Why Special Needs Ministry is Crucial

Before I began high school, my family started at a new church. We have loved this church for many reasons, but I think my favorite thing about it is the focus on ministry for people with special needs. Even as a sophomore in college now, I miss my church and the way it loves people so well. 

I had never encountered a church with this kind of focus, and if I’m being totally honest, caring for those with special needs just wasn’t on my radar. Little did I know, my entire viewpoint would change over the course of high school.

My family began participating in our church’s ministry for people with special needs pretty early on. I was reluctant, intimidated, and nervous about spending time with people who weren’t like me. It took a while for this attitude to fade, but the Lord began to work on my heart as I continued to volunteer for Special Saturdays and Special VBS.

Special Saturdays are mornings once every month where our church members volunteer to serve children with special needs and their families. Volunteers run stations like games, crafts, and Bible/music time, or they buddy up with one of the children to walk them through the morning’s activities. Special VBS is basically a week of Special Saturdays.

The parents can use this time to run any errands they need to run, and it gives them a chance to have a morning off from being full-time caregivers. These parents sacrifice so much to care for their children, and this is a way to serve them and give them a chance to recharge. 

By spending time with these children and their families, I grew to see God’s image and goodness reflected in the diversity around me. I began to see the beauty in the simplicity of the Gospel as I watched the kids understand it better than I ever did. These kids have such a beautiful faith to witness, despite the fact that their lives are different from and more difficult than mine in many ways. 

We talked a lot about using “person first language,” which basically means that we say “the boy with autism” as opposed to “the autistic boy” because a child’s disability or special need is never their whole identity. If this hadn’t been pointed out to me, I never would have been aware of the small ways that we can give dignity to those around us.

Some of the kids I worked with were non-verbal, except when we sang. Then they got super excited and started making lots of noise. While it’s not words, and it’s not language I can understand, this is how these kids praise the Lord. It brings a smile to my face just thinking about it. 

This experience has taught me that although we may have different abilities, everyone is capable of praising the Lord in their own way. He is pleased when non-verbal children sing, he is pleased when children in wheelchairs dance, and he is pleased when I sing and dance too. 

Although I started begrudgingly and with an unenthusiastic heart, the ministry for those with special needs at my church is one of the things I miss the most about home. Time with these kids and their siblings is good for all of our souls, and the amount of joy is overwhelming. 

I would like to encourage anyone reading this to get involved in a ministry for folks with special needs, or even just to try to be more aware of the people around you in everyday life. This ministry taught me how to value the contributions of others in a totally new way. I have a newfound compassion and a new appreciation for the diverse image of God in those around me. These kids and this ministry have blessed me more than they could ever know, and I love them with all my heart. 

The Climate Crisis: A Christian Endeavor

The topic of climate change and environmentalism has rightfully been encouraged at Covenant College with the creation of the Campus Stewardship Committee and the lecture in chapel by Dr. Fred Van Dyk of the Au Sable Institute. There is definite interest in urging students to help “save the earth.” However, there seems to be a lack of concern, and even disregard, toward environmentalism in the larger Christian community. 

Caring for the environment is caring for people. In Matthew 22:37-39, Jesus says ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

Loving your neighbor includes caring about their well-being, and their well-being can be seriously affected by climate change. 

We have been given dominion over the earth. I propose that God didn’t mean for our dominion to be harmful. According to NASA Climate, the global temperature is rising, oceans are warming, ice sheets are shrinking, glaciers are retreating, snow coverage is decreasing, sea levels are rising, arctic sea ice is declining, extreme weather events are increasingly occurring, and the ocean is acidifying. 

It can be difficult to care about each of these factors, especially if you don’t live in an area that is directly at risk. This pushes climate change into being classified as a social justice issue. 

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated, “Climate change may especially impact people who live in areas that are vulnerable to coastal storms, drought, and sea level rise or people who live in poverty, older adults, and immigrant communities.” 

Caring about climate change includes being aware of the many groups of people who are going to suffer more than you as a result of changing environment. 

The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe from the very small island of Isle de Jean Charles off the coast of Louisiana is one group of people being severely affected by climate change. The island has lost approximately 98% of its land since 1955 due to rising sea levels. 

“The loss of once vast tracts of marshland and trees has left the island exposed to hurricanes, and frequent flooding has stripped the land, made farming impossible, and forced residents into an annual ritual of rebuilding,” said an article from The Guardian. 

Federal funding has helped the people of this tribe relocate. Relocation sounds like an obvious option, given that many groups of people have adapted to new environments since the beginning of time. 

