Interested in autism outreach? Want to serve people with special needs? Then read this guest post by Kelly Sapp, director of the Champions Special Needs Ministry for Capital Christian Center in Sacramento, California. As one of the most progressive inclusion ministries in the United States, the Champions ministry succeeds by including children and students with autism.
My introduction to autism came on my first Sunday serving as the Team Lead for my church’s special needs ministry. I was tapped with supporting our “Champions” ministry director, Dr. Cynthia Zierhut. During the week, she was a researcher at the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, screening toddlers for autism.
To keep the ministry running and to help Cynthia successfully juggle her responsibilities, I handled many day-to-day issues for Champions. My background was in music education, working with children in K-12 school environments. Although I had worked with individuals who had severe impairment, I came to Champions not as a special needs expert. Instead, I was a called ministry servant.
On my first Sunday, I awkwardly tried to help families check in their child. Meanwhile, I was helping buddies pair up with their assigned champion. These coaches accompany kids to their respective mainstream environments.
The Challenges of Autism Outreach
Gregory (not his real name) is an 8-year-old Champion. He arrived bouncing a ball and singing with the most beautiful voice you’ve ever heard from a child. Any boys’ choir director would be scrambling to recruit Gregory!
Being a relational, intuitive music teacher, I approached Gregory, bouncing the ball with him. I made my voice go up when the ball went up and down when the ball went down. I was sure Gregory would see the correlation of the ball to my voice and we could connect.
Instead, Gregory darted away from me, as if I were invisible. Feeling like a failure, my heart dropped to my shoes. Seeing my bewilderment, Cynthia, our ministry director, approached me to explain that Gregory had autism. Like some other children with this diagnosis, he lacks the ability to imitate.
Although many people are programmed to learn language and life skills by imitation, for some students with autism, their minds don’t work that way. At that moment I realized I was in for a new challenge. More than ever, autism seemed like a distant country, an unfamiliar culture, a mystery.
Unexpected Differences
For the coming weeks and months, the mystery grew. So did my inexplicable ability to serve the children and families impacted by autism (a God thing!). One of the first things I learned? The importance of small-group sizes in our Champions Ministry and its direct impact on safety.
For example, Cynthia shared that having more than five children with special needs in an environment at one time can be dangerous. Having led concert rehearsals and choir practices for up to 400 elementary school children, this seemed hard to believe. Surely I could handle five kids at one time, even if they had special needs like autism. Wrong.
One month into my new position, and after a wonderful Sunday morning in Champions, checkout time came and one boy said “goodbye” to another. The parting student received an unexpected and violent slam to the floor by his fellow Champions participant. I was shocked as I watched the parents of both boys respond graciously and with complete understanding.
I’m not sure what was more surprising, the jolting and somewhat scary behavior or the grace the parents showed in their reactions.
