welcoming space of belonging.  While perfect accessibility is not expected since we live in a fallen world, being proactively welcoming allows our blind friends to participate and co-labor more fully for the kingdom.  Explore this tension and gain practical ideas for how you can make your church more welcoming to blind people while honoring their agency and capabilities.