disability ministry round-up {10-31-11}

As one raised in the Lutheran denomination, I must begin with this: Happy Reformation Day! On this day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg.

And Happy Halloween! If you have little ones (or if you're a big one getting decked out) and celebrate, I would love to know your costumes. With my present health issues, I am keeping it low-key for me this year, but Robbie is a dinosaur and Jocelyn is a butterfly. And, in very exciting news, my knee is healing well enough that I've been cleared to accompany the crew trick-or-treating!

On that note, though, here's a great article from Jo Ashline: Why holidays are different for this special needs mom.

I love what Joni & Friends does here in the US, but I am even more encouraged by their missions trips overseas, like this one in which mobility and communication were provided for a precious child named Genecis.

Yesterday was Disability Sunday for most Anglican churches in Sydney, Australia. Read about it here.

In this story from ChosenFamilies.org, Joan tells how the story of Lazarus' death gave her permission to cry.

This article from the SC Baptist Convention is a great reminder that disability ministry isn't limited to children: Ministry opportunities exist to special needs adults in South Carolina

Churches and ministries paving the way for the rest of us in special needs inclusion:

• one offering a workshop called "Viewing Mental Illness through the Eyes of Faith" led by a professor from Baylor
• one that aided in the search for a missing nine-year-old boy with autism
• one beginning a series of mental health lectures 
• one with a sewing group making weighted blankets for kids with autism

And, finally, here's the speaker list for the Inclusion Fusion websummit on special needs ministry - THIS THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY! Check out the speakers and topics here, and register here.

one another (on Dinglefest and here on TWOGD)

You'll find today's post - about giving and receiving from one another - on my personal blog, Dinglefest.

And, as I consider receiving from others, I'm thinking about doing some redesign work here on The Works Of God Displayed. So I would love to receive some help from YOU:  

What do you like? What doesn't work for you? What would you change? When you think of blogs that just look good, what is it that you like about them?

The blog renovation won't be happening right away, because I do my own design and because I like to think it over for a while before I dive in. I might make small tweaks or tackle a complete overhaul; I'm not sure. But I would love your feedback now so that I can start thinking about it and redesigning in my mind.

Thanks!

Part 2: An inteview about Inclusion Fusion ... what it is, why it matters, and how YOU can benefit

Today I'll continue with my two-part interview with Dr. Steve Grcevich about the upcoming Inclusion Fusion web conference. (If you missed the first part yesterday, check it out HERE.) As I mentioned yesterday, the picture on the left shows Katie, Steve, and Chuck Swindoll, Inclusion Fusion's keynote speaker. Today you'll learn more about Steve's work with Key Ministry along with more details about Inclusion Fusion.

Before I dive into the interview, let me share a couple of stories about Steve and his team with you. Within hours of launching the Facebook page for this blog, Steve commented, welcoming me to the online disability ministry scene. Katie and I have had several phone conversations, and we're due for another coffee date via phone soon. And while this last one sounds inconsequential, I had a weird high school-esque moment at lunchtime at the Accessibility Summit in April when I had to decide whether I was going to eat alone or add myself to a group who may or may not want an extra person tagged on...and, before I decided, Rebecca walked over and invited me to sit with her and Harmony. It's the little things that demonstrate that they are more focused on serving Christ and His bride, the church, than they are about making names for themselves.

As such, though, Steve has already made a name for himself as a physician practicing in child and adolescent psychiatry, and as promised, here is the second part of my interview with him:


You were trained as a physician specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry. A handful of the other speakers for Inclusion Fusion aren't originally from ministry backgrounds, while others - like myself - are leaders in local churches. How will that diversity benefit those who attend?

Scripture clearly teaches that all of us who are brothers and sisters in Christ belong to one another and have been given gifts to share with one another for the purpose of advancing God’s Kingdom (Romans 12:4-8). One blessing we’ve experienced with Key Ministry is the way God has brought together a team of staff and committed volunteers who have demonstrated excellence in very diverse career and ministry pursuits. We want to share that blessing by introducing our friends in leadership at local churches (senior pastors, children’s and youth pastors) to our friends in disability ministry with great ideas, as well as (in future years) other friends who may or may not be Christ followers but can teach us how to do a better job of ministering to kids and adults with disabilities.

One of my ideas for Inclusion Fusion in future years is to invite the world’s top researchers in my field (Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) to do presentations for church leaders and parents helping them to understand how to better serve kids and families impacted by the conditions they study.

You lead Key Ministry in addition to wearing your MD hat. Why did Key Ministry
start, and what are y'all all about?

Key Ministry was established in 2002 to equip churches to minister to families of kids with “hidden disabilities”…significant emotional, behavioral, developmental or neurologic disorders lacking readily observable physical symptoms.

During the mid 1990s, a number of families from the church we attended (Bay Presbyterian Church in Bay Village, OH) adopted kids from Russia and Bulgaria with very complex emotional and behavioral issues. Libby Peterson (the Children’s Ministry Director at the time and an Inclusion Fusion speaker) recognized the need to help families who were struggling to stay involved at church because of the challenges their kids presented. I learned of Libby’s efforts while serving on the church Board and started asking questions about church involvement to parents of kids served by my practice. I discovered that most families coming to a practice like ours had no ongoing involvement with a local
church, in large part because churches weren’t prepared to meet the needs of their kids while the family took part in worship services or other church activities. Libby’s ministry at Bay Presbyterian grew to include families who hadn’t been part of the church, but discovered the supports offered there.

My participation in research offered me the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the U.S. to teach physicians and other health professionals. I routinely included a mention of Bay Presbyterian’s ministry as part of my standard introduction wherever I went. As the requests for assistance started rolling in, the need for a ministry to support churches serving kids with emotional, behavioral and cognitive disabilities became readily apparent. There are many outstanding ministries serving kids and adults with physical and developmental disabilities. At the time, no one was serving the kids and families we serve.

In helping individual churches to pursue and connect families of kids with hidden disabilities, Key Ministry suggests three general strategies: Serve them, create welcoming environments for the kids, their siblings and their parents, and include them in the activities vital to spiritual development. We do this by providing free training (Inclusion Fusion, our JAM Sessions that provide in-depth training to church leaders and key volunteers), consultation (on-site when possible, otherwise by phone or Skype) resources (our website, blogs and social media products) and support for church-based networks offering free respite care to families of kids with disabilities.

Who should attend Inclusion Fusion, and why should they want to?

