153: Creating A Welcoming Place For Unchurched Youth & Non-Traditional Family Structures with Sandy Smith | Accessibility & Inclusion Series Part 5

Whether you’re a Sunday school teacher, ministry leader, pastor, or volunteer, this important episode explores the intersection of faith, family, and inclusion. 

Ministry leader and adoptive parent, Sandy Smith, shares how we can do better at creating welcoming spaces for unchurched youth and non-traditional families, who often feel on the outside looking in. 

Join this conversation as we discuss the challenges faced by these young people and families and how small churches can create more inclusive, compassionate, and supportive spaces. 

Listen in to learn about how we can do better with:

• Behavior standards and kids running in the hallway
• Prizes and incentives that unintentionally lead to exclusion instead of motivation
• More relational time and why it’s essential in our classrooms and youth groups
• Sensitivity around holidays and family-centered celebrations

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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast, where we are continuing in our series on accessibility and inclusion, and today's episode is about creating a welcoming place for unchurched youth and non traditional family structures. This was an interesting thing to come up with a title with, but our guest on the episode today is somebody who has made a really big impact in my life, as well as many in our Facebook community and even at our conferences, as she contributes, her experience in small church ministry with children, her experience as being a foster parent and adoptive parent, even her growing up experience has added so much to Our conversation, and I really believe has improved ministries where we are seeing a perspective that we don't always have on our own. And so let me just welcome Sandy Smith to the podcast. And Sandy, how would you introduce yourself? I know we've talked, we're friends, we're like, how do we even introduce why you're here? And and I really believe can totally speak as an expert in children's ministry, especially for unchurched youth and kids. How would you bring your experience or your life into this? As I just called you an expert,

Sandy Smith: 1:36

so I would say that I'm a mom, I'm an adoptive mom, I'm a biological mom, and then I love kids, especially teens. That's probably a favorite age of mine, and I have had a lot of trauma training and experience because of doing foster care. And then finally, all of that is backed by my own experience just growing up in a difficult situation and not being your average church kid.

Laurie Acker: 2:05

Yeah, and what would you say to churches who have a traditional, traditional Sunday school, traditional children's program, youth program, like, why do we need to think more about the unchurched youth and non traditional family structures. Like, why are we even bringing this topic in? Because there's a way we've all done children's ministry or youth ministry for a long time. And where do you see the missing pieces? Like, why are we even talking about this today?

Sandy Smith: 2:33

I think I see the missing pieces. And we are so often focused on what we're going to teach instead of the time that we are going to spend with people who matter. And that is one of the things that I really try to do with the girls who come to my Sunday school class. I try to focus on them as people and the fact that they matter, rather than how much I'm going to cram into them in the 45 minutes or hour that I have with them. So I think we miss the point. We are often all about our lesson and trying to get in a certain amount. But really, what it's more about is knowing someone, that kids are being seen, that they know that they are loved, they're accepted, no matter who they are,

Laurie Acker: 3:21

and so we've got, let's say we've got this typical children's ministry, or youth ministry, structured, and we're doing games, and we're doing lessons, and we love kids and our hearts in the right place, where would unchurched kids feel like they don't fit in? Because I know, for me, before I met you, or did children's ministry, you know, even a couple decades ago, or really got into some lives of foster children, for instance, who were in my program, I would not have thought that they didn't feel like they belong like nobody stands up and, you know, children's ministry, and says, I don't feel like I belong here, like I'm a six year old, And I don't feel like I belong here. Like, what are the pieces that we're missing or that we see are unseen? And maybe an easier way to answer this question, Sandy, is you mentioned to me once that you were that kid that didn't feel like you belonged? What was it that made you feel like you didn't belong?

