Getting Leadership On Board – The Details

The best way to “sell” church leadership is by providing stories and mental pictures such as in the prior post, Getting Leadership On Board – The Big Picture. But the key to obtaining the official “yes” nod is by laying out a visible path to accomplish the goal.  Don’t let this term intimidate you, but think of it like a business plan.

• Ascertain and share stories of already participating children/families in need of appropriate accommodation or more effective inclusion.
• Gather statistics for various special needs diagnoses and their growth trend (e.g., autism) and cite examples already existing in the congregation.
• Consider the church’s overall mission, existing programming, staff & lay leader capabilities.  Recognizing the existing strengths and weakneses, develop short term and long term goals for disability accommodation.
• Identify existing practices potentially requiring modification (policies & procedures, insurance policy, worker training, facility logistics/issues, classroom space).
• Offer ideas to solve any anticipated dilemmas resulting from the above changes.
• Develop a budget for making any modifications or other anticipated changes/additions.
• Present possible ideas for ways to raise funds and/or provide needed items (e.g. McLean Bible Church posts a disability ministry wish list regularly to their website!)
• Create a plan for recruiting an advisory team, lay volunteers, and potentially a lay-led coordinator.

For more on this topic, download the checklist provided in the post, Starting a Special Needs Ministry.

For special needs statistics, see the post Just the Facts!  Special Needs Statistics.

– Amy Fenton Lee

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