#6 Creating Inclusive Communities: Disability, Foster Care, and the Church
Episode 6 | 40 Minutes | Jan 7, 2025
Are you wondering how to create a welcoming and inclusive environment in your workplace or community? The challenge of loving and serving people from all walks of life—especially those often overlooked—can feel overwhelming, whether you’re just starting out in your career or stepping into a new leadership role.
In this episode of the Innovate for Good Podcast, Dr. Mike Severe shares his powerful story of ministering to people on the margins, including youth in foster care and those with disabilities. He unpacks practical ways to foster inclusion, compassion, and love, even when resources feel limited or you’re unsure where to start. If you’re ready to lead with a mindset of transformation and hospitality, this episode will inspire and equip you.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
How to build inclusive environments in your workplace or ministry.
Practical ways to love and serve people with disabilities.
Why small acts of kindness can have a big impact on marginalized communities.
How trauma awareness can help you connect with those in need.
The importance of seeing the Imago Dei (Image of God) in everyone you meet.
Lessons on creating spaces of belonging for foster children and their families.
How biblical hospitality can shape your approach to leadership.
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Dr. Mike Severe is a professor of Christian Ministries at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, where he directs both the Christian Ministries program and the Master of Arts in Ministry. A former pastor and lifelong advocate, Mike is committed to equipping the next generation of leaders to embrace inclusive and compassionate practices in their careers. His work focuses on supporting youth in foster care, people with disabilities, and others on the margins, challenging leaders to reflect God’s heart in every environment.
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📍 Today we have a special guest joining us, a real friend of One Collectives.
Uh, we're joined by Dr. Mike Sevier. Mike is a professor of Christian Ministries at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. He directs the Christian Ministries program and the Master of Arts in Ministry. Mike has served as a pastor, has written numerous articles and books, and has a forthcoming book that we'll talk about today. He is passionate about developing the next generation of leaders in the church. And he has a very special interest in reaching people with disabilities. Mike, you have brought numerous Taylor students to One Collective's headquarters for their senior capstone project. And we've also had the privilege of presenting in classes of yours at Taylor.
So we're pretty excited to have you here and thank you for making the time to chat with us today.
So glad to be here, Carly and Mark. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we've been enjoying the partnership between, uh, Taylor and One Collective for many years.
really great to have you here, Mike. would love if you could tell us a little bit about your early years, because I think they were quite influential in shaping kind of some of the things that are important to you today. Can you talk to us about that? Yeah,
at risk, urban people on the margins for as long as I can remember. And I think that really does come from my childhood. My father, abandoned our family, in a way when he was thrown in federal prison as a, he stole a plane and, crossed state boundaries, which is very illegal and ended up, then escaping prison and came and Looked for us.
And so there was periods of my childhood where I realized what it was like to hide or run or to be in those sort of situations. And that gave me a heart for those who maybe weren't safe. Those who were on the margins. Those didn't have access to resources. I was raised for a period of time by single mother, but then my mom remarried later on in my late elementary age and That man adopted me, and so adoption became part of my story, and that man I now call my father, when I married, my wife and I said, we want to do foster care and care for kids, who, don't have homes and, uh, will never maybe find a permanent family.
Maybe we could do that. And so, alongside my work in urban youth ministry and so forth as a youth pastor we were starting to do foster care and care for Children in our own home. And so it was this ministry in the home and ministry in the church to different groups, but all very much on the outskirts of maybe typical ministry or sort of the what we would see is the norm.
Was there like a moment where something clicked for you and this focus, this passion that you have today for reaching people, youth on the margins, disabled people? Was there a moment where that kind of I need to do something about this. Was there a moment like that or how did that develop?
Yeah, there's a couple of moments, certainly a progression of moments, where I was called into ministry and, and had, my eyes awakened to different kinds of needs. I've done a lot of work with foster care, abused children, urban kids. And I remember one girl who was telling me about an injury and I asked her about it.