Sandy Smith: 4:20

I think when I was young, I didn't really understand that I didn't belong, but I definitely wasn't your average church kid. I was walking to church on my own, going when I felt like going, going because I wanted to be there, because people were kind to me, and I wanted to be with them. And I think that sometimes we we are just set up for our church families, kids who have Bibles that are at home doing their scripture memorization, and they are familiar with church lingo. They're familiar with Bible stories and. So we just assume a lot where you know when, when some kids come to church, this is the first time they're hearing about some of the things that we're talking about, or they may not understand words that we commonly use. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 5:14

and I think you're hitting on some really great points, because when I think about where this stands out, like in our Facebook community, when people ask questions, or at the Kidman and youth conference that we have every year in April, where it comes out, or where my heart gets a little bit even enraged, is when people talk about behavior expectations, kids coming to church with inappropriate clothing, or what we would consider inappropriate or when people talk about misbehavior, what do we see from unchurched youth that we could maybe be doing a little bit differently

Sandy Smith: 5:52

if we're focused on behavior and if we're focused on clothing? And I'm sure I was one of those kids that was not dressing appropriately for church, but I am sure, because I was choosing my own clothes, and I'm sure they weren't always clean so but if we're focused on behavior and clothing and outward things like that, we're not really focused on what matters, and we are distracted. I think of it as stepping over the piles of dirty laundry. So if we're going to focus on what really matters, we're going to walk in, step over all the distractions that we see, and get right to the heart of the matter, which is getting to know someone who God loves, someone who carries the image of God in them and has since birth.

Laurie Acker: 6:45

You know, I know Sonny Brown, who's been on the podcast a couple times, has talked about the unchurched element, and that like kids running in the hallways, they don't know church behavior. They did not grow up with church behavior. And every church culture, by the way, is also a bit different, and we totally acknowledge that. But what do we do with behavior expectations, and where do we go wrong when we're looking at kids? And you and I have talked about this before as well, that behavior is good, that behavior is bad, so therefore that's a good kid and that's a bad kid. Now I know we don't like typically say that out loud, but we show it oftentimes in how we're reacting and responding.

Sandy Smith: 7:28

I sometimes hear it said out loud, and I so you know you're being bad, or you may talk about someone's bad behavior. I like to think about behavior as connection or behavior as communication. Sorry about that. Behavior is communication, and what is it communicating? We don't always know the answer to that question, and sometimes we have to do a little digging to find out. So we have one girl that sometimes comes in with her hoodie up over her head and a blanket, and what is she communicating? Some people might think that she's rebellious, but really, I think what's happening is she's shut down and she's really struggling. We know that she has a difficult situation at home, and she is just surviving right now. So if we can look at behavior as communication, and try to respond in a way that makes sense. Do a little digging. Don't get distracted by what's on the surface. I think about spending time with kids that I teach teens, I work with teens, and so the other leader and I, we have the kids come in in the morning, and we're all ready to go when they get there, we're up. We're greeting them. We have them sit down, and then we prepare breakfast together. We don't have it all ready to go when they arrive, because we want to use the griddle and make grilled cheese sandwiches, and they help butter the bread, and we want to do all that have kind of a family atmosphere. We want to take our time with them. We want to be able to just talk with them like you would talk sitting around the table if you're used to that. I don't remember sitting around the table and having a normal meal with a family, with my grandparents, was the first time I remember this. I don't remember anything like that until I was in seventh grade. So these are traditions, family atmosphere that we are setting up, that the kids look forward to every week. Not too long ago, we brought them into we brought them into a combined Sunday school class we had because we had a special speaker, and afterwards, both myself and the other leader thought, you know, we really blew it. We didn't have any time with them. They came, we sat with them in a pew, and then they went home. We had no time with them. And so we won't do that again, because what is really important to. US is having conversations with them about how things are going at school, how things are going at home, how they're feeling just wanting to know them as people and wanting them to experience something that matters to them. They know they're going to come in every morning and sit down and eat and play a game and just that we are going to enjoy them. Okay,

