Sharing Some Finds

Personal stories & links to articles

  Bringing a kid with autism, or any special need, to church, can be quite challenging.
  We changed churches the day our four year old, who had been screaming
when he realized we were going to church, was only going to be content screaming in the halls.
  But that's another story, maybe for another time. 

Toward an Inclusive Church

  Toady i was searching for some basics on starting a Bible study for women, and found this article about making your church more inclusive.  It has some useful stuff, and i would like to see it happen in our church, but i know the immediate result would be a request to lead this.
  Administration is not among my gifts.  Been there, done that; the projects go better than i think possible, but nowhere near as well as they should.
  They die on the vine.   Or limp along indefinitely, in fits & starts.
  What i do is stand shoulder to shoulder, encourage, research.  But the request would be to put the entire program into operation.

Helping Parents

  Here is an article from Ask.com about worshiping with your special child.  It talks about "keeping your child under control and warding off the evil eye of fellow pew-sitters".
  Do i hear an amen, anyone?
  Many of the suggestions are applicable for any child:  short increments of time; you don't need to make it throught the whole thing today; small rewards for small time periods; pray for your own calmness; think long run as well as today.

Our Story

  In our church, there are separate children's classes.  Seldom are the kids in adult worship.  It's what i grew up with.  Maybe not right, but what i expect.
  i wanted Max to learn in the kids program.  That was more important to me than being with his age peers.  Maybe not the best choice, but so it is/was.
  After he was 7, it was no longer fair to the four year olds to keep him in their class, where the material was on his level.
  So our church allowed me to set up our own class for him using old materials.  Usually there were other adults coming in on a rotating basis so i could go into worship with MyGuy once to three times a month, but there have been a couple of times it was just me.
  And MyGuy takes Max home after Sunday school.
  For the past few years, one of his schoolmates has also been his Sunday school classmate. This young man's parents share the rotation with me, and another woman comes in once a month.
  The guys are on about the same level.  Sometimes we have had another student, one for months on end, others once or twice.  But it's usually just the two and their teacher(s) of the day.
  We take them to the cofffee shop for snacks and everyone is friendly to them; sometimes the guys respond. 
  i like to think it's working.  Sort of.

Here is a link to an art project we did in our Fruit of the Spirit Series.