She was a middle school girl in my downtown Portland, church. And, And, the way she described her injury and how it happened seemed impossible to me, and she was very vague and elusive about it. And then I started wondering what was really going on. And at the same time, I had another, young man, we'll call him Brody, and he would come and help set up for youth group.
And, he said he had left his route to come help me that day. And I was probably thinking paper route at that moment, but as our relationship developed and he attended youth group and helped me set up chairs and games and food. I realized that he was not a paper boy, he was delivering other things.
And what I realized that a simple donut and picking a kid up and bring him to sunday school. Changed his world in ways that he would describe to me as amazing. He had never had that kind of attention from an adult. And, here's a kid who has more money than me literally as an urban youth pastor, cause he's dealing and, and, but simply buying him a donut and driving him somewhere and spending time with him was transformational. And so just having my eyes open to the great needs. And what little things, just simply asking the right questions or being willing to spend time or buy a donut, and care can bring people, that normally have no interaction with the church, back in, into the connection with the church and then Christ, of course.
Those
people probably don't have many adults who are pouring into them just simply, because of who they are and to know them better and to love them. So I think that obviously would stand out as something different.
Yeah.
And of course, as you do foster care or work with at risk populations, there's a higher incident of mental health and medical trauma. Foster care, is more common in some demographics than others and so forth. So that also made me aware. And my second youth ministry, I had, middle school group that was about 25 teenagers in two grades, seventh and eighth.
And I had three autistic Children in that group, a varying abilities. But that population, that number was not statistically significant, right? It was beyond statistically significant. And so I asked, what, what's going on? Is there something in the water here? And what I realized is that we'd become a place where children like that could engage that they could get to physically or emotionally and join the group.
And, and so They started coming and, and it was just simply, if you build it, it will come type of, they will come and, and they showed up because we had, a welcoming environment environment that could take care of them, that we knew their struggles and, and suddenly we saw many children, from, families that were at risk or had disabilities showing up to my youth group, because we were just simply taking small, very minor steps to, uh, make it possible for them to participate.
What was the pathway to you becoming a professor, as, I know you started out in hands on ministry in the church, so how did that, how did that evolve into where you are now?
Yeah, that's a great question, Carly. I think, I've always been, interested in ideas, and asking questions. And I have a natural curiosity there. And, and I liked impressing adults. So that was maybe a strength and a weakness, right? Two sides of a coin, dark side. And I was always, I'm trying to impress the adults and those adults were often teachers.
So that, that's just something, like getting approval from adults. We'll get good grades, okay. So. So there's that to professors often had good grades, in school. So it doesn't, not surprisingly. However, I think also, as I was early on in my schooling, I was young twenties, very young twenties.
I was a brand new youth pastor. I was hanging out with a variety of other youth pastors from, age 20 to 50 in Portland, urban Portland. And we were networking. And, what I realized is that I was getting content, ideas, information, books, resources, people, networking opportunities, all those kinds of things that, everyone in my network didn't necessarily have access to.
Most of the people in my network were far more experienced. had maybe larger churches, more resources, and so forth, but would often start turning to me because, they didn't have the connection to certain types of ideas, certain types of people, certain types of books, and I could say, oh, I could refer something to you, or you need to talk to this person, which is what a network is supposed to do, right?
But, I started gaining an, a passion for then, how do we resource youth pastors to get the things they need in their hands so that they can be more effective in these areas of ministry, where maybe they haven't been able to take classes or have mentors and, they've had to figure out, reinvent the wheel, et cetera, inside, doing it, they're trying to figure it out 20 minutes before the horde of middle schoolers show up for, a youth group, right?
Which is not the best time to figure things out by the way. So at that point, I started taking, notes, in my classes as I was studying ministry, theology, Bible, discipleship, evangelism, and not just for my own ministry, but actually what would I, what am I noting about the way the professor shares how they communicate and train me?
And so I would note their techniques, the, the teaching you. Tips that they were doing and giving to me by modeling them, as well as the content and information that I needed for my own ministry. And then, yeah, it just progressed. So I just stayed in school for a decade, or so, and, and I kept doing full time youth ministry while, doing school part time and sometimes full time.
