Specialgathering’s Weblog

The Special Gathering is a ministry within the mentally challenged (developmentally delayed) community.  There are currently 8 programs.  Our mission is to evangelize and disciple people who are mentally challenged. 

Our main vehicle for accomplishing our mission is our chapel program.  Our largest and oldest program is located in Cocoa, Florida.  Rev. Richard Stimson is the founder and executive director of the ministry.  Stimson serves as Area Director for the Brevard programs, in Cocoa and Titusville.  Linda Howard, is the Area Director of the South Brevard, Indian River County Programs.  Ferne Brandt is the Area Director for our South Carolina program, located in Colleton County.  We also have programs in Daytona, DeLand and Jacksonville.   For information regarding any of these programs, call 321 632 0130.

 In addition, we do advocacy and teach self-advocacy.  There are four Special Gathering choirs which minister with the community.    Our monthly publication called Connecting Point, written for and by The Special Gathering Members, has a circulation of about 1,500.

If you’ve ever had a blog you understand the process from this end.  We publish our thoughts, prayers and observations on the blogsite and people find us.  You may google or yahoo us by searching for individuals with intellectual disabilities or mental retardation.  You may find us through a convoluted path of websites and blogs.

While we may not be exactly what people are looking for, I pray that Special Gathering’s blog will be a respite in their search for answers–your search for answers.  A drink of cool water.  An oasis.  We desire to be an outreach of hope, evangelism and teaching for lonely travelers who sit at their computer screens and stare into the vast land of informational overload.  At Special Gathering, we seek to minister to people with disabilities.  In the process, we sometimes inadvertently touch lives of professionals and parents.  We have years of experience and we know just enough to realize there is so much that we don’t know. 

However, here at this blog spring head, we are desiring to touch the wounded warriors:  a minister, a home or foreign missionary within the mentally challenged community who isn’t sure that anyone is praying for you.  We know there are parents who secretly fear there may be no hope for your child.  Irreligious professionals sincerely search for answers that are far beyond your expertise and worldly experience.

Our prayer for you is that this will be a fountain of hope and a stopover in the fulfillment of your deepest desire.  We understand that your task is daunting–helping the helpless and strengthening the weak.  Sure, we all speak a big politically correct language and we really believe the verbiage of “no disability, except what we will not do.”  However, sitting in front of the screen in the middle of the night, we search our plaintive pleas for assistance in words like “help for a parent with an autistic child” and “one scripture for my children who are mentally challenged.”  The most frequent has been ”a Bible for my child who is mentally retarded.”

In front of the silent gaping screen, we drop the politically proper verbage and bluster.  We sincerely desire help and desperately want answers.  Here at Special Gathering, we admit we don’t have all the professional unction you need.  We don’t even have all the spiritual answers you grasp for in desperation; but we do know the Rock from which supernatural water springs and He can provide the answers you seek.  Christ is your oasis in this desert land.  Reach out and He will touch you and quench your thirst.  He will give you strength to face one more day in the desert of endless hope and unanswered desperation.

I’ve been touched by the amazing simplicity of the scripture that we are using as our Call to Worship in Special Gathering of Indian River this month.  “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9 NCV).

 Today be assured we weep and pray for you.  Christ is the answer…your answer.

 This blog is managed by Linda G. Howard