However, no one should have to relocate due to environmental dangers. Relocation is extremely difficult for lower income populations. 

The EPA said, “People who live in poverty may have a difficult time coping with changes. These people have limited financial resources to cope with heat, relocate or evacuate, or respond to increases in the cost of food.” 

Many people do not have the resources to relocate, which is why federal funding may need to be used, but even that is not an option for many. 

More people are being displaced, like the aforementioned tribe, as well as the people of southern Africa who were affected by tropical cyclones in March and April of 2019, and the recent damage done in the Bahamas by Hurricane Dorian. 

According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, climate change is continually expected to intensify the impacts of extreme weather storms. 

Greenhouse gas emissions are more well-known factors of climate change, and are thus important to pay attention to. Specifically, being mindful of one’s carbon footprint is a critical first step. 

The EPA considers electricity and heat production to be the top contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions (with a 25% contribution). Agriculture, forestry, and other land use follow at 24%. Livestock production alone is confirmed to be directly responsible for 14.5% of global emissions each year. Industry, transportation, buildings, and other forms of energy make up the remainder of emissions. Living in a developed country typically means that we consume a lot of these types of energy daily, making it hard to change. 

Many Christians lack an understanding of why it’s important to steward the earth. Once people are interested and understand why Christians should be on the frontlines of the climate movement, changes can be introduced. 

The earth belongs to God. We have been given dominion of the earth, which means we are responsible for being stewards and caretakers of the environment, seeking to heal areas that need our help, and to prevent further damage from occurring. Humans, animals, and plants world-wide are affected by the unsustainable decisions of larger countries. Caring for the environment is caring for people.

Why Should I Care That There are No Women on the Board?

Last summer at General Assembly, the overture to have non-ordained persons (i.e., women) on the permanent committees and boards of the agencies of the PCA was overruled. This past summer, the same overture was issued, but it encountered the same response: only ordained persons (men) are allowed on the permanent committees and boards of the agencies of the PCA. 

The reasoning behind this, simplified, is that to have non-ordained persons would give them ruling authority, which is considered in the PCA tradition to be unbiblical, according to The Aquila Report.

Last summer, there was quite an uproar among the faculty, staff, and students of Covenant College at the decision, and numerous churches—particularly those that were members of the presbyteries putting forth the overture—were also disheartened. 

After the overture was met with the same response this summer, however, there didn’t seem to be as vocal of a reaction from the Covenant community. In one sense, it feels like this decision happened in another world far away, made by people we don’t know, and therefore it doesn’t affect us. After all, we’ve gotten along so far without women on these permanent committees and boards. Why, then, should these decisions matter to us, the students of Covenant College? 

In light of this question, I think it’s important to remember that our experience at Covenant is not the same as for the PCA as a whole. I think we forget that the things we experience here at Covenant to make the voices of the marginalized, the forgotten, and the ignored heard is not prioritized everywhere, or even in most places. 

Here on the mountain, we love and are constantly being pushed and taught to love more. We see the hurt, brokenness, and ugliness in ourselves and the people around us, and at Covenant, we’re encouraged to not only share and lament those stories, but to also push each other to see God’s faithfulness and hand in everything. The education we are receiving is giving us the tools to be those who bring healing and reconciliation. These tools allow us to push each other towards holiness, towards unity, in ways that are not common everywhere else—even within the PCA. 

And why are they not more common? Because of fear. Fear of doing the wrong thing and looking stupid in front of important people. Fear of losing control. Fear of change. 

That said, I think we must remember that the people (men) making these decisions do love Jesus, and to them, this is what loving Him looks like. We should also remember that the decision was not unanimous. 

In making this decision, however, these men are missing out—we are missing out—on enriching our understanding of the love of Jesus by listening to other voices that He created, which in this instance happens to be female voices. 

So, Covenant College, I challenge you to keep caring. I challenge you to keep following Jesus, wherever that may take you, and to keep listening to the voices that are silenced, even if you disagree with them. 

I challenge you to keep praying for our leadership, at Covenant and in the PCA as a whole. Pray for humility, for freedom from fear, and for a softness and tenderness towards the real love of Jesus, not only their experience of it. Pray that we, the body of Christ, would continue to push each other towards holiness, even when it’s hard. Because ultimately, we will remain divided while we are afraid of change and each other, and we are called to unity, to something much bigger than we are, and that is why and how we will move forward. 

Is Fake News New?

