ministry resources I've written elsewhere

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Over the years, I've written pieces here and there for other entities. Here are a few I've dug up from 2012-2013...

special needs ministry quick references guide

This handout is always included in my speaking handouts. I lent it to the Treasuring Christ Curriculum as a resource to be shared on their site. Here is where you can find it.

Becoming A Missional Family

I partnered with Steve Wright and George Tissiere, two pastors at Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, to write this resource for families. It's a short booklet, and it's available here. 

Some of the Most Unreached People in the United States

D6 asked me to write a piece about people with disabilities as a group largely unreached by the church. It can be found here.

Special Needs Volunteer Orientation Guide

In this resource offered by Building Church Leaders, I join the voices of Amy Julia Becker, Tony Welty, Jackie Mills-Fernald, and contributors from Key Ministry, the United Methodist Church of North Texas, and the editors of Christianity Today. Together we provide guidance on training volunteers to include children with disabilities. Find out more here. 

Maintaining the Message, Modifying the Message

I wrote this article for The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry to equip churches to welcome families affected by a diverse range of disabilities. 

An Interview with Shannon Dingle about the Treasuring Christ Curriculum and Ministry to Those with Disabilities

In this piece on the Family Ministry Today, I was interviewed about inclusive ministry and the benefits of scaffolded curricula like Treasuring Christ Curriculum or the more visually rich The Gospel Project by Lifeway (which I would highly recommend over TCC, as The Gospel Project does a far superior job of sensory integration to benefit all learners, especially those with disabilities). Read the full interview here. 

why I consider both Trump and the Alt-Right to be morally dangerous

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Update: I wrote this in June 2016. Now, in November, President-Elect Trump has named one of their leaders, Steve Bannon, as his chief strategist and said Bannon will work as a partner to his chief of staff. Trump supporters and voters who said you'd speak up for my family if my concerns proved right, did you mean it? Now's your chance. Let him know that Bannon isn't an acceptable choice for your non-white friends.

A week and a half ago, Christianity Today featured my thoughts on inclusive ministry for families affected by disability and childhood trauma. I was both thankful and humbled to lend my voice in that outlet.

I'm proud of this piece. I'm grateful to Dan Darling and the folks at Christianity Today for running it. I'm honored to have had so many opportunities to speak up for vulnerable kids and families and encourage the church to love us well.

And then, I discovered the Alt-Right. 

Please be warned, the tweets below are both graphic and horrific. 

But I think we need to see them for what they are, so I'm sharing them along with my thoughts on the issue.

(I know this post might make our family a target again, but I figure I'm probably doing something right if I'm drawing the ire of white supremacists. Thankfully, some of these users have been banned from Twitter for hate, which is why they show up as quotes rather than embedded texts now, but I've provided screen shots as well.)


I know they're sickening (and I censored out a few by not including them here). Also, happy birthday to me, as they were posted the night I turned 34. (Ugh.) But who are these people and the 100+ folks who liked or retweeted their remarks? To answer that, here's a snippet from the always accurate Wikipedia:

“It’s no coincidence that alt-righters who don’t like libertarians or more traditional conservatives often refer to them as “cuckservatives.” The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis explains the term, “A cuckold, of course, is a legitimate word for the husband of an adulterous wife… (but) the people who throw this term around are most likely referencing a type of pornography whereby a (usually, white) man is ‘humiliated’ (or ironically thrilled) by being forced to watch his wife having sex with another (usually, black) man…

“So what does this have to do with conservatism or politics?” asks Lewis. “By supporting immigration reform, criminal justice reform, etc., a white conservative is therefore surrendering his honor and masculinity…

“A cuckservative is, therefore, a race traitor,” Lewis notes.”

I didn't know what they meant by cucked when I first saw the tweets. Someone dear to me texted, "I don't know what that word means and I'm not going to look it up." I tried not to. I tried to just ignore it all. (Obviously, I didn't succeed in those efforts.)

I'm writing this because I believe these tweets are symptoms of a larger issue. I think we have to speak up against hate. I won't sugarcoat it. The Alt-Right is defined by hate. Not patriotism. Not principle. Not nationalism.

Hate.

This is a hate group, no question. And they've been mobilized by Trump, by their own assertions.

