Library Collections: Document: Full Text

EDITORIAL NOTE: Although this article deals especially with the church's ministry to physically and mentally handicapped persons, the church has a responsibility for ministering to all persons with special needs. The emotionally disturbed need the understanding ministry of the church but, because of their disturbance, are often hard to reach. Even the identification of the disturbed is sometimes difficult. In recent years, communities and churches have begun to give more attention to the academically talented, who often need special counseling and opportunities for the full development of their intellectual and spiritual capacities. The December 1959 issue of the Journal contains an article by John S. Groenfeldt on "The Church and Its Gifted Children."

IT IS ESTIMATED that twelve and one-half per cent of the school children in the United States are "exceptional children," who by reason of chronic illness or physical disability, social or emotional disorders, limited or generous mental endowment, need special attention and specialized facilities or services. This figure man come as a surprise to some people. To others it underlines the infinite differences we find everywhere in God's world, where persons are "not all of one mold" -- where, indeed, no two are of the same mold.

One distinctive result of World War II has been a greatly heightened awareness of and interest in the physically and mentally handicapped. This has happened throughout the world. In Indonesia and Pakistan, in Japan and New Zealand, in Central Africa and Brazil, assistance to the handicapped has been recognized as a new and vital challenge.

There has been much clamor for churches to become aware of their obligations and opportunities for serving the handicapped and their families. Much needs to be done, surely, but many outstanding services to the handicapped are already being rendered by individual churches, both to their own families and to the community at large.

Serving the handicapped is not an extra activity to which we may address ourselves after taking care of our "main church work." We must speak not of special children, but of children with special needs -- the same basic needs as other children plus the specific needs resulting from their condition. A church which approaches the problem on this basis will first need to consider in how many of its regular activities these children can participate, then determine what special activities can be developed to meet their needs. A severely handicapped child may interfere with the family's attendance, and yet the family needs the full ministry of the church.

Services to the family

Frequently a church may have to make a special effort to approach the parents of a handicapped child. The parents may feel awkward about asking for special arrangements, they may feel embarrassed about a handicap which they consider shameful. Or, having a handicapped child may have so hurt them that they have not been able to reconcile the fact of the handicap with the idea of a loving God. It is important that we do not make judgments about parents' attitudes. Dr. Elizabeth Boggs emphasizes, in her contribution to the useful volume The Child with a Handicap, (1) that what often we see as guilt feelings of parents may in reality be a form of grief, a normal and appropriate human emotion whose suppression is unhealthful.

Some parents may respond best to spiritual counseling, as they face their child's problem, and then move toward acceptance of the church as a place where their child can benefit from special activities. Other parents, on the contrary, can best be approached through a special service the church makes available to the child; later they will be ready to recognize and accept the help the church can offer to them as parents.

In general it is helpful for parents of handicapped children to have opportunities for meeting with other parents facing similar problems. Yet it is important to recognize individual differences -- some parents may come to church to seek solitude and would react negatively to pressure to join a parent discussion group.

In some cases the tragedy of having a handicapped child has made the parent a better person to serve others. Dorothy G. Murray, in her lovely book This Is Stevie's Story, (2) relates her thoughts about having a severely handicapped child: "How can God use me in this crisis? How can this mental and spiritual torture mold me into a person who can be more useful to Him? Am I big enough for this sorrow to make me better, instead of bitter?" The fact that she has become a leader in the National Association for Retarded Children, helping countless other parents while raising her own family, attests to the strength a person can gain by facing a crisis from a firm spiritual viewpoint.