Video answers to questions...What are the hindrances to churches including persons with disabilities?

A question was asked by Tim, someone who viewed one of the other videos on this blog.
His question is important because we want to encourage churches to include persons with disabilities just like we would encourage churches to include anyone else. 

McNair

"I wonder where these people would be?"

My son visited our Light and Power group today.  It is a group in our church, Trinity Church in Redlands, CA, that includes adults with various disabilities.  He visits on occasion, today to go out to lunch with me and our friend Mark who is a part of the group.  We had a great time of joking and fooling around over lunch.

At one point, however, he got a bit serious and thoughtful.  He said that as he sat in class, the thought crossed his mind, "I wonder where these people would be if there wasn't this group, this class?  They certainly wouldn't be here."  Our meeting today included prayer for a missionary friend who has adopted us and is heading back to the mission field.  We had about 15 minutes of prayer for what we were thankful for led by our music team.  There was other prayer and sharing for a great time together.  We sang the old Keith Green song, "How I love you" to God then to each other then as a prayer.  It was cool.

I hadn't really thought about his question, but it is a good one.  I wonder where many others like the folks who have become a part of our church family are today because they have no place like Light and Power to go to.  They don't have a place where they are celebrated or prayed for, or just told that they are loved.  It is a sad thought, particularly when I think of the people who have become so dear to me would have no place to go.

Maybe your church can be the place for folks like my friends to go.

McNair

Community integration as a metaphor for church integration

In the effort to move toward integration, people left institutions for residences in the community.  The end desire was not simply that people would have a home in the community (although a good thing in itself) but that people would be integrated into the community.  That is, they would be known, have friends, experience what might be called a "typical" life.  The difficulty that continues to be faced is that people do not sufficiently experience this form of social, community integration.

Applying this metaphor (perhaps this reality) to the church, our first desire would be to open churches to the presence of persons with various impairments.  This is a programmatic opening.  Perhaps now there will be a program within a church, a disability ministry.  This is comparable to persons who were institutionalized in the past, now living in the community. 

The next phase would be that people in the church would be a part of personal change for themselves, for other individuals and the entire congregation.  This is the "promised land" as with social integration for those in community residential settings.  This is the "not what we do but what we become" in the previous blog.

In both of these cases, what is needed is personal change: change in individuals in the community and the community and change in individual congregational members and the congregation as a whole.  We can develop programs/residences that evidence a form of physical integration, but we cannot be satisfied with that.

It sounds trite, but the changes we desire truly begin with us, whomever we are.  If I want community integration, I must facilitate it in my own life, whomever I am, being with people who would benefit from my efforts.  If I want faith group integration, perhaps I strive to be more like Jesus in loving others, particularly those whom society has devalued, or whose social skills or other personal characteristics make people uncomfortable.  Each of us have this power in our own social circles, and no one is excluded from this potential area for change and growth: secular or religious.

We need to think clearly about disability ministry within the church.  The presence of that ministry at a church is better than there not being such a presence.  But it only indicates that the church has taken a step of physical integration.  I cannot programmatically separate people from myself if I want to become what I need to become as a lover of other people.  I must not decide there are some whom I will love and others whom I will not.  Presence of people opens the door for the opportunity to love.  I need to step through that door and take others with me.

McNair

Disability ministry: It is not what you do it is who you become.

I was working on a document about leadership in disability ministry for the Joni and Friends organization this past week.  As I looked at the early draft, something seemed to be missing.  We were describing the development of programs and how those programmatic ideas might be infused into local churches.  Yes, programs are important.  But it occurred to me that what was needed in the document was a discussion of change and maturity development in both Christians who attend church and the Christian churches themselves. 

I can hire someone to develop and run a ministry that includes people with intellectual disabilities.  That program can be on the campus of the church and I can observe those people coming and going, but no demands are made on me individually or the larger church as a whole.  Disability ministry implies a change in both individuals and organization such that people with impairments no longer need to ask, "Why don't you love me?"  Disability ministry means that I have grown to the point that persons with just about any characteristic do not make me uncomfortable.  Disability ministry means that the congregation and the leadership have grown to the point that persons with any type of impairment do not make them uncomfortable.  But disability ministry also implies that persons with impairments are comfortable with others who also have impairments.  For example, in the group at my church that includes persons with intellectual disabilities, that implies that we try to facilitate their growth such that they are accepting of persons with autism and more severe disabilities.