Laurie Acker: 10:21

now a couple things that you just brought up, which I think are so important to talk about. One is the assumptions that we make, the assumptions that we make that kids or youth or children know how to sit around a table, the assumptions that they're coming from a home where they have family dinner table, the assumption that they're coming from a home with, let's say, two parents or parents who love Jesus, or parents who maintain order, that they even have parents at all, I think is also assumption these days. I don't know the stats, but the amount of people now being raised by grandparents in foster care, non traditional, even being raised, you know, with brothers and sisters and things like that, it it's growing all the time, at least, my experience with children who are not coming from a traditional family structure, and what I mean by that, like, I think traditional family structure is even changing now than what it was, but when we have in our mind that this is different, I do believe we we keep people on the outside, like Non church kids or family or youth coming to church, who are running in the hallways, who are putting their feet up on the pews or on the chairs, who, you know, when you talk about communication, behavior being communication, what I hear from most people is kids who can't sit still, who don't listen. What they're communicating is they're disrespectful, right? Like, that's really right is, if you don't play by our rules, you are disrespectful, and you have no respect for authority, or you're not submitting. How would you talk about that with with behavior that we would see, that many people would see as, hey, that's disrespectful. Can you talk today?

Sandy Smith: 12:02

A lot of times, yeah, sure. A lot of times kids that can't sit still, it may be because they are restless, because they're anxious, or because they are living in flight mode. So we have those trauma responses, fight flight, freeze. Some kids are living in flight. They're there. It's hard for them to stop moving. It's hard for them to sit still, and they don't even know that they're you know, that's not something that anyone has taught them. Nobody's sitting with them. No parent is sitting with them. Many of the kids, anyway, no parent is sitting with them and going over those things with them, even something as simple as being quiet during prayer or being quiet during the offering, those are things that nobody has taught them. So we, we during our time when we eat together at the beginning, we we go over those things with them. We don't throw it all at them at once, but we'll talk about one little thing each week, like maybe what the pastor's doing to prepare the message, or why we sing the music that we're singing, and what that does to prepare us for the preaching. So we talk about different parts of the service. We talk about what words mean. We try to give them the opportunity to ask questions if their words are not familiar with so we are just making a whole lot of assumptions that people know how to be in a church situation, and a lot of people don't,

Laurie Acker: 13:33

yeah, and when you mentioned, you know, you've said this several times, every time you speak, it kind of comes out like this is all about building relationships, and if we're gonna build relationships with people where there were none, we have to create space for that. And so if you are listening and you teach in a Sunday school or a small group or a youth group, if you're teaching in one of those classes, and it is end to end teaching curriculum like I think this is one of these places where we've we've got to realize that the knowledge base that we think is life changing. If they know this, if they learned this, it doesn't mean anything if kids and youth and children don't feel safe or accepted or like they belong. And when I think about typical churches these days, big church, little church, medium sized church, any size church, if you're an unchurched person walking in, why would you feel welcome? Like it's such a different culture, behavior, dress, the lingo, the language that we even use. Like, you think about some of the things that are even said from from the pulpit. Like some of it's a little scary if you don't even know what that means. Like, you know Jesus the sacrificial lamb, even, like, if we think about the church environment for people who have not been to church or raised in church, and I even know saying that, I'm just going to say right now, I think we need to build some empathy and compassion. Along that line, and realized not everyone has even been in a church building before.

Sandy Smith: 15:07

That's true. I think about you talked about you said something about feeling safe. I think about how important it is for kids to feel loved and safe. And a while back, I had a girl come to me and tell me that it was her birthday, and she told me what she wanted me to buy for her birthday. And I think maybe five years ago, I would have thought that was a little forward, but I think now what I realized is she felt cared for enough, loved enough, and safe enough that she could come and tell me her birthday was coming up and what she hoped that I would get for her, and I did get that for her, because I want to encourage her, she was expressing to me what she wanted. And so many people don't express what they want, or they don't express what they need, because when they express that at home or wherever it's met with their needs not being met or their desires not being fulfilled. So you just learn to be quiet and not say what you need.

Laurie Acker: 16:10

You know you've mentioned your girls a couple times. I would love for you to share with our listeners. Who are your girls? How did you end up with this group of largely unchurched youth, and what has that meant to you?