And, and eventually started taking on adjunct classes. And then, there was periods where I was teaching what I was doing. Taking classes on about what I was doing while also doing it full time. So I don't necessarily recommend all that at once. But, I think there's a synergy, of course, in what we call the praxis, theory and practice put together the theory informs the practice.
And then I go back and say, Hey, it didn't work like you said it did. I tried it, and, and then likewise, when I'm doing something, I can say, Oh, how does the theory inform this better? How does my learning about this help me understand the theory better? And there's that cycle of going deeper and deeper into it.
And, and I think that's super important and helpful when, studying and practicing, we can't divorce the two, we can't separate them out. We have to put them together. So that's always been my passion. So I've always wanted to resource people in the church to mobilize them to reach teenagers and of course, the whole culture.
And how do we equip and mobilize others? Has been my sort of question and passion. And so now I see a need now, especially in the area of foster care, trauma, disability, and especially in youth ministry in the local church and so forth. And so we're trying to lean into that because I think the church is ready to hear this and there is a great need.
And, I want to equip the church with resources where they can, follow God's heart in this area.
Yeah. You've, you've got a book coming out, um, soon, I believe, and the working title is Youth Ministry on the Margins. Who is on the margins? Mike, I think you've been talking about it here a little bit. Tell us who's on the margins as you survey the landscape of demographics, and you're aware of people out there.
Who is that for you?
Yeah, that's an important question, Mark. And of course, the margins, the lines, evolve based on who's making them, what theology they have. We tend to draw lines all the time. We tend to make lists all the time. And, one of the things I love about Jesus's teaching, especially, especially the, The, the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost brother, where he's basically saying, we need to get rid of our lists here of who is in and who is out.
And, and we need to be going after all of the lost sheep and the lost coins and the lost brothers and because that aligns with the heart of God. Now, of course, we can't go after everything, every moment, right? So for this, for this purpose in this book, Youth Ministry on the Margins, we're focusing on sort of three specific things that I've found in both my personal experience with foster care and youth ministry.
And of course, in the research that pretty typically overlap. And so disability, is one of those things, in an area where the church is, I think, again, as I said, becoming really aware of the need. And, and yeah. People with disabilities, whether physical or mental health disabilities, constitute in each of those groups about 20 percent of the population. So we can just say basically, and sometimes they have both mental and physical disability. And so if we just simply look at that number alone, 20 percent for either one of those groups, that's 20 percent of those people who are actually not getting to church. We know very clearly that people with physical or mental health issues do not engage the church and actually no one in their family engages the church as well.
So think of 20 percent of the population and everyone in their immediate circle never going to church because they for various reasons. physical or health reasons, can't, and then when you look at, groups like foster care and so forth, often they have neglect or abuse, which can create traumas.
They can create mental disabilities. They can get physical disabilities through the abuse. And sometimes those are temporary, and sometimes not. But, often kids at risk and those types of foster care environments move into the margins, away from the normal resources, and, and relationships that children need to thrive.
And, of course, it also removes them from access to the church, for various reasons, like if they're in a wheelchair and they can't get into the youth room, they can't go to youth groups. Those kinds of things. And we need to be thinking about those who, just broadly defining margins, those who are on the margins of society, those who don't have access, those we are not paying attention to.
And those that those are people that God deeply cares for and favors. He talks about orphans and widows, right? And and that's not. Everyone in that group, but it's a, a scriptural device called an inclusio, right? Which is the bookends, the A to Z, it's orphans and widows and everyone in between who we have ignored or shuffled off to the side or rejected in some way.
God is very clear that he does not reject them. And, and we need to be welcoming and going to, and bringing those people, not just to serve them, but to be part of the church. Otherwise the church is impoverished. We don't have the gifts that they, are given by the spirit. They're not, leading with us.