We are all on the spectrum of need, we all find it difficult to love one another, so we all need to become something different than we currently are.  Disability ministry assists us all in that process of change and maturity.

Please don't be confused into thinking that disability ministry is just another ministry of the church, another program to be instituted.  It is about helping people become someone who is more like Jesus independent of personal characteristics.  That change is facilitated through the discomfort (for many) that comes through integration.  I will not learn to love someone with mental illness if I never am challenged to love someone with that characteristic.  The person that I would become if I learned that lesson will never be.  The church that doesn't learn that lesson will never be.

This is an area in which I need to embrace change and recognize that I am not OK the way I am.  Could someone look you in the eye and be justified in asking, "Why don't you love me?"  Do you care enough to prevent that from happening to you or your church by becoming something different?

Programs are fine, but they really are not what is truly needed.
McNair

Free articles from the Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability

The Joni and Friends organization's Christian Institute on Disability launched the Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability one year ago.  Subscriptions are available at their website.

You can also free copies of two articles from the first two issues.  This is something that the journal plans to provide with every issue: one free downloadable article.

The first free article is...

What Would Be Better?

Social Role Valorization and the Development of

Ministry to Persons Affected by Disability 
  MA R C   T U M E I N S K I   A N D   J E F F   MCNA I R


 

There is much that Christian churches can learn from relevant secular

approaches and adapt to support integration and participation within our

congregations for adults with impairments. One of these approaches is

Social Role Valorization developed by Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger. In this

approach, one considers the relevance of image and competency of devalued

individuals and how these two areas impact access to “the good things

of life.” This article applies these principles to the inclusion of vulnerable

congregational members into the life of the Christian church, asking the

question, “What would be better?” as a prompt for those in leadership to

reflect on their current practices with an eye toward maturity in their practices

as they intersect the lives of devalued people.

 

The second free article is...

 

Almost Friends

JENNIFER BACA AND JEFF MCNAIR

 

A survey was conducted of human services professionals working with

individuals with developmental disabilities regarding issues related to

friendship. Seventy-six percent agreed that there is a difference in friendship

between people being paid to be with a consumer of services and

those choosing to be with that same individual. The authors concluded

that it appears that those individuals serving persons with developmental

disabilities are “almost friends” in that although they are potentially

friendly, they are paid to be with those with whom they interact, and that

for these and a variety of other reasons are not able to be real friends.

To download these articles, go to the following website.

http://www.joniandfriends.org/jcid/enjoy-two-free-jcid-articles/

 

Enjoy!

McNair

 

 

A fantastic illustration of friendship

 

A student in the Cal Baptist Disability Studies program, Desiree Lesicko shared this video with me.  On one level it is just a beer commercial.  But the message is so fantastic.

 

 

 

There are many persons affected by disability who do not experience the kind of friendships illustrated by this video.  Instead they experience social isolation.  We need to choose persons affected by all kinds of impairments as our friends.  The benefit of such relationships is mutual.

"The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character." 

God bless,
McNair

Beauty

At a meeting at Joni and Friends this morning, a video was shared which needs broader airplay.  It is about a photographer, Rick Guidotti.  I won't try to describe what he is doing, I would simply refer you to the YouTube video.  It is beautiful!

 

 

May God open the church to a perspective similar to this one...

McNair

God's intimate knowledge of people

I was thinking about how in depth God knows each of us.  This is important, because society would give us the impression that people with impairments are "mistakes" if born with a disability.  Science even uses terms that imply human characteristics are errors.  But if you look at the Bible, we see passages such as these...

29"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30"But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31"So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.( Matthew 30)

13For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well. (Psalm 139)

 

7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good...

