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.

Parents often can benefit from counseling on such problems as how to explain the handicap to the child and how to keep a balance between protecting him and challenging him to achieve. In an address (3) Dr. Leo Kanner, the distinguished child psychiatrist, pointed out two dangers a family might face. First he related the story of a little boy whose severe heart condition was the focus of the family's attention to such an extent that the boy himself was submerged by it. "Billy knew of himself essentially as a sick heart. When given an opportunity to unburden himself, he reported that he often talked to himself when he was alone. This is what he kept repeating over and over in his monologues: 'I am a person. I am a person.' Thus he tried desperately to clutch at whatever remnant of identity he was able to retain in this situation."

Dr. Kanner's other concern dealt with two types of parents: those who are so intent on accepting the handicap and helping the child to accept it that they overlook opportunities for overcoming it to whatever degree is possible; and on the other hand, those who, unable to accept a child's limitation, make him "miserable through their constant corrective efforts to mend the unmendable. The child, finding himself in a repair shop instead of in a home, cannot help smarting from the impact of all this molding and hammering."

But the church must not think of serving only the parents of the handicapped child. Brothers and sisters also feel a heavy burden when someone in the family is crippled, disfigured, disturbed, or retarded. Without help this may result in poor relations not only with the afflicted child, but with the parents as well. The church is particularly well suited to provide this help. (4)

The church may also offer services relating to the management of the handicapped child in the home. A group might build a special table, or a ramp for a wheel chair. Perhaps a sitter service might be provided to allow the mother some time away from home.

Some handicapped people have to leave their homes to spend considerable time in hospitals or other institutions. In these cases the church must be aware of its continuing responsibility to be of service and to help maintain and strengthen ties.

Services to the child

Fellowship is an essential factor in Christian life and in the expression of Christian faith. The church may be the only place in the community where the family with a handicapped child can join together in an activity. Even if the child has to enter a special group, the mere fact that the entire family goes to church at the same time can be of tremendous significance. The church must plan to accommodate a person who has trouble climbing stairs or who requires special seating arrangements.

Church school programs may have to be adapted to the special needs of handicapped children; perhaps more emphasis on music, on rhythm, on the spoken word, or on visual presentation may be required. Organizing a special scout troop for handicapped children or, better still, making special arrangements for a handicapped child to participate in an existing troop provides additional social opportunities.

As the handicapped child grows older, the church can take cognizance of his need to give love as well as receive it. Seemingly insignificant opportunities for him to be of service to others, to assist the teacher, to provide what others can use, may be important steps toward a fuller life. This progress often can be accentuated by providing opportunities to show how the handicap can be overcome-allowing the wheelchair patient to bring things, letting the palsied child show his limited but developing dexterity, giving the retarded child a simple part in a play.

Services to the community

How a family feels about a handicapped child depends frequently on how society in general and the particular community feel about handicapped people. The church has an important role in community planning for the handicapped. Through sermons and the Christian education program the congregation can be helped to understand the needs of the handicapped and their families and the extent to which handicaps can be overcome if acceptance and help are provided. Many other persons can be reached as the church works through the local council of churches, the ministerial association, and community agencies.

Churches have opened their facilities to special activities for handicapped people in the community, such as classes for retarded children or special recreation groups. Often a church can become a gathering point for community action on behalf of the handicapped.

Churches of a community often work together, since one church can seldom develop adequate specialized services for all its handicapped people. One church may serve the physically handicapped and another the mentally handicapped in a certain age group; thus no one is neglected.

Though the challenge to serve the handicapped child is great, it is infinitely more challenging to extend a welcoming hand to the handicapped adult. It is deeply ingrained within us to overlook differences in children, to tolerate their deficiencies, and to accept their inadequate performance. But many members of a congregation may be reluctant to accept "as one of them" the severely handicapped adult. Yet as we learn more and more about what the handicapped can accomplish and how well they can serve, this attitude of nonacceptance becomes intolerable. We can be sure of one thing: in a church where the adult handicapped person is fully accepted and enabled to participate actively, handicapped children will find a helpful climate.