We don't have those perspectives and understandings that they would bring and enrich the church with. And so we're all impoverished by that. If we ignore the margins and stay in our comfortable status quo, et
You mentioned, 20 percent of the population that feels pretty vast. I'm recalling a quote from the book, The Body Keeps the Score, book on trauma. And it says that for every returning war vet with severe PTSD, there are 10 children for whom their home is a war zone.
Think of a statement like that, and I think of your 20%, it feels overwhelming. Is there something to that, to, to what I'm saying here, that it is really a massive problem?
yeah, I phrase it like this. We normally talk about the, the 10 40 window being the unreached people groups of the world. If my stats are right, and, and I do believe they are, and they are worldwide. That means that there's 20 percent of the population of the planet that has a diagnosable disability or mental illness.
And that we also know, at a very high degree, 90 plus percent, they don't engage with the church in any way. If that's true, they are the largest unreached people group on the planet, period. So when we begin to note that, then we can start to say what changes in our theology need to happen. What changes in our practice and strategy, or maybe even just simple things in our buildings, like wheelchair ramps and becoming ADA compliant and so forth. Maybe we train our youth staff and children's ministry staff on trauma.
So it's not just a kid that has behavior issues, but how do we understand what's underlying those behaviors? And the behaviors are very real and often very difficult. But if we can understand the trauma or the disability, then often we can, work in much more effective ways to support the child.
And, bring them into the community, support the family so that they can also be part of the community, even, and think of their siblings that are also outside of the church because of great needs of maybe another sibling, right? So that often happens when you have a child that has a, a disability or a mental illness or something along those lines.
The siblings, who may be neurotypical, as we might call it, more in the middle of our expectations, if that's true. Right or not. They, they often are called glass children because they are ignored by the system. All the resources and time and effort are being poured into siblings, who have, a difficult need.
The other siblings are often left out and they don't have access to, often educational support structures, tutoring, sports, and of course the church. They're, they're simply part of a system that's all turned inward on the great need of a person in their side, their family. And, and the family is often suffering and trying to do that all alone.
And the church, is, has been broadly unaware of those
Yeah. That makes me wonder, how aware is the church of these needs, both, here in America and globally, and how is the church becoming aware of these needs?
Yeah, that's a great question. I can't give a definitive answer on that, of course, but what I can tell you, I'm very encouraged by a number of theologians who are writing very specifically on this area about disability and leadership in the church and spiritual gifts in the church about how, how we have, maybe not read carefully the Old Testament about, examples of, and the way God interacts with this specific group of people and cares for the margins and how to bring them in.
And so I think as we do theological work, it will change, the way we do and practice ministry and strategy and so forth for, for discipleship and evangelism. Just, for example, we often think something like the Imago Dei is when I reflect God properly, or when I look like Jesus, then I'm properly being in the image of God.
But if we take that stance, there's some problems there that when I'm, Not reflecting God, by my standards or my definition from external, not from God's definition, but from like our social definitions, we often then say, if this person's not producing or proper in some way, then, then they're not in the image or fully in the image.
And we can begin to dehumanize people or cast them off to the side. And I think that's the real, the real problem with the margin. It's not just that we didn't notice them. And oh, now we need to do something about it. It's actually really at Beth, at base, a theological issue where we have drawn lines that don't include everyone.
And, until we redraw those lines with, God's definitions in mind, we're imposing. These false boundaries and placing people on the margins of society and therefore out of the church and out of access to All of the community that is so needed to be healthy And so I think that's a theological turn that's beginning to happen lots of writing and thinking happening about that And of course, we're also seeing a movement in In children's ministry, especially about practical issues of, of being sensitive to sensitivity issues, like for children who have autism and maybe certain fans or lights or colors or textures are not helpful.
And we know this, maybe, we need sensory rooms. And a lot of churches are turning to the education world and maybe even hiring, those who specialize, in, neurodiversity in an educational setting like a public school and bringing them in as consultants or even as children's pastors in the church.
