Upcoming Webinars on Inclusive Faith Support and Ministry

March 29. ARC Webinar

E-LEARNING SERIES REGISTRATION FORM From Rights to Relationships: The Power of Inclusive Spiritual Supports - Thursday March 29, 2012, 2pm- 4pm EST

This webinar will feature Bill Gaventa and Erik Carter, two presenters who will explore three dimensions of this powerful but too frequently untapped source of community inclusion:

1. Spiritual needs and supports: What the research shows? Erik will summarize the growing research in the area of spiritual supports, and highlight arenas in which more research is needed.

2. Working with congregations of all major traditions on inclusive spiritual supports. Bill and Erik will share best practices, from their experience, in supporting clergy and congregations as they begin and move towards inclusive faith supports.

3. Learning to live our values: Strategies and resources to assist service providers in supporting the spiritual needs and choices of the people they support. Bill Gaventa will outline ways for providers and advocates to honor and address spirituality and spiritual supports.

Members of The Arc register through their ARC’s link to the E-Learning Series: http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2470

Open to anyone else as well, with a charge: https://fs8.formsite.com/thearcwebinar/form19/secure_index.html. (Note, this is also a fundraiser for a good cause, The Arc, but if the fee is not manageable for clergy, it can be waived by contacting Kate Hull at hull@thearc.org, or 202-534-3707.)

2. May 14. AAIDD Webinar on May 14: Publicity forthcoming. www.aaidd.org. One hour.

Please feel free to contact bill.gaventa@umdnj.edu or 732-235-9304.

Social Media and Disability Ministry: Come join #chsocm chat Tuesday at 9pm EST

On Tuesday, February 21 at 9:00 PM (ET) we'll chat on #chsocm (Church and Social Media) about using social media to change perceptions about disability and provide new ways to participate. Check out my Pinterest board about Disability and Faith Groups here. An excellent Religion & Ethics piece with video about Faith Communities and Disability here.

I put up a post last week inviting people with disabilities and all those involved in faith communities and disability ministries to join us over at #chsocm on Tuesdays.

This week we'll have an opportunity to discuss issues directly related to questions such as:

How could social media help transform ministry to the disabled and/or home bound? Are some social media tools better than others? How can our favorite tools be tweaked to make them more accessible? What online accessibility issues do church communicators need to know about?

So why not show up and suggest more topics for further discussions?

Join us!

Scripture reflection on disability

A reader and friend sent me this link to a Scripture reflection on disability and biblical interpretation.

It discusses passages about miraculous healings, including the 'paralytic' in Mark and how scholars who are disabled are inviting new questions and challenges to conventional interpretations that directly impact issues of inclusion and exclusion.

The pastoral implications of perceiving disabilities through these lenses are evident in the ways that conditions which impact the senses, health or mobility are used as metaphors for lack of faith or moral laxity. For example how often are the terms "blind" or "deaf" unreflectively employed in preaching and teaching to imply a failure to comprehend God's Word or to respond to injustices that defile the Reign of God? Disability Studies scholars remind biblical interpreters that "disability" is an intricate part of a complex matrix of individual and social identity. Whether intentionally or not, metaphors communicate exclusion and inclusion.

The reflection also discusses the issue of the role of miracles in erasing differences, raising questions as to whether our interpretations "of sacred texts betray an option for physical and mental "wholeness" as hidden criteria for the imago Dei?" despite teaching that all are created in the sacred image of God.

I love the ending where it notes that the paralytic and his friends were never seeking healing, but a means of access to join the crowd and hear Jesus preach.

This is something, I would hope, we all can reflect on.

More on radical love- the gift of interdependency

One of the things about radical love is that it allows many gifts into our lives that weren't present before. These gifts were available to us but blocked because of our preconceptions and assumptions about others and even about ourselves.

One of these gifts is interdependence. I've written about this before. It involves a mutual sharing and exchange, wherein each person is enhanced by both giving and receiving. On the spiritual level, I feel this is how things are meant to be and I strive to have interdependent relationships whenever possible, although to some extent that is dependent on the other person.

I recall years ago when a friend sent her teenage son over to volunteer to help me with some physical tasks. He lacked confidence because he was dealing with a learning disability in school. The minute he arrived I set him to work on my wheelchair which was badly in need of tinkering. He was very handy and although he was only about 14 years old he immediately became "in charge" around here of a number of tasks that I physically couldn't do. Not only did he perform them well, but he would check up on whether items needed maintenance, something I cannot get paid employee adults to do at times. If he heard a squeak in my wheels, out came the screwdriver. He was also flexible. If he saw something needed to be done, he went and did it. I immediately gained respect not only for his work ethic, but for this young man's character and his kind, giving nature. I told his mother she had nothing to worry about and that he was a far better helper than most adults!

