Indispensable People
Making the Gospel Accessible to people of ALL abilities so that they may know Christ, grow in Him, and serve Him with the gifts He has given them.
Indispensable People
Creating Five-Star Experiences
Explore ten practical strategies for welcoming and including individuals with autism in church settings, drawing inspiration from Jesus' personalized approach to ministry and Barbara Newman's book "Autism in Your Church."
• Creating a "five-star experience" for individuals with autism requires personalized approaches
• Jesus modeled individualized ministry by meeting different people at their specific points of need
• Gathering and sharing information about individual needs is foundational for successful inclusion
• Understanding sensory processing differences helps accommodate both sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding individuals
• Coming alongside individuals who struggle with communication helps identify potential challenges
• Establishing routines with visual schedules provides comfort and predictability
• Advanced warning systems help prepare people for transitions and changes
• Using concrete language, visuals, and alternative communication methods bridges understanding
• Social stories effectively prepare individuals for new situations or explain expected behaviors
• Teaching through situations rather than just reacting creates positive learning opportunities
For deeper dives into these topics and more, check out indispensable-people.com and visit Amazon to purchase the books "The Indispensable Kid," "Gospel Accessibility," and "Indispensable People."
Hi, my name is Tracy Correll and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a wife, mom, teacher, pastor and missionary, and I believe that every person should have the opportunity to know Christ, grow in Him and serve Him with the gifts that he has given, no matter their ability. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 25% of the population. However, over 80% of them are not inside the walls of our church. Let's dive into those hard topics biblical foundations, perceptions and welcome to this episode of Indispensable People.
Speaker 1:Today, we're talking strategies that help individuals with autism, and now when I say that, I want you to understand that the statement if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. Every person is different. These are just general strategies and they come from a book called Autism in your Church, and the author is Barbara J Newman, and this particular book is actually very much geared towards autism, but I would say that many of its strategies are incredibly beneficial for those with intellectual disabilities and beyond. So please understand that a lot of these strategies can be used in a multitude of ways. But here is one thing that I absolutely loved when it started this chapter about strategies for including individuals with autism spectrum disorder and it says if, given a choice, I prefer to stay in a five-star hotel, although slightly more expensive. Slightly I think that's baloney. I know a hotel with a five-star rating will provide awesome accommodations. Staff will make sure that I have a good stay and they won't just leave the light on, they will put chocolates on my pillow, call me by name and have a showerhead that makes me want to stay another night. They will not assume that each guest likes the same things and my particular needs and wants matter at a five-star hotel. So they take this and then equate to the fact that Jesus knew all about providing five-star experiences.
Speaker 1:While teaching crowds of people might seem more efficient, jesus also took the time to meet people at their individual points of need, and they listed a bunch of examples. For example, my friend Zacchaeus, who needed some one-on-one time with Jesus, so he invited himself to dinner. Children needed to know they belonged, and so Jesus took him in the arms and blessed them. The disciples needed clear understanding, so Jesus told a story about a farmer and compared the seed to the word of God. The sellers in the temple needed correction, so Jesus chased them out and set them straight. Temple needed correction, so Jesus chased them out and set them straight. The woman caught in adultery needed forgiveness, so Jesus dared any of her accusers who were without sin to throw a stone at her. The crowd of 5,000 needed food, so Jesus took a little boy's lunch and fed them. Thomas needed to see and touch to believe that Jesus was alive, so his Savior held out his nail-scarred hands.
Speaker 1:Jesus knew how to create a five-star experience, and the diversity that you find in this, in those examples, are like. They're not like each other, right, so no method that Jesus used to reach them was all the same, which is what I began this podcast saying. Every person is different, all the needs are different, but we can have some basic strategies that will help us give that five-star experience in our churches, and it comes down with being individualized. And how do we start? Strategy number one is gathering information on that person, and you can do that at check-in with kids or teens. You can have questionnaires where you interact with them or their parents or their caregivers. You can observe them in their classes and see what might be helpful, as you see them do. But gathering that information, getting to know them, is specific to knowing their individual needs. Next, we wanna consider the second strategy as sharing that information right. If I'm the leader of the disability ministry or the children's ministry or the youth ministry whatever, or adults and I keep all of that information that I know to myself, it is not helping anyone else in that ministry to interact, to understand, to meet the needs of that person. So I can do that by maybe having a conversation, maybe it is an information sheet or a registration form that I'm going to share with them. We're going to ask them to participate and observe as well to gain their own. But first we want to gather the information, then we want to share for those who will be interacting and leading in the spaces those individuals will participate in. And the third strategy we want to consider is we want to take an understanding of sensory input and how it impacts each person.
Speaker 1:This book so well explains sensory input and it says our bodies are bombarded with sensory input all the time. In general, our receptors for sensory input are set at a middle C on a piano or a keyboard. Being in the middle is a great place to be because it allows us to block out unimportant sounds, sights, tastes, smells, muscle feedback, gravity feedback and touch. Being at a middle C lets unimportant things pass by us, so we are free to concentrate on what needs our attention. On the other hand, it also allows us to tune in to sensory input when it's needed. But some individuals' sensory response system is set way above middle C and some are set below.