18But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable (1 Corinthians)

 

There is an intimacy there.  The implication is that every life has purpose and value.  That may help in the acceptance of God's sovereignty, which can be very hard to accept.  At the same time, this perspective flies in the face of randomness, of a random world just going on with no purpose.  Without God, the experience of disability would particularly difficult, I would think, as aspects of life that might seem unfair and particularly difficult would have no meaning or purpose.  That might have been the Apostle Paul's perspective when he relates that he prayed for healing 3 times.  Ultimately he receives an answer from God...

 

9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12)

 

There seems to be a change that comes over Paul.  He is still the same, with the same "thorn" that he had before God's response, however, he moves from praying for his impairment to be removed (nothing wrong with that prayer, by the way) to stating...

 

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12)

 

He understands the social consequences of disability with his comments regarding his experience with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties.  He accepts the sometimes very difficult sovereignty of God, and concludes this passage with the statement, "For when I am weak, then I am strong."  He is strong in God's grace.  Perhaps he sees a purpose in his experience.  At the very least he is leaning with all his might on the grace of God, which God says will be sufficient for him.  I have to believe that if God tells you that His grace is sufficient, He is both telling you the truth, and He is making a committment to you that His grace will be sufficient. 

 

If God has the ability to change a person born with a disability, or heal a person with an acquired disability, and He doesn't we must lean on his grace which he says will be sufficient.  That is in no way easy.  It may be incredibly difficult.  We must ask God to give us the faith in the promises of God.  At that point we endeavor to believe in His intimate knowledge of us, His purposes for us, and call on him to follow through on His promise that His grace is sufficient for us.  But more than that...

 

I have to believe in His intimate knowledge of me.

I have to believe He has a purpose for me.

I must believe that His sovereignty is right for me.

I must know that He has a purpose for me.

Because He says that His grace is sufficient for me, as He intimately knows me, as I am.

 

McNair

Video answers to questions...What does the Bible say about disability?

I am going to periodically post links to video responses to questions often raised by people interested in aspects of disability and people impacted by impairments.  The video link will be provided and there will be an opportunity to comment and/or pose further questions either on YouTube or here attached to specific blog entries.

The next question I want to address is, "What does the Bible say about disability?"  These answers will be brief, but as you will see from the video I will do what I can to take the questions on and provide the best response that I am able.

God bless and here is the next link.

McNair

Video answers to questions...Is sin the cause of disabilities?

I am going to periodically post links to video responses to questions often raised by people interested in aspects of disability and people impacted by impairments.  The video link will be provided and there will be an opportunity to comment and/or pose further questions either on YouTube or here attached to specific blog entries.

The first question I want to address is, "Is sin the cause of disabilities?"  These answers will be brief, but as you will see from the video I will do what I can to take the questions on and provide the best response that I am able.

God bless and here is the first link.

McNair

Friendships are not utilitarian

In a conversation with students this past week, we talked about friendship.  When we discussed why someone develops a friendship with a person, in particular with a severe disability.
I asked "Why would someone choose to develop a friendship with someone having a severe intellectual disability?"  Responses related to how much one could learn from such people, how much they have to give, how their life impacts those around them and so forth.

I then asked several of the students, one at a time,
"What is the name of your best friend?" 
A typical response was, "Ginny." 
"What do you and Ginny like to do together?" I then responded.
"We like to watch movies, drink coffee and just hang out." was a typical response.
I then wondered aloud, "Why must a friendship with a person with a severe disability have a utilitarian component when your friendship with your other friends is just based upon being together drinking coffee or watching movies?"

I admit I didn't plan on the discussion, it kind of just happened, but as I thought out loud, I recognized that the criteria for friendship for some reason seemed to be different for typical friends in comparison to potential friends with severe disabilities.  It was like the same criteria would not work for a person with a severe disability that might work for someone without that characteristic.  For me to have a friendship with a person with a severe disability, I must identify something that you have to give to me (utilitarianism) as a reason for the friendship.  Perhaps because I have bought the lie that a person with that characteristic has nothing to offer me, so I have to find something that they may have to offer in order to justify friendship.

