Four Ways the Church Can Welcome Kids with Special Needs

In the same season God called us to be part of a small church plant in our city, my 18 month old son’s behavior and speech difficulties began to emerge. We knew no one, and no one knew us. As we became acquainted with a new church family, our son struggled to make eye contact with anyone, and that was just the beginning of his problems in church.

Over the next six months, it became clear our son’s difficulties were not temporary, and not simply a matter of discipline. At first, we would be called back to the nursery because he bit another child. Eventually we had to sit with him every Sunday to police his actions more closely. By his second birthday, Sunday mornings became a source of heavy anxiety for all of us—instead of listening to the sermon, we spent the better part of an hour keeping his forehead from finding the nearest wall, blocking doors, and taking him down from windows as his sensory sensitivities searched desperately for a way out of the noise and excitement of Sunday School.

We loved our church, and we felt confident God directed us there. But we could no longer attend as a family without help from the church. This feeling is all too familiar for families of a child with special needs, yet it doesn’t have to be. Helping a special needs family be at church does not have to be complicated or expensive, it simply has to be intentional, and grounded in the belief that families with special needs need to be part of a local church body, and the local church body needs them, too. Here are four simple ways a church can welcome kids with special needs. Read More