Our hope is that any pastor, church leader, volunteer or parent with a passion for seeing families of persons with special needs connect with their larger family in Christ through the ministry of a local church will want to be part of Inclusion Fusion.

Okay, we're sold. How do we sign up?

FREE registration is available at http://www.inclusionfusion.org. 

Many thanks to Steve, for joining me over these last couple of days, and to entire Key Ministry team and PajamaConference.com, for providing this great event. 

While it feels weird to say "see you there" because I won't really see you (though you can see me if you check out either of my sessions!), I do hope you'll join us. You can pick and choose the sessions you'd like to see and watch them at any time during the conference (Nov. 3-5). It's a unique way to get equipped to do the work God has prepared for the church to do!

Part 1: An inteview about Inclusion Fusion ... what it is, why it matters, and how YOU can benefit

I've never met Dr. Steve Grcevich. I haven't talked to him on the phone before, and I don't even know how to pronounce his last name, though I have finally learned to spell it. I do know, though, that he and his team, along with Jeremy Collins at PajamaConference.com, are on to something. How can you equip a wide range of ministry leaders, including those who can't afford traditional conferences (travel + hotel + conference fees + food ... it adds up!) and those who wouldn't typically prioritize a disability ministry conference?

Bring the conference to THEM via the beauty of technology.

Today I'm be posting part one of an interview I did with Steve about Inclusion Fusion, and tomorrow you'll get part two! Hopefully, it will answer any lingering questions you have. (And, yes, I'll be among the speakers!) To put a face with the name, that's Steve in the picture to the left, standing between the beautiful Katie Wetherbee and the respected Chuck Swindoll. Swindoll is the keynote speaker for the Inclusion Fusion websummit - he's another reason you should consider joining us!

Steve, what is Inclusion Fusion anyway?

Inclusion Fusion is a FREE, worldwide web conference to equip churches to more effectively minister to children and adults with special needs and their families. We wanted to create an opportunity for senior pastors, church staff members, volunteers and family members to come together to share ideas and resources and advance the movement among Christ-honoring churches to serve, welcome and include families touched by both visible and hidden disabilities.

Wow, that's different. Has anything like this ever been done before?

Several years ago, I was attending a meeting for leaders at a major ministry conference and observed lots of venting about the lack of interest among churches for disability ministry initiatives. It seemed to me that part of our problem was the absence of anyone in the meeting outside of special needs ministry. We’ll never overcome the obstacles to full inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in the local church until we seek to understand the challenges by church leaders and provide them resources to effectively serve families in their immediate communities.

Our team felt led to create an opportunity for folks with different roles in the church…senior pastors, church staff members, highly committed volunteers and families…to come together, learn from one another and form relationships in service of a common passion to build meaningful connections between families impacted by disabilities and local churches.

Inclusion Fusion seeks to overcome two previously insurmountable barriers to mutual understanding and collaboration. One is time…Ministry leaders and families face lots of competing demands on their time. Traveling to another city to attend a conference, packing, arranging child care…all impact other priorities. The other barrier is money…neither churches nor families touched by disability
have it.

We partnered with Jeremy Collins and his team at Pajama Conference to create an experience where anyone can see any presenter speak on any topic at any time during Inclusion Fusion. A pastor, ministry leader or volunteer can literally be part of our conference while in their pajamas. [Confession from Shannon: I filmed my sessions while in pajama pants. I was only filming from the waist up, so you won't see that in the videos, but now you know!] We also established that the conference will be offered free of charge, as is the case for any Key Ministry service or event. We don’t want money to be an obstacle to any church or person who wants to join us.


Come back tomorrow to hear more from Steve about what Key Ministry is all about, what his day job is, who should join us for Inclusion Fusion, and how to sign up!

disability ministry round-up {10-24-11}

Last Friday found me in the operating room for my knee surgery, and this morning found my husband in the pediatrician's office with a little boy struggling to breathe because of a nasty case of croup. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything: it's been a rough weekend, y'all. Thankful that God's mercies are new every morning, and looking forward to another day of recovery for me and my littlest guy!

Now, on to the links...

Joni Eareckson Tada's post on Facebook, Tough Questions ... Tender Answers, is a reminder that we need to be willing to tackle the hard questions, but that God is sufficient for tender answers.

In a reverse Carrie sort of situation, a girl with Asperger's was added to the ballot for homecoming princess as a mean joke...but other students found out, rallied in her favor, and ensured that she won. Made me think of these words of Joseph from Genesis 50:20: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

Grace for our grieving: Grief can be part of both the diagnosis and the day-at-day lives of families with disabilities. This article, by Paul Tripp, offers biblical pointers for grief. 

This week the PBS documentary, Lives Worth Living, on the disability rights' movement premieres. Let more and find out the exact time it will air in your city here.

Churches and ministries showing love to those with disabilities...

• ...by hosting an autism awareness event and fundraiser with football legend and autism dad Doug Flutie
• ...by serving as the meeting place for support meetings for families from an autism summer camp
• ...by holding a carnival for kids with autism and their families
• ...by organizing and running in a half marathon to support families affected by disabilities
• ...by hosting a health fair and keeping a stock of walkers, wheelchairs, and crutches for elderly adults, many of whom have disabilities
• ...by building a respite retreat center for families with disabilities

Come back tomorrow for the first of a two-part interview with Dr. Steve Grcevich about the upcoming Inclusion Fusion websummit! 

the funny thing about plans

I wasn't planning to post today, but I fell asleep while my husband was bathing our little ones and now, in the wee hours of the morning, I am awake. At 9:00am I will arrive at the hospital to visit with an old youth group student who just gave birth this week, and then I'll check in at 9:30am for surgery, which will be at 11:30. If all goes as planned, we're looking at one hour of surgery and two hours in recovery, putting me home by about 3:00 or 3:30.

If all goes as planned...

As I wrote those words, I realize that they're odd in the context of the past few years of my life. Precious little has gone according to our plans, if I'm honest with you. We had planned to wait until we had been married five years before we had children; we were expecting Jocelyn before our first wedding anniversary. We had planned to spend our 20s traversing rock faces as we climbed and even slept against the mountain; the bone damage that occurred in the year before I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis squashed those plans. (I kid you not that the picture below shows our plans for sleeping during multi-day climbs ... note that is NOT us, just a photo I found online to show you what I mean.)