I thought of my friend, Doug, a neighbor who will just stop by my house unannounced.  For some reason, I never expect him to show up.  He drives up on his 4 wheeler (I live in the country) comes in, we have a cup of coffee or dinner if he hasn't eaten yet.  We talk about what he is doing or what I am doing or maybe just sit and watch whatever Kathi and I happen to have on the TV.  I love it when Doug stops by unannounced.  Sure he has helped me do things at times and I him, but 90% of our time together is just typical hanging out that friends do.  I am not his friend because of how much I can learn from him, or how much he has to give, or how his life impacts those around him.  We just enjoy hanging out together.

One of my best friends was a man with severe intellectual disabilities.  It was funny that I just started visiting his group home because I wanted to do something nice for the men who lived there.  I would go by with a bottle of soda and something to munch on and hang out for an hour.  Increasingly I found that Thom and I connected.  He liked me and I liked him.  He would tell me about his day program, how he wanted to marry his teacher, about his brother in whom he was so proud and about the Angels, Dodgers or Lakers.  I would tell him about things I knew he would be interested in,. like my horses or that I had had a barbeque, or how he was my friend.  He would often say to me, "I am nice to you, Jeff." and he was!  He passed away about a year ago and it was interesting to me to find that I didn't have the same desire to visit the group home as I did before.  Why?  Because my friend no longer lived there!  I liked the other men and women who live there, but Thom was my friend.  He was my friend in the same way that Doug is my friend.  Not because of what he could do for me, but because we enjoyed hanging out together.

No real friendship is truly utilitarian.  If you are looking for utilitarian relationships, you are probably not looking for friendships.  As you consider befriending those with the characteristic of severe impairment, do not attempt to make the relationship anything different than the relationship you have with other friends.

McNair

A "form" of physical integration

A student of mine was recently writing about opportunities for persons with intellectual disabilities to be integrated into the community.  He describes a scene where people are in the community but are largely being "protected" from the community.  The presence of "care providers" both facilitates isolation while communicating that the care providers are care providers and not people with impairments like those they are providing care for.  In discussing this with another friend, he reminded me of how in most any food court in America, you can sit and watch people with disabilities being brought into the setting, as a group, with their care provider/protector, being physically present but without any possible opportunity for social integration with the community.

I made the point with my student that he must be clear in speaking about forms of physical integration...being present physically but not present socially.  Perhaps the requirement of the agency for whom the care providers work is that people have the opportunity to physically be in the community.  Their assumption, I would assume, is that because there is physical proximity, there is also social integration going on.  This is a very foolish assumption.  Now obviously it is difficult to be socially integrated with someone if you are not in the same enviornment with them, but physical integration is completely different from social integration.  Some groups make no effort to physically integrate people because of the way they perceive those with disabilities, all but indicating that there is something about them that makes them unworthy or at best ineligible to be socially integrated.  These people are fools who should not be given any responsibility relative to the support of persons with disabilities.  Unfortunately, our secular models for the delivery of human services seeks people who see persons with disabilities as unintegratable which makes the segregationist models for human services more administratively convenient.

I mean imagine care providers truly taking people to the food court such that they will meet and integrate with others in the community.  As soon as unregulated, community members have access to persons with disabilities, there is the risk that relationships might be built.  Once you have a relationship with me as a state regulated person with an impairment, you might become concerned about the treatment I am receiving.  You might show up at my group home or my sheltered workshop, or even at the food court where I am eating.  You will see those managing me frustrating any efforts on my part at social integration, and you might start to complain.  How much better if you would not care about people with impairments, leave their care up to those who are "trained" and go about your business.  That is the form of physical integration which is most likely desired by those providing services.  The involvement of community members in the lives of people who are regulated is simply too messy to manage.

As the church and Christian community awaken to persons with disabilities in the community, they will experience significant push back from those who manage their lives.  Push back will come in the form of prohibiting things that they really don't have the right to prohibit.  Limiting choices about choices that shouldn't be limited (my daughter told me of a man consistently given a cheese sandwich for lunch when he wanted waffles, which of course was quite unreasonable untill a lawyer showed up).  Limiting relationships through the desire to regulate everyone in the life of someone with an impairment.  These are the kinds of behaviors which influence the experience of physical integration of persons with disabilities.  It is not in the best interest of the state, of agencies, of care providers for people with disabilities to be truly physically integrated leading to true social integration.

