Do you have children and adults with special needs attending your church? Have you noticed a family with a child needing extra care and attention at church? Do you wonder what their lives are like and how you might could help?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, let me encourage you to think, pray, and consider how you can serve and love these families in your midst.
But where do I start? you may ask. Well, let me give you four things to consider:
Why start a Special Needs Ministry?
- Because God allows disabilities. As Psalm 139:15-16 (NIV) says:
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
As God formed our bodies in our mother’s womb, in His mind and plan, He allowed physical disabilities and limitations.
- Because Jesus first saw the disabled and loved them. As John 9 (NIV) says:
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Jesus knew that God had a plan for this man’s life and that with a disability, his life had meaning and purpose beyond what men could see in him.
- Because He commands us to love everyone as He loved. As 1 John 4:19 (NIV) says:
We love because he first loved us.
- Because He wants them included in the family of God. As Ephesians 2:19-20 says:
You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
Consider this statistic: 19% of the U.S. population is living with some type of disability.1 Lay that number over your congregation to get a sense of how many people in your church live with a disability. Who has God already brought to your church?
Reach out to families that your church staff and leadership know have someone with a disability within their family.
Special needs ministry is not just for children, but all ages and life stage of people can be disabled and need accommodations when they come to your church.
A few types of needs to consider:
- Families with children born with an unexpected complication or disability.
- Foster or adopted children with trauma that manifests itself in struggles with behavior.
- Adults that suffer an accident or are diagnosed with dementia that leave them needing assistance.
All of these are special needs that need your church’s awareness, inclusion and accommodations for this person to fully engage in the life of your church and community of believers.
Ask to learn their story and how your church can serve them.
Start slowly with the few families that you have identified that have someone with a disability. If you don’t know them, ask to meet with them, hear their story and ask, “How can we help?”
Just being asked that question is a huge affirmation that you see them and want to enter their world as a part of their caregiving community.
Educate yourself on their disability, its distinctive needs, and begin using “person-first” language when referring to those with a special need. “An example of this is saying, ‘a person with an intellectual disability,’ rather than ‘intellectually disabled’ or ‘mentally challenged.'”2
Look for those families that are “hidden” from view because of a disability or mental health challenge in your church.
Families may have someone with a “hidden” disability that is not easily identifiable by just looking at them, like autism, traumatic brain injury, depression, or a learning disability.
A 2018 Clemson University study found that these “hidden” disabilities significantly impact a child not attending church. A child with a learning disability is 36% more likely not to attend church than a child without a learning disability.3 A family with a child with autism is 84% more likely to not attend church that a child without autism.4
What do they need that your church may already be able to provide?
Once you have identified a few families and have some information on them and their needs, decide how to catalog and utilize that information to best serve them.
Pull a small team of other like-minded members together to pray, plan and provide one to two tangible ways that your church can fulfill a primary need of these families.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Ask, what’s the best way your church can answer these needs with what you already have in place (i.e. ministry programming, volunteers, community professionals in your church, etc.).
Each church’s special needs ministry will look different, but as you are extending care and compassion to families remember, “We must show those who walk through the world differently from us that we have thought about them and have made room for them.”5
Bring along your church leadership and congregation to work as a team.
Share stories with church leadership to make them aware of these families who desire to attend church and be an active part of the community.
Share your plan to provide for their loved one with a disability and pray together for how God will meet that need. Ask for any need of resources, facility space, or supplies to make Sundays exactly what best benefits these families.
Evaluate often and ongoing for needed improvements and adjustments.
Ask the families how things are going and adjust as children grow and their developmental and physical needs change.
Assess training of volunteers, clear expectations and communication to your church body and ongoing needs of new families.
Utilize older parents of children with special needs in your church for mentoring and coaching input as you continue to grow and develop your ministry.
At the end of the day, remember God is with you and will empower you to love and serve families well. No matter the size, location or type of church you attend, all churches have families that are either visible or hidden that need care due to a disability.
ABOUT DAWN STEPHENS
Dawn has been involved in women’s ministry in both volunteer and staff positions for over twenty years. She has served as the women’s minister at The Church at Brook Hills, in Birmingham, Alabama, since 1998. She also gives staff leadership and oversight to the Special Needs Ministry there.
She graduated from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Women’s Ministry certificate program, has served on the Alabama Baptist State Women’s Ministry leadership team, and serves as a Lifeway Women’s Ministry Trainer. She is a contributing author to Transformed Lives: Taking Women’s Ministry to the Next Level.
She is married to Greg and has one son, Tyler. They make their home in Birmingham, Alabama.
Works Cited
- “Nearly 1 in 5 People Have a Disability in the U.S., Census Bureau Reports,” United States Census Bureau, July 12, 2012, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html.
- Joni and Friends, “Christ-Like Language for Talking About People with Disabilities,” joni&friends, April 18, 2023, https://joniandfriends.org/for-the-church/christ-like-language-for-talking-about-people-with-disabilities/.
- Stephen Grcevish, “It’s the Hidden Disabilities that Keep Kids Out of Church,” Key Ministry, July 22, 2018, https://www.keyministry.org/church4everychild/2018/7/22/its-the-hidden-disabilities-that-keep-kids-out-of-church.
- Ibid.
- Aaron Earls, “Churches believe they are welcoming to those with disabilities,” Lifeway Research, March 10, 2020, https://news.lifeway.com/2020/03/10/churches-believe-they-are-welcoming-to-those-with-disabilities/.