In return, I gave this young man some tutoring. He went on to graduate high school and find a job and eventually things he loved to do. The interdependence of our relationship helped both of us, not just because of what we helped each other to do by sharing skills, but what we learned from each other. He told me that if I wasn't going to make excuses because things were hard then he wouldn't either. I told him to concentrate on what he could do well rather than dwelling on what he could not. Although it's fine to encourage someone to work on skills, it's really important to emphasize what they are good at.

I don't believe either of us would've benefited as much if it had been just a dependent relationship. I think he would've grown to see me as helpless perhaps even reinforcing the idea that his learning disability should be seen as a black-and-white situation. He could learn in school, although in different ways sometimes. This was no different than the way I do things with assistive devices. I showed him my voice recognition software and explained that I wouldn't get much done without it. This made him more willing to try new ways of approaching learning in school.

But what about radical love? My point is that we all have something to give. Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that people with disabilities can only take, not give. They don't think people with disabilities can volunteer in their faith organizations. They may be thinking that including them just creates more work and forget that people with disabilities each have their own gifts, hidden talents that sometimes remain that way because no one gives them the opportunity to show them. Radical love is about this kind of interdependence which means there is a give-and-take. There is and must be mutual love and respect.

There is always the giving of love itself, which is priceless. All of us do that at many different levels. It is opening ourselves and our souls up to realizing that which makes us eager to embrace a new form of community in which our spiritual and physical needs are met as all of us participate to our fullest.

Radical love

I was reading an e-mail this week from someone who's worked in the field of social work with disabled folks for many years. She was talking about including people with disabilities at church and how that sometimes meant taking a radical approach, such as challenging the assumption that is difficult to include those with disabilities for certain reasons.

I've heard these reasons over the years. Things such as having disabled people around can make some folks uncomfortable or not knowing where to physically "put people" or not knowing how to act "around them". The radical approach is to name it and deal with it.

Love is radical.

Today on Valentine's Day we are surrounded by pink hearts, flowers, candy, cards and all the trappings of a holiday. I have my own pile here of cards from loved ones. Nothing wrong with that.

I believe however that we're called to love each other in a more radical way. It means loving those who may not love us back, who may challenge our comfortable ways, who may stretch our perceptions, our resources and our hearts. Practicing this kind of love always makes us grow in unexpected ways spiritually. This kind of love spreads. It's contagious. It doesn't stop to think about excluding anyone and it also doesn't begrudge anyone having a wonderful, romantic relationship. There is always more than enough love to go around in this type of community, because everyone is included, cared for and cared about.

So I know what this social worker was talking about. I agree with her 100 percent. Creating inclusive faith communities requires radical love. I've seen it happen. May it continue to grow.

Why you should be attending #ChSocM

A story over at Disaboom written by a rec therapist who married a female paraplegic caught my attention this morning after yet another lively discussion in the Church and Social Media group on twitter last evening at the 9pm EST weekly Tuesday chat. (#ChSocM) We discussed Valentine's Day, love and how churches can use social media to address relationship and faith issues, among other things.

One of the things I noticed was, although folks spoke about meeting the needs of seniors, widows, singles and divorcees, there was little, if anything, said about those with disabilities or illness and issues and needs they may want addressed in a pastoral context or via social media on relationship issues. I'm also noticing how absent folks with disabilities are in the group and am posting about it hoping that more show up. (That's #ChSocM Tuesday evenings 9PM EST in case you didn't catch it). After all, the discussion reflects the views of those who are participating. I'm thinking that those involved in disability ministries have an opportunity to make an important impact.

Social media is just a tool. How can people create content without information or hearing peoples' experiences?

I know many disabled folks who marry. I know folks with illnesses, chronic or short term, who date, fall in love and are married. Disabled folks, whether single or married, face the same issues - and a few others - which might be addressed in some faith congregations by both clergy and lay people, but here's the thing- in some faith congregations folks may not be used to being around disabled folks and do things such as treating young people with disabilities like seniors or asexual. That's just an example- I've heard of other experiences such as being greeted with comments like "You're able to have sex?"

