DIsability and belonging

The church offers great potential for participation in ongoing relationships and prevention of abandonment. At times, those of us who are not intellectually disabled, can emphasize the importance of relationships with peers who are not disabled while those with disabilities may not recognize this difference. We are motivated to seek to integrate people for the benefit of those without disabilities (individually and as the Body of Christ) as well as for the benefit of those with disabilities. We do this out of obedience to our understanding of what the Bible teaches about people. This is true even though those with intellectual disabilities themselves might not understand these motivations and even though the larger Christian church might not understand these motivations.

To truly embrace belonging, we cannot say to someone, “You belong over there.” That is not belonging, that is segregation. In spite of the care of those in the group to which someone is assigned, to be assigned is to not fully belong. We also see a difference between those doing the assigning and those being assigned. Howard Thurman in part encapsulated this.

Segregation can apply only to a relationship involving the weak and the strong. For it means that limitations are arbitrarily set up, which, in the course of time, tend to become fixed and seem normal in governing the etiquette between the two groups.  A peculiar characteristic of segregation is the ability of the stronger to shuttle back and forth between the prescribed areas with complete immunity and a kind of mutually tacit sanction; while the position of the weaker, on the other hand, is quite definitely fixed and frozen. (Thurman 1976, p. 42, as cited in McNair & McKinney, 2015)

Belonging to the Body of Christ versus to a subgroup of the body changes things. If I belong to the whole body, I have expectations for the whole body. If I belong to a subgroup of the body, there may be different expectations, but they may or may not be antithetical to the goals for the entire body. So,

A. Subgroups should reflect the mission of the whole (assuming the mission of the whole is a true reflection of the Bible).

B. If the result of the work of the subgroup facilitates the mission (or what should be the mission), then that is desirable.

C. If the mission of the whole is wrong and the subgroup facilitates that mission, that is wrong.

D. But if the mission of the whole is wrong but the subgroup facilitates an alternative mission that is in line with the teaching of the Bible, then that subgroup is attempting to facilitate cultural changes within the larger group.

Belonging is basic to that mission. It is also basic to the vision of what the church should be.  Many churches are not embracing belonging, and many ministries are not embracing belonging. They may think they are, but if they are segregated there is an aspect of that mission that they are not getting entirely right. Leaders who do not embrace people fully belonging are teaching their congregations about who they believe those people to be. That is the lesson that has been taught for decades which has led us to the situation we find ourselves trying to dig out of.

This important conversation is about how to understand and facilitate belonging, is evidence of the degree to which we have misunderstood, as the Christian church in the world, our responsibility towards people who have been devalued because of disabilities they experience. But are we willing to do what belonging would require?

McNair

Separating people with and without disabilities

When I look at ministry that includes persons with disabilities and I admit I am hypersensitive to this issue, I worry about things that we do that separate people with disabilities from people without disabilities. They can be very subtle things. Things that those particularly with intellectual disabilities may not really pick up on. Yet those of us without intellectual disabilities if we think about it, know what we are doing.

I think about this when ministries are scheduled at times when no one else from the church is present. That type of ministry conveys that it is all about serving the persons with disabilities (not necessarily a bad thing) but that they have little to offer the rest of the congregation so we needn't have them present with everyone else. If we felt they did have something to offer, we would insist that everyone was together at the same time.

Sometimes we can also treat people in an age inappropriate manner. We interact with them in ways that we as those without intellectual disabilities would likely not tolerate if we were treated that way. Yet because of our perception that they do not understand, we can treat them in that manner and for many, they will not understand what is happening to them.

Age appropriateness should be a critical consideration in any form of ministry. People can be socialized into thinking they are children and accept that treatment. I know of people with disabilities who have been socialized in this manner and are like that. People can also be socialized into thinking they are the age that they are chronologically. I know people who are like that too. They will not tolerate being treated in a way that doesn't respect them as adults. If I were to treat you in a way that doesn't respect you as an adult, according to your age, you would likely be offended. It is my desire that persons with disabilities, whatever their disability might be, would also not be separated, and not be treated in a manner that is not commensurate with the respect that they should receive according to their age.

This is a subtle consideration but very important.

McNair

Stop "blaming" people with disabilities!

