©
Jeff McNairBible lessons for persons with cognitive disabilities
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©
Jeff McNair
Schedule for a
typical Sunday morning, 1 hour meeting of our group (©
Jeff McNair)
If you were to ever visit our group, and I invite you to do so (click on logo above for more information), we typically begin at 11:30. Most of our group have just come from attending the regular church service. We have two meeting venues, one the typical one where the pastor speaks before the group and the other a video feed venue. The main difference between the two venues is the music, with the video venue with much more of a rock and roll feel to the music. People from our group attend both sessions, but probably most enjoy the rock and roll venue. The worship leaders have been particularly kind to members of our group, and have been encouraged themselves in their freedom of worship (see my weblog, and the videos regarding Eric Boyles).
In the time between services, about 1/2 hour, we buy a donut, get coffee, and just sit in the sun in the main square of the church and socialize. At about 11:25, we head upstairs, where there is more to eat! Snacks vary from a beautiful full breakfast provided by one of the Bible study groups of the church (everything from crepes to egg casserole, to fresh fruit...its great) to root beer floats like we had last week. It is a time to just hang out together and converse. At around 11:35 or so, I get the group focused together via a prayer, and we then have some singing/worship time. We sing songs that are age appropriate that you would hear in the worship service or any other adult Sunday school class. We have a group of folks who have volunteered to be on a worship team, and guitarists from the church who volunteer to accompany the worship team. From there, we do a variety of things such as...
give out used clothes that someone has donated, complete with modeling by one of the men in our group (great fun to drape the women's clothes on him),
celebrating birthdays with a gift and a song (we celebrate all the birthdays for the month, on the first Sunday of the month, or at least we try to do so),
prayer for someone in the group (we will often have that person sit in a chair and all of us gather around that person and place our hands on him or her during prayer),
prayer for something going on in the word (recently it has been the brush fires here in Southern California),
giving out food,
talking about upcoming events or activities,
calling someone on the phone who is in the hospital for us all to talk with,
having special music (as our group has grown, at least a third of our group is people without disabilities and their children!! We have one group of kids who play the clarinet, flute and drums), to people wanting to share a song or a Bible verse they would like to read to us all).
After any or all of those activities are finished we have been moving to the "sit, stand, walk" cards where people share how they have been sitting (studying the Bible in some way, praying, etc.), standing (taking a stand on issues of right and wrong, telling others that God loves them, that they will pray for them, or about Jesus in some way), or walking (working hard at their job as a witness to their employer and coworkers, doing something positive in the community, etc.). This has grown into a wonderful time and both those with and without cognitive disabilities enjoy participating. Once that is done, we move into the lesson.
The lesson itself is much more of a discussion than a sermon. I try to pull out sections of the scripture that I know people in the group will connect with and that will have relevance to their lives. We do work on some aspects of biblical knowledge like verse memorization, or some background on a particular book of the Bible, who wrote it, etc. Some folks really enjoy that kind of information. I try to bring up old memorized verses as much as possible, and typically once every two months or so, just spend a whole lesson time on past verses we have memorized. We also have a few Bible verse songs that we have learned which help to reinforce scripture memorization. In particular, we do the 10 commandments to reinforce those guiding principles. Start to finish, the lesson takes 10 minutes on the short end up to 20 minutes on the long end. It is good to have activities to accompany the lessons so it is not just you talking the whole time. But be sure to make it practical and make it relevant. Occasionally give homework for them to do related to the lesson. The "Sit, stand, walk" lessons have been particularly helpful in that regard as they pretty much all have the card and understand the differences. Some will get confused with the "walk" part saying, "I walked my dog" or "I walked to the store" but that's fine. They are engaged and participating.
At the end we close in prayer and go our separate ways. There is usually extra food that we are sure to get into the hands of the poorest of our group who do not live in a group home. Sometimes we go out to lunch, sometimes other activities. But I think this gives you an idea of how we schedule our typical meeting.
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© Jeff McNair