Of course, the typical church or the typical mission or parachurch ministry can't hire maybe somebody who is a special education director for their church. Maybe they don't even have a children's pastor, let alone someone specializing in that area. So we probably just need to become also very practical about how we train and equip and think about this.
And that's one thing, our work is trying to do, how do we think about our theology and also, we don't need a million dollar budget to rethink our strategy to reach people on the margins. But there are some things we probably need to change. Like maybe handrails, things like that.
And isn't there, yes there is, like a sociological, Emotional Intelligence, component to this, some people tend to be Even in many churches, they tend to be judgmental, or they have strong opinions about, oh, look at this child, how are they behaving, what's wrong with them, rather than moving toward becoming more curious as people, instead of asking, what's wrong, what's wrong with them, asking maybe, what happened to him, or what's going on in this person that I can understand better, a shift in, What we are like as people from being a little more, a little less judgmental or critical and more, Hey, I'm really curious about that.
And then adding to that compassion, when you have curiosity and compassion, it's a powerful mix. I think Yeah.
was two children. We were in Appalachia, and it was a very difficult neighborhood, a three county area, actually. And, Georgia, in the legislator had passed a rule, that, any, caseworker that wasn't visiting their children on a monthly basis could be legally liable or criminally prosecutable.
And and of course it's good for social workers to see their children at least every 30 days. The problem was the system was so over full and overloaded and there weren't enough social workers to see the children that they currently had in the system. They just stopped pulling children from homes. And then they tried to find other ways to deal with the situations in the home, without making themselves criminally negligent in their jobs. . We moved in, did the training, waited and then we were placed with some children. What I didn't know at the time was that it was the only children that had been removed in a three county area in about five months.
And it was such a disastrous and difficult and, abuse, laden case, that they would only show up with two police officers at the home to visit the family because they were, physically at threat. They moved the children out of the county. We never met or saw the parents, we would have to, take different routes home to go drop them off at the center where they would do visits, and then they would move the kids to it.
That kind of stuff like we're playing cat and mouse to protect the children, but we brought, we brought these kids home and, The girl was five and she was wearing shorts and a tank top and had one flip flop. That was it. That's all we had. And we found out that the shorts were actually two t pants made for an 18 month old.
And no underwear, no nothing. And the two year old boy, her younger brother, couldn't walk or talk. And we went to Walmart, bought him some stuff and found out that she would grab things and try to eat them, tear them apart with her teeth. She would chew up her bedding on a nightly basis, had never slept in a bed and so forth.
And, we entered, quite literally a very difficult time. That was the worst in our lives. I slept in, I slept at the foot of her doorway, for about, Three weeks. She offered herself to me sexually, for example. So we're trying to carefully navigate this really difficult situation.
And, and it was beyond our capability. We went to church, locally and we were relatively new to the community and we called the church and we say, we have this situation. I don't think you guys can handle this. And they said, let's look into it. And they said, no, you need to come. And so a couple of weeks into the placement, we show up at church and a lady met us.
She was, in her mid forties. She says, I've been a special education teacher and consultant for 15 years. And she took, our little foster girls, five year old hand and looked us in the eyes and said, everything will be all right. Meet me back here in two hours. And, and she became a buddy for our little girl and walked off with her and we went and cried for an entire hour because we were just so relieved.
And then we went to church and sat in church and were able to engage with other adults for the first time in many weeks. , and we're just so thankful that the church had stepped up. Okay, so that's the good part of the story. The bad part of the story is, the children's, got out and we went and picked her up and, we had other kids with us as well, some we adopted and they were doing little laps around the pews in the church while some other people from our new small group were buying pizza and they were going to take us and our kids, foster kids to the park and we were going to play and everybody was going to watch this one little girl to make sure she was safe and, and all those types of things.
But they were doing little laps like a racetrack around the pew. And my wife and I were standing at one end corralling them while the pizza was being bought. The lights are turning off and all this kind of stuff. And the pastor came up to us. And he said, Hey, get those kids out of here.
This is the sanctuary of the Lord.
Yeah.
