A how-to guide for hosting a prom for adults with disabilities

A decade ago, our church hosted our first prom for adults with disabilities. It was called the Joy Prom, and after that event, our church began a Sunday school class for that same group. I've written about Joy Prom before here and here and the Joy class here.

This is no small undertaking, so if you're interested in hosting an event like this at your church this spring, then now is the time to start. To help you out, here's the manual that one of our Joy Prom coordinators wrote a few years ago; it has been used by several churches across the country to plan their own events.

Joy Prom Manual

And here's a video I found on YouTube of news coverage from our 2008 prom.


I do want to share one note of caution in planning and executing an event like this, though:

It's very easy to operate from the mindset of "look at this great thing we're going to do for them," setting yourself up as the doers of ministry and them as the receivers. I've seen this become problematic after the event when that mindset continues and can prevent full involvement of "them" as people who can do ministry too.

I would recommend cultivating an attitude of "look at this great night we all get to have together to celebrate life;" then you're talking and thinking about each other as friends and partners in ministry from the beginning.

Because that's who we all are.

need (in)couragement as an ordinary mom of special kids? me, too.

Sometimes when you need a space for encouragement and you can't find one that already exists, you have to carve it out on your own.

That's what me and my friends Brittnie, Tammy, and Heather are doing as we partner with (in)courage to lead the small group "Ordinary Moms, Special Kids."

And, yes, I do need a new headshot, but that's not the point.

All four of us are special needs mamas. Because of that, the leadership for (in)courager groups graciously made us into a bigger facilitator team than usual, allowing four of us to co-lead so that we could love our group well amidst the realities of IEPs and therapies and hospitalizations and homework struggles and and and and... well, all those things that could pull us away from our (in)couraging space for a time.

If you'd like to join us, click here and sign up and then we can add you to the Facebook page where we can build each other up, pray for one another, and share wisdom, tears, and joy in our common yet individually unique journeys of parenting children with special needs.

Because we all need a little (in)couragement, right?

disability & Christ: links from last week

From abp news, Experience on Broadway enriches Baptist couple's calling to special needs advocacy

“Their passion in helping the rest of the world see people with disabilities in a positive way is inspiring,” said Jeannie Troutman, minister to children at First Baptist. “Within our church they have been real advocates for our special needs children.”

Out of Tallahassee, New Sunday morning ministry welcomes kids with special needs,

"We were at a place where we had given up on church. We didn't have a place for our daughter to go on Sunday and hadn't gone to church for eight months," Adams said. "When you're a person of faith, coming to church is detrimental and not being able to do that is heartbreaking."

From Huffington Post, Teen Will Carry Brother With Cerebral Palsy 40 Miles To Send A Powerful Message

The goal of this walk is to get the attention of our up and coming leaders, doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs and show them the face of Cerebral Palsy and the need for innovative ideas in mobility aides and medical procedures. We need modern equipment that doesn't look medical. We need walkers that can handle playground mulch, ball field gravel, sand at beaches and uneven grass at parks. We need mobility aides and classroom adaptations that work with then newest computer technology. We need handicap accessibility to truly mean accessible, accessible for all.

From The Dallas Daily News, 10 tips for strengthening the relationship between the church and special needs families

People with disabilities can be disruptive or require accommodations the church is not prepared to make. I’ve heard it said that for people with disabilities, the [accessibility] problem at church is not the stairs, but the stares.

 From Tim Challies, The Disabilities Dilemma

Not too long ago a good friend of ours attended an evangelical pastors’ conference to tell people about his ministry to the disabled, to their families, and to their churches. There were nearly one thousand godly, theologically-astute, gospel-enamored leaders in attendance. What an opportunity, right?

As we spoke to our friend in the aftermath of the event, he told us that his booth, located in a prime spot in the busy exhibit hall, had generated a grand total of five conversations—five conversations in three days. Two of those were with inattentive attendees who apparently mistook the display for something else. In an attempt to escape the awkward moment, one of them uttered, “This doesn’t affect me” before turning his back and rushing away.

A final note from Shannon: This affects all of us, if we are in Christ. If you don't think it does, re-read 1 Corinthians 12, Luke 12:12-14, and Psalm 139... or just look around you at the world God calls us to go into with His good news.

If we say that disability doesn't affect us or act in that way, we're saying the gospel is only for people who look or act or behave or think or talk or walk or connect like we do. And? That attitude is simply not biblical.

Kudos to Target. Now church, it's your turn. {a repost from January 2012}

A post I read at the start of this week has gone viral in the disability community, and I love it: Target is 'Down' With Down Syndrome: 5 Things Target Said By Saying Nothing At All. Rick, who is probably known better by now as Noah's Dad, shared the picture below from Target's weekend ad. Notice the handsome fellow named Ryan on the far left.

Ryan has appeared in Nordstrom's ads and others, and like Rick, I am pleased to see Ryan's face alongside kids without Down syndrome instead of sequestered into an ad of just kids with special needs, as is often the case. Target included Ryan, but they didn't make a big deal out of it. Their lack of words said more than anything else could have, including that kids with Down syndrome are kids first and that inclusion isn't a big deal but that exclusion would be.