McNair

Wading into messy lives

There is a degree to which in a situation where everyone has largely perfect social skills and where few people look to us to solve their problems, we are able to do our programs in our own strength.  As we increasingly involve ourselves in the messiness of people’s lives, whether due to their choices, impairments, etc., we have less confidence about what we should do and therefore are driven to rely on the Lord for assistance.  This, in the end, is good for both those with difficult lives and others around them.  As we wade into their difficult lives in order serve them, 1) we share in the suffering of others in their messy lives, 2)  we learn service and 3)  we learn a reliance on the Lord in the midst of these extreme difficulties as neither we nor they are able to solve the complex difficulties of the lives of others.  We are compelled to dive into the scriptures to understand God’s mind and also end up in desperate prayer to seek God’s wisdom, God's direction and even God's direct intervention.  Someone very dear to me has told me that when he has cried in recent years, it has been because of the pain of others that he has sought to support.  He truly has suffered with other parts of the Body of Christ.

Although I experience this at times, I do not experience it sufficiently enough in my life.  This reveals to me the types of people I have in my life.  As I read one of my favorite passages in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 12.  Verse 26 says, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it..." and I think to myself, "I don't think so."  To me that seems more like an aspiration for the Body of Christ.  Maybe in some existential manner we all suffer together, but I don't sufficiently and the Church doesn't sufficiently feel the suffering of those in the community who suffer, in particular those who may be suffering with aspects of their experience with disability.  Obviously, not all people with impairments suffer, however, the social isolation, the comments that "I have no friends" and even the dealing with pain or other aspects of impairment, these things the church is not sufficiently aware of.  In fact a statement often given by pastors or others within the church when confronted with the reality of this experience is that "I didn't know."  How can I suffer with those who suffer if I don't even know who they are?

Our American society allows us to make a lot of assumptions about the experience of people in life.  We are aware of the presence of various human services and assume that they are sufficient to meet ALL the needs of those who use them.  As I have referred to a hundred times, we are like Scrooge replying that we pay our taxes, implying that I have no further responsibility for my neighbor because I have had money taken out of my paycheck against my will to support them through government programs. 

I would argue that not only are these government programs insufficient, the models they are based upon are so wrong that the exacerbate many of the problems they claim to be addressing. 

But I will never know that unless I wade into the lives of those who are living on what appears to be a different side of the sovereignty of God than I am.

When I wade into the problems of others, and feel overwhelmed like they do, and feel hopeless like they do, and feel alone like they do, their experience guides ME to total reliance on God and perhaps through my reliance on God, guides them to reliance on God.  We should suffer with those who suffer so that we can become the Body of Christ described in 1 Corinthians 12.

May God give us the desire us to become his body.
McNair

Disability Studies at California Baptist University

California Baptist University invites you to consider our MA degree in Disability Studies. The degree is entirely online.

We are one of the few if not the only Christian university offering an MA in Disability Studies nationally, and perhaps the only university in the world offering a MA degree in disability ministry. 
We are focussed on developing leaders in the field.  Nearly 50% of our first cohort of graduates (2012) have had their MA research published in a professional journal.  Students have come to us from the fields of policy, nonprofit management, ministry, and human services among others.  Graduates are working as teachers of children and adults, government agency workers, directors of nonprofits, vendors of human services, directors of parachurch organizations, working in disability ministry and as pastors among other pursuits. 

We are accepting applications for the fourth cohort now through August. Classes are taught by Dr. Jeff McNair and a faculty of experts in aspects of disability studies. For more information, check out the website, Disability Studies at CBU  or you can contact Dr. McNair directly at jmcnair@calbaptist.edu  or our dean of admissions Ted Meyer at tmeyer@calbaptist.edu

This program received WASC accreditation Summer of 2008 and has received significant input and support from the Joni and Friends organization whom we consider our partners.

So please do not hesitate to contact Dr. McNair with questions or to request an application or you can visit the website above for more information.

Pride, sin and depression

Had a conversation with a man the other day who shared with me that he suffers from periods of depression.  He actually lives with a manic/depression form of mental illness and although through medication he has it somewhat under control, he will sometimes still deal with depression. 