“The failing @nytimes writes false story after false story about me. They don't even call to verify the facts of a story. A Fake News Joke!” (June 28, 2017 5:59am). 

It is tweets like this from President Donald Trump that have begun to add a simple phrase into common language, and are causing severe distrust in the media. It has seemed, at times, that the media has incorrectly reported a few stories about his candidacy and presidency, most notably the pre-election numbers of 2016 (though this could arguably be due to other reasons). 

My goal, however, is not to write an opinion on the falsehood of the media, but to discuss the history of “fake news” in America. Is this a modern phenomenon that has evolved from some journalists’ hysterical hatred for President Trump? Or is this a practice that predates the modern era, heralding back to the beginnings of the press in America? I argue that the modern concept of “fake news” is something that has existed since the very establishment of journalism in America. 

While the first newspaper publication started in the colonies in 1690 with the creation of the “Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick” in Boston, journalism as we know it today would not spring into action until the British began to enthusiastically tax the colonies. It was then that there was a massive increase in the number of newspaper publications throughout the colonies, all of which began discussing their hatred of the British. 

But how accurate were these early American publications? On March 5th, 1770, violence erupted between the colonists and a small British garrison on the streets of Boston, killing five. Known today as the Boston Massacre, the Sons of Liberty made quick work of this event, molding and publishing it into a PR work of art that would ultimately lead to the revolution itself. 

The term “massacre” in the minds of colonists in the 18th century may have reminded them of the Massacre of Glencoe, in which government soldiers in Scotland opened fired on rival clansmen, killing thirty-eight and injuring many more. “Massacre” would have also triggered thoughts of the Irish revolution in 1641, which saw massacres killing upwards of 12,000. 

In the case of the colonists, they had been abusing and harassing a lone British guard for the sake of pure hatred, and when he had decided to defend himself by shoving a colonist aside with the butt of his rifle, he faced clubbing, beating, and taunting from an angry mob of colonists. As reinforcements arrived, someone in the crowd would yell “fire,” sparking soldiers to engage the mob. This led to Paul Revere’s famous sketch depicting callous British soldiers firing on an innocent crowd of Americans (not including clubs, picks, or any sort of weaponry, of course). By the time the soldiers were found innocent and the truth revealed that it was an accident, the message of “massacre” had already made its way around the colonies, drumming up further support for independence. Was this “fake news” in 1770? 

In an 1807 letter to a student enquiring about how to start a newspaper, Thomas Jefferson would write, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” Jefferson continued that, “the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them” (This sounds like something I’ve read on twitter recently). 

While Jefferson was describing the mudslingers from his presidential campaign, he too was also a part of the “fake news” apparatus. When he ran against John Adams in 1800, he hired a “hatchet man” named James Callendar who was to travel and campaign for him (since at this point, presidential candidates did not travel to campaign; both Jefferson and Adams primarily stayed at their homes).

Callendar began to whip up falsities, such as claims that Adams desperately wanted to attack France, which by no means was anything close to true, but voters bought it, and Jefferson won the election. “Fake news” would not end here, however.

When the USS Maine blew up in Havana harbor in February of 1898, three newspaper teams sent their correspondents to investigate. William Randolph Hearst, in charge of The New York Journal, published a piece that demanded war, and made it quite clear that it was the Spanish who blew it up. On the illustration that appeared in the article, a mine was intentionally sketched below the ship. On the other hand, Joseph Pulitzer’s World published a so-called “suppressed cable” from the Maine’s captain to Navy Secretary John D. Long in which the captain stated that the explosion was not accidental. However, this was a fake, and such a telegram was never sent. With all the pressure from Hearst’s Journal and Pulitzer’s World, Americans remembered the Maine, and the United States would declare war on Spain. 

Fake news has even spread into the 20th century with mal-reports by newspapers on the supposed hysteria of the War of the Worlds radio hoax. There are many more instances of such fake reporting, but I will have to leave you to research this on your own for the sake of brevity. 

Needless to say, propaganda, yellow journalism, or “fake news” is something that clearly has existed throughout the history of our nation. So while President Trump claims that the falseness of the media today is unprecedented, it is quite clear that history says otherwise. Fake news is not new, and it is very much a part of our journalistic story as a nation.

Fanny Packs on the Rise at Covenant

Over my years at Covenant, I have watched students grapple with heavy things—Organic Chemistry textbooks, the complete and uncut edition of “The Stand” by Stephen King—to varying degrees of success. Some rise to the occasion, enduring obstacles (like those stairs between Founders and Mills) with seeming ease. But I’ve seen too many succumb to the pressure placed on them by their professors and peers. 

