A Backyard That Changed the World

In the summer of 1962, Eunice Kennedy Shriver opened the gates of her backyard in Potomac, Maryland, and invited children with intellectual disabilities to swim, run, and play. It was a radical act. In an era when families routinely institutionalized children who were different, Shriver — whose own sister Rosemary had been locked away after a failed lobotomy — refused to accept that some people were less worthy of joy. That backyard camp grew into a conviction, and on July 19, 1968, one thousand athletes from twenty-six states and Canada gathered at Soldier Field in Chicago for the first International Special Olympics Summer Games. Standing before that crowd, Shriver declared words that echoed an ancient truth: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."

The world had drawn a line between those who belonged on the field and those who did not. Shriver erased it.

Paul drew the same line through every human barrier when he wrote to the Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The gospel does not sort people into those who qualify and those who watch from the margins. In God's kingdom, there is no spectator seating for the ones the world considers less.

Every time a church opens its doors wider than the culture thinks necessary, it is doing exactly what Shriver did in that backyard — insisting that belonging is not earned. It is given.