Special Needs and the Church

Posted by Reagan Lynch on May 27, 2010 under Ministry | 2 Comments to Read

Churches must prepare for ministering to members with disabilities.

This is not limited to something like having someone who can provide ASL for the worship service, but also extends to other parts of the church and touches every area of ministry.

The Baptist Standard has published some articles recently discussing the lack of seminary training for pastors ministering to people with disabilities, accepting members with disabilities in the church, and welcoming people with disabilities in the congregation.

However, this only scratches the surface of churches needing to be aware of members and visitors with special needs. Churches should have someone on staff in the coming years trained in special needs ministry. They don’t have to go to seminary for this necessarily, though that would be a good place, but they could simply read the material that is provided by the North American Mission Board on disability awareness, and I would add more information to the NAMB resources on topics like deaf ministry, children with disabilities, etc.

Divorce is high among families who have a child with a severe disability so counseling must be part of a special needs ministry, but the church must also be mindful of ethnic or cultural issues around disability.

Speaking as a member of a church who is totally blind I would also like us to outlaw the development of church websites using flash. My current church does this which is not only bad practice on the web and annoying, but also impacts a churches ranking and standing with search engines. I think about things like this because I help churches with their online marketing efforts. With my church I do not go to the website, because my screen reader does not navigate flash.

A special needs ministry also does not cover the obvious like the blind, deaf or MS, but also extends to cover the man who just recently had a stroke who now has trouble walking, or those with a temporary disability like the teenage girl who was in a car accident last week and now has to use crutches for the next few weeks while her leg heals.

Though I don’t know of any research to support what I’m about to say, it also seems that single parents with a disabled child are mostly women, and as you learn in the book Father Fiction the father roll model is key. This is where a churches mentoring program could step in to have a man mentor that disabled child be the child male or female. Because though the book focuses on men mentoring boys when it comes to disability girls have it just as hard even with the influence of the mother.

In the book Donald Miller says that 85% of men in prison grew up with out a father. Well I would venture to guess that most of the disabled students who drop out of school and end up in their own troubles grew up without a father as well. Probably not 85%, but if it is over 50% I’m not surprised and that’s too high.

As the church ages over the next ten years the roll of a special needs ministry will become a key part for every church that desires to respond to the great commission. That is why the church must start now to look at how it can and will serve those with disabilities in the coming years.

While the articles above are great for thinking about disabilities in the church if a church really wants to take a step forward in this area they can contact me for help and ideas, but they really need to conduct a 360 degree access survey of the church.

More on what this survey should cover in the future.

IF you have questions about how your church can respond to special needs leave a comment below.