Editor’s note: Shannon Dingle did her first guest blog for us over four years ago. Her message from that day (sadly) is no less timely today.

I just watched The Blind Side with my husband this weekend, but I already knew about one scene. I had heard about it from a sermon or two and read about it in at least one book. In it, Big Mike looks around his new room and tells Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mom of the family who welcomes him into their home, “I’ve never had one before.” She says, “What, a room to yourself?” And he says, “No, a bed.” As she walks away, tears in her eyes, it’s obvious that she has been faced with a reality that is starkly different from her own.

If I want to go to Sunday school or a worship service, I do. If I want to serve in a ministry on Sunday morning or go to our church’s monthly leadership training, it’s not a problem. I have a two-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter, and if I want to do those things, I just take my kids to their class or childcare. If we need a babysitter, we call the girls across the street, even occasionally allowing the eleven-year-old to watch them for short stretches.

Like Leigh Anne in The Blind Side, I don’t regularly think about what life is like for kids without beds as I place my son in his bright blue racecar bed each night. And I don’t think twice about bringing my children to church or calling a trustworthy young sitter to come over so my husband and I can have a short date.

For many families, this isn’t an option. Due to their child’s special needs, they don’t know what to expect from church. Or maybe they’ve tried and been turned away. When my friend Amanda’s son – who loves cars and has autism – was having a tough time in a church’s children’s ministry, she spoke with the ministry leader. At the end of the call, the leader commented, “”I still can’t promise you it’s going to work.”

I’ve never had the children’s ministry pastor tell me that it might not work out for my kids to come to church. And, if your child doesn’t have special needs, you probably haven’t either.

I don’t know what it would take to make all church leaders have a “no, a bed” sort of realization about the need to welcome families with special needs, but work like what Key Ministry does is a start. Churches who turn away families with special needs don’t typically do so because they’re malicious or mean-spirited. In my experience, they’re either (a) ignorant, in that they don’t know there is a need, or (b) ill-equipped, meaning that they’ve realized the need but have no idea where to begin.

At the beginning of The Blind Side, the coach is advocating for Mike to be admitted to the private school. In doing so, he argues that it isn’t about athletics; it’s simply the right thing to do. He says that they ought to paint over the word Christian on their school name if they aren’t going to act like it.

Can we still call ourselves churches if we don’t care enough about others to consider their lives and their needs? Or would it be more accurate to paint over “church” and replace it with “country club” or “social group” instead?

In addition to serving as a Key Ministry Church Consultant, Shannon Dingle is a co-founder of the Access Ministry at Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, NC.

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