We planned to stay in our current house forever; now we're preparing to list it for sale next month and move to a wheelchair-accessible home closer to our church so we can have all of the families from Access over to our house and host Bible studies for our kids in our home. We planned to have two kids biologically and then two or three via adoption from foster care; I spent yesterday afternoon looking at faces on the Reece's Rainbow site of little girls with Down syndrome in Russia who don't have families, one of whom we hope will join our family in two or three years. And while we still plan to adopt from foster care after that, we know enough now to know that our plans will always be flexible.

I like plans, so that last statement would make me a little twitchy if I didn't know that God's plans will always prevail and are always best. If our plans had won out, neither of these two would be part of our lives.

Oh, yes. The mohawk and the pigtails. Don't those pictures just make you want to melt, or am I just biased? (Don't answer if it's the latter!)

If life had gone as we had planned it, our family picture wouldn't look like this...

A life by my plans wouldn't have included RA or the surgery I need today because of RA. It wouldn't have included the couple of other chronic autoimmune disorders I have, the other two surgeries I've needed since our wedding day, or the medical bills we now budget for.

And my plans wouldn't have included not being able to eat after midnight. (Yes, I am hungry and thirsty right now, thanks for asking. I can't have anything from now until after surgery. I know I'll probably be queasy on pain meds after I wake up, but I'm still thinking about keeping a list for Lee of the foods and drinks I want post-surgery: an orange slurpee from Sheetz, Goodberry's mint chocolate chip frozen custard, Bo Berry biscuits from Bojangles, a mix of vanilla and cookies n cream and a dash of tropical sorbet frozen yogurt from YoMo with Nerds candy on top, a skinny vanilla latte with a pump of chai flavor from Starbucks... what's that you say? Why, yes, I do have a sweet tooth. Why do you ask?)

God's plans are better than mine. Always. That would be true even if I didn't have a husband who serves me beyond what I deserve and if I didn't have mohawk boy and pigtail girl. When I can see how God's plans will work for my welfare, they do.

And when I can't, they still will.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, 

plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

Disability ministry weekly round-up {10/20/11}

I know this weekly feature usually goes up on Mondays, but I had another post pressing on my heart for that day. While I intended to just delay the round-up by a day, I've been in a lot of pain this week due to my knee. Praise God, though, that my surgery was moved up to this Friday - that is, tomorrow! - which also means I've been busy making sure everything is in order for me to be out this Sunday. On that note, let me plug the beauty of high school student volunteers who are willing to be trained and then to sub when we need them (especially because three of our weekly one-on-one buddies are out of town this week)!

 What is God sovereign over? Justin Taylor does a great job of providing verses in various categories. (Thanks, John Knight, for highlighting this.)

Special Needs and Family Ministry: I forgot to link to this one a couple weeks ago, but it is an excellent and thoughtful guest post on The Inclusive Church in which Meaghan Wall is honest about an area she has overlooked as Special Needs Ministry Coordinator at her church as well as forward-thinking about what she is doing and will do differently. Family discipleship is not just for families without disabilities.

Churches try to be accessible to people with disabilities: This is a new article written about a recent disability ministry conference.

Ever wonder why most churches start disability ministry in children's ministry as a first step, only later moving to adults as well? Perhaps this paragraph from an article about families with autism and the hope for cure sheds some light on kids vs. adults:

Sometimes children can be more tolerant than adults, said Mandy Greer of Lexington Park, whose son, James, falls in the middle of the autism spectrum. Adults can find him disconcerting — the family has stopped attending church because James can’t be still and quiet during the service — but children accept his differences, including his near-inability to speak, more or less with equanimity, Greer said.

Piece by Piece: Are Houses of Worship Welcoming? This is a great article all around, but I found this section particularly convicting:

The Broadway community is creating special performances that will take sound and light into consideration for those on the autistic spectrum. Their first special performance of "Lion King" was such a hit that they are already planning the next show.

Movie theaters have been doing similar types of special performances for a while. If other groups can understand our autistic spectrum community's needs, it is time our religious communities begin to think about them as well.

{equal}: Katie's post about her visit to Dallas to discuss disability and theology with Chuck Swindoll, his daughter Colleen, and his grandson Jonathan will make you reconsider the word "equal."

For a bit of humor to your day...Ed Stetzer's eight-year-old daughter wrote the plans for a dog race, and I thought it was cute that she even considered dogs who might have a disability of some sort. I was chuckling long before I got to that line, though. Consider it the medicine of a cheerful heart, à la Proverbs 17:22!

Churches welcoming people with disabilities in the news this week:

• a church that not only supported a 14-year-old member with Asperger's as he planned an autism awareness walk but also cancelled church that day so members would be free to join him,
• and, while I don't have any others to include here, several churches did either update or launch a disability ministry page on their websites this week, so progress is being made!

I do still plan to make those posts about respite care at other churches, but I'm having to be patient with myself in acknowledging and accepting what I can and can't do right now with the degree of pain I'm in. Thanks to you, too, for showing me that same patience as well! 

why I care about disability ministry

This week's weekly round-up of links related disability ministry, which usually posts on Mondays, will run tomorrow instead. This post was begging to be written and posted first.

I began engaging in special needs ministry because I realized that the church was not rushing to or showing love to people with disabilities and their families. Not only are many churches ignoring the needs of this community, some churches are often outright rejecting individuals with special needs. Every new family with a disability arriving at our church has shared the story of at least one church that turned them away; one parent at our respite care event a couple weeks ago told me, "Our last church told us we weren't welcome there anymore." When my friend Mike, his wife, and his triplet sons - each with autism spectrum disorders - moved to St. Louis in 2002, he called 37 churches; all 37, upon hearing about his children's needs, told him that his family wouldn't be able to come to their church.

