Same Lake, Different Boat by Stephanie O. Hubach

I had this book on my shelf for a while before I read it. I didn't know much about the author, and the subtitle, Coming Alongside People Touched by Disability, had me expecting it to be a book full of anecdotes about families with special needs.

I didn't know that Hubach leads the special needs ministry at her church or that she is the Special Needs Director for Mission to North America (Presbyterian Church in America). I was expecting a great book written by a mom of a child with a disability - which this is - but it offers so much more than I expected because of Hubach's varied perspectives. While one of the three parts is distinctly family-focused, the first provides a foundation for thinking about disabilities within the church and the last clearly and convincingly details what special needs ministry could look like in your church. See the section and chapter breakdown below:

Part 1: About the Foundations
1. On Truth: The Four Missing Words
2. On Identification: Same Lake, Different Boat
3. On Respect: Common Grace, Special Needs
4. On Relentlessness: Dante's Circles of Disability
5. On Restoration: Thy Kingdom Come

Part 2: About the Families
6. On Coming to Terms with a New Reality
7. On Negotiating a Path to Acceptance
8. On Living a New Normal Life
9. On Grappling with the Great Opportunity

Part 3: About Facilitation in the Church
10. On Hospitality: No Room at the Inn
11. On Belonging: Same Body, Different Parts
12. On Wisdom: Questions Every Church Needs to Answer
13. On Change: Revolution or Reformation?

Here's a great interview with her that gives a glimpse into the content of the book.

So why do I consider this the best special needs ministry book available? As Hubach outlines in the introduction, most books out there fall into three camps: (1) experiential (personal stories/reflections of living life with special needs), (2) motivational (rallying cries to engage in disability ministry), and (3) programmatic (manuals describing how to do it).

(Side note: I would suggest that there's a fourth too: (4) theological (simple exegesis or more systemic hermeneutics of scripture in light of disability). Sadly, though, books in this category tend to suggest that all present theological understandings exclude those with disabilities, arguing that we need to create an entirely new understanding of scripture framed around the issue of disability. I strongly disagree with that perspective. Our present theology isn't failing to include people with special needs; we, in our sinfulness, do that on our own. The gospel isn't lacking; our application of it is. We don't need new theology; we need right application of existing sound theology.)

This book is different. In her words, "it is the compilation of what we have come to understand is true as a result of actively engaging in the struggle" of "wresting with God and his Word, with the realities of family life, and with the all-too-frequent inadequacies of the broader Christian community's response" (p. 16). I am so incredibly thankful that Hubach was willing to write it, sharing the results of that wrestling in a authentic and useful way. She argues that we're not all in the same boat or each in completely different lakes but rather, as the title suggests, in the same lake on different boats, "essentially the same but experientially different" (p. 37).

Here are some nuggets from the text:

• But the American Heritage Dictionary definition of what it means to identify with another is much broader than this. It reads: "To associate or affiliate oneself closely with a person or group." This definition does not necessarily imply comfort or identification that is easy - just identification that is purposeful. (p. 37-38)
• Notice that the model for mutual reliance in Christ's church is more intimate that same lake, different boat. It is same body, different parts. (p. 41)
• ...when we truly understand grace, we realize that the poor, the prisoners, the blind, and the oppressed are us. (p. 47)
• In order to extend grace to others in relationship, we have to deeply understand our own need for it. You can't give grace if you haven't received it. (p. 48)
• Our actions ought to declare, "You are incredibly valuable!" to everyone we meet. (p. 49)
• When people see us acknowledge our frailties and intentionally engage others in the areas of their brokenness, we live out the gospel of grace in powerful ways. (p. 49)
• Have you ever sensed that while lip service is given to the sanctity of human life, those who actually relentlessly uphold it in their daily lives are forgotten? (p. 58)
• When healing is not in the will of God's providence, and help is not enough - and it never will be in this lifetime - then hope is always a present reality. (p. 75)
• To enjoin itself effectively to the struggles of a family that is just beginning to navigate the waters of disability, the community of believers needs to understand what the family is experiencing and learn to identify what the family needs so that the church may respond to those needs in meaningful ways. (p. 84)

If you only have one special needs ministry book on your shelf, this is the one I would recommend.

Special Needs, Special Ministry by Jim Pierson, Louise Tucker Jones, Pat Verbal, and others

On May 16th, this was posted by Amy at The Inclusive Church on their Facebook page:

Many of you may be familiar with Louise Tucker Jones and her writing, as she is one of the true pioneers in the fields of special needs and children's ministry. Join me in praying for Louise's husband, who was diagnosed this past week with Pancreatic cancer. Louise, today we lift you up in prayer! (Yes, I have Louise's express permission to share and request your prayers).

