Fridays from the Families

If I was a reader of this blog and could only pick one post to read a week, I would probably chose to read the guest post in the series Fridays from the Families. In each, an individuals with special needs and their family members write about what their experiences at church have been like and what they wish others at their church knew about special needs.

The list of posts in this series is below. Please email me - shannon@theworksofgoddisplayed.com - if you would be interested in joining us as a guest poster for this series!

• 9/2/11: Three posts linked in one place: Communion, the cry room, and funerals
• 8/19/11: Jeneil's post about unspoken prayer requests and her daughter Rhema's verbal limitations due to autism
• 8/12/11: Donna's post: Humans are human, even at church (the heartbreaking story of one family's rejection)
• 8/5/11: Becky's reflections on Vacation Bible School planning with special needs in mind
• 7/29/11: Kim's post about visiting churches when your child has an invisible disability
• 7/6/11: Laurie's post about trying church again 
• 7/1/11: A couple more interviews between John Knight and John Piper
• 6/24/11: Greg Lucas' post about salvation for his severely disabled son
• 6/17/11: Lucy's post about contributing to the body of Christ as an individual with a disability (hearing impairment)
• 6/3/11: My post with video of John Knight discussing God's sovereignty in light of his son's disabilities
• 5/27/11: My post about my experience at the intersection of worship and physical limitations from rheumatoid arthritis
• 5/20/11: Tammy's post: The Pressure to Abort and A Life Worth Living (Down syndrome)
• 5/13/11: Jenny's post about ministering to children with autism and their families
• 5/6/11: Amanda's post: Even angels need lip gloss (about how other children at church responded to her son, who has autism)
• 4/29/11: Becky's post about her son's adjustment when their church made building renovations 
• 4/22/11: The blog post that introduced the series

an archive of good reads on the web

I don't think I'm all that great. God is infinitely great, though, and He has gifted so many others with incisive writing abilities about disabilities in general or special needs ministry specifically. When I find these posts, I try to link them on the blog, and this page catalogs those posts, with the newest first.

• a post about leadership training with links from the web at the very end (April 19, 2011)
• what parents are saying about the church on the web (April 17, 2011)
• Notes from the Desiring God autism workshop
• great read on the web - april 6, 2011
• good reads on the web - march 11, 2011

Please let me know if you find any other good reads on the web! Either comment or email me at shannon@theworksofgoddisplayed.com.

Joy Prom 2010

This is a post about last year's event. Our church started the Joy Prom in April 2004 and hosted it for several years. Now we host it every other year and seek to partner with another church to host it every other year. We do this for the following reasons:

1. First, it allows for purposeful kingdom partnerships which allow greater community within local churches. Our desire is not that our specific church is seen as great but that God is seen as great.
2. Second, for us, the needs were much greater than one church could handle, so partnerships have allowed us to pool more resources, raise more awareness, and involve more people than any one church could do on its own.

I'll post more about Joy Prom in the future, but I wanted to provide a little context as an intro because I haven't posted about it here before.

Here's what Steve Wright, our pastor of family discipleship and a godly man who I am thankful to call a friend, wrote about last year's event.

This year we enjoyed the company of 500 friends with special needs at our Joy Prom. The idea for this event comes from Luke 14: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

We had 1200 volunteers that worked tirelessly to make this a night to remember. These events are now held nationwide and have been a special blessing for many families. I thank the Lord for his grace and those who have received it who seek to be the hands and feet of Christ.

If you would like more information on how your church could host a Joy Prom event take a look at this manual for direction. I am grateful for a dear friend* that worked hard to put this manual together as a blessing to the Bride of Christ.

The picture above is one taken of my son escorting a young girl down the red carpet where we have 75-100 volunteers celebrating each arrival. The journey to biblical manhood is a long path but I am so encouraged by the steps he is taking along the way.

*Quick note from Shannon: I am not the friend who wrote this manual, but I can answer questions if you have any!

More posts coming about what we do at our church

Last week I discussed modifications and accommodations (perhaps in more depth than you would have liked!). Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting much about what we're currently doing and/or planning at our church, including:

• How our special needs ministry began
• What Sunday morning looks like for us
• What we use for curriculum
• What our special needs ministry is known for
• How we use high school students in our ministry
• What's next? Plans for the future
• A pending decision: Renaming/branding our ministry or continuing just call it "special needs ministry"

I'm sure I'll miss key points in some of my posts, so feel free to ask questions if anything is unclear! And, if there's anything specific you would love to know about what we're doing, let me know in a comment below.

Also, after last week's series that was largely logistical in focus, I'll also be including more this week about why special needs ministry matters, from both research and God's word. May we never get so caught up in practical elements of ministry that we forget the One who is our reason for serving.

"Fair" doesn't mean "the same" (part 5: making the right decisions)

Wow! This series was supposed to only be two posts, but it turned out that I had enough useful tips for five. This is the final one, but please check out the other four if you missed them:

• "Fair" doesn't mean "the same" (part 1: why)
• "Fair" doesn't mean "the same" (part 2: the terms & mindset)
• "Fair" doesn't mean "the same" (part 3: how)
• "Fair" doesn't mean "the same" (part 4: helpful questions)

In this post, I'll be sharing largely from the research of Bryant, Smith, and Bryant, as shared in Teaching Students with Special Needs in Inclusive Classrooms (2008). They recommend this framework for making decisions about modifications and accommodations, which creates the acronym ADAPT.

ASK "What am I requiring the student to do?"

DETERMINE the prerequisite skills of the task.

ANALYZE the student's strengths and struggles.

PROPOSE and implement adaptations from among the four categories:

1. instructional content
2. instructional materials
3. instructional delivery
4. instructional activity

TEST to determine if the adaptations helped the student accomplish the task. [If not, go back to the beginning and repeat the process! And, remember, a "test" can simply be a checklist or an observation.]

This framework has been more beneficial to me than any other. However, it was not designed for ministry settings, so please do not forget that every step, every conversation, and every interaction needs to be bathed in prayer. God is the One guiding it, and He's the One who knows what each person needs. He made them to have those needs, just as He made you to have certain needs. Don't let anything related to accommodations and modifications or any other aspect of ministry (special needs related or not) become dry; let it be overflowing with the living water that only comes from Christ.

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" {Christ, in John 7:38}

I hope it (and this entire series) has been helpful to you and your ministry!