When you try to answer the question "What is disability?" the typical response, typical understanding is based upon two "models" of disability. The medical model says that disability is a characteristic of individuals. So I have a visual impairment or I use a wheelchair. However as research has indicated, the experience of persons with disabilities cannot be explained on the basis of their impairment. That is, there is something else which must be taken into account in understanding what disability is. The social model was developed to try to explain that. The social model says that the experience of disability is in part the experience of being discriminated against because of this characteristic one has called impairment. If we truly want to understand disability and assist those who experience disability we need to maximize a persons skills and change a discriminatory social environment.

It is interesting, however, how we have many different strategies that we use to teach people with disabilities or help them to not be limited by their impairment: medical model interventions. Yet we do next to nothing to change social environments such that people do not experience the other part of disability, discrimination: social model interventions. If for some reason you are not successful in a job, we seem to assume you were the problem and we give you more training. If you are excluded from a social environment, we assume you were the problem and try to improve your social skills. The take home lesson, is that if I experience discrimination because of a characteristic I have, the answer is to somehow fix me. I don't think we really feel the hurtfulness of that.

We need to stop "blaming" people with disabilities. You might think I am overstating this response, but when have you ever interacted with schools or human service agencies where the focus of their efforts was social environment change versus solely changing the individual with the disability? As stated, we have myriad interventions to improve the skills of individuals. Do we have any strategies that are employed to change social environments? It is as if there is no knowledge of the fact that a major understanding of what the experience of disability is, is to be discriminated against by the social environment. Many people who I have spoken to will tell me, the most difficult part of having a disability is not the disability but the way you are treated if you have a disability. Now this is a very broad statement, and there are many disabilities where there is great suffering experienced. But there are many others for which this statement is true.

But what does this have to do with the Christian community? It is arguable that efforts that people make to include persons with impairments into local churches are perhaps the ONLY efforts being made to change the social environment. Things you have read on this blog about cultural change within the church are perfect examples of this social model type of intervention. We say that we need to accept people with disabilities, as they are, and work to change the church social environment such that it is more loving of its neighbor. Can you detect the HUGE difference here? We have moved away from blaming someone for the discrimination they face, seeking to continually improve them in some way such that they might be "acceptable" the to social environment. Instead we say to the social environment, "You need to change." "When are you going to love your neighbor?"

This is an important realization.

It is we in the Christian community who should and to some degree are the only ones truly working on social environment change, seeing ourselves as the purveyors of discrimination and working toward the goals of inclusion and belonging as if we were working on an IEP for the church.
May God forgive us for our lack of love.
But may God also bless us with great progress as we seek to be the place where social model change is truly being explored, embraced and implemented!

McNair

Disability ministry: Our Light & Power Class song

The ministry that my wife Kathi and I facilitate along with others is called the Light & Power Company. We meet at Trinity EV Free Church in Redlands, California. Recently, I ask Scott Freeman, our worship leader and facilitator to write a song about the class. He wrote "Light and Power in Jesus Name" which has become our class's theme song over the past few months. Brandt Haas is the videographer and editor. Below is a link to the video. It is fun and reveals a lot about how we do ministry among adults with intellectual disability. Enjoy!

More thoughts on Disability Ministry and Cultural Change within the Church

I am currently awaiting the publication of an article I wrote related to the kinds/areas of cultural change that need to occur within the church. These areas will be addressed more fully when that article is hopefully published. But in the meantime, here are the areas addressed that I believe need to be considered in doing cultural change.

14 Areas for Cultural Change

1.     The typical worship service

2.     Who is invited to friendship

3.     Religious education/faith development - practice

4.     Religious education/faith development - goals

5.     Religious education/faith development - outcomes

6.     Affirming what should be affirmed in our culture

7.     Facilitating presence of persons with disabilities

8.     Providing opportunities for involvement/roles

9.     Creating platforms for prophetic voices

10.  Seeing needs and addressing them

11. Understanding programs versus relationships

12.  Evangelizing people with disabilities and discipling them

13.  Broadening acceptable social skills in the church

14.  Ecumenical cooperation in supporting people with disabilities and their families

Be watching for more in these areas. Also make any suggestions you might have in the comments.

McNair

Disability ministry and cultural change in the church

Matthew 9:16-17
"Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved."