As silence doesn't suit me, the day after the Christianity Today piece and Twitter hate, I shared this on Facebook:

“I couldn’t put the words together last night, and I’m probably going to fumble this too, but I’m no longer shaking in anger so I think I can do this...

I’ve seen people try to downplay racism. I’ve seen people try to downplay rape culture. I’ve seen people try to downplay Trump’s hate speech about race and gender and immigration and disability and so much more.

Usually I try to ignore it. Fighting online battles isn’t beneficial. (And, please, continue to follow my advice about not engaging the Twitter trolls attacking our family, because they won’t go away if they get a rise out of us.)

But sometimes it’s time to say something. When a few dozen cowardly white supremacists who strongly espouse both their love for Hitler and Trump make cruel memes out of our family pictures for fun and write vile comments about how my black immigrant son is going to rape me and my white daughter because that’s what those people do (in addition to calling my husband a cuckold and us both traitors to both our country and our race), I can’t stay silent. I’m not going to engage with them, because they are not worth my time. But? I feel like I need to say that if you’re supporting Trump, I see this as the natural consequence of his violent hate-mongering speech about anyone different. No, he didn’t write those comments, but we’re seeing these groups emboldened by his candidacy. To me, supporting Trump isn’t a political issue; it’s a moral one.

Please, spare me comments about Hillary or any other candidate and their poorly behaved supporters. I know jerks behind computer screens exist in all shades. But? When my family becomes a target from hard right conservative racists over a piece in Christianity Today, I have to say it’s going to be hard for me to stomach anyone’s comments here about how mean those on the left are toward Christians. Nope. Not today.

/end rant”

I don't consider this a political blog post. To me, this is a moral issue, as much as diversity in dolls or outrage about sexual assault are. Dinglefest isn't going to become a blog about politics, but I won't be quiet on this topic. I think it's important to shed light on what our political climate is creating.

I deliberated long and hard before sharing the troubling tweets above. I might go back and remove them at some point, because I don't want to amplify their voices. But? I think we need to be willing to see the ugliness, because I think it's our refusal to look upon hate speech like this that makes us say "I'm shocked!" about Orlando and Charleston while so many of our friends in the LGBT and black communities weren't in the same ways. After all, they've been watching the hate storms brew, while our white and/or heterosexual eyes have looked the other way, simply because our privilege allows that.

So what can we do? 

Listen. Identify those who are marginalized and start listening. Your eyes might just be opened to the hate you've been glossing over without even knowing it.

Love. Create your own love storms, right where you are. (And, please, drop the conditions. Not "I love you, but..." or "I love you if..." or "I love you, even though..." Just communicate "I love you." Period. Full stop. No stipulations.)

Do. Take action - with your voice and your votes and your time and your money - to act against hate and show value to all people.

Finally, I feel compelled to say I do value both Trump and the AltRight. While I don't like their speech, they have a right to express it. As angry and hurt as I was reading their tweets, I know each Twitter handle represents an actual person created by God to do greater things than spread hate online. So please don't interpret this post as a hateful response to hate. No. This is a call for us to look and see the hate storm, but love the people. When everything went down a week and a half ago, a friend asked what she could do. I still stand by my response: "Just be kind. While these are faceless trolls, they are also real people behind a screen. And I can only think that they need a whole lot more kindness in their lives if they're saying what they're saying, even anonymously. So be kind."

I think kindness can be dangerous to this brand of hate. So let's listen, love, and do, all while showing grace to everyone, even those who don't seem to deserve it.

3 things we say when our immigrant children express fear about Trump

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"Mommy," a small voice said from the back of the van. "Um, I was talking with [two Hispanic classmates] at recess, and they're scared about what will happen if that Trump guy becomes president."

"Oh," I said, totally as filler to give myself a moment to think. "Why's that?"

"Well," she paused. "They say he wants to send some of their family back to Mexico."

I waited, giving her space to say what I knew she needed to say. Surprisingly, the rest of our kids held space too. They all seemed to be willing her to ask the question, as they waited for my answer.

"If he becomes president, will me and Philip and Patricia and Zoe have to leave the country?"

I'm glad I was driving. If she had seen the anger in my eyes, she might have thought she had done something wrong. I wasn't angry with her, though. I was furious that the hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric by a leading political candidate had made my girl question her place in our family and country.