Sandy Smith: 16:25

So we pick up quite a few girls and boys and of all ages, and we do pick up some adults on a bus here in our area, and most of the kids that are in our children's program do ride the bus to church. That is just the way it is right now. So they're not

Laurie Acker: 16:45

even coming with parents or guardians at all. These are kids just coming in without without their family structure, coming with them.

Sandy Smith: 16:55

That's right, we're picking them up and we're bringing them to church. So when I was initially asked to consider working with the teen girls. Tears came to my eyes. It was not a time that was really good for me, and I knew that a lot of their stories were very similar to my own. And the reason it wasn't a time that was good for me, I was in an intense time of really healing and working through some of the trauma that I experienced, and I just did not have the capacity to bring those stories so close, the stories that reflected mine so much, just to bring them so close. So I waited a little bit, and then I had the opportunity to begin working with them. And I just, I love having that time with them every week. They matter to me. They're all different, and that's one of the things that we really focus on. Is one of the things that makes one of the things that makes our world beautiful, is the differences God has made each one of us so fearfully and so wonderfully, and he didn't make all of us the same. There are ways that we are the same, the ways that we're human, but there are so many ways that we're different, and we talk about that a lot. I really love the opportunity that I have just to just to let these girls know some of the things that I didn't know when I was their age, that they matter, that they are loved, that they are accepted, that they belong, that they're not too much, that they are enough. So it's a joy. It's in my life. I it's a delight for me to have the opportunity to work with them. You know, I

Laurie Acker: 18:41

love that last kind of bit of what you just said about you know, that they're enough, that they're loved, that they belong, because this really is how to create a welcoming place for unchurched youth and children it and for adults, right? Like it's so much less about, well, it's it's not what we do, it's like the way that we do it, and letting people know they're loved and they're enough and they're valued, it translates into, this is a welcoming place. This is a place where you want to be where we want you to be. I love that so much. You know, we've talked about making assumptions about, you know, their experiences, their home life, not understanding that behavior is communication, and even making assumptions about what that behavior means, right? Can you talk a little bit about prizes and incentives in children's ministry and youth programs. Because I will tell you, this is one of those things that could literally keep me up all night talking, how do we unintentionally push people away, make them feel on the outside, unwelcome, unloved, in the way that we sometimes use pride? And incentives in Sunday school or youth programs.

Sandy Smith: 20:05

Oh, this is a pet peeve of mine. So my kids are among just a few of the kids who are involved in the children's church program, with many kids who are riding the bus to church, and so every week, they were the ones winning, you know, the quiet seat prize, or the prize because they had their Bible, or whatever it was. And we recently, we recently did a trauma training for all of our workers, anyone who works with children or teens. And that is really one of the things that our children's church director realized right away that we need to change the way that we're doing this, that we're we're having a competition, and that it's not fair. You know, we have some kids that have Bibles, and their parents are going to make sure they bring them, and we have other kids that maybe they have a Bible. Maybe they don't. Maybe they're coming from Mom's house one week. Maybe they're coming from dad's house another week. Maybe they're just running out the door to get to church, and nobody's there to make sure they have what they need. And then even just sitting still, or, you know that quiet seat prize, not everybody is going to be one of those kids that is sitting still, and so when we're giving a prize for something like that, we really are, we are sending the message that you don't belong or you can't meet the standard. And so we have changed. I'm not sure what he's doing at this point, but I know we're not doing prizes for who's bringing their Bible or anything like that anymore, because that was a realization. So it my own kids were the ones who were getting the prize every week. And it to me, it just seemed pointless. Like, why is why are we doing

Laurie Acker: 21:55

this? Yeah, it's just another way we leave people out, or leave them on the outside. And as you were talking, oh, my goodness, I just thought of how many times I have run like, an incentive for, like a food drive, like VBS, like, bring in canned goods, you know, for the local food pantry. Well, who wins that, right? Like, who brings in the most stuff? And how many children probably are going home saying, Mom, I want to bring stuff up, and mom or dad says we don't have anything to bring up, like so much of this is the beginning of a conversation where we just need to be more sensitive, ask better questions, be more aware of what we're rewarding and also what these things mean. Instead of assuming my family is uncommitted or the kids don't care, to think a little deeper on what might be going on.