And today I read these words on Lifeway Special Needs Ministry's Facebook page:

Our prayers are extended to Louise Jones and her sons. Louise's husband, Carl, passed away yesterday after a swift battle with pancreatic cancer. Louise and Carl helped start the special needs ministry at their church in Edmond, OK, and Louise frequently wrote for Special Education Today magazine.

I've never met Louise or her family, and you may not know who she is, but Amy's words are accurate - she truly is a pioneer in the field of special needs ministry. You can find out more about her work at her website here.

This week I'll be sharing some of my favorite resources, and I was planning to start with my two absolute favorites. Instead I'm saving those posts for the next two days. Today, in light of this news and as an encouragement to pray for her family, I'd like to share the first special needs ministry book I ever read: Special Needs, Special Ministry (For Children's Ministry), with contributions from Louise Tucker Jones as well as two other pioneers in this ministry area, Jim Pierson and Pat Verbal.

It contains a balanced mix of practical how-to and thoughtful why-to do special needs ministry. Because it is co-written by several folks, it does have a somewhat disjointed feel, and I certainly had some chapters I liked more than others. All in all, though, it was instrumental in setting the stage and getting the ball rolling for much of what we are doing now at our church.

Here's what you'll find:

1. Why Your Church Needs a Special Need Ministry by Pat Verbal
• This is one of the foundational chapters for the whole book, running the gamut from dispelling excuses against special needs ministry to providing a brief biblical foundation for it.
2. What Do Families With Special Needs Need? by Mary Ann McPherson
• She does a solid job of sharing her personal experience and offering more universal suggestions for supporting families that may or may not have the same needs as hers does.
3. The Special Needs Ministry Launch Countdown Checklist by Pat Verbal
• Here, once again, Pat is strong with the biblical support. 
• My favorite lines were those that she used to "check your motives." She warns against the motivation of pity (because it doesn't give the passion necessary to sustain this kind of ministry), of guilt (because the guilt will be gone once a program is in place, and you may not follow through with it), and of your own child's needs (because you'll only be involved in that ministry until your child ages out of it, and it will need leadership that will last beyond your tenure there). The right motivation? Love.
4. Case Studies: Special Needs Ministries in Real Churches by Louise Tucker Jones
• Louise did a great job here of presenting different models across various churches and denominations. This is so incredibly helpful because many of my suggestions are rooted from being at a large Southern Baptist church that is blessed with a number of volunteers who have backgrounds in special education. I realize that our realities aren't the same as every other church, so I try to take off the blinders created by my own weekly context, but it's great to hear about what other churches are doing.
5. First Steps for Launching a Children's Special Needs Ministry by Jim Pierson
• So practical. And so very, very good. Jim is one of my heroes in special needs ministry. In this chapter, he does a great job of laying out the initial steps to beginning a special needs ministry.
6. Getting the Word Out About Your Special Needs Ministry by Pat Verbal
• Pat walks through ways to communicate with three audiences: your church leadership, you church membership, and your community. This is the go-to chapter for me right now, because our ministry isn't too far into this. Some aspects are very well-known, and others simply aren't. I'm not using all of her tips, but they helped generate some ideas of my own.
7. Recruiting and Training Volunteers by Pat Verbal
• Good tips here, but not the strongest chapter in the book.
8. Case Study: The Life of a Special Needs Ministry by Louise Tucker Jones
• Building from her previous chapter, Louise shares how the ministry at her church began and grew.
9. Evangelizing Children With Special Needs - And Their Families by Pat Verbal
• I've heard it said that you can judge a family's priorities by their finances. Pat writes, "If someone were to judge a church by its programming, it might be easy to decide that in the minds of some churches, special needs children aren't part of the group Jesus came to reach." Ouch, but true.
10. How to Partner With Community Agencies by Pat Verbal
• In the USA, the secular community has often times done a better job than the church in meeting the needs of people with disabilities. This chapter is helpful for considering partnerships with those outside of the Christian community. (This chapter may be limited in its usefulness for those outside of the USA, though. In many other countries, neither the government nor secular groups have provided support for or shown love to these families. If you're in that situation, you have the opportunity to lead the way, which is what the American church should have done in the first place.)
11. Case Study: The Wrap-Around Model - A New Opportunity for Children's Ministries by Larry Shallenberger
• Perhaps this chapter was more revolutionary in 2004 when the book was published, but I didn't really see a novel approach here. What Larry suggests is essentially that we ought to be individualized in our approach instead of creating one size fits all programs and that we need to holistically support the family rather than isolating the child's needs and strengths.
12. Facility and Liability Considerations by Pat Verbal
• Our church meets in an old hotel building, which means a lot of this didn't apply for us (i.e. the hotel was designed to be accessible, we have chairs in our worship center - which used to be the hotel ballroom - instead of pews so wheelchairs are easier to accommodate for us, and so on). For most churches, though, the facility considerations are different, and Pat's guidance is great.
• The liability concerns part of this chapter could be a launching pad to more conversations, but - at only a couple pages - it provides just enough to get your started. You and your team will need to fill in the rest. (One way we're doing that right now is through conversations with other churches about their policies and forms.)
13. Sermons for Your Pastor by Jim Pierson
• Jim provides four outlines for a devotional or sermon. These could be presented to others or just used for personal reflection in your ministry.
14. Special Needs Heroes by Larry Shallenberger
• These reproducible bulletin inserts each provide biographical information, a passage to ponder, a prayer, and tips for further exploration. The individuals features are Billy Graham (Parkinson's disease), Don Bartlette (physical disability, speech impairment due to untreated cleft palate), Dave Dravecky (cancer, amputation), Dennis Byrd (spinal injury), Frank Peretti (cystic hygroma), Ginny Owens (blindness), Heather Whitestone McCallum (hearing impairment), Joni Ereckson Tada (quadriplegia), Pihl Keaggy (missing one finger), and Rick Warren (allergy to adrenaline). While these were good, they primarily focus on physical limitations, and - if there is ever an updated version released - I would love to see a hero with an intellectual disability, autism, or ADHD.