To put it into roughly sketched pictures, Target said we're not going to work with these buckets

because kids with special needs are kids too. In fact, they're kids first, with disability as just one characteristic, like hair color or slinky preference. Separating their ads into the two categories above would make as much sense as doing using the ones below.

 Instead, Target just advertises clothing to kids, in all their diversity.

Now how about us? Consider the areas of your church that display what you care about. Does the bulletin board with children's ministry pictures or the section of your website devoted to family ministry include the faces of those with special needs? Or do you just include those pictures in areas that are specific to special needs? 

Of course, that's not the only sign of how you view people, just like this past Sunday's Target ad isn't the only sign of that company's inclusion of kids with special needs. It is a good indicator though, isn't it?

Is this your church, in which people can only fit in one bucket?

Or do you acknowledge that we are all the church, made richer because of - and not in spite of - our God-given diversity?

I know I didn't include every people group or ministry area in the graphic above, but I think you get the idea. If we're the church God designed us to be, we won't create divisions by ability or disability, choosing instead to "...walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:2-3, emphasis mine).

P.S. Sketching might not be my strong suit, but my four-year-old daughter recognized that the pictures above were buckets, and that's good enough for me. 

the media is speaking about about HIV discrimination. can I get a hallelujah?

Yesterday, I saw a blip on my FB feed about ex-NBA guy Sterling sticking his other foot in his mouth during his I'm-not-a-racist interview with Anderson Cooper.

And I sighed.

I sighed because the blip mentioned Magic Johnson, and I guessed that Sterling's newest comments were anti-HIV rather than anti-black. I sighed because I suspected that all the people who spoke out about racism with Sterling's initial comments would just gloss over the HIV discrimination, considering that sort of slur to be okay.

I was wrong.

The ruckus probably wouldn't have been so great if it weren't riding the coattails of a bigger story, but major news outlets are talking about HIV discrimination. Granted, a Google search for "HIV Sterling" only comes up with a fraction of the results you get when searching "racist Sterling," but I'll take it.

I meet adoptive families with HIV+ kids all. the. time.

Why? Because, as one of the rare families who is open about our child's HIV status, they seek us out. Unlike families whose children have cerebral palsy or epilepsy, the diagnoses of two of our other children, HIV families usually stay quiet. From my experience in person with these families and online in private forums, I'd guess that 80% keep the diagnosis a secret from most - or even all - of their family and friends. They know HIV ignorance and the resulting discrimination are real, even though the risk of contracting it from our kids isn't, and they keep quiet to protect their loved ones.

It's sweet for our kids to know each other, to know that HIV is something other kids have, to know that their diagnosis isn't shameful and doesn't define them as individuals.

To know that - whether the news acknowledges it or not - comments like Sterling's are just plain ignorant and mean.

Let me pause for a moment to answer the question that might be bouncing around your head: isn't it different, though, for my child who was born with HIV by no choice of his/her own and for Magic Johnson and others who acquired HIV through lifestyle choices?

In a word, no. Say what?!? Here's the thing: None of us are without sin, and while your life's consequences might not include HIV, it wouldn't be right or fair or loving to dismiss you because of your past mistakes and whatever resulted from those. So, please, before you defend HIV discrimination for someone who chose the action that led to HIV, just stop. Because regardless of how the virus was contracted, I can promise you this: no one purposefully chooses HIV.

And no one deserves discrimination as a result of an HIV status they can't change now.

Now, back to Sterling's comments and the media attention around them...

From USA Today:

An interview that was supposed to be an attempt at rehabilitation instead had Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling facing fresh rebukes as he went from apologizing for recent racist remarks to slamming Magic Johnson, repeatedly bringing up the ex-NBA star's HIV status and calling him an unfit role model for children. 

In a headline from The Washington Post:

Donald Sterling: Magic Johnson ‘should be ashamed of himself’ for having HIV  

From Sports Illustrated:

Disgraced Clippers owner Donald Sterling launched into an extended tirade against Magic Johnson in an interview with CNN, saying that the Lakers legend should be “ashamed” of being HIV-positive and suggesting that he hasn’t financially supported minority communities.  

From CNN:

In a conference call, Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said of Sterling's comments, "That doesn't sound like much of an apology to me."

I hate to give any more publicity to this whole Sterling mess, but I wanted to write this post to publicly say WELL DONE! to media outlets for not just ignoring HIV discrimination. If they had skimmed over it, they would be saying, "Race, don't you dare discriminate! But HIV? Go ahead." But they didn't.

As the mama of a kid who is too young to care about Sterling's comments yet, this makes me smile and gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, society won't be so hard on my child due to a completely manageable health condition.

~+~

I wrote this article before I realized that today a story about our family - and HIV discrimination - would go live on the Today show's website. Here 'tis. A few details are amiss, but the basics are accurate... especially the part at the end about our hope that the friends who have reacted in fear to our child's HIV would have a change of heart because we love them, no matter what.