Jesus replied this way to the disciple of John the Baptist when they asked about his disciples and their fasting. There might be an aspect of this which applies to the cultural changes in the church that need to occur with the presence of persons with disabilities. The old cloth or old wineskins might be the past and at times current practices of the church in relation to persons with impairments. The new patch or new wine, may be inclusion and belonging of persons with disabilities that does not easily work under the old practices. That is why something new is required.

Disability ministry done well is not simply a room where persons with impairments go, or another program on a night when no one else is there. Would you feel loved and a part of a church, if you were only invited to come there when people who others wrongly considered as having a life defining characteristic were also invited or present? What you experience might be better than no involvement or better than what you have experienced in the past, but it is not what is best for everyone. I will at times try to illustrate this by talking about a church having a "ministry to blue people." Imagine a church that only invited people with blue skin to come on a night, once a week or once a month. This form of discrimination would become the defining characteristic of that group. Yet we think that is OK when it comes to persons with disabilities.

Maybe the cultural change that needs to occur in churches is tantamount to new clothing because the new cloth patch wouldn't hold or new wine skins to hold the new wine. I think one of the points of this is that if the clothing can't be patched, it must be replaced. The new wine needs to be put into a wineskins and the old won't work anymore. The new wine is put into new wineskins so BOTH are preserved. The cultural change needs a culturally changed setting so "both are preserved." It is as Jesus demonstrated. Something that needs to be changed, should be changed. Applying the metaphor to our subject, the change will be good for both the church and those with impairments.

McNair

The friends of musicians' ministry

A group of people gathered in a room. Some carried musical instruments that they carefully removed from their cases and proceeded to warm up playing various scales. A kind person strolled to the front of the room and the sound quieted a bit.

"Welcome everyone to our Wednesday night friends of musicians meeting! I see you have brought your instruments which is great. I am so blessed by being with you on these evening meetings twice a month."

The musicians and those accompanying them smiled back cheerfully.
"Sometimes I wish more of our church family could hear you play your instruments."
The leader paused.
"But we have had our ministry to musicians twice a month like this for so long. The way it is, is just part of how we are."

Most of the musicians had always been separated like this and didn't have experience otherwise. So they gathered in groups and played their instruments together. There was much joy and laughter as well as genuine appreciation for their gifting. They were really quite skilled. Those with them did not have the same gifting, were not talented musically, but they sat with them, listened happily and provided encouragement. Yet, they had become used to the tradition of segregation where no musicians ever came to church or worship on Sunday.

"If musicians came on Sunday, we would probably have to change the way we do things" was the feeling of many people. "We would have to sing songs or listen to instrumentals being played. Our worship service would probably be a lot different if we included musicians and I like it the way it is."
But at one meeting where such a statement was made, a brave soul spoke up.
"I wonder if musicians are God gifted musically so that the way we do church would change, would be different. I wonder what worship would be like if we integrated musicians and allowed them to express their gifting?

A leader spoke up.
"I don't want people staring at people when they play their clarinet, their instrument. And some people don't like music so I don't want people to feel bad because of those people. Why should people feel bad about being a musician?"
The lone voice responded, "But the Bible itself talks about music and how people who are created as musicians are indispensable, have much to contribute and are to be celebrated. Their lives have purpose for the whole community."

"We are not changing so that musicians can demonstrate their gifting. Let them be together twice a month on Wednesday night and demonstrate their gifting then."

McNair

JCID The Journal of the Christian Institute on Disability is now FREE!

At the Christian Institute on Disability, a part of the Joni and Friends organization, we have been publishing a journal since 2012. Up till now, there was a cost for subscription or for individual articles. Recently, we have worked to put JCID completely online and make it free for users. I would invite you to visit the website and check it out!
If you go here https://journal.joniandfriends.org/index.php/jcid you will be taken to the latest issue where you can read Dr. Ben Rhodes and my article entitled, Toward a Christian Model of Disability. You will also be able to read some responses from leaders in disability ministry to the ideas presented there.