Praise God that Mike's family did find a church in St. Louis and that many churches are indeed stepping up to embrace these children, teens, and adults and their families. For those that aren't yet there, here are the facts that require a response from us as the body of Christ:

• When parents learn of their unborn babies' diagnosis of Down syndrome prenatally, 92% choose to abort rather than welcome a son or daughter with Down syndrome into their families.[i]
• When a couple has a child with autism or ADHD some research indicates the the rate of divorce is nearly twice as high as for parents whose children don’t have disabilities.[ii]
• While the risk of divorce decreases after children turn eight for most couples, marriages with a child with autism have a continued higher rate of divorce in adolescence and early adulthood.[iii]
• Some disability ministry leaders have estimated that 80-95% of people with disabilities are unchurched.[iv] While I can’t find any documented research to back that up, my experience in the disability community as an educator and researcher confirms that adults with disabilities are less likely to attend church than other adults (supported also by this study), as are families that include a child with a disability.
• People with disabilities are less likely to attend religious services than nondisabled Americans.[v]
• Recent research from Boston University indicates that people with autism are more likely to be atheists and more likely to reject organized religion in general.[vi] The parameters of that study didn’t explore why this trend exists, but it could be related to the church’s failure to show hospitality to and share the gospel with them.
• As organizations like The Barna Group have studied other aspects of the intersection between the church and unreached people groups, little to no research is available about the welcome – or lack thereof – for people with disabilities within the body of Christ.
• Furthermore, while it would be unacceptable to close the doors to the church to any group of people, this is no small group: About 54 million people in America (19% of the population) live with some level of disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2008, a group approximately the same size as the combined populations of Florida and California; 35 million Americans (12% of the population) have a severe disability.[vii] Nearly one in six children has a developmental disability.[viii]

If we love the gospel, then we can’t deny that it is not just for those who behave, walk, talk, and think like we do. The beauty of the gospel is that it is not dependent upon my ability or yours but rather on the love and faithfulness of Christ, who lived the sinless life we couldn’t live, died the sinner’s death we deserve, and rose from the dead to conquer sin and death that we may live with him forever. Just as the disciples in John 9:2 didn’t understand that disabilities aren’t caused by the sin of the person who is disabled or their parents, the church today also needs to hear Christ’s answer in John 9:3 that disability doesn’t disqualify people from membership but instead is one way that the works of God are displayed in this world.

God made me passionate about this before my body developed a mild degree of physical disability due to rheumatoid arthritis, but I am thankful that my present circumstances help me focus on the eternal glory of our God rather than the fleeting comforts of this world. I'm not paid by my church or anyone else to coordinate special needs ministry for pre-birth through high school and collaborate with the woman who coordinates the adult side of what we do. I’m just a stay-at-home mom to two preschoolers who cherishes the opportunity to spend herself on behalf of God for his people, to loosely paraphrase Isaiah 58:10.

Won't you join me?

---

[i] Mansfield, C., Hopfer, S., & Marteau, T. (1999). Termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syndromes: A systematic literature review. Prenatal Diagnosis. 19; 808-812.

[ii] Wymbs, B. T., Pelham, W. E., Molina, B. S. G., Gnagy, E. M., Wilson, T, & Greenhouse, J. B. (2008). Rate and predictors of divorce among parents of youth with ADHD. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 76(5); 735–744.
Hartley, S.L., Barker, E.T., Seltzer, M.M., Floyd, F., Greenberg, J., Orsmond, G., & Bolt, D. (2010). The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Psychology. 24(4); 449-57.

[iii] Hartley, S.L., Barker, E.T., Seltzer, M.M., Floyd, F., Greenberg, J., Orsmond, G., & Bolt, D. (2010). The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Psychology. 24(4); 449-57.

[iv] McNair, Jeff: http://jeffmcnair.com/Ukrainenewspaperarticle.doc
The Christian Institute on Disability, quoted by Hsu, Al. (2008). Surprised by disability. Christianity Today. 52(10). Accessed at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/october/15.100.html

[v] The National Organization on Disability. Religious Participation: Facts and Statistics. http://www.nod.org/religion/index.cfm

[vi] Caldwell-Harris, C., Murphy, C.F., Velasquez, T., & McNamara, P. (Unpublished). Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism. Research paper from the Departments of Psychology and Neurology at Boston University. Available at http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2011/papers/0782/paper0782.pdf

[vii] U.S. Census Bureau, 2008: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb08-185.html 

[viii] Boyle, C.A., Boulet, S. Schieve, L.A., Cohen, R.A., Blumberg, S.J., YEargin-Allsopp, M., Visser, S., & Kogan, M.D. (2011) Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children, 1997–2008. Pediatrics. Accessed at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/05/19/peds.2010-2989.abstract?sid=ab290d14-2d60-411d-bf0c-00bb150716aa


 

Announcing...the Inclusion Fusion websummit! (and it's free!)

Alternate title: Why I've been MIA lately

I love ministry conferences. I love the opportunity to connect with others who are passionate about serving God and his church in humility and truth, and I love the chance to learn from others. I don't love, though, having to figure out the logistics and travel and accommodations and cost and babysitters required for me to attend a conference.

That's why I'm so excited to share with you the upcoming Inclusion Fusion websummit, organized by Key Ministry and PajamaConference.com. I have had the privilege and honor of serving on the program team, so I can tell you first-hand what a unique and edifying event this will be.

And what makes it so exciting, apart from the speakers who I'll share below? Well,

• it's free,
• it's online so you can participate from any location with an internet connection,
• each session will be available 24/7 during the three days of Inclusion Fusion (which are November 3, 4, and 5), so you can plan your watching time around your schedule (or, if you want to join together with your entire team to watch a session, you can plan around the schedule of your group),
• it includes sessions designed specifically for parents and others specifically for ministry leaders (though many will apply to both groups),
• and did I mention that it's free?

For more on the logistics of the conference, see my friend Steve's post here or register (for free!) here.

Our keynote address is from Chuck Swindoll, who has been a great friend and advocate of disability ministry for years and whose church has a thriving special needs ministry. The latest line-up of other speakers, as of October 8th is below...and I think you might know the second person listed (me!):

• Jeremy Collins: Using Social Media in Special Needs Ministry
• Shannon Dingle: Common Misperceptions About Disability Ministry and Disability, the Sanctity of Life and the Church
• Barb Dittrich: Bathing in the Healing of Forgiveness
• Amy Dolan: Customizing Your Curriculum
• Ryan Edlind: Church and Mental Health…Bridging the Gap From a Leadership Perspective
• Joe and Cindi Ferrini: The Unexpected Journey of Relationships-When Special Needs Change Our Course!
• David Glover: The P.U.R.E. Ministry Project: What, When, Why and Where?
• Steve Grcevich: Kids With “Issues”…The Mission Field Next Door
• Rebecca Hamilton (with Katie Wetherbee): Got the Keys? Starting Your Ministry 
• Harmony Hensley: Inclusive Ministry Environments
• Jim Hukill: Renovate: Transforming a Disability Movement
• Connie Hutchinson: The Road to Independence
• Marie Kuch: To Be Announced
• Rhonda Martin: Nurturing Spiritual Growth in Kids With Anxiety
• Jeff McNair: Integration as a Core Value
• Amanda Mooney: We know we should…but HOW?
• Libby Peterson: Relational Respite-A “Go To Them” Theme
• Jolene Philo: Ten Ways Churches Can Support Parents of Kids With Special Needs
• Colleen Swindoll-Thompson: To Be Announced
• Bob West: Where is My Heart?
• Katie Wetherbee: How To Advocate For Your Child At Church
• Laura Lee Wright: For Kingdom’s Sake

I do want to give you the heads up that this group includes a variety of different Christian denominations and traditions (including Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian, to name a few) and a variety of roles (with one or more of each of the following: church staff members, pastors, volunteers, parents, ministry consultants, non-profit leaders, authors, and child psychologists). I think you'll enjoy the benefit of such an approach, but it also means that you might not agree on all matters with each speaker. I know I won't, but I'm okay with that. Also, you can watch as many or as few sessions as you want, so you're not locked in to all the sessions if you're not interested in or in agreement with one or more of the sessions.