He shared how when he has shared his disability with pastors or teachers (he hesitates to bring it up anymore), he is often told that his problem is "unconfessed sin in your life."  Now my sin can definitely cause me to be depressed, however, if I have clinical depression based upon a form of mental illness, my depression is not due to unconfessed sin.  That is the first lession.  Second, if you tell me that the reason I experience depression is because I have unconfessed sin in my life, you are basically saying that you think you are better than me because you, as an idyllic, humble example of righteousness have confessed your sin so you do not experience depression.  While I have such an obstinate attitude that I will refuse to confess my sins and thus I experience my depression.

This response is not only simply wrong, it is so prideful in judging one's neighbor when you may have no idea of what the person with the mental illness is experiencing.  Need I even mention the book of Job?  You experience no impairment, no disability, no mental illness because of your righteousness, while I experience impairment, disability, mental illness because of my sinful condition that you claim I refuse to confess.

This perspective is referred to as the moral model of disability.  I basically states that impairment/disability is due to what I have done, or my parents have done or my family has done.  You see I/we are bad people and we are just getting what is coming to us.  But if we were more like you who does not experience impairment/disability then we would not experience impairment/disability too.

When I have the opportunity to speak to groups, I often ask whether sin is the cause of disability.  Not from the perspective of the "original sin of Adam" but just more related to my personal sin.  Now I can do things of a sinful nature that can cause disability in others.  If I act violently towards another person I can cause disability.  But does the fact that I am a thief or a liar, or do not honor my parents, etc., basically that I am as Paul referred to himself  the worst of all sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), should I expect that my children will as a result be disabled?  In reality if sin were the cause of disability and I truly understood the sinful condition of people, then I should expect that ALL of our children would be disabled.  In my personal life, I know that sin is not the cause of disability because neither of my children are disabled.  I know myself, and trust me if sin were the cause of disability my children would be disabled.

But back to the conversation I had with my friend.  He may do things in his life of a sinful nature that can cause him to feel depressed, but his experience of mental illness is not due to unconfessed sin in his life any more than the lack of mental illness is caused by the confessed sin in the life of his detractors.  We need to understand human impairments for what they are.  We need to understand the pervasiveness of sin in all of us.  Recognize that it is the pride in me that causes me to see myself as somehow perfection in my spiritual astuteness to confess my sin, while simultaneously seeing someone who experiences impairment/mental illness as other and imperfect and unrepentant.

Get the log out of your own eye before you point out the splinter in someone else's eye (Matthew 7:5).

McNair

The power of the victim in the Good Samaritan

Following up on the last post about power, it occurred to me that in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), power can be seen.  That is, in the story one man is beaten and left for dead.  Three others come by.  First was a priest, second was a Levite (apparently a kind of assistant priest) who both passed by and didn't help the man disabled by the beating.  But a Samaritan stopped, helped the man and took him to a hotel where he could be cared for.

The new point for me was that the man who was disabled by the beating did nothing but lay there.  His only role in the story was that he was present.  When those who were arguably more "powerful" in that they were able to get up, move, do the things they wanted to do like travel came into his presence, his presence alone revealed their character.  They were much more powerful by comparison, he had no power by comparison (1 Corinthians 12:22 again, "seem weaker") but his presence alone was either hugely affirming or quite damning of the character of those who came in contact with him.  I mean think about it!  For centuries since, the Samaritan and his response has become a part of western (at least) language.  We all recognize that the Samaritan's character was revealed in this exchange (well it wasn't really an exchange because one person did nothing), in this encounter (a better word).  The priest and the Levite probably thought themselves good guys, regular temple attenders, respected in the community and so forth.  But the presence of a person with a disability revealed at least to some extant who they actually were.

And who were the priest and the Levite?

Jesus tells us.  They were people who were not a neighbor, who did not love their neighbor.  So who are we as a church?  We are people in the words of Jesus who do not "Go and do likewise."  We are the ones who pass by on the other side.  We are the ones who are unwilling to be changed by the presence of people who simply by their presence have the power to either reveal our character or potentially change us through the insight we get into who we are.  They are once again, "indispensable" because they will show us, all of us, independent of where each of stands on the disability/impairment continuum, who we are relative to the second greatest commandment of loving our neighbor as ourselves.