Speaker 1:So some individuals will need sensory input and some will need to be protected. So here are some ways to do that. We can have a rest area or a place to take a break from some of that input that's coming at. We can not focus on eye contact. We can use noise-canceling headphones or earplugs. We can add rocking chairs or trampolines. So if you notice there someone who is going to have a rest from sensory input or use noise canceling headphones, those are individuals that receive sensory at higher input and can be overwhelmed. Those who might need to go for a walk or jump on a trampoline or have a rocking chair they are going to need more sensory input are going to need more sensory input. So I want you to think individually and know that we are going to have all kinds of different people who are going to have different experiences and we need to consider that as we provide options for regulating that sensory input.
Speaker 1:Strategy number four we're going to think alongside the person that may need some assistance. Okay, so we might need to come alongside them if they're unable to express their concerns. We might need to read some body language and take into consideration questions like what just happened? What happened after? What might the person have seen? What have they heard? What have they touched? Did they smell or taste something? Who is a part of the setting? What's going on before? Is this a one-time thing or is this something that has reoccurred before? So we're kind of processing and thinking through what could be causing the issues. What might be a trouble to that person in the moment if they can't express it? How can we even further create the five-star experience with this?
Speaker 1:And this is something that I refer to in our ministry as a buddy system system and a volunteer who helps the individual navigate the services and the systems that are going on or the event that they are a part of, and they can help navigate the sensory input. They can navigate the communication needs. They can navigate providing necessities to help that person be successful in that environment. Another strategy is making routines and providing that to be comfortable, and you can do that by creating visual schedules you can print. Most churches have, like an order of service they could share that you could be intentional about your transition techniques and this could be specific, especially for kids or teens, when you give let them know what's coming or how much time they have left to move on to the next thing. And which actually takes us into strategy number six, which is providing using advanced warning systems which is saying hey, five minutes till cleanup, or this is what's going to happen next, this is what's going to happen next. You want to provide for the unexpected as much as possible. You want to use concrete language, use those visual schedules, give that verbal countdown and maybe you have a special signal for change, to prepare as things move along, all of those kinds of things, those advanced warning systems, right, like we're used to hearing, you know weather type things, you know whether we have a severe thunderstorm warning or a tornado warning or something like that. It gives you steps to prepare for the next thing that's coming and that's what you want to do through that and that's what you want to do through that.
Speaker 1:Strategy number seven closing the communication gap. So we want to plan ahead for those. We might want to take some time to kind of translate on the spot, if we can't necessarily anticipate what words or phrases are coming or going to be used. This gives us the chance to have a conversation right in the moment. You might want to provide written materials such as, you know, bulletins or scriptures, that kind of stuff, and we want to use visuals and interact with communication devices, maybe learning ASL or using those strategies in signing, if that is someone's preferred language, and preparation ahead of time. We do something at our summer getaway and our respite nights where we give the individuals an opportunity to experience what might be coming, so they might hear about the, maybe the, the person that is in scripture, that the, that the sermon will mostly be about. They might experience something hands-on that goes with what we're teaching through that, all of those kinds of things to kind of prepare and open the way for communication. And communication is not just one person delivering information, it's also on the receiving end. So you wanna take into context both of those things.
Speaker 1:Moving on to strategy number eight visuals, visuals, visuals, visuals, using visuals to enforce what we're saying and what we're doing. Again we'll go back to the schedules that we've already talked about providing a visual schedule. We've talked about using concrete language and taking it a step further with that five-star experience and putting visuals to prayer time to. You don't want people just to say it, you want to do it so you can show what something would look like. Through that you can use visuals for time management. All of those kinds of things are going to be highly beneficial.
Speaker 1:Moving on to strategy number nine, we want to consider you might have heard the term social stories. Writing a story out to show how a character went through something will benefit people in new situations. It will help them to understand what's coming, help them to see what they may or may not experience. It's helpful to describing expected behavior or what changes might be coming. It's great for describing specific events or even correcting specific behavior. So social stories it's creating a story about an event you want them to know that's coming, a behavior you would like for them to show or to correct. So all of that kind of thing can be done in. A social story is incredibly beneficial because it brings what you're saying to a concrete level. It's creating those visuals. It's giving the full picture of what you are hoping to communicate.
Speaker 1:Strategy number 10, I absolutely love teaching instead of reacting. We have the innate ability to respond with reactions that could make or break a situation. I'm gonna give you a very silly example my mother-in-law. She worries about the children especially when my kids were little getting hurt, and in any little situation you would hear her go oh, and it could be nothing, could be absolutely nothing, but when the kids would hear her do that, they would assume something is wrong, and so then their reactions would follow hers. And so this is a really great reminder of watching our reactions, keeping those under control and then teaching through the situation so that they understand and know what's going on, as to why or why not they need to be doing or not doing what you would have actually reacted to. So be aware of those reactions and make sure that you're teaching through them and not just reacting, which is kind of creating the narrative of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Why do we do all of this? Because we want to create a five-star experience, just like Jesus did. He was very intentional about being individual and purposeful for the interactions that he had, so that other people could come to know a loving Savior who could make a choice that would change their life for eternity To follow Jesus and to glorify Him in all that they do and all that they say In their experiences, because Jesus is our model. He showed us best, so let's create those five-star experiences in our churches. Do I know everything about disability ministry? Do I have all the answers? Have I done everything perfectly? I've absolutely not, but we are going to continue this conversation so that people of all abilities can have the opportunity to know Christ, grow in Him and serve Him with the gifts that he has given them. For deeper dives into these topics and more, check out indispensablepeoplecom and visit Amazon to purchase the books the Indispensable Kid and Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.
