August 31, 2012

RESOURCE: Our church's Special Needs Ministry Quick Reference Guide

August 31, 2012/ Shannon Dingle

Yesterday I provided an introduction and a teaser for this, but here it is: Special Needs Ministry Quick Reference Guide

On one side, you'll find tips for including children of all abilities in the Sunday school classroom, including those with

hyperactivity
impulsiveness
physical impairments
sensory avoiding/seeking behaviors
assistive devices
reading difficulties
allergies

The other side offers a basic theological reasoning for including children with disabilities in the church, an exhortation to partner with parents, and basic information about several categories of special needs, such as:

autism spectrum disorders
developmental and cognitive disabilities
learning disabilities
AD/HD
physical impairments
allergies
Down syndrome
intellectual disabilities
mental illness

While the version you'll find at that link is multi-colored, I designed it to print well in gray-scale as well. (I know ink isn't cheap, and ministry budgets are rarely flush!)

As with anything I share on the blog, my policy for your use is simple:

Since I share it freely, I expect the same from you. In other words, don't make a buck off of my work!
Please give me credit and, if possible, direct folks to this blog. This isn't about an ego trip; honestly, I don't care if no one knows my name as long as all people with disabilities are welcome in the church. Until that happens, I'll be writing here to equip folks, and the more people who visit the blog, the more people who are being equipped to open their church doors wide.

Finally, I caught a typo in the resource as I was writing this post, so I'll be revisiting it sometime soon-ish to fix it. If you notice anything else you think should be re-worded, changed, or corrected, please let me know.

Hope this resource can help!

P.S. - I'm thinking of creating a few more resources like this to offer freely here. Any suggestions for my next one?

August 30, 2012

Special needs ministry resource in The Journal of Discipleship & Family Ministry

August 30, 2012/ Shannon Dingle

In the midst of the spring's move and summer's adoption, I forgot to share this over here. After I created a special needs ministry resource to equip volunteers, I was asked to write a corresponding article for The Journal of Discipleship & Family Ministry. Here's the article, and here's the PDF of the entire journal text, minus the resource I mention in it.

(Come back tomorrow for the PDF of our Special Needs Ministry Quick Reference sheet. Yep, I'm leaving you hanging until then.)

Equipping the Generations:

Maintaining the Message, Modifying the Method with Special Needs Families

When my husband and I teach our two small children, we adjust our approach as necessary based on their different ages, genders, temperaments, and personalities. The message of Christ remains the same, but the strategies we employ are occasionally different as we consider God’s unique design in each of them. As we seek to train Jocelyn and Robbie in the way each should go (Prov 22:6), we acknowledge that God’s perfect design as he knit each of them together in my womb (Ps 139:13-14) resulted in two precious but different children.

This approach of maintaining one message through different methods isn’t new. Christ taught in the temple, on the countryside, by the well, on the road, and from a boat. He taught individuals, small groups, and crowds. In the early church, the apostles considered the context of those to whom they preached; for example, when Paul preached in the synagogue, he expected listeners to have more familiarity with the law and the prophets than he did when preaching to the Gentiles. If you asked five people in your own church how each came to know Christ, each testimony will be unique but Christ will be the same in each.

In the same way, when we teach children and youth and adults with disabilities in our homes and in the church, what we proclaim (the gospel) doesn’t change but how we do so (our strategy) differs in response to God’s good and different design in each person. When I taught writing to middle school students with disabilities in Rio Grande City, Texas, I sought the same outcomes through different means, depending on the individual strengths and needs of each student. In the same way, as I coordinate Access—the special needs ministry of Providence Baptist Church—I modify my approach as I teach each individual and equip their parents and caregivers.

With my experience and graduate training in special education, I am not intimidated by the idea of modifying my methods while teaching the same message of Christ. Most of our teachers don’t share my background, though, so we created the Special Needs Ministry Quick Reference guide to equip our volunteers. We hadn’t planned to use it as a family-equipping tool, but it became one when parents began asking for their own copies and using the tips while discipling their own children and leading their families in worship.

