Guest Post by Craig Johnson
My heart was challenged with our special needs coordinator when we noticed what we were doing for Special Needs in our own church. God helped us build this amazing Children’s Facility for kids which looked like Disneyland with all the bells & whistles, yet for our special needs children we had two ordinary rooms with very little equipment, no appropriate curriculum, being taken care of with fewer resources, while a few special needs family members could have a couple of hours off to enjoy the service. Please do not misunderstand, I’m thankful we had a least something because I would later hear stories of family after family being turned away from churches who could not handle or did not want to deal with a special needs child. Most families are shut in because it is just too difficult to fight getting your child together to go to a service & then fight the challenge of what can happen once you get there. I begin to hear about multiple families that would watch our service over the internet because they felt like there wasn’t anything for their child. They many times feel forgotten. They feel like the church does everything for the quote “normal kids” but they feel many times special needs kids are the last ones thought about.
We began to pray about it, talk with parents of special needs, talk to other churches, & ask God how we could not just provide a place for children with special needs, but actually see them being developed while their parents were getting a much needed respite to go to church & be inspired to have hope in spite of their circumstances. So through prayer, the grace of God, research, & the love & hard work of our team we developed what is called The Champions Club. A state of the art facility with each room built for a surprisingly affordable amount of money where special needs kids can be developed while their parents go to church. It has a “educational room” where kids can learn to read, write, spell, & do different educational games. It has a “sensory room” with equipment that expands all the senses to help kids respond in multiple ways. It has a Physical Therapy room with an obstacle course, swing, specially made trampoline, a parachute, & much more. It has what we call the spiritual therapy room where we teach kids who struggle expressing feelings, or speaking, to communicate through music, bible stories, sign language, & a christian special needs curriculum in Spanish & English that we have developed through our relationship with 252 Basics & their curriculum.
The response has been overwhelming. We now offer the Champions Club in 6 different services in both Spanish & English. We give God all the glory for He has done it all because He loves these children & families so much. We now have over 200 special needs families that have been a part of the Champions Club. Now new Champions Clubs are scheduled to launch in 2012 in New York, Texas, California, Illinois, and Washington DC. If you would be interested in starting a Champions Club at your church I would love to connect at craig@lakewood.cc. Let’s let kids and families with special needs know the they are not forgotten anymore.
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Craig Johnson has served in full-time ministry for more than two decades. He currently serves as Director of Ministries at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, the largest and fastest growing church in America! He is the author of one of the best books ever about developing your leadership team called Lead Vertically.
He & his wife, Samantha, have three children: Cory, Courtney & Connor. Through their experience with Connor, Craig & Samantha have championed ministry to special needs children, resulting in the Champions Club.
Follow Craig on Twitter, and be sure to “like” the Lead Vertically Fanpage.