Sandy Smith: 23:22

You might have a child in that situation that you mentioned, go home with so much care and choose one can of something that they could bring in, and they are giving so much, and then you can have another family where the children aren't really thinking about it, but the parents are, and they're piling hands in the boxes for the kids to take in. Such a difference there, I think about, I think about ways that we try to get other people involved with our teens and with our children. I'm going to speak more to teens, because I work with teens, but we really try to let them see that it's not just myself and the other worker who care about them. There are other people who care about them. So we had a hot cocoa bar last winter, and my thought process in that is we were serving them, caring for them, doing something kind for them. They had the opportunity, you know, to come up and be taken care of. But then also, we gave them agency. We let them choose what they wanted. You know, we had all these different things, and they could choose. So we had, we had an older lady involved and then a younger couple, so men women, and it was beautiful just to hear one of the older ladies, at one point said something to one of the boys, you know, and use the word Han. And the thought that went through my mind right away is, I wonder if anyone calls him hun or sweetie, or anything like that. The words that I was called as a child were not Terms of Endearment. I was called profanity. And I know that that has to be true for some of the kids that are coming to our church. And so just to hear something simple like that, and to see that care, I think of things that, you know, we take for granted, like cutting out snowflakes. The first time I sat down with my class and we cut out snowflakes, I just thought, you know, it's this time of year, let's do this. We'll tie it into the lesson. And I was thinking. Of how each snowflake is unique, and that was really my thought process there. But for these girls ranging in age from very, very young like 11 or 12 middle school all the way up to a junior or senior in high school, none of them had ever made a snowflake. And so this became a thing that we did every single week, and we used it to talk about how God loves our differences, and we varied it. We didn't do the exact same thing every week, but this became something that they really, really look forward to, and something that they would not have had otherwise, I think, of teaching parts of the service and something fun that we do that really brings them a little bit closer to the pastor. We don't do this every single week, but regularly, the kids get to choose a word, and the pastor has to fit it into his and some of the words are kind of easy to fit. Some of them are crazy, and you're thinking, How in the world is this going to happen? And it might seem like the silliest thing in the world, but I sit with the kids during church, and when he says the word, everyone's all excited and looking looking around at each other like he said the word, he said the word, it's, it feels electric in that area. So they're paying attention and they're listening, and they know that he took something that they asked him to do and he fit it in. He took the time to do that for them. I don't know. We try to do a lot of different things just to make things more familiar or make things less intimidating. I don't know those are. That's just one fun thing that we do. We like to give them opportunities to take notes. So we have a little we have a little sheet that is printed out. We give them clipboards and pens. Sometimes we'll give them different colors. We'll let them choose pens or pencils, but they have a place where they can write words that they're not familiar with or questions that they have, or just the title and the date or something that they learned. So it guides them through how to take some notes. And this isn't something that happens every week, but we've gotten some really great questions from those, and we will talk about them in our Sunday school class like the following week. A lot of times we will take some of those questions and we'll answer them and talk about

Laurie Acker: 28:08

them. Yeah, I love it. You know, another thing I want to just talk about before we end. And thanks for all those awesome practical tips and ideas and things that have worked for you. Can we talk just a little bit before we go about holidays? And, you know, even Christmas time, you know, you know, coming up. And I think of youth and children absolutely for sure. I did youth ministry for so long, and children's ministry for so long, and afterwards finding out that kids who were in my programs were in really hard family situations, that solid family in the church, there was actually emotional and physical abuse going on, and nobody knew. You know, like, we make a lot of assumptions about where kids are at and and how they're experiencing holidays, or what's coming up. And more than just, more than only Foster, you know, children in foster care or children who were adopted. What can we do around holidays to just be more sensitive, like, I know, around Christmas time, we say, what are you getting for Christmas? And you know, some children are getting nothing, or they they're not getting anything they want, or even post holidays. What's something special you did over Christmas? And that was the worst time of the year for them, because they were stuck at home with a family that was a little not great, and they weren't at school. And, you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day, things like this. Do you have any thoughts or tips on on that?