At Providence, we have chosen to invest in welcoming people with disabilities and their families in the church because we believe, in the words of 1 Corinthians 12:22, that the parts that the world calls weak are actually indispensable to the body of Christ. As we consider the Great Commission, we recognize that one people group is absent from many churches—the group of people with disabilities and their families. We follow the Lord who taught the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7, Matt 18:12-14) in which the shepherd leaves ninety-nine others to pursue one lost sheep. If we modeled our ministry after that parable, one family would be enough to make special needs ministry worthwhile.
However, the prevalence is much greater than that: a study published in the journal Pediatrics in May 2011 indicates that one in six children in the United States has a developmental disability.

If it is worthwhile to pursue the one missing sheep out of a flock of a hundred, how about the one family in every six who is affected by disability?

August 30, 2012

and the early intervention ball is rolling...

August 30, 2012/ Shannon Dingle

This morning, our Early Intervention Service Coordinator came for a visit. Zoe will be evaluated this coming Tuesday to determine what her present level of functioning is and what services (like physical therapy) she could use. We'll end up having an IFSP - an Individualized Family Service Plan - which, for those of you in the world o' education, is similar to an IEP, just for the younger (birth to age three) crowd.

Anyway, back to the visit...

I don't have the mental or physical energy to get into all the details (not just because I cleaned furiously this morning, stayed up late two nights ago redesigning my other blog, or parented three little ones all day... but also because I've succumbed to the 30 Day Shred workout. And developed a love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels), so here are the highs and lows:

I am now certain that the influx of service providers in our home (since most early intervention services are done in the child's natural setting) will improve my housecleaning skills.
I am also certain that I'll be reserving special movies or borrowing ones from friends to distract the big kids during those services.
I kept my composure as I calmly told Robbie, "We have company, so please put your underwear and pants back on."
I realized too late that my words implied that nakedness is a-okay in the absence of company. (Okay, maybe that's true sometimes.)
I wish I had taken a picture when Jocelyn climbed up on a barstool next to the coordinator with a pink legal pad and began copying the notes from A's page onto her own.
I loved getting to chat adoption with A, as they are partway through their homestudy to adopt a baby domestically.
I am pretty sure that A didn't catch much of what Jocelyn or Robbie told her, because they are so thrilled to interact with humans outside of our family that they spoke in their high-pitched, fast-speed, excited voices, which require me as a translator.
(We need to get out more. Friends, consider this your official notice that we ARE now up for playdates and whatnot again, but I don't have the mental energy to set them up, so please reach out to me!)
I opted not to translate for him when Robbie started talking to her about guns.
Robbie climbed in her lap twice. And walked over and squeezed her thigh once. I need to watch that boy, especially as he gets older. Sheesh!
I love that we've had Zoe with us long enough that I was able to answer some questions from our shared experiences and not just based on what I read from her experiences before us.

On that note, here's one of the sweetest pictures from our beach trip last weekend. I love: that Zoe is eating from a bottle easily now, after the labor of feedings through a syringe in our first days with her. that Jocelyn is smiling in classic perky fashion. that Robbie is distracted, in classic three-year-old boy fashion. and that my four favorite people are just hanging out in an ordinary moment outside of a gas station.

Life is good.

Even when I have to remind Robbie to put his clothes back on.

August 27, 2012

how?

August 27, 2012/ Shannon Dingle

This page is currently under construction -

being updated to be more user-friendly. I'm leaving up the old, cluttered version in the meantime. Feel free to email me - shannon {at} theworksofgoddisplayed {dot} com if you have any questions before I clean this page up!

Part 1: Teaching how-to
Part 2: How can they be saved?