So please take a minute, visit the website and read the articles!
God bless,
McNair

Segregation of persons with disabilities

I was recently in a meeting where I was sharing about the importance of people being fully integrated into the church. Change in church culture begins with presence. See a discussion of this here.
One parent of an adult son spoke up. I will paraphrase the person, but the comment was basically, "I want segregation! Segregation is the best thing for my son!" When I pushed back gently, the response was, "I want a place (referring to a segregated ministry that meets once a month on a week night) where no one will look at my son as if he is different. I want a place where he will be accepted. So that is why I want segregation."
I responded that "If there are places where your son experiences that kind of treatment, I can understand why you would feel that way. However, how will those places ever change if there is not integration?"
If the person's son is always segregated and is never in contact with other members of the community, then his presence will always be strange because his presence is unusual. However, should that same son be regularly in the mix with everyone else, he will become familiar and hopefully invited to friendship with others. Persons with disabilities are actually very common members of our community unless we isolate them from the community. We make people who are just people seem strange by the social isolation we impose upon them and we shouldn't do that.
Should people fear integrating family members, particularly those with severe disabilities into the community? I can see their concerns, particularly if people have experienced some form of discrimination or poor treatment in the past. It is our natural reaction to protect ourselves or our children. But at the same time, change in our communities will never occur if people are segregated. It is only presence that will lead to cultural change in how we do things. This is true in the church when our traditional ways of doing things can get in the way of the changes that need to occur for integration to take place.
Arguably, the very first step in cultural change is presence. Let's do all we can to facilitate the presence and then model the acceptance that we endeavor to see.

McNair

Inclusion of persons with disabilities in the church

As had been mentioned before in this blog, my wife and I lead a ministry to adults with disabilities at my local church. Its called the Light and Power Company. Each week we have a typical bible lesson to the 50-80 adults who are present. This past week, we studied the passages from 

Luke 6:6-11, Matthew 2:9-14, and Mark 3:1-6 where Jesus healed a man's right hand, on the Sabbath, in the synagogue. The story is interesting on a variety of fronts. But the aspect that struck me this time, was how the leadership would refuse to see the obvious positive nature of Jesus healing the man's hand. This was no doubt a person in their community, familiar to them, who perhaps experienced hardship because of his impairment. To their credit, he was in the congregation, hopefully not just invited on this one occasion to try to "trip" Jesus up. 

When Jesus does heal the man's hand, their response it to want to kill him. Their theology is wrong on so many levels. Wrong in not loving their neighbor, wrong in putting their traditions over the commands of God, and wrong in their response to Jesus doing an obviously beautiful thing for the man. But Jesus' actions didn't fit into their tradition straight jacket they had been conditioned to believe. Because we have not done something in a particular way, because I haven't be trained about this response, perhaps as with the Pharisees I have been trained to think this change in tradition is wrong, I will resist it.

We continue to stand at a crossroads in ministry. Will we love all our neighbors and embrace the changes that need to occur to love them and include them? Or will we, like the Pharisees, literally conspire to do evil in the process of resisting change. Hopefully we are not plotting the kinds of things the leaders in Jesus' time were, but we can still engage in evil when we exclude people on the characteristic called impairment. 

Its sad how we can see the blindness in the Pharisees when they can't see something clearly presented, but cannot see our own blindness. A similar story could be told about where some of us are in our stranglehold on tradition.

McNair

Disability ministry and social skills

In the last month, I have had the opportunity to travel to two places which are quite different when it comes to social skills. In France, I was at times greeted with a kiss on the cheek. In China, I learned a new meaning of "personal space" in that people will get very close to each other, even strangers. It occurred to me, if I kissed a man in China on the cheek, or stood as close to someone in France as people did in China, I would be considered quite strange because of the social customs of each place. There is nothing at all wrong with the social customs in either of these places. If I were to stand close or kiss on the cheek, I am not doing anything wrong...from a moral perspective. However, because of social traditions, I would be very wrong in either place.

Can we make this connection with those with disabilities who do not understand social skills? They are like the French person who kisses the Chinese person on the cheek, or the Chinese person who stand too close to the French person. They have done nothing wrong. They have only carried their tradition of social behavior to a place where the understanding of social behavior is different. As soon as we understand that people are from different places, we will likely forgive the misunderstanding and even enjoy or embrace it. When we go to those places, one of the things we enjoy are the differences in culture we experience. Are we willing to do the same for people who are not from a different culture, but just don't understand the social skill demands of the place where they are?

