Your special needs ministry policies are worthless if they only live on a shelf.
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I was trained as a teacher. My master's degree is in education, not in ministry or theology. The last policies I wrote weren't for a church; they were for effective goal-setting and instruction in special education classrooms taught by Teach For America corps members.
As such, I know that the field of special education is the most policy- and paperwork-heavy of any corner of education. This isn't because IEPs are fun. In case you don't know that lingo, it stands for Individualized Education Program, and it's a legal document that details the strengths, needs, and supports for each child receiving special education services. IEPs are useful because each child is unique, and the needs of each child with a disability are also unique. IEPs are necessary because kids with special needs haven't always been guaranteed the free and appropriate education that legislation now ensures them and because research shows that individuals with special needs are more likely to be abused and neglected than their non-disabled peers.
For the same reasons, it is useful to have policies for special needs ministry, regardless of how formal or informal your church and ministry are. And putting them in writing is crucial because no ministry should have any person as its focal point, except for Jesus Christ. If my brain holds all of our policies, then I am at the center of it. And I'm not enabling anyone else to lead or serve well.
However, formal policies won't help you if they're not used. Actually, they can make you more liable if something problematic, injurious, or even criminal occurs in your church, because a policy that is written but not followed shows that you knew better but didn't act on that knowledge.
Let me tell you about the first special education guidebook I wrote. It was a beautifully rich and detailed 189 pages. It answered questions that had been lingering in Teach For America practice but had never before been answered. I was incredibly proud of it, as was the vice president who managed my work. And? No one read it. It sat on many shelves. It lived electronically on several servers, rarely or never accessed. It was well-written and strategic and potentially useful.
Problem was, though, that its potential was never realized because no one used it.
Scratch that. I used it. I copied and pasted sections when the numerous emails came my way from program directors around the country, asking me how they should handle various situations. They typically asked about situations that were described in the guide, with questions that were answered there with words and diagrams and examples ... that few people ever saw.
Where did we fail? We focused solely on the guide, perfecting the policies. We put little to no effort in the roll-out. We didn't communicate its usefulness, and we didn't convince anyone that they needed to know what was in it. We knew that it was useful, and we mistakenly assumed that others would know that too, without having to sell them on it.
Don't write policies if you're going to make that mistake. Don't bother wasting your time if you aren't going to use them and if you aren't going to share them. If you have space on your shelves to spare, I can recommend several worthwhile books to fill it. (Or you can send me your bookshelves. Mine have books stacked two or three deep because I don't have enough bookshelf space!)
I will be offering tips for training along with each policy area I discuss in blog posts, so don't panic about having to figure that out on your own. Please understand that I'm not trying to scare you off. I just want you to understand from the beginning that I don't write policy or talk about it as a simple exercise. It matters far too much to leave it at that.
Your church should have a plan for welcoming people with special needs. But don't get confused: it's not the plan that matters. It's the outcome: welcoming people with special needs. A plan on paper can't do that; a plan in action can.
And, finally, any plan - on paper or in action - is powerless without Christ. The aim isn't to welcome people with special needs to show that we love the gospel. It's not even about the gospel first. It's about the gospel. Period. It's about loving Christ because he first loved us and loving others out of the love and grace we have experienced from him first.
And now I'd love to know if you have any specific policy-related questions. There's a lot of ground to cover here, but I wouldn't mind adding a topic or changing my planned order of topics if it would be a blessing to you. What would you like to know?
As such, I know that the field of special education is the most policy- and paperwork-heavy of any corner of education. This isn't because IEPs are fun. In case you don't know that lingo, it stands for Individualized Education Program, and it's a legal document that details the strengths, needs, and supports for each child receiving special education services. IEPs are useful because each child is unique, and the needs of each child with a disability are also unique. IEPs are necessary because kids with special needs haven't always been guaranteed the free and appropriate education that legislation now ensures them and because research shows that individuals with special needs are more likely to be abused and neglected than their non-disabled peers.
For the same reasons, it is useful to have policies for special needs ministry, regardless of how formal or informal your church and ministry are. And putting them in writing is crucial because no ministry should have any person as its focal point, except for Jesus Christ. If my brain holds all of our policies, then I am at the center of it. And I'm not enabling anyone else to lead or serve well.
However, formal policies won't help you if they're not used. Actually, they can make you more liable if something problematic, injurious, or even criminal occurs in your church, because a policy that is written but not followed shows that you knew better but didn't act on that knowledge.
Let me tell you about the first special education guidebook I wrote. It was a beautifully rich and detailed 189 pages. It answered questions that had been lingering in Teach For America practice but had never before been answered. I was incredibly proud of it, as was the vice president who managed my work. And? No one read it. It sat on many shelves. It lived electronically on several servers, rarely or never accessed. It was well-written and strategic and potentially useful.
Problem was, though, that its potential was never realized because no one used it.
Scratch that. I used it. I copied and pasted sections when the numerous emails came my way from program directors around the country, asking me how they should handle various situations. They typically asked about situations that were described in the guide, with questions that were answered there with words and diagrams and examples ... that few people ever saw.
Where did we fail? We focused solely on the guide, perfecting the policies. We put little to no effort in the roll-out. We didn't communicate its usefulness, and we didn't convince anyone that they needed to know what was in it. We knew that it was useful, and we mistakenly assumed that others would know that too, without having to sell them on it.
Don't write policies if you're going to make that mistake. Don't bother wasting your time if you aren't going to use them and if you aren't going to share them. If you have space on your shelves to spare, I can recommend several worthwhile books to fill it. (Or you can send me your bookshelves. Mine have books stacked two or three deep because I don't have enough bookshelf space!)
I will be offering tips for training along with each policy area I discuss in blog posts, so don't panic about having to figure that out on your own. Please understand that I'm not trying to scare you off. I just want you to understand from the beginning that I don't write policy or talk about it as a simple exercise. It matters far too much to leave it at that.
Your church should have a plan for welcoming people with special needs. But don't get confused: it's not the plan that matters. It's the outcome: welcoming people with special needs. A plan on paper can't do that; a plan in action can.
And, finally, any plan - on paper or in action - is powerless without Christ. The aim isn't to welcome people with special needs to show that we love the gospel. It's not even about the gospel first. It's about the gospel. Period. It's about loving Christ because he first loved us and loving others out of the love and grace we have experienced from him first.
And now I'd love to know if you have any specific policy-related questions. There's a lot of ground to cover here, but I wouldn't mind adding a topic or changing my planned order of topics if it would be a blessing to you. What would you like to know?