And,
Yeah.
maybe that wasn't the best place to play with the children, but we were a little bit at wit's end and we didn't know what to do. And I think, at, in evidence, there are two very different theologies. One is, let me take your hand. We will come alongside you and provide, and provide community and resource, for this, very difficult situation.
And this very difficult child, she was very difficult. And then on the other side, where the room became more important than a foster child who had never been to church in her life, and was there for the first time and we were asked to leave because, they were giggling. And I think that just exemplifies we need to change in theology and we also need to be places that can step up.
It doesn't, that church did not have a sensory room or paid staff, but they were able to accommodate us and allow us to actually go to church as foster parents. And I think if we can become places like that and move away from a theology that sort of. Lands on, the secondary or tertiary issues and focuses on the IMAGO day in all people, then we're going to be at a much better place of able to minister to people and allow them to minister to us too.
Even shifting from a concept of God being remote and harsh and austere and, All of the appropriate detailed behavior is what's most important or you get slapped versus a tender loving father and Jesus who is there and welcomes the children.
Even if the pastor had, gone down on his knee, asked the kids their names, met them and then said, Hey, let me take you to the place where they can run. That, that would have been a whole different approach than, something coming from a, this, really strong theological bent towards buildings over people.
Mike, what kind of resources are you developing, for church leaders and mission leaders, on this journey that you're on that would help us provide more accessible spaces, that are inclusive of disabled populations of those struggling with mental health and their families?
There's a lot of good organizations, doing work in these spaces. Youth for Christ has a work in this area. Johnny and friends has been doing this for decades. There are some manuals and, practical stuff we can learn from schools, thinking about sensory room and specialized training for teachers, integrated, and we have to think through our philosophy.
Are we going to do the buddy system like the woman who came and took our little girl and? Spent time with her and in a group and walked with her through the Sunday school program. Are we going to talk about separate spaces for, people with certain kinds of disabilities or integrate them into the entire program?
So we have to think through our philosophy. I also think we need to just step back and ask the right questions. I have a friend who's working on the book with me, Laura Widstrom from Olivet Nazarene. She teaches youth ministry there as well, like I do here at Taylor. We're working on this project and she talks about calling ahead to churches when she moves or changes communities.
And, often she doesn't get calls back. She's I have a autistic son. He's adopted from the foster system. We have these issues and they're like, okay, we'll talk to the children's pastor and they never reply. And she's okay. So that's sort of a indication that they don't know what to do with this.
Or, they, they can't answer my questions and just don't. But I think it's important to, as ministers to look at your ministry space, starting with the phone. How are we able to respond to families like mine who call and say, I have this foster children with some profound disabilities. How can you help me?
We need to know how to answer that question and how to get them to the right people and so forth. We need to think about our website and what information could be on there. I don't think we need to have entire pages for specific ministries for children with exceptionalities or disabilities. But parents are looking to see if they can get into the building.
Where's the parking, how's the lighting, how's the sensory stuff, and then to maybe actually walk through our buildings and our ministries and see, could a teenager who's in a wheelchair actually get to the youth room or the Sunday school class? And I hear all the time, this comment, when I'm having discussions with youth pastors and I have, I've been there myself.
I don't have anybody with a disability in my youth group. Again, I think if you build it, they will come when we start providing access. I think people will engage with that because it's so desperately needed. And, and when we find ways to make spaces welcoming for different groups. And maybe finding buddies for to walk through specific needs, those kinds of things.
I think we'll find people coming out of the woodwork to engage our ministries. But until we actually walk through our spaces, our bathrooms, the signage, tactile sensory lights type of stuff, and just getting some basic awareness of how this affects, whether it's a child with autism or a kid who's just gone through a traumatic experience, we need to become aware.
And I think that's just, a helpful sort of walk through type of approach. Yeah, and then to have policies and, practices. People who are trained, how we thought through, okay, when somebody shows up, how do we work with a parent? To make sure that they're at the right types of experiences.