But people need to be present among us for that power to be weilded.  We need to stop the "passed by on the other side" kind of behavior which is little more than deliberately ignoring our neighbor.  The sad part is that both the priest and the Levite "saw the man" which resulted in the behavior of passing by on the other side.  When people tell me they just didn't know about people with disabilities in the community, I don't believe them.  Church leaders know there are people with disabilities in the community.  Although they may not actually put themselves in a place where they see them, they are still passing by on the other side.

Why is the inclusion of persons with disabilities so foundational?  Jesus shows us that if we do not love them, we do not love our neighbor.  What could be more basically wrong with us than if we don't love our neighbor.  The image of a man "left for dead" is a perfect illustration.  How often does the church, knowing people with disabilities are in need and in the community, attitudinally leave them for dead.  Everyone around the beaten man in the story allowed him to be "left for dead."  The social isolation and lives being filled with "almost friends" (Baca & McNair, 2013) people who are exclusively paid to be with a person with a disability, is how we leave people for dead today.  We must be like the Good Samaritan, love our neighbor, and reflect Jesus' directive to "Go and do as he did."

McNair

Baca, J. & McNair, J. (2013).  Almost friends.  Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability, 2(1).

Power and 1 Corinthians 12:22

1 Corinthians 12:22 "the parts of the body that seem weaker are indispensable."

I always pray for new insights regarding things related to the church and persons with disabilities.

The insight that recently came to me, was related to the part of the verse that says "seems weaker."  The rest of the passage indicates that persons who seem weaker are indispensable, but it doesn't address why they only seem weaker when in reality they are not. This is the new insight I received this morning.  People with disabilities have the potential to cause wholesale change the church and the traditions of the church with their presence.  So they may seem weak but the power of their presence is actually so powerful that if embraced it will change everything within the church. They are therefore, both indispensable and incredibly powerful to change the church...though seemingly weaker.

1 Corinthians1:27-29, particularly verse 27  says "God chose what is weak in the world to shame the wise."  When one is shamed, one is expected to do something in response to the shaming, perhaps a change in one's behavior, apologizes, etc.  Coupled with 1 Corinthians 12:22 the seemingly weaker will shame the wiser, potentially to bring change.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29 says, God chose what is
   -low and despised in the world
   -even things that are not
WHY?
   -to bring to nothing things that are
WHY?
   -so that no human being might boast in the presence of God

It involves the bringing of change
   -via shame
   -bringing to nothing things that are (perhaps traditions)

God is strong in weakness.  If we allow God to use our weakness, he will act powerfully.  People seem weaker because we don't see their weakness in concert with God's power.  Using the understanding of weakness/power given us by the world, we see people as weak because in part we see them, in themselves, and don't understand God's purposes, particularly in weakness.  They therefore seem weaker.

Now power can be displayed in at least two ways.  Power can come from being over others.
Power can come from being necessary to others, in being indispensable to others.

Arguably, the power of those who seem weaker (they seem so but actually are not) is the second type in that they are powerful in what their presence allows or causes the whole body to become.  However, I can see what I might become with their presence, decide I don't want to become that thing, nullify their actual power, and relegate them to being perceived as weak.  But I might also be blinded to the changes their power exercised would bring and so do not find out what the change would be.  I probably  need to first include them and then see where I would be taken in terms of change.

Powerful people may exert their power over others and cause some type of change.  But the type of change we are discussing is not that exerted by the powerful, but rather the relinquishing of power to the "weak" by allowing the changes they bring.  Power is being transferred to them in the changes they bring.  They will enjoy the changes they bring, but they are not changes they in any way actively sought (particularly those with more severe disabilities).

Foucault would say that when people resist, it is evidence that power is being exerted.  The resistance of churches and church leaders could therefore be evidence of the unintentional exercise of the power of the week, simply by their presence.  The rejection by the church of this power to change (acquiesce to change by the church) might thus be the reason why those who are indispensable, seem weaker.

