“One of the things we have learned over the years with Emmalee, is that she has become our hero in a lot of the stories that we tell.”

“I’m a pastor at a church, and my wife is heavily involved in our worship ministry and our kids ministry, but now all of a sudden, we find ourselves with a child with special needs… We were like, ‘God, we don’t know what we are supposed to be doing now.’”

“I wear glasses, but God changed my prescription the day Emmalee was born, because I see the world in a completely different way now.”

“I would never have been in this mindset if I wasn’t the parent of a child with special needs, but I’m so glad that I am. Not just for the sake of my own child, but for the sake of the face that now we have families that can all experience the same thing: the welcomeness and openness of a church that’s truly inclusive.”

“What I ended up facing as a parent of a child with special needs was a lot of loneliness and isolation.”

“He said, we run a ministry called Ability Tree, and we are a ministry that comes alongside families impacted by disability to provide R.E.S.T. – Recreation, Education, Support, and Training.”

“It’s this inclusive ministry where families can come and receive respite. They can also come and receive inclusive activities that everybody can participate in.”

“So, this wasn’t just about ‘Is there a room that kids with special needs can go to?’ but, ‘How can you be more inclusive in the rest of your services at church to make sure that you’re inviting everybody?’”

“You know, I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make is taking a look at our current congregation and what it looks like, and basing whether or not we need to have a ministry for families with children with special needs as a priority.”

“This is the most untapped people group in our country.”

“Just take a look at your special needs community that’s just around you, and before you worry about being prepared for them to come in, maybe step out and say, ‘What can we do to help and serve?’”

“There’s probably a lot of people that are experiencing what they are experiencing, but you aren’t paying attention to it.”

If you want to laugh with Kevin (and at Kevin), you can check out the “famous” video here.

“We are not going to get out of church. We’re going to use this, and God is going to show us some things.”

“He called me back to his office and just started talking about discipleship, and my antenna went off on that… and it was almost immediately when that conversation happened, God kind of put a highlighter on that and said, ‘This is what you need to pay attention to.’”

“I explain it like this, it’s almost made ministry new.”

“That’s been huge to me, just the whole knowing that I’m not by myself, but I don’t have to be by myself.”

“You don’t have to have all of the answers… because, sometimes when you are in that role of lead pastor, sometimes you feel like you have to have an answer to all of the questions… You are not helping anybody by pretending that you do.”

“I would rather go with somebody that has never been in the woods, or hadn’t been in the woods a lot, and allow them to enjoy it and maybe teach them something along the way; but also, introduce them to the gospel, the goodness of God, and also discipleship.”

“Well, to be fair, when people see it, they usually say, ‘The bad thing about it is, I watched it over and over and over.’ And I have to say, ‘I’m guilty of doing the same thing.’ And I always end up with, ‘How did I survive that?’”