Count Everyone In is growing!

It began in 2017 with just Pete and Christine Winmill, from Newbury in West Berkshire. With 35 years’ experience between them, they couldn’t ignore God’s prompting to step out and start Count Everyone In. They were convinced that we can’t expect adults with learning disabilities in our churches to know who Jesus is unless someone helps them to understand, to trust Him and to grow in faith. With an estimated 1.5 million adults with learning disabilities, the vast majority of whom never enter any of the 40,000 churches in the UK, there is work to be done, inspiring and equipping them to be welcoming and accessible to everyone, especially adults with learning disabilities. This is a huge task and Count Everyone In is uniquely placed as a registered UK charity focusing on this specific area of Christian ministry in England and Wales.

God very soon added social worker Janneke Klos, from Portsmouth, to the team and the work began to expand, benefiting from Janneke’s professional skills and her expertise as a Makaton tutor. In conjunction with the Makaton Charity, Janneke has developed a Christian Makaton workshop (Know & Grow Makaton) which has opened up this simple, useful, expressive form of communication to churches up and down the country..

So what does Count Everyone In do?

• Challenge, encourage, advise and support churches to welcome and be accessible for adults with learning disabilities
• Our Know & Grow workshops ( Know & Grow Longing to Belong, Life Matters & Makaton) equip churches to communicate the love of Jesus to people with learning disabilities
• The ‘Friends with CEI’ scheme for churches and ministry groups is a network that offers support and encouragement
• You’ll find us at Christian festivals such as Spring Harvest and the Keswick Convention where we run accessible adult programmes that follow the theme of each event
• Spring Harvest Holidays invite us to run a week at their holiday park in France each summer for families and carers as well as the people they support
• You will find us at exhibitions such as the Christian Resources Exhibition
• We have a growing range of resources available in print and on our YouTube channel

With a breadth of experience across denominations, church groups, ages and abilities, Count Everyone In wants to see all Christians mobilised to use the gifts God has given so that we all live life to the full, as God intended, and give that same invitation to life to those who might otherwise miss out.