And, for example, a child, I had three kids with autism in my youth group at one point in a group of 25, they didn't participate in every game. Some of them were not appropriate for them. They didn't go to every single message. Some of them weren't developmentally appropriate for their spot.
And so I communicated with and worked with the parents and that child's buddy to make sure that it was, coordinated, so that we're actually working with the parents and the families for the interest of the child's best needs because the parents know better than anybody what the child actually needs.
And if we're not incorporating them into our ministry, then we're probably missing the boat. A lot of times, you know, we just want parents to drop off their kids and then we do ministry at them
Yeah,
instead of with the child and with the family and incorporate the family's needs and understandings for their own child for the best possible
effect.
it's a challenging hill we're climbing. We have brought our son to church on a few occasions and even if, and when he is able to, experience. And be in a setting that might not be tailored to him, but is not opposed to him either.
There are still like his own social and anxiety issues that make it even more difficult, I think, for this, for many in this population.
And the whole church has to be on board. If you bring in children with sensory issues, they may react to the color of the chair. Are we willing to bring in a different color chair for that child to sit in? And I've been in places that would not allow such things.
And other churches that would have changed every single chair in the room to make it work, um. Yeah, Mark, I think that's absolutely true that we need to be, sensitive. We need to be aware. We need to be asking questions. We need to be seeing it through their, their eyes and, and we need to be willing to be uncomfortable.
If we invite somebody with Tourette's into the worship service, or if they have unsort of controlled, motions, they will disrupt our, status quo, our peaceful service, if you will. And, and we need to be willing to do that if we want to include them in the full life of the body.
Yeah, when we took our son to church once during a quiet moment in worship or the sermon or something, he just speaks out loud something like, Mom, I'm bored. I want to go home. There, there are those dynamics that will be at play.
That happens all the time in youth group normally,
but yeah, in the church service, that's a little different. Yeah.
And children are already disruptive, just by nature. So I think if we want to be inclusive of, the whole body, we need to start getting used to those disruptions, whether they be from a baby or, somebody who might be struggling in the moment or, whoever it is, I think, we need to be more understanding of that.
Hmm. As we were preparing for this call, Mike, Carly and I were saying how we just, we love this conversation because one collective has our missions, our mission is that we bring people together to help the oppressed. People on the margins is the focus of our work around the world.
And even intentionally. We have a few locations that are working directly with people with disabilities and mental disabilities, physical disabilities, and our, our leaders, more and more, they are exploring ways that they can engage this part of the population.
And of course, disability isn't the only margin, but I think it's a margin that we're beginning to be aware of. And, and the resources I think will be able to transform our, ability to, Welcome and make them a part of, and then let them bless us. And it's not a matter of doing ministry to, but doing ministry with, and I think that's another perspective change, that everyone in the family, I've got everyone in the church has a gift, a spiritual gift given by the spirit.
And, that includes people with exceptionalities and disabilities that includes all ages, right? It includes those on the margins or those in the center. However we want to make, those boundaries, we all have gifts. And, uh, when someone is not allowed to give their gift to the church. Church. We understand that creates disunity and immaturity and division.
We've got a problem if we're not welcoming the gifts, across all peoples that, are part of the body.
What would you, uh, say to students as they're contemplating their future and they may be wrestling with, this, they may be, just becoming aware of this need in the world and considering whether to make it a part of their future. Yeah. What advice would you give to students?
Yeah, I love working with young adults, teenagers. That's been my whole life. My, my majority of work right now is, late teens, young adults, training them for ministry and it's so fun to help them find, not just their gifts, and interests, but a passion. And I really, Tell them when you start to feel something for a group of people, or even a location or a need, that's really your heart aligning with God's heart.
God's already there. God's already at work. Firmly believe that, in a number, theologically speaking, God's already there at work. And, and he's probably drawing you into that. I also want to warn them that you can't, fulfill every need and, address every margin all at once.
And Yeah, and so grow into that passion. It's okay to have a focus. We need different kinds of people and different kinds of ministries to meet the different needs. And I think as a body, as we respond to God's heart for all of these groups and all of these needs, then we all together do the work of God and make the kingdom more evident.