Getting back to the para and the rec therapist- he talks about how his cultural view of disabled folks changed by being around them, including seeing the person, not the mobility equipment. This led to dating and then taking his future bride home to meet the parents and marriage. I've heard this described before by others - how being around disabled folks changes perceptions. Makes sense, doesn't it, just as with any other group of people , that meeting individuals carries an opportunity to change assumptions. No matter how much we throw around "person first" language or phrases like "see past the disability", the bottom line is that until people are included, no one gets to know each other. That kind of learning is experiential.

For those congregations and faith organizations that are inclusive and do a great job treating members of their congregation, disabled and nondisabled, with care and love and are able to address their needs, I say congratulations. Show up at #ChSocM and share what you know. For those that have a way to go, I write this hoping that it begins a discussion. There are those in #ChSocM who have approached me with questions already about how their faith communities could be more inclusive. I'd like to see more participation by those in disability ministries and disabled folks.

Once again, that's #ChSocM Tuesday evenings 9PM EST in case you didn't catch it. See you.

Summer Institute on Theology and Disability

mp3's are now up for the 2011 and 2010 Summer Institute of Theology and Disability, including presentations on many topics for faith groups, such as inclusion and accessibility.

Information for 2012 below:

2012 Summer Institute on Theology and Disability
Sponsored by The Boggs Center and the Bethesda Institute
Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, IL
July 16-20, 2012

Friendship key to inclusion

This article talks about the message heard by faith community members and service providers that friendship is key to inclusion and a way toward ending exclusion in congregations, churches and faith communities. Although this sounds simple, many of the special ministry groups that have been set up still segregate those with disabilities, as opposed to providing opportunities for them to actively engage with all members.

The article provides concrete examples from congregations and communities as they realize that the intangibles are just as important as providing ramps, braille materials or sign interpreters. It also discusses the efforts of programs such as Links of Love and Peaceful Living.

When Disability Comes to Church

I found this post over at the blog Hurt by the Church? which contains the personal experiences of a family member whose church isolated her parents in reaction to her father's dementia. In a soul searching post, the author discusses how this experience led to many realizations.

I used to think it took sacrifice and benevolence of heroic proportions to show significant acts of kindness toward others. These days I can say that an others-oriented lifestyle comes much more naturally when my heart is *really* in the right place… I thought I was dedicated to God all along, but one look at my self-focused and self-indulgent lifestyle should have given me a clue to the contrary. As Jesus Christ said, “You will know them by their fruits.” (Matt. 7:16)

Scripture spells out the true Christian lifestyle in all the clarity we will ever need. But as my life shows (and I know I’m not the only one), our selfishness is capable of constructing the most creative (not to mention deceptively subtle) song and dance around the Bible’s painfully obvious instructions of how to love our neighbours.

To read more about the author's experiences with her congregation, go here.

The post also includes an excellent book list on the topic of disability in church communities, one of the best I've run across. The topics include mental health issues, advocacy in church settings, hospitality and more.

'Access begins in the heart'

At the Enabling Faith conference held this past month in New Jersey, advocates sent this message to a religiously diverse audience: "people with disabilities will be welcomed, valued and honored at religious services. Not shuttled off to a separate program, the "crying room,'' or the last pew, but invited to be full participants in spiritual events."

Ginny Thornburgh, director of the American Association of People with Disabilities Interfaith Initiative and author of "That All May Worship.' stated that access includes thinking in new ways and begins in the heart, stressing it is "about social justice, not pity." She added that inclusion "creates an environment "where no one is treated like a troublemaker or a nuisance, but is honored and enjoyed."

It's not cool to use the R word: Spread the Word to End the Word Day

Today is Spread the Word to End the Word Day- the R word, that is.

I can't tell you how many well meaning people have asked me what the big deal is with using the R word. People who would never argue with me when I say that the American with Disabilities Act is needed and who know that services to deaf and blind communities must be further recognized as part of access.

But when it comes to the R word, they hesitate. They look at me and say "I don't get it. It's just slang." They don't see the harm.

Perhaps they haven't had the word directed at them - or at a loved one. This would explain why they don't feel as passionate, as certain as I do that we must eradicate the use of the R word. When words are slung at people to hurt them, those words demean and dehumanize people.

But it doesn't stop there. Language frames how we think about other people. The words we use about disability are no different. Listen to how people use the R word. As this parent points out in his article in the Huffington Post,

There are two relatively simply exercises that expose the R-word for the instrument of hurt that (in it's contemporary context), it has evolved into. First; is there a single instants when the R-word is used as compliment? Do we find ourselves showering our peers with the R-word after a great triumph or a significant achievement? Is the R-word the stuff that support and elevation are made of?

