LEAWOOD – For one ministry at Resurrection, a United Methodist Church, the hands and feet of God are accompanied by paw prints and wet noses.
The pet ministry at the church provides care, comfort and connection for people and their pets, according to its business card, including grief and loss support, educational classes and resources, therapy dogs, community outreach, support of a pet food pantry and blessing of the animals.
“We minister to people through pets,” co-founder Linda Haney said. “We support the congregation in any way we can as far as pets are concerned. We help connect people to resources if they need it.”
Haney and Kathy O’Dowd now laugh about the fact that in 2016, each of them brought the idea for a pet ministry to Resurrection leaders, each not knowing the other nor that there were multiple, though similar, plans for a ministry.
“Honestly, we could have written each other's,” O’Dowd recalled. “So, I called Linda, and I said, ‘Wow, we need to meet.’
“It's been a really kind of a divine connection, because Linda has strengths that I don't have. And I think the converse is true, too, that I have some strengths that Linda doesn't have, so it was really a wonderful, wonderful partnership, and, you know, I've developed a wonderful friendship with Linda, who I had never met until all this transpired.”
Resurrection did not initially fund the ministry, and the seed money came from a Volunteer of the Year award that Haney had received after three months on the job.
“They made a $5,000 contribution to the charity of my choice,” she said, “which was our new pet ministry. So, we had some seed money to kick things off.”
“That was such a godsend, to have that money for startup expenses,” O’Dowd added. “It was really helpful.”
Another godsend was that Rev. Adam Hamilton, Resurrection senior and founding pastor, was starting a sermon series on God and dogs at the same time that the pet ministry was finding its legs.
The two founders set up a table in the church narthex with signup sheets for those interested in pet ministry.
“When people would stop to talk to us, we would ask them, what's important to you? What would you like to see?” O’Dowd said. “And one of the things that really come out, almost everything that we heard was, we need support for grief” after the loss of a pet.
“Because the grief classes that COR offers now, you know, they're very good, but you don't feel like you can be grieving the loss of your dog when you're sitting next to someone who's just lost a child,” O’Dowd continued. “We saw that there needed to be a different kind of support.”
More than 900 people ae in the pet ministry database, with 1,600 on the newsletter list as well as followers on Facebook.
Beyond that, the ministry provides emotional and spiritual support for those who have lost their pets.
“It is so unusual for people to hear that they're allowed to grieve for their pets, and to be supported in that way. We get a lot of positive feedback about that,” Haney said. “We have a gentleman on our team who, when we hear of somebody who has lost a pet, will send a card, and he does it pretty immediately. He writes a personal note, so if we can gather information about what kind of pet, the name of the pet, sometimes people will write us a little story about their pet, and then he sends that out to their home.
“And two months after that, we follow up to see how they're doing, because another piece of the grief part that we found is that people hang on to that a long time,” she added. “It doesn't seem to be a good outlet for it, so we talk to people that for years were grieving.”
The pet ministry also provides visits from therapy dogs.
“There is something special about being with a dog when you're feeling sad, or anxious, or even happy,” said Haney, who brings her Labrador Retriever, Dancer, to Wednesday’s small groups nights at Resurrection. “We're such a big church that we do mental health events, student events, we do special needs, we're there the night of small group as kids and parents are separating just to say hello. Any kind of event that's happening that we're invited to, we do that. Support groups for grief, Parkinson's, anything like that. Fun stuff like Vacation Bible Camp. Last year we were at the trunk-or-treat, so our dogs can go anywhere.”
The dogs are certified through Canines4Christ, a Christian-based animal-assisted ministry.
Haney said the ministry will get requests for visits to elderly parents, sick children, divorce recovery and grief groups.
“Just having the dogs there for 15 minutes or so levels that anxiety, levels that sadness a little bit,” she said. “Some of the dogs — I have one like this — have a special, I think, divine connection, where they almost pull that negative energy out.”
There are some things the pet ministry will not do, Haney said.
“We don't pet sit, we don't provide somebody to come to your house. If we get requests sometimes for people that maybe have been injured, or they're elderly, can you come and walk my dog? We don't do that. We don't work with rescues and shelters directly. So we're not going to the Humane Society and volunteering there. We do refer people out there, but I think that's a request we do get sometimes where people think we can help them with their individual pet.”
“One of the biggest things that we don't do is we are not a rescue,” O’Dowd added. “We do get a number of people who will reach out to us and say, ‘I've got this pet that I need to …, ‘I need to find out what to do with … .’ Now, we can refer them to a lot of different places, but we're not equipped.”
O’Dowd and Haney said pet ministry can easily be adapted to other churches.
“This is really an exciting concept for both Linda and I, with what we're doing at Leawood at COR,” O’Dowd said. “We would really like to be in a consultative role to help other churches.
“You need therapy dogs for the grief and loss support. Those are two pivotal things,” she continued. “And if those were the only things that we could ever do that would be all you'd need to do. Those things are really, really important.
“It's a true ministry, for people and their pets.”
Contact David Burke, content specialist, at [email protected].