I do want to note that this book doesn't consistently employ person-first language. And its strength - the variety of perspectives - is also its weakness because it can seem scattered from chapter to chapter. 

As a primer for special needs ministry, though, it was a great tool for me. Tomorrow I'll share my favorite special needs ministry book, and Wednesday I'll share the one that I think needs to be on every Christian's shelf, whether or not they are involved specifically in this kind of ministry.

Please join me in praying for Louise Tucker Jones and her sons and in praising God for her ministry to me and so many others.

We love because he first loved us. {1 John 4:7-21}

1 John 4:7-21{ESV}

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 John 4:7-21{ESV}

the post in which I convince you I'm crazy

I have mentioned adoption here before. I even included our intent to adopt in our family Christmas letter this year. I’ve just never provided a whole lot of details.

Because I usually don’t want people to think I’m crazy.

And usually adoption makes people think you’re a little crazy. We’ve gotten some of those looks. Even before revealing that we’re not planning to adopt a baby and we’re not planning to stop at one. You know the ones, the looks that people give you during your first pregnancy. The she has no idea what she’s getting herself into looks.

And I didn’t when I became a mom. No conversation or book or website or other resource could have adequately prepared me. It’s a lot of learning as you go with the guidance of others who have gone before you. And a lot of prayer. A whole lot of prayer.

So do we know what we’re getting ourselves into? No. Are we a little crazy? Yes. (But let's all be honest and admit that that’s going to be true whether or not we adopt.) Do we know what we’re getting ourselves into? Probably not. Scratch that. Definitely not.

Throughout the Bible, God calls His people to do seemingly crazy things in his name and for his glory. The whole send the Son of God to earth to live a perfect life and die to defeat sin and rise from the dead to defeat death plan is a little crazy. I mean, imagine if you had never heard the Gospel before and someone told you that. It's not exactly in the realm of logic.

I’m not putting us on the same level of Christ. Certainly not! We’re confident, though, that he’s leading us in this particular sort of crazy, though. And we wouldn’t want to turn our backs on him to embrace the ordinary.

We knew as a couple, even before Lee proposed, that we wanted to adopt. It’s a longer and more personal story than I have space for here, but feel free to ask me about it offline. We began reconsidering that after Jocelyn was born, leaning instead toward having more biological kids instead of adopting as many as we had planned. However, through a series of circumstances, God has brought our hearts back to where He led them in the first place.

After a lot of prayer and research and prayer and conversations and prayer, we're willing to share where we stand in our plans right now. No guarantees that it won’t change, though, because God does his thing (the best thing!) in his time. However, I don’t think it’s unwise to share our plans, just as others aren’t shy about saying “ideally we want two kids” (or one kid or five kids or no kids). We trust that God is sovereign, and we'll be content whether or not his plans are the same as ours.