(Lest you argue that maybe her friends' family members weren't here legally, please know that I've heard from dozens of adoptive families whose children are asking the same questions. Some have been told outright on the playground that they'll have to move back to their birth countries if Trump is elected. These incidents have been on the rise throughout his candidacy. His rhetoric is emboldening hateful language from others. Our kids are seeing it. Feel free to discuss the issues here, but our children's real experiences aren't up for debate.)

Some people don't think of our kids as immigrants. But, trust me, they are. We know the paperwork. We've filed documents and paid thousands of dollars to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services department of Homeland Security. We can share stories of the first moments each of our children by adoption spent on US soil. They know too.

After all, this is our family - hailing from the US, Taiwan, and Uganda - while we were still living on African soil:

So what do I say when these questions come? After helping them name the emotion and validating it with empathy - "Wow. It sounds like you might be scared and curious about what you heard. I'm so sorry you're feeling that way, and I'm so glad you told me." - here are the three truths we stress:

1. Our government system involves checks and balances so no one branch can make unilateral action on immigration.

2. You are now American citizens so you are treated as such under the law, even though you weren't born here.

3. If all else failed and you had to leave this country, we would ALL leave, because we're a family and we're in this together.

Our kids need to hear the truth about our government system, the truth about their legal status, and the truth about their standing in our family. We came back to these truths when one of our children had "go back to Africa!" screamed at her by a group of classmates on the playground this past spring. And we returned to them again recently when they overheard something on the news while at a friend's house.

Immigration isn't just a political issue. It's a personal one. Whenever you're tempted to lump one group of people together - either lauded in praise or burned in effigy - pause. Because it's hard to love a group, but it's much easier to love a person.

And if your kids are asking questions, pause then too. Listen. Help them name their emotions. Validate them. Offer empathy. And then affirm the truths of the situation in a way that answers their questions without dismissing their real feelings.

Wellie Wishers: The new diverse American Girl doll line coming next week

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Y'all know I love diversity in dolls. 

And y'all know we love American Girl dolls. (As well as the no-longer-in-production Hearts for Hearts Girls line.)

Well, this week a new AG line called Wellie Wishers launches, and they look a whole lot like H4H dolls. Of the five girls - Emerson, Camille, Kendall, Willa, and Ashlyn - only two are white. Kendall is black (and, squeal, actually has curly hair!). Ashlyn is a bit ethnically ambiguous but I think is meant to be Hispanic but could be Middle Eastern. Emerson is Asian (eek! dolls who look like my Zoe are the hardest to find in my experience). 

(Side note: If you see rumors about the historical dolls going away, those aren't true. Additional doll lines, like the one I'm writing about today, are additions to the line-up and have existed for more than a decade. If they were meant to erase the historical line, it would be gone by now.)

All five are friends, and their stories - which will be featured via 26 11-minute animated episodes - center around their relationships with each other as well as the individual personalities of each girl. Three books are already available to retailers, and they seem to be designed at a lower reading level to match the target age for the dolls.

These dolls are 16" - a couple inches shorter than the traditional American Girl dolls though a couple inches taller than H4H dolls - and have completely vinyl bodies. While the AG line is designed for girls ages 8 and up (though our kiddos usually get their first one in kindergarten), the Wellie Wishers are meant for younger doll lovers, ages 5-8. They each sport galoshes - or wellies, thus the name - and I suspect from their promo video and history that matching outfits for little ones will be available.

Rumor has it that they'll be around $60 each, though we'll know for sure next week. I also hear that matching girl-sized socks will come with each doll, but that's not confirmed either. I do know that accessories - like a doll house and tea set and stage and such - will be available.

And I hear the focus of the stories is a lot on walking in someone else's shoes - or, in this case, standing in another girl's wellies - which is a good lesson for all of us, I think.

For more on these dolls - available for purchase June 23 - visit American Girl.

Disclaimer: I do partner with retailers from time to time, and we did receive three Lea Clark dolls from American Girl when we were on Good Morning America on New Year's Eve, but I have received nothing for this post. I have reached out to American Girl in hopes of review samples to show more of the dolls' features, as well as requesting one for a blog giveaway, but I haven't heard back yet. Basically, I'm just a 30-something gal who is obsessed with racially diverse dolls and who uses her daughters as an excuse to write about them. (Also, all images here are from American Girl.)