Sandy Smith: 29:31

I think it comes right back to the idea that we talked about earlier, not making assumptions. This is true for so many people. It's not just children and unchurched families. There are so many people that the holidays are really difficult for because holidays magnify loss. Holidays magnify grief. So when we hear that, we think, Oh, well, someone died. But that's not the only loss that holidays magnify. They magnify that loss that you don't have the relationship that you would love to have with a parent who cares about you or you know that there are struggles in the family, all of those kind of things are magnified at the holidays. And then the idea that not everybody is going to be able to do a lot as far as presents go. And then I think of even just if you are in a rough situation, um. So joy can be overwhelming, and so if you are experiencing things that maybe you have never experienced before, even if someone's trying to be kind to you, one of our foster sons, we took Him with our whole family to a special place where they had a lot of Christmas things, and we got everyone hot coco, and we handed him his and he just threw it on the ground. And right then and there, you know, people might think, Oh, how terrible, how disrespectful he was in such a rough situation that I just cannot imagine the thoughts that were going through his mind. He wasn't with his family. He had been treated so badly, straight out, abuse, neglect, and here we were being kind. And I can tell you from my own experience that when you are not used to being thought about cared for. You kind of want to disappear. You don't really want to bring a lot of attention to yourself, but that emotion of joy can be so overwhelming, and I really think that that's what it was for him, like he just experiencing being with us and doing something that was normal for us or that, you know, we wanted to do for him, it was just too much for him. I've seen something else like this, where I we did a bedroom over for a child, and the child crawled under the bed when they saw it, because they were so overwhelmed, they could not handle it. And so that is something that we may not think about, but it can be overwhelming. It can be a time where loss is magnified. And so really just just having our hearts in a place where we're thinking of others and how they might be experiencing the holidays and realizing not everybody is experiencing exactly what we are or what we think everybody should be experiencing, just being kind and really talking to kids around that time of year, seeing how are you doing, how are things going? You know, what are you doing during your break, just finding out, and sometimes maybe spending some time with them during a holiday break, so that they have something to look forward to.

Laurie Acker: 33:03

You know, there's a lot to be said in this whole conversation about just putting people before programs. Isn't there? Like you've mentioned relationships so much, and it's so key. And when I think about this whole topic, like getting curious, looking beyond behaviors that we might label as bad or inappropriate, building relationships, seeking understanding, offering empathy, compassion like this, is like turn in the ship. You know? It's like turning the tide. It's like stepping back and taking a breath when we feel like judging and labeling and really being open to getting to know a person that's a person centered ministry like this is the hub of everything. You know, we've just talked about, you know, we're running out of time. Sandy and you and I know could talk about this for four hours. Well, probably all night, and probably weeks on end, because because of our hearts, right? Like, like, we'd love these kids. And oftentimes, we know we're missing the boat, right? We know we're kind of missing it, where there's more we could do, there's more we could reach out. But if you had, and I'm going to give you a minute to think about this, because I'm going to think of one too, if you had, like, one thing to wrap up the episode with, like, what would you say? I'm going to give you mine, because I'm trying to think of one too. So I'm going to give you a second to think, like, what's the last bit, the last sentence or paragraph that you would want to leave people with? Because for me, this is what's coming to mind next time you see a kid, a student or a family come to your church that isn't fitting in, you know? And your first gut response is, oh my gosh, they're not behaving. I don't want to sit with them. Why can't they manage their kids? You know? Where are they coming from? What's going on here, right? So this is, this is this happens in churches, right? That that family, that those kids, those children. The next time your gut is to judge, I would just love to say, like, what if we looked at that and thought, here is an opportunity to get to know somebody, to move into understanding, to love like, instead of to judge. Can we just love like, like, yeah. Maybe it disrupts us. Maybe it's it makes our Sunday morning harder. Maybe we're going into a place where we've never gone before, but like, if we could just put a pause on the judgment whether you're a Sunday school teacher or somebody getting coffee in the hallway and somebody's running past you right? If we could just take a breath when our first moment is to judge or walk away or look away, if we could consider that an invitation to move in close? Answer, instead of further back to move in with question or compassion or curiosity, that's kind of what's in my head. How about you, Sandy, how would you wrap up this episode?

