Special Needs Sunday...part one

This past weekend was one to remember. We had our first Special Needs Sunday at Stonebriar Community Church. I'm going to have to break up the posts a bit. I'll write in this post about the highs of the weekend and in another post I'll give you the lows of the weekend. While the highs completely outweigh the lows, this blog is about sharing both sides of this ministry.

So back to the post...

Back in January, I met with my boss, the Children's Pastor, and we discussed plans for the Special Needs Ministry. Since he was new to the position, I decided to lay it all out. I told him my dream would be to have a Special Needs Sunday. While I was dreaming about the idea, he took it to our Senior Pastor and got two thumbs up. Next thing I knew I was finding a date and starting to put flesh to my dream.

Four months later on April 18, 2010, Stonebriar Community Church devoted an entire Sunday to the Special Needs Ministry. This has never been done and honestly I didn't think it ever would be done. The Worship Service at SCC is an untouchable piece of the puzzle. It is a sacred time when the congregation is led to worship and experience God in ways they might not in other areas of the church. It was my job to mix the Special Needs Ministry into the Worship Service without losing the sanctity of the morning. In my eyes, this was an easy task because I believe the worship of a child or adult with special needs is as close as you can get to honest and true worship the way it was meant to be. In the typical churchgoers eyes, however, this could be seen as a distraction or a show.

All in all, I think we did a good job of relaying our message of true worship to those in the service. We started out with a simple video that gave a little insight into the world of Autism. Following the video, Pastor Chuck interviewed me about the ministry and why we were doing what we were doing. This was just a way to give the nuts and bolts of the ministry and allow the congregation a way to be involved. Our kids, however, were the true heroes. We had one little girl with Autism sing "Tis So Sweet", bringing the congregation to their feet is a roar of applause. We also had an older teen lead the congregation in prayer. Finally, we had a whole group of kids and adults take up the offering while serving as ushers. They were perfect.

Again, the goal of the morning was not to bring pity to these kids and adults but to open the eyes of our congregation. We wanted them to experience worship through the eyes of a person with special needs. I think people who might have been turned off by differences in the beginning might be more open to the differences now.