The pressure to love is another form of this power people exert over one another.  They may actually say, "You must love me!" but rarely so.  But with the Bible in one hand and the person needing some loving response from me present at the same time, the power of the Bible's command to love exercises power over those who would submit to becoming aware of it/the situation.  The responsibility to love is power over a person.  Think about this in reference to 1 Corinthians 13.

McNair

Survey of Fathers of Children with Disabilities

A colleague of mine, Rev. Joe Butler, is conducting a survey of fathers of children with disabilities.
If you are a father or know a father of a child with a disability, would you please forward this link to him?
https://s.zoomerang.com/s/disabilitystudies
Thanks so much!  I am excited to learn what Joe will find from his research.
McNair

More honor to parts that didn't have any

1 Corinthians 12:24b-26 says,

But God has joined together all the parts of the body.  And he has given more honor to the parts that didn't have any.  In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides.  All of them will take care of each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.  If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.

How does one give more honor to parts that didn't have any?  Could it be that we overlook the reasons that someone would not have honor.  We overlook things like social skills or the sounds made by someone with Tourettes syndrome, or odors which might accompany someone who does not have bowel control, or other aspects of disability over which someone has little control and an inability to change.  In this way, we give honor to those who "don't have any."  For some, we would expect certain behaviors or abilities, however, for those with forms of disability, we altogether honor those people by not separating them, by changing the way things are done such that they can be included down to social skill standards, personal comfort, or traditional ways of doing things.  In this way we honor people who by societal standards do not have honor.  As we understand the lives of people who are dis-honored, we begin to understand the suffering experienced by people.

When the verse says, "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it" I believe it, but I don't see it.  People in the body do not suffer because of the suffering of others whom they may not even be aware.  Perhaps this is a description of something that happens that I am unaware of.  I may suffer from the suffering of others in ways in which I am not aware.  I am experiencing a life that is not what it should be because of those who are suffering which once again I am unaware of.  So we together should be something that we are not because of the suffering of others.  Perhaps if I was truly aware of the suffering of others and suffered with them I would be something that I currently am not.
McNair

More on disability as commodity (commoditization of disabiltiy)

"The $5.7 billion United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is
poor at producing lasting results,
sets unrealistic or unfocused priorities and
often seems more interested in getting funding than in setting up programs that make the best sense,
according to an internal assessment that will be discussed at a top-level meeting next month." (emphasis added)

That is the way a Fox News article begins, entitled, "UN anti-poverty agency chases cash rather than results, study finds."  The article is available here.

I feel this is the same rebuke that might be laid at the feet of many school district programs, adult service agencies and university programs.  Particularly in relation to persons with disabilities, the services they receive cause them to become a commodity that is used to pay people's salaries, buy out their time and do a wide variety of other things unrelated the reason for the actual funding.  The article goes on to say that related to the goals for which money were given they have

"limited ability . . . to demonstrate whether its poverty reduction activities have contributed to any significant change in the lives of the people it is trying to help." 

So billions of dollars have been spent, with no accountability, "limited ability" to demonstrate whether the money did anything for those it was intended to assist or whether there was any significan change in people's lives.

 

I think we do many human services in the same manner.  We assume that the human services paid exhorbitant amounts of money to serve persons with disabilities are in some way making a big difference.  Perhaps they are on some level, but the life they provide is poorly evaluated in comparison to being the type of life the average citizen would desire.  When services are monitored, they are arguably monitored under the wrong type of models, the wrong philosophy.  The result are outcomes that if viewed by the average outsider would be considered undesirable.  The person viewing the services just perhaps shrugs and says, "I guess that is the best we can do."

 

But I don't believe it is.  Our basic models are wrong which is why those with a community presence aren't being recruited to the degree they might.  Instead, natural resources are shunned in preference of those who are paid.  And those paid services have produced questionable results.

 

I don't think we need more money in human services (education, adult services, etc.).  I think we need to be wiser about

• how we spend the money,
• the goals we develop,
• the way we see the responsibilities of paid agents versus community members,
• the way we see ourselves as community members
• even the basic importance of integration which is comparable to the criticism of creating programs that do not make the best sense.

 

Change needs to happen, but will not happen till more people are aware of what the system is, how it makes disability a commodity, and finds ways to truly evaluate outcomes that would justify the spending of money on services.

 

McNair