Sandy Smith: 35:42

So what is in my head? And it was in my head even before you said this, and I hope this, that's okay, but what is in my head is, as a child, I remember going to the fair and all sorts of families being there together, and parents being so excited and like, waving at their children on rides, and I would be on a ride, and no one would be there to wave at me. And I just, I actually, like, this was a longing of mine, that someone would care enough that someone would stand off to the side and wave at me. And not too long ago, we did a cider mill outing with the girls, and there was this little train that was really for kids, and we didn't even think it was running. Well, a couple of the girls jumped into a couple of the seats, and then the guy came along, and he was going to take the train around, and when the train left, a couple of the girls were in the seats, and I was waving goodbye. And then by the time that little train came back, every single girl had hopped into one of those seats. And it took me back to that time just thinking like there's there was no one really there for me. And so this is not necessarily my personality, but I was waving and, you know, like smiling and yelling. It's not that I don't smile, but I was being really loud and really, really obvious about it, because I just wanted them to know that those of us who were there with them that day, we cared about them. We loved them. They matter to us, and we see them. So that is what's in my mind, that we see people that kids that are coming to our church, each one of them that is a person, that is a person who carries God, God's image in them. That is a person God delights in, and it's a person that we have the opportunity to delight in so that they can have an understanding of how God might feel about them. They can learn that by the way that we treat them. So that's what I would leave you with.

Laurie Acker: 37:48

So this topic being included in the accessibility and inclusion series might seem odd to people you know the word accessibility Well, are we making prizes, incentives accessible? Are we making Jesus accessible to people who don't feel like they belong or they don't fit? But as we get more into those topics of inclusion and belonging, this so belongs in this series, right?

Sandy Smith: 38:16

It really does. It does. It's just like not every disability is visible, and not every reason that someone may not have access is visible. We don't really know. We don't know what people are going through, and we don't know what the boundaries are that are keeping them from having that access to care, to safety, yeah, when

Laurie Acker: 38:43

we talk about reaching out to our communities, you know, even with you, with the bus ministry, like so many churches, don't have that type of ministry anymore, and that's another thing, another way that kids and youth don't have access, right, like they don't have transportation, they don't have their own power to, you know, get in a car, unless you're 16, and, you know, drive to church. And what can we even be doing there? I love it so much. Sandy, thank you so much for being on this episode. Your heart for kids, probably enhanced by your experience growing up, as well as fostering, adopting, being through the experiences that you've been in your life. I hope you see how sharing that, sharing what you're sharing today, is just making a difference to so many people. Like, I just love it, and I love you, and thank you for being on this podcast today,

Sandy Smith: 39:40

and thank you for the opportunity. I

Laurie Acker: 39:42

love knowing you, Sandy, all right, for you all listening wherever you're listening, from driving in a car on a podcast, cleaning your house, being at work when you probably should be at work, but you're listening to us instead. Thanks for being here. We love you. We love what you're doing in your small church. We see you, and we're just gonna keep we're gonna keep going. Let's continue to be light wherever you're at, wherever you're serving. And don't forget those kids who walk in who maybe feel a little on the outside, and you can almost tell with their behavior that they do, let's step into love and relationships and just learning more. So wherever you are today, can't wait to talk to you again next week. So be a light you.