The answer is, of course, a resounding no. The R word is used negatively. It is used to insult, label, demean, and dehumanize. As slang, it's become so ingrained into our speech that its use is thoughtless, like many other slang phrases, but unlike saying "Hey that's cool" or "You rock", if you substitute the R word, which is often done, the words reinforce the negative. The R word becomes an insult hurled at individuals or a group of people.

How did that become cool? You only have to look at the history of the disability community to realize that hurling derogatory terms in public at people with disabilities has been acceptable for far too long. For this to change, we need to go further than letting people with disabilities out in public. For, before we clap for the changes wrought by the ADA, isn't that what it's been about in part? Mandating through legislation that we have to allow access for people with disabilities wouldn't have been necessary if the history of the disability community wasn't one of exclusion.

We also need to change how we think about disability. Part of that may be to take some time to visit the Spread the Word to End the Word site and take the pledge. Believe me, if you think this is an attempt to infringe on your right to speech, read more of what a parent has to say.

...armed with the knowledge that the R-word is a source of pain and that using the R-word demeans a group that is not in a position to defend itself and who definitely never did anything to merit this kind of derision, the hope is that people will exercise some degree of compassion or at least a heightened sensitivity toward the continued use of the R-word. Again, this is not an invasion of the Bill of Rights. Rather, it is a civil call to integrate a simple change into the way we treat, regard and address the special needs population.

And read what others have to say over at the site.

"I pledge to be kind and respectful to all people and never use the r-word"

Now that's cool.

Mental Health Ministries presents a guide for faith communities

Mental Health Ministries presents a free guide for faith communities that can be downloaded. entitled Mental Illness and Families of Faith, the guide provides tools for use by clergy, congregation members, families and others.

It can be found here.

Via listserv NJCIM

Welcome to the Virtual Abbey

I'd like to welcome readers to join the Virtual Abbey. Formerly the Urban Abbey, it provides daily prayer on Twitter of the Daily Office @Virtual_Abbey, a page on Facebook and a blog located here.

The Virtual Abbey offers insights and resources for living as a modern monastic in the Benedictine tradition.

The greeting from the Abbess states:

We're a community of modern-day monastics united by our practice of praying the Daily Office online. We are young and old, male and female, laity and ordained. We live and work in different places around the world.

We do not belong to one single Christian denomination; more than a few of us are practicing members of more than one faith tradition; some are active in the emergent church movement. You could say that we're ecumenical in the extreme. All are truly welcome to pray with us.

No worries about access at the Virtual Abbey. So come join us in prayer on Twitter @Virtual_Abbey, check out the Facebook page or the blog. We look forward to meeting you.

A Place for All;: Faith and Community for Persons with Disabilities (Trailer)

via YouTube

The documentary A Place for All: Faith and Community for Persons with Disabilities explores the courageous stories of persons with disabilities as they succeed in making their faith communities truly inclusive. It features people such as Rabbi Darby Jared Leigh, a spiritual leader at Congregation Bnai Keshet in New Jersey and one of the handful of deaf rabbis in the world; members of ELCAs DAYLE program where Definitely Abled Youth unite at the 40,000 strong triennial Evangelical Lutheran youth gathering; Rev. Beth Lockard, the pastor of Christ the King Deaf Church; and Brandon Kaplan, a severely disabled boy with limited sight and speech who recently had the privilege of becoming a Bar Mitzvah.

The unenlightened attitude of higher education

Lest you still harbor the illusion that colleges and universities in the U.S. provide a place where students with disabilities will find the greatest minds working toward inclusion, here's a story for you.

Joshua Jackson, a quadriplegic student at East Central University, has been notified that he cannot remain in the dorms after the fall semester unless he provides an aide or a lift for himself since he can't transfer by himself from his wheelchair to his bed. The institution of higher learning is calling this a safety violation, although Jackson notes his concern with the university's policy that elevators are turned off in the event of an emergency.

Here's Jackson's dilemma: money. The cost of providing an aide, he estimates, would be $11,000. Lifts are also expensive and many cannot use them without assistance.

So, in effect, Jackson is being evicted from his dorm, which could end his education.

The university, apparently, has not made any attempt to find a volunteer student to assist or offer any other solution, simply relying on a liability argument.