Finally, I would love your prayers for my two sessions, Disability, the Sanctity of Life, and the Church and Common Misconceptions about Special Needs Ministry. I am putting the final touches on them, while planning for knee surgery, scheduling a follow-up liver ultrasound to check on an issue I had six months ago, battling some insomnia issues, starting plans for our December 10 respite and our spring Joy Prom, and being a stay-at-home momma to my four-year-old artist and two-year-old climber (love my job caring for them!). Suffice it to say, I am tired, but God is good.

Even once the recordings for the sessions are fully edited and submitted, I would love for you to keep praying for the event and for the individuals who will join us for it (and hopefully you'll be among those!).

Special needs ministry weekly round-up! {10-10-11}

Last week I shared about our church's recent respite care event, and this week and next I'll have a few posts about our churches' respite events that  our Access intern (who ROCKS!) researched this past summer. Kelsey has thanked me for letting her serve with us, but we are truly the ones who are blessed!

If you read no other link in my post today, let it be this one about the majesty and wonder of God's marvelous works in a Joni & Friends mission trip in which a young man with cerebral palsy and in a wheelchair served alongside his parents: Wheelchair clinic allows disabled son to serve, too

Great tips from Jenny Funderburke for ministering to kids who are hyperactive!

Has Down syndrome hurt us? This sweet post from a mother vulnerably shares her fears upon diagnosis and lessons she learned afterward, leading to these answers: no, Down syndrome hasn't hurt us, and yes, it is a life worth living.

Two boys are a Catholic high school: one black, one white; one with cerebral palsy and Asperger's syndrome, one without any disabilities. And God brought them together with compassion in this story.

And while I am willing to bring attention to our failures as a church to welcome people with disabilities, I love highlighting the successes too, like these:

• a church hosting an evening of music and art in order to benefit a music program for kids with autism (and here's another story about it)
• a church-based Boy Scout troop in which a boy, who has an autism spectrum disorder, just earned his Eagle Scout award by completing a project for a non-profit organization providing horse therapy for people with special needs
• a variety of inclusion efforts by various groups and congregations in one Roman Catholic diocese (one that stood out to me was the installation of a ramp so that a child in a wheelchair could serve as an altar server)
• the story of a mom of two, both of whom have autism, who began an autism support group at her church
• the story of one church's special needs ministry and the recent workshop they hosted, led by noted speaker and writer Barbara Newman 

That's all for this week. I hope you're having a great Monday!

What we'll be doing differently at our next church-based respite care event

While our respite care event this past weekend went well, we'll be making some changes to improve our next one. In case you missed my previous posts, here they are:

• Tuesday's post - The first 3 questions for a church-based respite outreach event
• Wednesday's post - Safety measures for successful church-based respite care
• Thursday's post - Our recent church-based respite event: Roles, Layout, and Schedule

Today's list of potential improvements isn't complete because our leadership team hasn't met yet to create our more comprehensive list. Based on our informal conversations and my own reflections, though, I can offer the start to that list. Next time, we'll...

• ...bring carpet cleaner and paper towels. We had a puke incident on Saturday and discovered (a) cleaning supplies weren't easy to find at the church and (b) the napkins in our bathrooms are too thin for anything but drying hands.
• ...provide a little more training on our policies for diaper changes and bathroom visits. I didn't cover this as well in our volunteer training as I should have. 
• ...launch registration sooner. As we figured out the ins and outs of registration this time, we didn't get it up and running as soon as we would have liked. We'll change that next time.
• ...get the word out more. We have several - mostly secular - groups who were willing to publicize the event for us, and we didn't utilize them as well as we could have. We're ramping that up for December 10.
• ...get some freebies for families. We gave all of our families a little goodies bag with a stress ball, a CD of our children's ministry music, a mini-postcard invitation to our fall festival on October 29, and a brochure from the music therapist who helped us in the last hour of the event. I know we have connections in local restaurants and plan to offer Chick-fil-a freebie coupons and possibly a couple other gifts in the bag next time.
• ...get some freebies for volunteers. Just like we would show love to our families with those types of coupons, we love to show appreciation to our volunteers. We gave each of them a little gift for serving with us this time, and I know we want to do a little something like that again on December 10. 
• ...pass the torch. Right now my knee surgery is scheduled December 2nd*, and my surgeon says I can help with but not lead the December 10th event. I'll co-lead the planning of this event with two of my leadership team members, and then I'll turn them loose to run it. 
• ...increase communication with the parents of teenage volunteers. I didn't do a great job of making sure the details of the event were clear for all of the parents of youth who volunteered. As a result, some of our less responsible but still incredibly passionate student helpers were MIA: they wanted to help, but Mom or Dad didn't know enough to get them there or to hold them accountable to follow through. To be able to train the next generation to serve well, I need to do a better job of partnering with their parents.
• ...tighten up communication with other church staff. I serve at a large church in which most of our adult Sunday school classes are larger than the entire congregation of my last church (a small, rural church in Texas). For my old church, I had a key to the building, and I knew all of the other members. That's not the case at my current church, and I learned a lot about the differences in event planning/execution in a large vs. small church for this event. We have room to improve in our logistics, and we now know how to do that and who to talk to for each step in the process.

I know the other members of my team will have other good tips for future events, so this certainly isn't everything we can improve upon. It's a start, though, to move forward to our next one!

Next week I'll be posting about what we learned from other churches, based on research completed by our amazing intern. That research is what made this event as successful as it was.