Social skills are too often the reason why person are excluded or rejected. As stated elsewhere in this blog, we hold to our traditions and reject the command of God to love our neighbor (see this posting on Disability Ministry and Traditions). How refreshing it would be if we were more accepting of others and their differences, particularly those which are simply social skill differences. May God help us to not let small things like social skills get in the way of loving our neighbors.

McNair

Disability as it relates to people, the community and God.

I have been thinking a lot about relationships involving individuals, the community and God. See this link for some of my thoughts. Recently in putting together a sermon on 1 Corinthians 12, the following occurred to me.

"Like the Corinthian church that Paul addresses, we face the same issues of disobedience that they did. We need to look at ourselves in the light of his exhortations. Because we have ignored or excluded individuals with disabilities, we have not become all that the Body of Christ should be. But we actually do not know what we would become if parts of the body that have been excluded were now included.

God in his sovereignty, has created individuals and his church. The way both of those are reflects how he wants them to be. Under his sovereignty, people are the way they are for themselves, for the community and ultimately for God. If someone is rejected because of personal characteristics, this reflects a misunderstanding of people, community and God. It is a threefold mistake. People aren’t able to express their God given purpose. The community or the Body of Christ will never become what it was meant to be, and arguably we are disobedient to God’s sovereign purpose."

I recently heard someone say that rejection of people is a "sin against the Body of Christ." I agree with that, that is how serious it is. This threefold mistake is so basic. It calls so much into question.

McNair

Euthanasia of children with disabilities

From Dr. Wolf Wolfensberger (1976)
"When legalization of euthanasia comes, it will come in the name of six favorite deceptions and disguises. They will say (as I can clearly document) that putting a person to death is good medicine and good science. The second disguise will be mercy, love, humanism and honesty. Thirdly, religion: remember that Satan pretends to be God. This is his favorite disguise at all times. So we will be, and have been, told that it is good Christianity to put people to death. The fourth one is the denial of the value of life, the claim that certain lives are not worthy, perhaps invoking cost-benefit issues. Fifthly, of  course, and maybe the most obvious one, is the denial of humanness of a person and that, therefore, murder will not be murder. Sixthly, euthanasia will be good law. It is essential that we should recognize those six signs, because they have much persuasive power." ( The Prophetic Voice and Presence of Mentally Retarded People in the World today, 1976, p 30).

In all the discussion revolving around the NY, Virginia and Vermont laws, there seems to be the underlying idea that infanticide/euthanasia is particularly ok if a child is born with a disability. Somehow, #5 above is always in play because if someone is disabled their lives are not worth living. It is crazy that the same people who would support the taking of the lives of children with disabilities, claim to support children and adults with disabilities. I wonder how long that will last if we move down the slope of infanticide. If it is ok to murder newborns, why not ok later in life. We have seen in Europe the permission to euthanize children up to age 4 (autism is often not diagnosed till age 30 months or later). Is that the next step that will be advocated in the name of "women's health?"

We all have heard of Roe vs. Wade, but have you heard of Doe vs. Bolton? This is the law that basically permits late term abortions for just about any reason. Don't believe me? Search the law.

"In a Los Angeles Times analysis, David Savage explained: ""[Supreme Court Justice Harry] Blackmun had said that abortion'must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.' So long as doctors were willing to perform abortions - and clinics soon opened to do so - the court's ruling said they could not be restricted from doing so at least through the first six months of pregnancy." During the final trimester, "It soon became clear that if a patient's 'emotional well-being' was reason enough to justify an abortion, than any abortion could be justified." (https://secure.mccl.org/doe-v-bolton.html more information is available on this website).

Could the "health" of the mother be considered as a reason for infanticide if it is use as a justification for late term abortions? Seems like a logical next step. Mothers will often experience emotional stress at the birth of a child with a disability. Get ready for the horror of the next  likely step.

Please wake up Democrats and Republicans too if it applies to you as well! Do not support this evil.

McNair

Disability ministry perceptions

So often, when we consider the development of ministry to persons in some way affected by disability, we focus on our perceptions of the situation. We have customary ways of doing things that have become comfortable and ingrained. Then someone comes to us who either cannot or will not participate in those customary practices. During the times when we don't reject them, we tend to think about our perceptions of the situation. What do I need to do? How am I feeling? How can I help these people? It strikes me that although these are good questions to ask ourselves, they only reveal half of the equation.

