Including ALL People in the Church (from my #D62012 Nuts & Bolts of Special Needs Ministry session)
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Special needs ministry can be done well at any church that
is willing to include ALL people in the church by:
Adapting
Loving
Looking
(See how I did that?
Yep, an acronym. In order to speak at a church conference, you have to prove that
you’re able to use at least one. I got bonus points for having three in my
first session, and I’ll share the others later this week.)
Adapting
- Any degree of special needs ministry in your church will require a willingness to change. Sometimes physical environments – the building, the room set-up, the parking – needs to change…
- …but more often than not attitudes need to change. The best way to change attitudes is with God’s truth. Here are my eightfavorite Bible passages (and one I don’t often use) related to special needs ministry.
- Other aspects of ministry – such as curriculum choices, measures of success, volunteer recruitment, and teaching – need to change as needed too.
o
Volunteer recruitment.
We tend to measure need by the number of kids in a class. For example, if we have two classes with no Sunday school teachers – a large class and a small one – we usually prioritize getting the large class covered because it’s easier for subs to teach a smaller class or to combine the smaller class with another class. However, this way of thinking isn’t always helpful. It is just as valuable to find the right person to be paired with one child who needs support as it is to find the right person to teach a class of 15; God’s economy doesn’t measure the work of the person with one child as more or less important than the work of the one teaching the full class.
We tend to measure need by the number of kids in a class. For example, if we have two classes with no Sunday school teachers – a large class and a small one – we usually prioritize getting the large class covered because it’s easier for subs to teach a smaller class or to combine the smaller class with another class. However, this way of thinking isn’t always helpful. It is just as valuable to find the right person to be paired with one child who needs support as it is to find the right person to teach a class of 15; God’s economy doesn’t measure the work of the person with one child as more or less important than the work of the one teaching the full class.
o
Curriculum choices.
I can’t tell you the perfect choice that will work for all kids, students, and adults with special needs, but some good features to look for in a curriculum or to add to what you’re already using are visual aids, music, movement, teaching time broken into smaller chunks instead of long stretches, and a clear, consistent, and predictable schedule. (In our adult class, we use the Access curriculum from Lifeway. In our children’s and students’ ministries, we use the Treasuring Christ curriculum, for which I write special needs strategies.)
I can’t tell you the perfect choice that will work for all kids, students, and adults with special needs, but some good features to look for in a curriculum or to add to what you’re already using are visual aids, music, movement, teaching time broken into smaller chunks instead of long stretches, and a clear, consistent, and predictable schedule. (In our adult class, we use the Access curriculum from Lifeway. In our children’s and students’ ministries, we use the Treasuring Christ curriculum, for which I write special needs strategies.)
o
Teaching time.
Here's an example. I recently emailed our children’s discipleship pastor about the need for visual aids – even a few powerpoint slides – during his large group teaching time at our kids’ Sunday night program. The cool thing is that while I asked for this to help one child with autism in the group, it will also benefit most of the other kids and improve the teaching time for all.
Here's an example. I recently emailed our children’s discipleship pastor about the need for visual aids – even a few powerpoint slides – during his large group teaching time at our kids’ Sunday night program. The cool thing is that while I asked for this to help one child with autism in the group, it will also benefit most of the other kids and improve the teaching time for all.
o
Measures of Success.
Fair doesn’t mean equal. Let's identify the core biblical truth we intend to impart in each lesson, andaim for all kids to grasp that, even if some don’t get all the nitty grittyextra tidbits in the story. Let’s learn to celebrate every milestone – a partially memorized verse, even if the other kids memorize five verses during that time; eye contact with a classmate; the first day that a child who is prone to elopement (that’s the fancy special needs word for wandering off or running away) doesn’t try to leave the classroom.
Fair doesn’t mean equal. Let's identify the core biblical truth we intend to impart in each lesson, andaim for all kids to grasp that, even if some don’t get all the nitty grittyextra tidbits in the story. Let’s learn to celebrate every milestone – a partially memorized verse, even if the other kids memorize five verses during that time; eye contact with a classmate; the first day that a child who is prone to elopement (that’s the fancy special needs word for wandering off or running away) doesn’t try to leave the classroom.
Loving
When we interact with people affected by disabilities, we can show love through:
- Safety. Churches should be safe places, emotionally and physically, for families affected by disability. (I’ll expand more on this in tomorrow’s post.)
- Friendship. Don’t look away or avoid people with disabilities. Get to know them, beyond their disability. Be a friend, and let them be a friend to you. Talk about sports or clothes or church or music or whatever other topic you might talk to any other friend about.
- Confidentiality. We keep the details of their diagnosis and challenges confidential. Those who are involved with teaching need to know them, but otherwise let the person be a person first. None of us wants to walk around church wearing a sign that says “My biggest challenge is [fill in the blank]” so don’t do that to people with disabilities in your church by sharing openly about their stories without permission. (Remember: It’s their story, not yours.)
- Presence. I get to go to my first Miracle League baseball game this Saturday. A young friend of ours is playing, and I might get to see another friend and his family there too. As a dad said in one of Marie Kuck’s D6 sessions, "Just be there and be incarnational in that way." (To be honest, though, I’m not going there with the aim of being incarnational. I just really, really like hanging out with our little friend and his family.)
- Joyful service. One mom told me, “We’ve never been asked to leave a church because of my son’s disability, and I’m thankful for that because I know that sort of thing happens. It’s just that… well, at other churches they make us feel like a burden.” Families affected by disability need to know that church is a different sort of place, a place where we are happy they are there and we care about them.
Looking
You want to look for the kids and students and adults who are not being physically included and who are not being spiritually included.
Physically included: The most obvious (yet easiest to ignore) families who aren’t physically included are the ones who aren’t present at all. If your church doesn’t reflect or exceed the average prevalence of disability in your area (for example, if you’re in the US and your children’s ministry doesn’t have one child with autism in approximately every 88 children), then you need to examine why.
Another kind of family who isn’t physically included at your church could be one who selectively attends, coming to worship but not Sunday school or vice versa. If that’s due to their preference, fine. However, if it’s because they aren’t able to attend church (perhaps because of sensory overload) or because they aren’t able to attend Sunday school (perhaps because a child needs more help than your church provides for those with disabilities), then you’ve found an area in which you might be lacking physical inclusion.
Spiritually included: Once we’re physically including people with disabilities, we are often tempted to stop there. However, if our aim – for example – in children’s ministry is for all children to know Christ and grow in Him, then that means we’re aiming for more than kids simply showing up. Therefore, we ought to also aim for more than the physical presence of people with disabilities throughout our church. (Pat yourself on the back for physical inclusion, though! That’s a good first step. It’s just not your last one.) Consider, what is our goal for all typical members of our church? Are we upholding that for the members who have special needs? Look for the places in which your church is falling short and figure out what you can do to bridge that gap.
What other ideas do you have for ALL people to be included in the church?
