This past April, I was scheduled to be one of the many presenters who would have appeared at Key Ministry’s Inclusion Fusion Live 2020. Like all of my colleagues, I was heartbroken to hear the news that we would not be hosting the conference, due to concerns from the COVID-19 pandemic. One aspect of attending the conference that I get very excited for is, of course, being able to present several workshops. One workshop in particular I get to do with my friend Sarah Broady, entitled “You Are More Than A Parent…”, which focuses on exploring all of those moments in life where you were made to feel that you were not enough of an authority regarding what is best for your own child. In a couple of other blog articles over the last year, I have written about two of those aspects, experiences in dealing with professionals in education settings, and then also in clinical/medical/therapy settings. This month, I wish to look at possibly the most difficult to consider, since it is most likely the one that you least expect to be an issue. But this issue is also one that, when it has happened to you, is maybe the most heartbreaking. I’m talking about struggles you have had working with children’s or special needs ministries in a church setting.
This is a topic of much anguish and dissension, as there are many families who have had great experiences with their special needs children in their church communities, have been welcomed and accepted, included and loved, and have not had to beg for support. But there are many, especially most of you reading this now, who have had the exact opposite experience. Those who were not welcomed or accepted, those who were ostracized or shunned in your church homes, those whose special needs children were not given the support they needed, intentionally or not. Many of you have been in the role of the outcast, in a faith community where you should have been loved and treated with the love that you and your children so richly deserve. You may not have even been treated as “just a parent” like any other, you may have actually been treated as less than that, as a broken, incompetent parent who has somehow failed their child. Or worse, that you or your sin or iniquity is somehow responsible for your child’s disability.
If I or my child had experienced such treatment in those church environments that we called home for the past several years, it would be easy for me to speak to how I or my son’s mother were treated. To be perfectly honest, we have had wonderful experiences in those church communities, and our son was loved and accepted as much as we could have hoped. We were very grateful and blessed to have been one of those families who had mostly positive interactions with all those in ministry, and the various families there.
In my other examples about education and medical settings, we were forced to step out of our comfort zones and fight for our child to be respected or treated fairly. But this article is about the things we did and the steps we took to proactively make sure our son was supported. Some of these things were very simple and, at least for us, didn’t require a lot of work or preparation. Other steps went beyond what our role as parents of a special child would normally be. Overall, we made choices to engage with our churches in ways that helped build a community around our son, since we knew it would be challenging enough for him to naturally plug into the communities.
When we first arrived at our previous church almost 8 years ago, there was a retired special education teacher who worked in the children’s ministry who helped our son transition into the classroom. The former teacher also supported us in answering our questions and concerns. Our son was just turning five at the time, and due to the nature of the classroom environments at that age, he didn’t have a huge issue fitting in. Where we needed the help was with our son being able to be still and quiet his body and voice during group/lesson time. This need was easily answered by getting high school and college students to be his buddy and sit with him. Because our son was so high energy when he was younger and needed to stim often, the aides frequently brought fidgets or other toys to distract him. This is probably a pretty typical type of support in most children’s ministries with special needs kids, not to mention the default response of parents in our situation just flat out saying “get us from the service if you need any help.” Since my son still needed help toileting, we would get frequently called in, as would be standard procedure for most special needs parents there.
Source: Special Needs Parenting- Key Ministry