I wonder what people with autism perceive when they come to church? What do they perceive when they enter a social situation? It would be interesting to begin by trying to understand their perspective.

Imagine someone with a disability, say autism or intellectual disability, riding in a car on the way to church. What are they thinking? As they get out of the car and walk toward the door of the church or the ministry, what are they anticipating will happen or are hoping will happen? As they go into the worship service, do they understand what that is about? When people around them are singing and raising their hands, what do they perceive that activity to be? If we were to explain to them what worship is, would they feel they have worshiped? Do we know the answers to these questions. When the class/ministry/church experience for the day is over, would the person say, "Yes, I received today what I was hoping to receive from my experience at church."

In part, the answer to this question goes to the culture of the church or ministry. If people have different perceptions of the world due to disabilities that impact their intellect, are the activities that impact those without those types of disabilities touching them in the same way?

Take for example something as "intuitive" as friendship. I have a man who is a friend of mine who is autistic. He seems to be constantly always on the lookout for a friend. He will attempt to reach out in friendship to others, people with intellectual disabilities, and although they might respond in a friendly manner, they seem to not be providing what he is after. His perception or understanding of friendship seems in some ways to be different from theirs. And like many people without disabilities, they either don't understand what he is after or are not interested in engaging in the type of completely appropriate relationship that he is seeking.

I think it would do us well in ministry to attempt to understand how those we are seeking to serve perceive us, what we are trying to do, and whether to them, we are being successful. What we learn would not only impact what we do in ministry, but potentially also impact recommendations we would make on how these same individuals might be socialized in their upbringing.

McNair

Dr. Martin Luther King and "changing the edifice"

I have been thinking and writing a lot lately about the ways in which the Christian community's culture needs to change in order to better love our neighbors, in particular those with disabilities. In that process, I ran across this amazing quote from Dr. Martin Luther King. He said,

"On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." (“A time to break the silence,” 1967)

I think this is particularly relevant in the context of developing an inclusive church culture. People can be fooled into thinking that the answer to ministry to persons with disabilities is some form of segregated ministry whether it is at the church or in a different place. This is the "haphazard and superficial" approach to disability ministry. We have meetings on days when few people are at church. We have segregated programs for every age group. These make us feel like we are doing something but in reality we are not doing what is needed.

As Dr. King instructed us, we need to change the edifice that causes us to settle for flinging a coin to a beggar. But changing environments, such that the changes that are required are implemented, is exceedingly difficult. This is the hard work of disability ministry. We reflect on how we do things, our traditions, etc. and then seek to change any edifices that cause us to be straight jacketed into "solutions" which may actually exacerbate difficulties for those we are claiming to assist.

Flinging the coin to the beggar won't keep him from living in poverty. Segregated ministries will not cause the church to become what it needs to be if it wants to truly love its neighbor.

McNair

The Good Samaritan Church

A religious leader was asked, What was the most important thing for a church to do?" 

He responded, "What do you think it is?" 

The questioner responded, "You should love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul and mind and you should love your neighbor as yourself." 

"That's correct! A church should reflect the commands of God."

The questioner responded "What does a church look like that loves its neighbor?"

The religious leader responded with a story.

A man with a disability went to a local church. He went to the worship service of the church. While he was there he was totally ignored. No one so much as spoke to him. It was as if he wasn't even there. He left as he came, a person devalued, without worth.

The man then went to another different church the following week. He went in and was greeted. When he asked whether the church assisted people with disabilities, like himself, they were gracious. However, they said that ministry to people with disabilities was not a priority because they are doing so many other ministries. They did ministries to the poor, and evangelism overseas. So they couldn't take the time to include those with disabilities as a focus of ministry. But they noted that there was another church just down the street that had made ministry to people with disabilities a focus so they felt like they didn't need to address this group of people. They told him to just go there.

The following week the man went to the church down the street the other church alluded to. As he entered, he walked past the handicapped parking spaces and up the ramp into the building. When he used the men's room he noted that there was a wheelchair accessible stall. There was an elevator that went to the second floor and there was a section in the worship center where people who used wheelchairs could sit. During the sermon, the pastor passionately stated, "We are not really impacted by disability, but we will love all people who come to us!"