~+~
*Note on the surgery, if you're curious:
It will be multiple procedures, but all can be done in one day via arthroscopic surgery so I should be walking (albeit with pain) that day and driving the next (as long as I'm not on pain pills). Why hold off until December 2? Well, my RA drugs inhibit my immune system, so I only have a one-week window in which surgery is safe during each seven-week IV cycle. We're hoping to reschedule for next Friday or the following one if the surgeon has an opening, and I would love your prayers for that!

Our recent church-based respite event: Roles, Layout, & Schedule

I kicked off this respite-related series on Monday with the three questions you need to consider before launching church-based respite care events, and then I followed up yesterday with explanations and examples of safety measures you could use.

Today I'll share a little more about our specific event, and tomorrow I'll share some ideas for what we might do differently at our next event on December 10. And stay tuned next week for a series of posts based on the research our Access Ministry intern did this summer as she gathered information for us (and now YOU!) about 20+ church-based respite care events taking place around the country.

First, here are the nuts and bolts of our last event:

• Day: Saturday 
• Time: 4-7 pm
• Food: Pizza and juice boxes or food brought from home (served at 5:15)
• Location: Our church
• Cost: $5 (might be free in the future but we haven't decided)

Next, volunteer information and training basics:

• We asked one adult Sunday school class to commit to help us for this event (and we'll ask a different class for December), and we recruited from our high school Sunday school classes as well. Additionally, I identified some people who I knew already and asked to join us from beyond those two groups.
• We initially planned to train volunteers on the Sunday prior to the event, but we shifted our plans to have training beginning at 3pm on the day of the event. (This did require a little extra work for us, because we had to collect background check forms in advance of training, whereas we could have collected them at training in our original plan.)
• Some volunteers expressed an interest in helping in a specific way, and we were able to accommodate those requests.

One of our primary tools for volunteers, as well as our planning resource, was a two-side page with the layout of the physical space on one side and our schedule on the other:
Access Respite Map and Schedule

Because several families had to cancel the day before the event due to illness or unexpected out-of-town company, that file shows some more rooms closed that we had originally planned. Below is our original layout, before we made those changes:

Three notes about the layout:

1. Instead of having a set schedule, we created several spaces that kids could rotate through with volunteers stationed at each exit so no child could escape. We did have picture cards we could use with the parents at check-in to create a more defined event schedule for those children who required that, but otherwise child-buddy pairs and siblings just utilized space based on their own interests. 
2. I renamed the "low-functioning class," calling it "separate class" on the final version. While "low-functioning" is a helpful term in school settings, no person has a diminished function in the body of Christ, so we choose not to use that phrase if we can avoid it.
3. To create this layout, I used the file that our church uses for fire exits and other building plan needs. I used a photo-editing program (for me, it was Photoshop Elements, but any program would do, even a basic one like Paint) to delete some parts that we didn't need and add dots and text.

In order to communicate the finer details of each role, I listed the roles in a document (found here - it's nothing fancy!) and cut them into strips. Then all I had to do was hand the appropriate slip to each volunteer. Here's a list of the roles we had and the wording I used to describe each role on the slip they received:

• Registration: I didn't have a slip for this one, because I trained them separately. So that I could recruit some fantastic - but busy! - ladies to serve here and so that our other volunteers could be in place from the beginning, these volunteers only came for the beginning portion to check families in. Instead of a slip, these ladies were given the Access Respite Check-in Cheat Sheet.
• Bathrooms: "Hang out in front of the bathrooms to assist buddies so no one was alone with a child in the restroom."
• Door: "Hang out in front of your assigned door to downstairs so that no child goes through the door unattended. If a buddy-child pair uses your stairwell to go to the playground, please stand in the stairwell until the buddy & child have gone outside so that no adult is alone with a child."
• Big room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Run the computer/movie."
• Coloring/puzzle/play room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone w/ a child. Clean as needed."
• Music/game room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
• Wii room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
• Sensory room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
• One-on-one buddy: "Enjoy the event with the child!" (Also, remember that we provide buddies with a notecard of child info in addition to this.)
• Floater: "Help as needed. Rotate through areas."
• Food: I didn't have a slip for this role - which was filled by the same volunteer who hung out in the elevator for us in the beginning - because I trained her myself prior to the event.

For all of the roles except one-on-one buddy, I included the note below so that they could use downtime wisely and not feel like it was wasted time:

If you find yourself alone, take time to pray for the event, these families, other families with special needs who are unchurched, and Access Ministry as a whole.

I didn't include leadership roles above, which included our med team, but hopefully this can provide you with some framework to start from.

~+~
Final notes: I know the level of detail found in this post won't translate perfectly to what you'll do at your church, given the layout of your facility, the size of your event, and the number of volunteers you use. However, I hope it can be helpful to give you some ideas to begin thinking about the details of an event for your church.

Here are two other posts you might find helpful about respite events (not from my blog, but from the blog of Jackie Mills-Fernald at McLean Bible Church):

• Why Have a Respite Ministry? (Part 1)
• Why Have a Respite Ministry? (Part 2)

Come back tomorrow for what we'll plan to do differently in December, and visit again next week to learn more about how 20+ other churches run their respite care events!

Safety measures for successful church-based respite care

Yesterday I posted about the top three questions for a church-based respite care event for kids with disabilities. If you didn't read it, click here. As a refresher, here are those questions:

(1) How will you keep your guests safe?

(2) How will you keep your guests safe?

(3) How will you keep your guests safe?

I suggested that you needed to consider each of these things for safety, and now I'll break down some more details of each for our program. Before I do that, though, I need to give a disclaimer:

This post is meant to describe what we have chosen to do at our church. Each decision was based on our church environment, leadership, and needs, and you need to consider the realities of your own church setting and operate in submission to your church leadership as you make decisions for your event. Particularly in matters of safety, you'll want to confer with whoever is responsible for legal liability matters for your congregation.

In other words, don't expect any guarantee of success or safety if you just blindly adopt what we've done. I will blog next week with insights from other churches, which will allow me to provide you with more varied practical perspectives. Finally, please remember that God is the source of all wisdom for all things. Seek his guidance, and value it much more than any tips I offer here.