Inclusion and hope

Next time you feel like laughing at someone searching with a metal detector, remember Terry Herbert of the UK. He stumbled upon a fortune in Anglo-Saxon gold on a neighbor's farm. Over five days he unearthed what is now declared 1500 pieces of treasure with a 14 year old metal detector. Terry, who is unemployed, admits there are those who have laughed at him over the 18 years he's done this hobby. But he kept hoping to find something.

There's no doubt that Terry's situation is far different from those who seek eternal spiritual treasures, not material ones. But you have to hand it to him for persistence and optimism.

All this reminded me of Paul Tillich's The Right to Hope and his discussion of foolish versus genuine hope. Tillich's discussion about waiting in openness and the pull between despair and hope drew my attention:

There are two kinds of waiting, the passive waiting in laziness and the receiving waiting in openness. He who waits in laziness, passively, prevents the coming of what he is waiting for. He who waits in quiet tension, open for what he may encounter, works for its coming. Such waiting in openness and hope does what no will power can do for our own inner development. The more seriously the great religious men took their own transformation, using their will to achieve it, the more they failed and were thrown into hopelessness about themselves. Desperately they asked, and many of us ask with them, Can we hope at all for such inner renewal? What gives us the right to such hope after all our failures? Again there is only one answer: waiting in inner stillness, with posed tension and openness toward what we can only receive. Such openness is highest activity; it is the driving force which leads us toward the growth of something new in us. And the struggle between hope and despair in our waiting is a symptom that the new has already taken hold of us.

The inner renewal or transformation which cannot be brought about by will alone creates a spiritual tension that leads to resolution only when we realize that it is dependent on a worldview that is more mature, inclusive of everyone. Through our openness to those around us, we find what we seek.

As Tillich notes:

"We do not hope for us alone or for those who share our hope; we hope also for those who had and have no hope, for those whose hopes for this life remain unfulfilled, for those who are disappointed and indifferent, for those who despair of life, and even for those who have hurt or destroyed life. Certainly, if we could only hope each for himself, it would be a poor and foolish hope. Eternity is the ground and aim of every being, for God shall be in all."


.It is not just a distinction between earthly and spiritual treasure that matters.

Those seeking personal salvation separate from others, those who seek a relationship with God apart from all fellow human beings, will miss the mark entirely.

Barriers to Home and Community Based Home Living

This series by UCP of Middle Tennessee discusses ongoing barriers that face people with disabilities for living at home or in community based home living, despite the Olmstead case. It provides a background as to why the Community Choice Act is crucial legislation.
Part I: Isolation in nursing homes and housing discrimination

Part II: Institutional Bias and bureaucratic barriers based on medical model that warehouses people in nursing homes

Part III: Universal design and affordable, accessible housing; home based support and the growing need for such accommodations and services in our communities

The G.L.U.E. Manual

via NJCIM list serv:

The G.L.U.E. (Giving, Loving, Understanding, and Encouraging) Manual is now available. Written by Barbara Newman and Kimberley Luurtsema at CLC Network, this manual, with accompanying forms,
surveys, etc details a process for use in congregations who are seeking to discover ways that people with disabilities and their families can be included as partners in ministry. A one-time purchase of $60 for the manual connects the church to all of the fully reproducible and electronically usable materials needed on the web. For more information or to order a manual, contact CLC Network at glue@clcnetwork.

org or by visiting www.clcnetwork.org. This adds to other great resources written by Barb including, Autism and Your Church, and Helping Kids Include Kids with Disabilities.

Faith communities and disabiity

An article over at pbs.org discusses various faith communities and inclusion of people with disabilities.

Reverend Bill Gaventa of the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities:

In every faith community there is a scriptural basis for welcome and hospitality. But you’ve also got congregations who live in cultures where people with disabilities have been hidden and ostracized and devalued in lots of ways, and too often faith communities sanctify prejudices in the community rather than challenge them. It shouldn’t be easier to get into a bar than a church.


Rabbi Grossman of the Adath Israel Congregation in Lawrenceville, NJ, notes how his synagogue is known as a 'special needs community' when it makes up a small percentage of who attends, but says "I think it defines the synagogue because it simply doesn’t happen elsewhere." He adds that "you got to create the environment where everybody has a place, and if you start with that notion, then everything flows from there."

Making Churches More Accessible

A video by the N.C. Conference Committee on Disability Concerns looking at how and why to make United Methodist Churches more accessible to persons with disabilities so that they might more fully participate in the life of the congregation. The video also promotes the need for UM Churches to participate in an online accessibility audit to assess what local churches need to do.