"Fair" doesn't mean "the same": a series about modifications and accommodations - parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
Identifying and emphasizing the essentials
A guest post about helping kids with special needs adjust to changes in your church building
Teaching lessons for all learners
Tips for setting up the physical environment to be welcoming, from my friend Harmony: Part 1 and Part 2
Adapting curriculum for kids with special needs (link to an article on an external site)

Ministry to & with adults with special needs
Description of our adult Sunday school class

Specific special needs

Autism:

A guest post about ministering to children with autism and their families
Notes from the Children Desiring God workshop on autism
Autism-related blog posts from the week of April 6, 2011
Two posts from other sites about not judging the parents when a child has autism or another disability: 1 & 2

Down syndrome:

My post from World Down Syndrome Day 2011
Tammy's guest post about her son with Down syndrome

ADHD:

Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD)

A post from a different site about dealing with kids who are defiant in children's ministry (and part two of that post is found here)

Individuals whose needs require hospitalization

An article from another site providing guidance for making a hospital visit

Allergies

An article from another site about steps you can take to welcome kids with significant allergies

Joy Prom, a big event for teens and adults with special needs
A how-to guide for hosting a prom for teens and adults with disabilities
Joy Prom 2010
Joy Prom 2011

Supporting adoptions of children with special needs
Adoption and Special Needs: Praying for Kirill, plus updates to that post here and here

August 27, 2012

why?

August 27, 2012/ Shannon Dingle

This page is currently under construction -

being updated to be more user-friendly. I'm leaving up the old, cluttered version in the meantime. Feel free to email me - shannon {at} theworksofgoddisplayed {dot} com if you have any questions before I clean this page up!

Why implement special needs ministry at your church? Is it worth the effort?

I have a few posts that answer that question in different ways:

If what you're asking is "What's the biblical basis for this?" then this post might help.
If what you're asking is "What is special needs ministry anyway?" then this post explaining why it isn't a program is a good place to look. Also, this post might help.
If what you're asking is "How does this ministry centered in the Gospel?" then you might want to check this post. This one one might be good too. And this one. And this one about God's unwavering faithfulness even when he says no. And this one about imputed righteousness.
If you're thinking, "Okay, that sounds nice, but what are we missing out on if we don't do it?," read this. And this. And this. And this.
And if you're looking for all posts from this blog that explain the "whys" of special needs ministry, then scroll down to see a list of those.

Thank you for being willing to think about what special needs ministry could look like at your church. Please leave a comment here or email me (shannon@theworksofgoddisplayed.com) if you have any questions or if there's a "why"-related question you'd like me to address.

Here's the list of post written from the start of this blog through September 2011 about the reasons for special needs ministry:

A symptom of a larger problem (Our problem isn't that we don't welcome people with special needs. That's just a symptom.)
The biblical basis for special needs ministry
What's it all about? (hint: Jesus!)
Are you okay with only sharing the Gospel with 5 out of every 6 kids? Me neither. (One of my favorites!)
Who is welcome at your church? (my first post!)
a kid first (why the person is more important than the disability)
What disability ministry is
What I take for granted at church because my kids don't have disabilities
How pop culture is getting it right more often than we are ... and how they get it wrong too
a post on considering the perspective of others
What if being the church influenced how we live in our communities and not just where we go on Sundays?
a rant on injustice
What we can learn from one man (Michael W. Smith) noticing and encouraging a star-struck teen (me)
An opportunity or an inconvenience?
Image bearers encountering Christ
What if the healing comes? And what if it doesn't?
See the person. See the image of God. See the handiwork. See the righteousness.
Words. They matter.
If we value life, we don't get to choose which lives we value

My series of "But what if..." posts:

But what if we don't have anyone with special needs at our church?
But what if I don't know where to start?
But what if we don't want to add another program to our church?
But what if we don't have someone with your background at our church?: Part 1 and Part 2
But what if it just seems too hard and requires too much?
But what if I think that most kids with __________ are making it up?
"But what if they can't understand the teaching?" Part 1: Teaching how-to and Part 2: How can they be saved?
But what if our special needs ministry is different from yours?

What the Bible says

Fantastic video about special needs ministry (includes a video from the Texas Baptist organization)

A series of guest posts from people with disabilities and their family members: Fridays from the Families

my blog

want new posts first?

Equipping the Generations:

Maintaining the Message, Modifying the Method with Special Needs Families