The safety measures I mentioned yesterday were:

• a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child 
• Why? We live in a fallen world, which means sin pervades the church as well as secular environments. Because children with disabilities are more likely to be neglected, physically abused, and sexually abused than their non-disabled peers (source), it is our responsibility to exercise extra caution when working with this group of kids. Having a policy that no volunteer is ever alone with a child with special needs keeps them both safe: (1) the child isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be abused without witnesses and (2) the volunteer isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be accused wrongfully of abuse. 
• How? Walk through the event space physically with your team. It might even help to have one member of the team act as the volunteer and another as a child with special needs. In each space, discuss as a team, "How could this activity or space cause challenges for adhering to this policy?" For us, that helped us realize that between check-in (which took place in our children's building lobby) and entry into our respite space (which was the second floor of the building), kids would ride alone with their one-on-one volunteer in the elevator. What did we do? Recruited a gracious volunteer to sit on a stool in the elevator for about 30 minutes, going up and down with kids and their volunteers. Then she hung out by the elevator upstairs to accompany them down if they needed to head out to the playground (and we had another volunteer hanging out on the playground to receive that child/volunteer pair).
• an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
• Why? Even if you have an extensive conversation with a parent, you might misunderstand something and you won't remember everything. This form gives you their own words (with their signature for documentation purposes) so you don't miss anything.
• How? Here's our form.We borrowed heavily from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, as well as pulling some elements from a few other churches, so feel free to borrow from ours as well. If you'd like the .doc version, email me.

• a medical form (if not included in your intake form) that allows your church to have the authority to take medical action on behalf of the family if an accident or other medical emergency arises
• Why? Parents won't be there. If a child. for example, has a seizure or falls off playground equipment, you need to have basic knowledge and permission to treat the child, especially if mom or dad has turned off or forgotten to charge the cell phone.
• How? We have two basic ones we use at our church, one that has to be notarized which we use for trips outside of our county and one that doesn't have to be notarized for use when parents will not be on site but when the event will be in our county. Because our respite events are church-based and only three hours long, we use the in-county one that doesn't require a notary, which makes it easier for parents. This is the form we require for each child, including those with disabilities and their siblings (because siblings can have an accident too!).

• background check forms to screen your volunteers
• Why? As I mentioned above, we live in a fallen world. None of us is sinless, and none of us is a perfect judge of character, other than God. Events in which care is provided for children and/or people with disabilities provide fertile ground for abuse, and an abuser could be drawn to volunteer for such events to gain opportunity to engage in that type of sin. Background checks can screen for those with a criminal history. Please remember that background checks only eliminate offenders who have been caught previously, so make sure you exercise other cautions (for example, the policy of no volunteer ever being alone with a child) to protect the children in your care.
• How? I won't share our exact form with you because it will be no good to you without an agency to actually do the background check for you. I would suggest calling large churches and children-focused non-profits in your area to find out who they use. And email me if you'd like me to find out who does ours. 

• elopement plan (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
• Why and how? See this post in which I describe both.
•  One specific detail from this past weekend's respite event: We choose to avoid using the first floor of our building - except to enter the space and enter/exit the playground - so that even the craftiest escapee wouldn't end up in the parking lot. An eloping child ended up in the parking lot one Sunday (with a volunteer in pursuit who caught up to him before he left the sidewalk and entered the actual lot), and that's not something we - or you -wanted to risk happening.

• bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
• Why? People with disabilities may need help with bathroom/diapering need at much older ages than typically developing children. 
• How? Once again, you must set the policy that a volunteer tending to bathroom/diaper needs is never alone with a child. This includes in the bathroom. You also should operate in agreement with your church's policies for diapering/toileting younger children for two reasons: (1) some of your volunteers will already be trained on these and (2) it demonstrates respect for other ministry leaders (remember, special needs ministry should complement and not compete with other ministry areas). For us, that means that only women can change diapers, though a man can be the second person present (even if that means they have to assist in the changing process to some degree). This is true also for when a child's clothes need to be changed, as was the case for one child who threw up during last Saturday's event at our church.

• medical professionals for the event
• Why? You want to be proactive so you can rightly react to any emergencies. Also, if you want to be able to administer medication during the event (if, for example, a guest usually takes medicine with dinner and your event includes dinner) or if you want to be able to accept children with feeding tubes or other medical needs, you'll want to have a medical professional.
• How? For us, we had one med team leader on our planning team - an RN (who makes me feel old because I led her Bible study group when she was a senior in high school) - as well as two other RNs who volunteered for the event itself. I know that other churches have hired a nurse or EMT to be present or recruit one or two from outside of their church. 

• at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
• Why? Some kids with disabilities won't need one-on-one assistance, but it is wise to provide that so each child will be adequately cared for. You need additional volunteers for non-disabled siblings too.
• How? We brief each one-on-one volunteer on the specific needs of their child. We forgot these cards this time, but we also aim to provide a notecard with basic info on the child; that way I keep the forms on the child with one other leadership team member holding a copy of all forms as well, and the buddy can just have a quick reference version.

• a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
• Why? Kids with disabilities are more likely than other kids to have food allergies, food sensitivities, or other special dietary needs. 
• How? We served pepperoni or cheese pizza and apple juice boxes for dinner, and during online registration, parents had the option of selecting "My child can eat the pepperoni or cheese pizza that will be served" or "My child has special dietary needs. I will provide food for him/her." On our check-in spreadsheet, we included this and had our registration team double-check the info and either have the child wear a wristband for their pizza or, for most of our kids with special needs, have the buddy wear the child's wristband. (We just bought the paper wristbands that they use at our state fair.) We used red for stop and green for go: kids who were good to go for pizza had green wristbands (and a matching green sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy), and kids who needed to stop and eat something else had red wristbands (and a matching red sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy). We also, although we didn't have to use it this time, had a designated room in which kids with  allergies could eat separately if their allergies were severe enough that eating in the main food room would be unsafe; in that case, we also would have strictly enforced hand-washing before leaving the main food room to limit the spread of those allergens.

• a safe check-in procedure 
• Why? During check-in, you need to be able to (a) record who is/isn't there, (b) collect any missing forms, (c) learn any last-minute info, as needed, about the child, (d) communicate to the parents that their child will be safe, and (e) help parents exit while their children head to our respite event area.
• How?  Here's our check-in cheat sheet from the event.We did check-in on the first floor, and no parents were allowed upstairs. (If a parent had needed to see our respite area to feel comfortable before leaving their child, that would have been allowed, but only if a leadership team member joined them because parents have not cleared our background checks and other volunteer screening procedures or received training for the event; therefore, they cannot be allowed in our respite area alone.) In the check-in area, we had a team of women I greatly admire, including one mother of an adult with special needs, to meet the families, check them in on the spreadsheet I provided, and direct them. At the med team table, our nurse or I double-checked everything, and we matched up the child and buddy.