But since you asked (well, no, I suppose you didn't. but it's my blog, so I can pretend you did):

• We are very likely done with pregnancies. My body could do it, but I lost bone in my joints during my last pregnancy, ended up with MRSA (which recurred seven times and once led to c. diff), and – in many ways – could say that I spent four years recovering from my first pregnancy. So, unless Lee manages to bear a child for us, I don't think we'll be adding to our count of biological kiddos. I’ll confess that while we think this is the best choice for us, our hearts are a little broken. I might tear up sometimes when I hold a baby, because a part of me wishes I could hold another of mine. But my heart is full, nonetheless.
• We expect to adopt our third child internationally through Reece’s Rainbow, an international Down syndrome orphan ministry. Yes, this means that our third child will have some degree of disability. (If you're thinking this makes us crazy, please refer back to the title of this post.) When we were pregnant with Jocelyn, Lee expressed concerns that she might have special needs because, in his words, “God knows you, Shannon. He knows that you would be a great mom of a child with a disability I just don’t know if I would make a great dad.” He’s not sure in hindsight if he meant “a great dad of a kid with special needs” or just “a great dad” in general. I can vouch for the latter that he is. And now, the same guy who was worried about having a child with special needs is equally or more passionate about adopting one as I am. It’s not a pity thing or a duty thing; as cheeseball as it sounds, it’s a God thing. In the US, a kid with special needs and without a family goes to foster care; it’s not a perfect system, but it’s not always a bad one either. In many other countries, an orphan with special needs – particularly obvious, definitive ones like Down syndrome – is sent to a warehouse called an institution and given little more than basic care. Often the extent of the disability is irrelevant. The idea of welcoming them into families is unheard of. (As a related update, Kirill – the Russian boy I told you about a couple months ago – is now part of the Davis family. I think they should be returning to Alabama next week.) We will begin that process in a year and a half to two years, once our third floor has been converted from all attic space to two bedrooms and a bathroom.
• Our fourth and fifth children will likely be a sibling pair from the foster care system. The oldest will probably be in elementary school. We are planning for them to be the youngest children in our family, so that adoption is further down the road considering that our current children are two and four. From the beginning of our conversations about adoption, our hearts were drawn toward older kids. I think it’s wonderful to adopt a child of any age, though, and I wouldn't turn away an infant if the stork dropped one on our doorstep. (What? That's not how it works? hmm.) That's just not the age group we're planning to pursue.

We have some other crazy plans, like our intent to stay in our home until we die (assuming God doesn’t move us out of Raleigh); based on our current payment schedule, that would make us mortgage free in a little more than a decade, but that’s not our only reason. It is cool to think about how we could invest that extra money in God's work, though!

I think I’ll leave the rest of the crazy for another time, though. If you can get past our insanity, would you pray for us?

Thanks.

Words. They matter.

Last month, my church hosted a large women's conference. We put it on every other year, and it is truly a blessing. I really loved our musicians this time and enjoyed worshiping with other women from different churches and neighborhoods and backgrounds. Such a sweet glimpse of what heaven - plus men and children, of course - has in store for us!

It was especially sweet to have this time, while my sweet husband was home with our two preschoolers, because I was in pain that weekend. I have rheumatoid arthritis, and my IV meds had worn off with three weeks before the next dose (which I have now gotten - thanks be to God! - so I'm feeling good!). Some movements gave me the sensation of needles in my joints, which isn't so pleasant.

So my heart sank a little when the vocalist said these words: "Lift your hands if you really love Jesus."

But I couldn't.

And it hurt in more than a physical way for a moment. "...if you really love Jesus" was the question posed, so just about every hand in the room went up. And mine couldn't.

And I felt conspicuous.

Was it wrong for her to say what she did? Not even a little bit. But I couldn't show my love for Jesus in the way she asked. My heart was praising still, but it was a little wounded at the same time.

How often each week in our churches are we doing nothing technically wrong but still wounding people? It's not about doing the right thing, y'all. (And, for the record, I clearly consider the use of "y'all" to be the right thing, only second to "all y'all" in a large group setting. And iced tea must be sweet, or you might need to repent. Just sayin'.)

It's about being so wholly resting in Christ - even in the midst of activity - that we reflect Him to the wounded (including into our own wounded places). And it's about knowing that we sometimes ask people to show their love for Jesus in ways that they can't. How can we let each person show their love for Jesus in the ways that he is able, in the ways that God designed for her to do so?

The next song at that conference was Blessed Be Your Name, which is a favorite of mine. And her next statement was, "If you love Jesus, give me a hearty amen!" 

And I was glad to do so.