Here on earth. So yeah, I would tell them to lean into it to find the thing that resonates with them, to not worry about the things that they can't do or can't solve right now, but to lean in on that one thing. And so it's, it's really not a matter of just finding a good thing to do, because there's always good things to do.
In fact, there's always great things in the kingdom, but the real thing is to find the thing that you were created for. And, uh, what, what is the one thing, that God is asking of you? And if we settle for good or even great things, we'll probably burn out and we might miss, great joy in our lives and ministry. Because I've had 40 foster children come through my home on temporary basis and like 15 long term people often ask me, you know why I've done that or what's it like and often young people will say I want to do that. I want to warn everyone. I've worked in urban environments, I've dealt with, violence and drugs and, criminality.
I've had police snipers in my junior high room shooting out of the windows, those kinds of environments, really interesting stories. But it was, but that's nothing compared to when I brought it into my home. And I think it's one thing when we hold off at arm's distance, ministry, and we can create a program.
Or keep it within certain timeframes or boundaries. I don't think hospitality allows us to do that. Biblical hospitality really requires us to offer not just tea and crumpets between five and seven at my predetermined location, but to actually Invite someone into my life to the point where, I sacrifice for them.
And then they also have rights and responsibilities back to me. That's just sort of oriental hospitality, right? And that's what Christ offers for us. As a host would, that he sacrifices his life in place of his guests. That is the story of redemption and salvation, right?
That Christ's hospitality was incredibly costly, cost him his life, but in place of ours. And when we enter into these types of spaces, it's one thing to let a teenager who's lost and ran away from their parents, sleep on your floor while the police are coming or something like that, because you found them.
It's a very different thing to invite it into a lifestyle and to move into the neighborhood. But I think those are the places where the light shines the brightest and it's also, deeply difficult. And I don't think everybody needs to, necessarily do foster care or, work, in disability ministry directly.
But if we don't support one another in these things, if we're not praying for, I've had times when foster placement happened or, we had a child with a disability. People didn't mow my lawn or bring me a lasagna. Like it wasn't going to happen. Right. So there's ways to support one another in this without, having to, necessarily, do it all ourselves.
And, and again, it's a body effort, right? If everyone in my local church was doing foster care, my local church would not exist. I, I mean that literally, like we wouldn't survive. But, when some of us do foster care and everyone participates in it, it becomes doable, right? I think that's the way we need to think about ministry to youth on the margins.
If we are simply trying to make a program
Yeah
do it all ourselves, it won't work for various reasons. But when we come together as a body and create an environment, a community, a culture, and be the church, then we can bring people into that. And it won't, it won't, it'll tear us apart in certain ways, but in all the right ways.
I love your insertion of the topic of hospitality Mike it reminds me of henry nowens. He has a number of statements on hospitality and one of them is Hospitality is not an atmosphere we provide where we are trying to change people. It's providing an atmosphere where change can take place. And, it, and it will be messy.
Change is hard and especially perhaps with people with unique struggles, the change could be, expressed in ways that are harder for us. And so I, I, I love. The messiness of hospitality, if you will, but the deep value of it because so much life can take place there.
It's beautiful when we live out being the church and, and understand our calling and, and God continues to grow us in those ways. But again, we've got to be willing to be uncomfortable, right? It's not, hospitality is not on my terms with my boundaries in my spaces. It's really a self sacrificial activity where we offer ourselves, you know,
We totally agree and we can definitely see the investment that you're making in this next generation of leaders. It is significant. So that's very evident. Just in our several years long relationship with you.
So
Yeah, thank you.
Your bio, Mike says that you are committed to providing love, care, opportunities, and safety to the most vulnerable among us. And I just want to say that I see that and we value that. And, may the Lord 📍 bless you as you continue in that trajectory.
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Ministry with Youth in Crisis (Newly Released Book by Dr. Mike)
The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk – Insights on trauma and healing.
Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen – Reflections on compassionate leadership.