The religious leader then ask the questioner, "Which of the churches was one that loved its neighbor?"

The man replied, "The one that had the accessible building."

The religious leader replied. "That is not correct. None of the churches were loving their neighbor. The first church ignored people with disabilities in the community. The second church skillfully sidestepped their responsibility toward persons with disabilities. The third church made modifications to their building in response to government regulations. We must not confuse compliance with mandated, government regulations with loving your neighbor. Additionally, it is fine to say that a church will welcome only those who come, but in reality they may not be welcoming to persons with disabilities because so many do not have the ability to come. Either they have intellectual disabilities that prohibit them from getting a driver's license or they have physical disabilities that would make it difficult or impossible to drive a car. So to say we welcome all who come is not sufficient.

“So the man in the story with the disability just kept looking...”

Disability ministry and traditions

I often mention Mark 7 when I speak to groups about disability ministry. The passage highlights how traditions can get in the way of obeying the commands of God. The two most important commands being to love God and to love your neighbor. When we are confronted with having to love our neighbor or keep our traditions, too often we and our religious leaders are like the religious leaders Jesus confronted in that we hold to traditions and eschew the commands of God. It is interesting how Jesus points out three ways we avoid the commands of God, for our purposes, the command to love your neighbor.
In Mark 7:8 he says,

"For you ignore God's law and substitute you own tradition."

Our first dodge is to act like we don't know what we are supposed to do. To ignore implies that you know something is there but you pretend like it isn't. So we know we are to love all our neighbors, including those with impairments, but we ignore it.
In Mark 7:9,

"Then he said, 'You skillfully sidestep God's law in order to hold on to your own tradition." 

When we can't ignore our responsibilities anymore as they begin to intrude upon us perhaps both intellectually and physically, we come up with ways to sidestep our responsibilities to love our neighbor. So clever ways of minimizing the demands placed upon us like segregated ministries, or those that meet on different days when no one is around are ways we can sidestep loving our neighbor.
Finally in Mark 7:13 Jesus says,

"And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others." 

So finally, when we can't ignore or sidestep, we just cancel the word of God.
In a recent trip to the Philippines, I was working with a man who works with pastors. He told me of an occasion where he was talking to a pastor about including people with disabilities in the church. The pastor's response was, "I know we should be doing this but we aren't going to." That is the place where some leaders have ended up. When they can no longer ignore or sidestep, they just decide to cancel the word.
As I have come to understand this section a bit more, it has helped me to move leaders almost in a progression from canceling to sidestepping to ignoring, to doing what they should do to love their neighbor.

McNair

Celebration of disability

Every few years my  church will hold a disability celebration Sunday. The last time the Sunday was recognized, a couple of parents came to me between services with the question, "What is there to celebrate?" It was easy to see the pain and struggle behind that question. The experience of disability can be incredibly difficult. In preparation for this year's celebration Sunday, I mentioned my interaction to our pastor. In his short tenure so far as our pastor, Rev. Todd Arnett has been incredibly supportive of our ministry. He was hardly at the church a month when it seemed he knew the names of everyone who attends our Light and Power Class ministry (I am not sure I can always be counted on to remember the 70+ people's names).

In his call to worship for this year's service, he drew something out of 2 Corinthians 12 that I hadn't quite put together before. In speaking of his "thorn in the flesh," Paul says,

"Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness" So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me...For when I am weak, then I am strong." (New Living Translation)

Todd made the point, that to say that "I am glad to boast about my weaknesses" is not unlike saying I will celebrate my weaknesses. This is hard. This is not intuitive for us. But Paul blows up our focus on strength by celebrating his weakness and how it drives him to rely on God. As I have stated in this blog before, our self reliance is a figment of our imagination. To think that I do anything by my own strength is little more than an expression of my uninformed pride. When I recognize this, and I finally see how dependent I  truly am on God, it may be a hard thing, but Paul encourages us that to see it and embrace it as a good thing. Why? Because I understand that I do anything, only through the power of Christ working through me.

The day that I recognize this truth, whatever causes me to come to that recognition, is a day worthy of celebrating.

