In this episode, Sandra Peoples shares the vision of the Southern Baptists Convention of Texas’s Special Needs Ministry Sunday! It’s a look at how it started and the prayer she has for the future. Listen to get ideas for your own disability ministry celebration or how to work within your convention to get more attention for the importance of inclusion.
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Transcript:
Hi friends! Happy July! I hope your new month is off to a good start! I'm Sandra Peoples, one of the cohosts for Key Ministry the Podcast. This is episode 10, and today I'm sharing the details behind one of my favorite Sundays of the year: Special Needs Ministry Sunday! I'm the special needs ministry consultant for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, and this is the 3rd year this event has been on our calendar. I thought it would be fun to talk about this history of the day and how churches across the state celebrate. You might want to create your own Special Needs Ministry Sunday through your church, local association, or denomination!
Let's start with the history of why we have special needs ministry Sunday. I know all denominations work differently, but in our Southern Baptist world, we have yearly meetings where messengers from churches come together to celebrate what God is doing, pray together, and make decisions about the focus and direction of the denomination. We do this on the national level and the state level. A few years ago, my husband Lee made a motion at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention that they should take steps to better equip churches to serve people with disabilities and special needs families. It got approved by the messengers there!
The next step was to create a task force with 10 or so people on it that would study the issue and make recommendations to the convention. They created my position as consultant for disability ministry, secured a grant to put it in the budget, and recommended three steps:
Enlisting regional specialists to consult with churches upon request;
Placing a “Special Needs Sunday” on the SBTC calendar; and
Developing digital resources to assist churches with special needs ministries.
From there, it was decided that the second Sunday in July would be special needs ministry Sunday! When I was hired by the state convention, all this was in place, and it was part of my role to shape it and spread the word! Because of covid, this will really be the second year we're celebrating. Here's what we do as a convention and how churches have adapted it for their congregations.
First, as a convention, we create social media graphics and a video that our churches can show in their worship services. In the video, I share the biblical example we have in Luke 14 for including people with disabilities. We included images from churches around the state so people with disabilities are featured as well as the spaces churches have designed and adapted for them to feel welcome! I'll put a link to the video in the shownotes at keyministry.org/podcast so you can check it out!
We also cast a vision for special needs ministry Sunday on our website. Here's what it says:
Special Needs Ministry Sunday is a time to celebrate those who for too long have been forgotten or neglected.
As pro life churches who see the beauty of everyone made in the image of God, we honor them and remind ourselves that a church is incomplete without the gifts and blessings that people with disabilities bring.
We use Special Needs Ministry Sunday as an opportunity to educate church members about the value of all people, a way to share more about how churches can make accommodations for those who need them, and as an outreach to special needs families who are longing for a church home.
I mentioned that churches celebrate the day in different ways. Here are some we recommend:
Feature a testimony from a special needs family that attends your church
Have people from your disability ministry serve as greeters, read Scripture, or provide special music
Share a video of those who are a part of your special needs ministry interacting in their classes and serving the church with their gifts
Last year at our church we created calls to action for the children's ministry, youth ministry, and adult life groups (that's our name for Sunday school classes). The children' ministry read books that encouraged inclusion, the youth group talked about how to be a good friend, and the adults were asked to pray, volunteer, and deepen friendships with people with disabilities.
Since Texas is a big state and our special needs ministry focus is so new, it's hard for me to know how many of our SBTC churches are celebrating the day. But it's growing each year!
My prayer is that every person with a disability and every special needs family in Texas will be able to find an SBTC church where they are welcomed as part of the family and are able to serve with their gifts. Special needs ministry Sunday is a big part of making that happen! I'm thankful for the vision of the task force and for a state convention that is willing to invest in resources that will help churches reach families.
I hope that was a helpful look at how we celebrate Special Needs Ministry Sunday and even the story of how our state convention now has a disability ministry department. Until every church welcomes people with disabilities and makes accommodations for them, we have to keep spreading the word and bringing attention to the importance of inclusion. Special Needs Ministry Sunday is one of my favorite ways to do that here in Texas!
Thanks for taking the time to listen today and hopefully get some ideas you can put into practice. It would be awesome if you'd take one more minute to rate our podcast and leave a review! This is a big help to others who wonder if this podcast is right for them! We'll meet you back here next week for another episode of Key Ministry: The Podcast!