However, the days of weight are over. Like Wonder Woman leaping through the flames of German gunfire: enter the Fanny Pack. Also called the “belt bag” or “bum bag” by people who don’t like to feel uncomfortable when they speak, the fanny pack has become wildly popular at Covenant College over the first few weeks of the school year. 

And for good reason: the fanny pack is incredibly functional; featuring not one but two zipper-enclosed pockets, this trusty belt sack can easily hold daily essentials like trail mix, chapstick, and Uniball Signo DX 0.38mm pens. In addition, fanny packs are spacious enough for any extra items you may have on hand, like phones, wallets, or keys. 

“But how does such a full pouch not weigh down your waist?” one might ask. 

Ah, ‘tis the mystery (and genius) of these wonderful carry-on bags. Wearing a filled fanny pack feels like nothing at all, and, at the same time, like you could withstand anything life asks you to carry. 

And let’s just be honest: we have asked our traditional pockets to do all our heavy-lifting for years, never even considering the idea that an alternative could exist. I’m just glad that many brave Covenant students are leading the charge in this area. 

Additionally, though they are easily stuffed, these reusable side containers are just as easily drained. Forget your Scots ID again? Never waste time fumbling for your Scots card in the endless void of your pants pockets again. One quick zip, and you’re one step closer to getting a strep test at the Priesthill Center (I am not sponsored by, or associated in any way with, Nurse Tina). 

Furthermore, fanny fans will be quick to point out that waist bags have not neglected the realm of fashion either. In fact, is it not our waists that lead the way when we walk? Would it not be fitting, then, for waist parcels (featuring an endless array of vibrant colors and patterns) to represent the “waist,” so to speak, of fashion? 

Indeed, unlike any other conceivable clothing item, hip pockets can go with literally (and I mean literally, literally) anything. Just wear whatever else you want to wear on any given day, click that stylish bad boy into place, and go! Throw away your mirrors; no need for consideration, hesitation, or fear of peer-judging. You have on your hip the weight of the world, and boy, does it feel good.

Are We Misusing the Enneagram?

If you are like me, you have heard conversations about Enneagram numbers just about anywhere: in line in the Great Hall, in ‘ice-breaker’ questionnaires, you name it. But I want to challenge the casual nature of these conversations. When the results of personality tests (and the Enneagram, specifically) are shared within a group, assumptions and generalizations are naturally made by others. If we are willing to identify with one of the nine numbers of the Enneagram, we each deserve the space to offer up our own interpretation of our results (whether through critique or elaboration). 

In popular culture, there has been an increasing desire to understand our individual personalities. Tests like the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator offer simplified ways to better understand actions, motivations, and behaviors. The question of concern has been: are we giving ourselves room to push back on these results? Personality tests offer a simplified overview of complex emotions and experiences. For example, thousands have taken the Enneagram, but it offers only nine possible outcomes (with a bit of room for overlap). 

The danger of personality tests lies in the assumptions made about how certain traits of an Enneagram number play out. These sweeping judgements may be unfair, or worse, damaging. 

With a rise in personality test-taking for hiring decisions and career recommendations, new texts are being published with titles like, “Ace the Corporate Personality Test” in order to guide readers through the types of responses they should provide on a personality test in order to land their ideal job. 

This attitude towards personality tests regards different ‘types’ as indication for success in specific roles, but each individual’s personality is so complex that it cannot be fully represented by a test result, let alone by outside parties. 

External judgement is addressed by test-makers, but only in part. While Enneagram experts warn that a person’s number should never be used against them, there is a resource offered for tips in “typing” others. 

The Enneagram website advises test-takers to “remember that you are like a beginning medical student who is learning to diagnose a wide variety of conditions, some healthy and some unhealthy. It takes practice to learn to identify the various ‘symptoms’ of each type and to see larger ‘syndromes.’”

This attitude and terminology is further encouragement for external judgements on the personality of others. 

I want to challenge the way that we currently use the Enneagram. Since the test results are determined by an individual’s deep fears, motivations, and sin patterns, our results deserve a safe space to be discussed. 

If you choose to share your Enneagram number with your peers, make sure that you are welcome to push back and elaborate on the general implications of your number. Do you relate to every unhealthy tendency for your number? Do you agree with the suspected motivations for your actions? 

We owe it to ourselves and to one another to make the conversation on personality more complex than a chorus of numbers and silent assumptions.