Please leave a comment with questions if any of that was unclear! (And for those of you who are respite event veterans, please let me know if I missed anything major.) Tomorrow I will talk about the layout of our event, as well as other volunteer roles, and Friday I'll blog about what we'll do differently in December.

the first 3 questions for a church-based respite outreach event

I'll be posting this week and next about our Access Ministry room and this past weekend's respite event. Before we can dive into the details of our respite care event and the tips I have for launching respite at your church, let's address the preliminaries...

What are the first three questions you need to answer for a church-based respite outreach event?

Before I get to those, though, let's define a few terms:

• church-based: I'm talking about the local church, which might but doesn't necessarily include members who are specially trained to work with people who have disabilities
• respite: Merriam-Webster's second definition of this word is fitting here: "an interval of rest or relief." In the special needs community, this is a period of time in which care is provided for the person with a disability so that the caregiver can have the gift of time. If we were talking about kids without disabilities, we would call it a parents' night out. Respite can be overnight or longer, but almost all church-based or -supported respite events last no more than a few hours.
• outreach: In Raleigh, NC, I only know two churches that offer respite care: ours and one other. The other church limits their respite event to regular church attendees. The respite events at our church, though, are for our members as well as other families in our community. Because of an odd combination of illnesses and extended family visiting from out of town, none of our members were able to attend this past weekend, so all of our guests were families who had never come to our church before Saturday afternoon.

Now that we've defined those terms, I bet you'd like to know those three important questions. Here they are, in no particular order:

(1) How will you keep your guests safe?

(2) How will you keep your guests safe?

(3) How will you keep your guests safe?

Yes, you want all of your guests to have fun. I'll be posting about that too. But if your event is fun and not safe, you'll be a one-hit wonder. Or, actually, a one-fail wonder. Parents and caregivers of those with disabilities are more savvy and knowledgeable than most other parents I know. They won't trust us with their children if we can only offer promises of fun. They will (rightfully) want to know first if the event will be safe.

I'll get into the finer details of each of these in future posts, but you need to be prepared with:

• a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child
• an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
• a medical form (if not included in your intake form) that allows your church to have the authority to take medical action on behalf of the family if an accident or other medical emergency arises
• background check forms to screen your volunteers
• elopement plans (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
• bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
• medical professionals for the event (could be volunteer or paid)
• at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
• a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
• a safe check-in procedure

I don't provide this list to scare you. I will have posts related to each to equip you. I just want to be clear before I offer any of that: if you are not ready to plan for each child's safety, then you're simply not ready to even begin thinking about offering respite. It isn't rocket science. It isn't unduly challenging. It isn't too hard.

But it is work, and it does require planning. I'd love to help you learn more. Come back tomorrow for tips for each of these safety measures.

Special needs ministry weekly round-up! {10-3-11}

Our respite event went well on Saturday, and I'll be writing more about that this week. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement! 

As another update, I have an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday to figure out what we need to do next for my knee. Pain abounds, but God's grace abounds even more.

And on to the weekly round-up...

Nella Uitvlugt, director of Friendship Ministries, has been instrumental in paving the way for not only the acceptance but also the inclusion of people with disabilities in the church. I've never interacted with her personally, but this profile of her, published by the Grand Rapids Press, makes me want to do so.

On a similar note, I've never met Emily Colson, and while Dancing with Max is on my "to read" list, I haven't gotten around to it yet. This post by Jeneil at Rhema's Hope, though, makes me want to. Plus it shows how God orchestrates connections among us for his glory and our good.

I linked to a previous post in this series last week, and here's another post from Dr. Steve Grcevich with some great tips for dealing with aggressive behaviors in children's ministry.

One of Kevin DeYoung's articles on The Gospel Coalition, Some Thoughts on Ministering to the Sick and Dying, wasn't written specifically for special needs, but some disabilities do include sickness and some parallels can be found between his topic and that of ministering to a family with a new diagnosis because those families may be experiencing the death of some of the dreams they had for their child.

I think you'll find this interesting, from Christianity Today, thoughts on how and if the church should try to minimize distractions.

Wonder where the kids with special needs go at your church in the fall and winter? This post from Parker's momma about what happens when Parker gets sick might help you understand why disability ministry attendance may drop at this time of year.

Nothing like the Church: This article on Ligonier Ministries website reminds us why the church matters and why it's just not okay to exclude people with special needs in hopes that they will find their own connection with Christ away from church.

Why, Yes! Families of Kids with Special Needs Can Be Happy: Great post by one of my favorite special needs momma bloggers, Ellen.

The Average Christian's Letter to the Hurting: People with disabilities aren't the only ones who are often overlooked at church. People in all demographics are hurting; do we respond with the love Christ first showed us, or do we respond with the letter in this post?

Churches doing special needs ministry in the news this week include...

• the mention of a church's support group for parents buried in an article about autism awareness,
• the mention of a church's hosting an autism awareness concert to raise money for travel for people with disabilities, 
• a family fun day event hosted by a church in which other churches and community organizations will have tables ... a display of the church and the community working together (rather than competing) to welcome people with disabilities and include them
• a story of an afternoon daycare for kids with disabilities that was in danger of closing because they didn't have a place to meet...until a church stepped up to provide their facilities
• a church's offering a service, potluck meal, and time of fellowship for families with children with autism
• a support group offered by a church for caregivers of those with special needs (and I love that this one isn't just for parents of children but also for those whose children have grown up and for caregivers of those with Alzheimer's and other oft-ignored needs)

Keep praying for more churches to demonstrate that the gospel is great enough to surpass our boundaries of ability or disability. In a story about sports for youth with disabilities, I found these paragraphs (emphasis mine):

It was especially meaningful for Margaret since her son, Hunter Heath, was born with Fragile X syndrome, a genetic condition that is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability in boys and a leading cause of autism.

Hunter, who is now 16, has the cognitive ability of a 3-year-old. He is unable to effectively communicate or participate in extracurricular activities outside his special education classes at school.

“Buddy Ball was exciting because it brought a sense of normalcy to our family,’’ Margaret said. “We are pretty much confined, like prisoners in our own home. We’ve even been asked to leave some churches because we were told there was nothing they could offer Hunter. This was a chance for him to get out and participate in something with other children.’’

Pray that Hunter and others would have a place in your church.

equipped that you may do his will {Hebrews 13:20-21}

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

{Hebrews 13:20-21}