McNair

The way we have always done things - Precedents of Practice

The way we have always done things is a significant barrier to change. What might be called "precedents of practice" can be reason enough to eschew change. Sure there are reasons why practices develop as they do. Many of those reasons are Biblical reasons and we should embrace those firmly. The Bible should be taught. We should sing praises to God. We should welcome strangers. We should assist people in need. We should love our neighbor. We should observe communion. We should bring tithes and offerings. With each of these statements, you probably have a specific practice in mind as to how each of these are done. We need to do these things but we needn't do them in a manner that reflects an immutable precedent.

Our precedents may be sinful (see previous post on the sin of the environment). As I quoted in a post from 2007, there is also this fact.

Collective unconsciousness can be so vast that even the most global societal policies may be undeclared, unexplicated, unacknowledged, and even denied. Thus for many people to all work toward a bad thing requires no
deliberate or conscious conspiracy. While this is well-known by social scientists, most citizens are not aware of how they themselves can be totally unconsciously acting out undeclared, large-scale, societal policies in their own daily lives. (from "A leadership-oriented introductory social role valorization (SRV) workshop, February 27, 2007)

When we simply accept our practices, whatever they might be, without being reflective about them in changing times, we risk doing wrong things. Church cannot look the same as it did in 1930 or 1960 or even 1990. We reflectively learn, hopefully mature, and continue to grow. Precedents of practice might need serious change. Disability ministry has been one of those bright lights that has shown on our traditions and practices. If we dare to look at what that light is illuminating, we should own any ugliness that we now see and seek to change, creating new precedents which will no doubt need to be revised again as we continue to mature.

I believe the worst thing we can do is stubbornly dig in our heels and refuse to change. If you do reflect on precedents, you realize that the main need for them to be changed is how they keep us, in a comfortable way, from loving our neighbors. The spotlight of disability ministry on precedents of practice make us uncomfortable because of the demands precedent changes would bring.

I am reminded once again of  1 Peter 2:19-21 which says, "But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you and example that you should follow in his steps."
We need to embrace the discomfort and feeling of insecurity when we change our traditions that need to be changed. If we reflect on our precedents of practice, perhaps out of obedience we will begin to move in a different direction leading to a different practice.

McNair

The sin of the social environment

In Mark 7:1-13 there is a telling interaction between Jesus and a group of Pharisees.  In verse 5, Jesus is asked, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders…?”  They were asking about the fact that the disciples didn’t ceremonially wash their hands before they ate. Jesus responds by quoting Isaiah saying, “These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (ala Romans 12:2).  That is pretty damning.  But Jesus follows up by saying in verse 8, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!”  He goes on to tell of how in this case, they do not honor their parents.  “Thus you nullify the word of God by your traditions that you have handed down.”  He concludes in verse 13 by saying, “And you do many things like that.”  Their traditions, in this case, did not honor a group of people they should have been honoring.  There are traditions which contribute to functionally impairing people, socially and otherwise, via an unwillingness to make the changes to the environment, the traditions, that would better reflect the commands of God.

If we as “these people who honor me with their lips” do exchange the commands of God for the traditions of men, we are guilty of the sin of the social environment. Fill in the blank as to what that particular social environment might be. It could be the school, the restaurant, the church or the local park. Our traditions seem to teach us to treat people with disabilities as different from those without disabilities. We also seem to have a hierarchy of persons with disabilities as well in that people affected by disability can also fall into this kind of social environmental sin. I addressed this a bit with a post back in 2007 called "Don't hate the player, hate the game." But to blame our behavior on the way we have been socialized or that everybody acts in a similar manner, is childish. I am responsible for my own actions and if the social environment is behaving in a wrong manner, that is not an excuse for me to behave similarly. 

I am responsible for my behavior toward others.

I am responsible for my language toward others.

I am responsible for my exclusion of others.

I am responsible for my not choosing some people as friends. 

Your personal characteristics, whatever they might be, didn't MAKE me do anything. I just took the opportunity of your presence to express a form of ugliness that resides within me. I took the opportunity of you being someone different from me in some way (personal characteristics, ideology, etc.) to embrace the the ugliness within me and celebrate it. In my novel, Meowoof, I talk about this as the Grumble. It is something that lives within us. So in reality, I am the ugly one, not you. I am the intolerant one, not you. But if my blaming you for my ugliness is not called out, then it will be encouraged and only continue. 

Take responsibility for your own participation in the sin of the social environment and stop it. 

McNair