In So Many Words

A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts about special needs ministry at 5 Minutes for Special Needs. Although I haven’t written much about it since then, it is still a subject near and dear to my heart, and I know there is so much I still need to learn.

What a joy it was, then, to find out about Amy Fenton Lee, who writes an incredibly informative blog about the topic of special needs ministry at The Inclusive Church Blog. I am honored to welcome Amy as my first interview guest here at Another Piece of the Puzzle so that you can meet her as well.

For the interview, I posed Amy the top five questions on my mind regarding this topic, and she answered them all with grace and eloquence. I am posting the first three today and will follow up with the last two tomorrow.

How do you define an inclusive church for individuals with disabilities and their families? For example, does having a separate room available for children with special needs exclude a church from that category, in your opinion?

The term “inclusive” is going to mean different things for different individuals with special needs and different churches. Generally speaking, my opinion is that ideal church accommodation provides all three of the below:

1. Fully inclusive opportunities (children with special needs fully participating in typical environments);
2. A self contained classroom with its own planned lessons and activities designed to specifically meet the pace of the participating students who prefer this setting;
3. The opportunity for a child to float between the above two environments depending on abilities or needs at any given time.

Every church I interview or observe puts their own touch on the definition of special needs inclusion. Churches just starting out in special needs ministry often provide only one environment, which reflects the needs of the individuals to which the children’s ministry first responded. But as church based special needs programming evolves, you typically see more advanced ministries offering all three environments and opportunities.

While I am a huge proponent of truly inclusive environments, one of my favorite churches doing special needs ministry is Shades Mountain Baptist Church (Birmingham, AL). Their “Hand-in-Hand” program is primarily focused on a self contained classroom catering to approximately 12 children with special needs. Together, the full class attends the typical children’s worship and then retreats back to their own classroom for the Bible lesson, crafts, and music. These children and their families have developed into a tight knit community and this environment works for them.

I asked one of the mothers of a participating child how she felt having her daughter in a self-contained setting at church, as opposed to having a buddy and fully participating in the typical children’s programming. Here was the mother’s teary-eyed response:

My child with limited verbal skills now has a set of ‘best friends’ thanks to this class. She absolutely loves coming to the Hand-in-Hand class every Sunday. This IS her community. So while she may not be doing all the things her typical peers are doing, she is happy and this setting works for her.

This mother and her husband serve as leaders of an adult Sunday school class in the church. This mother explained to me that without the Hand-in-Hand class this entire family wouldn’t be such an active part of the bigger family of faith.

Similarly, another mother of a very high functioning child with special needs shared,

My son often elects not to go to his typical classroom. We give him the choice of whether or not to go to the regular Sunday school class. More often than not he selects the Hand-in-Hand room.

The Sunday I observed the Hand-in-Hand classroom, this particular boy played a part in the drama re-enacting the day’s Bible lesson. This child was incredibly social and could easily be described as a class favorite among the other students and teachers.

My point in sharing about Shades Mountain Baptist Church’s program is not to say that self contained classrooms are the answer for every child and every church. Many of the churches I feature on the blog take a more inclusive approach using buddies. But because of what I have seen at churches like Shades Mountain Baptist, I tend to let the parents and children’s ministry together define “inclusive” for their particular church.

I do want to say that if a church is making a reasonable and concerted effort to successfully accommodate a child with special needs, their attempts are worth applauding even if there is opportunity for inclusion improvement. I don’t want to discourage churches who have small resource pools (volunteers, budgets, and facilities) that if they aren’t doing special needs accommodation a certain way, then they are failing at being “inclusive”. Because churches do not have tax dollars subsidizing their children’s ministries (like a public school would), ideal situations aren’t always possible especially in the short term.

What do you find are the common needs of families who have a member with a disability in regards to their attendance and, going beyond that, their involvement at church?

Generally speaking, I see two categories of need: 1) Accommodation and adjustments in typical settings for high functioning children with special needs; 2) The provision of loving and safe care for children who are medically fragile and/or with moderate to severe profound intellectual disabilities.

For the child who has a high capacity to learn, the parents are going to care more about the quality of the interaction and spiritual development their child is experiencing while in church care. And this concern impacts the other siblings’ involvement in the church.

So, for example, if mom wants to attend Wednesday night Bible study and an older, middle school-aged sibling wants to attend the youth group, then the children’s ministry is going to need to equip the workers teaching the child with special needs. Volunteer teachers may need to be added to the room, behavior management training could be helpful, and curriculum adjustments may be required for successful inclusion that impacts the entire family.

For the parents of a child with more significant intellectual disabilities or a child who is medically fragile, the primary concerns and needs of such a family will differ somewhat. In order for this family to attend any other church activities, they have to make sure the church caregivers can prevent and respond to medical emergencies. In addition, recruiting and keeping volunteers to provide this intense one-on-one care can require ongoing church coordination.

Keep in mind that safety-minded churches have a child protection policy which prevents one adult from ever being alone with a child. So there are times a church may have to figure out a way to have 2 competent and equipped adults available to care for a single child. The mother of this child is most likely less concerned about the curriculum and the craft than she is coordinating care for her child so that she can attend Sunday morning worship, let alone Wednesday night Bible study or the Thursday morning MOPS group.

How can the entire church body be involved in reaching out to individuals with disabilities and their families? What does it take to create a culture of acceptance and spiritual growth for “all who would come”?

Just like most things, living out your faith begins at home and in regular day-to-day life. I am the mother of a child who is considered typical (I only have one child). I am not a special needs mom. But a big part of my world is about families and children with special needs. As a result, my five year old son is around children with special needs often without really knowing it. And when he does see a difference and ask, we talk about it. Sometimes we include the parents or even the child with special needs in the discussion to explain the difference.

All that is to say, that “special needs” is already a part of my young son’s world. I wouldn’t exclude a child from my son’s birthday party invitation list because he has autism. Similarly, I wouldn’t exclude a child from the 5 year old Vacation Bible School class I teach each summer at my church. So if I’m willing to invite a child with autism to a birthday party, you bet I’m willing to adjust for and accommodate a child with a spectrum disorder in a church setting.

I see neighborhood play groups and general networks of moms often not doing a good job of integrating families of special needs into their social circles. My point is that as soon as typical families active in their congregations will start engaging families of children with special needs, they may help create the bridge for church inclusion. Just like any effective ministry, God is going to call passionate believers to enter the lives of families with special needs and then to take action in their churches. Typical moms can go to their church nursery coordinator, their MOPS leader, their women’s ministry director all to begin a dialogue about how to include a family where special needs is an issue.

Unfortunately in America, the church has not been a trendsetter by including people that look different. I live in the deep South, where religion plays a big role in our culture. Yet the make-up of our congregations are still largely homogenous and do not reflect our multi-racial society. While I see the movement in churches improving towards greater special needs inclusion (and the explosive growth in my blog’s readership is evidence), acceptance is still evolving.

Probably the biggest catalyst spurring a church to start a special needs ministry happens when an influential church member or already active family births a child with special needs. Or this can happen when such a family discovers their young child has a diagnosis like autism. Many churches are being forced to develop a formal plan for inclusion as an increasing number of their existing members are being affected by special needs.

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Stay tuned for Part II of the interview tomorrow! I know there is a lot to digest here, but Amy & I both welcome your comments and questions. In the meantime, you can visit The Inclusive Church Blog to find out more about Amy and her heart for children with special needs.

Related Posts:

• The Inclusive Church: An Interview with Amy Fenton Lee (Part II)
• Sunday Best & Some Thoughts on Inclusion
• Autism Resources: Special Needs Ministry