Everybody belongs. Everybody serves.
Disability
Michele
Terry
Ken 
Staci
We hope your congregations are gearing up for Disability Awareness Sunday on October 21. Rev. Miriam Spies has offered a reflection based on the gospel lesson from Mark. We pray that your congregations are places where everybody belongs and everybody serves!
This message by Dan Vander Plaats, Director of Advancement at Elim Christian Services, winsomely challenges his audience to examine their own attitudes toward people who have disabilities.
This Resource Guide from the United Church of Christ includes worship resources on mental illness such as sermon ideas, complete sermons, a litany, unison prayers and more.
Even when people who have disabilities get to church, we sometimes struggle to minister to them. If Mephibosheth were here today, we’d have to carry him to the platform as we often can't accommodate wheelchairs.
Dr. Leanne Van Dyk preaches on welcoming one another, stating: "In the end, you know, it is really quite simple. Christ has welcomed us; we are to welcome others."
When we all love other people, we are letting Jesus' light shine in us for all the world to see. Even if there are some things we can't do, we CAN all love people.
This message describes a continuum of disability attitudes and challenges listeners to move to a deeper, richer, and more loving attitude towards people with disabilities.
Are you normal? At one level, of course, that’s a rather benign question. But we don't have to think about it very long to realize the question has an edge to it. What is normal? What is abnormal? Is anyone “normal?”
If there was ever a community that should be facing head on the challenge of mental illness, it is the church. What other safe place is there for people to find encouragement, support and compassion?
In this message, Rev. Cindy Holtrop reflects on her own season of depression and God's presence with us in our dark times. She concludes with practical ideas for ministering with people who have mental illnesses.
A list of suggested Old and New Testament scripture texts for using in Disability Services.
A sermon by Rev. Dr. James Vanderlaan based on Luke 14:1-24.
A sermon by Curt Gesch based on 1 Peter 2: 9-10; 4: 7-11.
Based on Genesis 1:26-28, a great children's message about being created in the image of God.
What makes a human life worth living? Productivity – how much someone is accomplishing in life? The value of every single human comes from what she/he is: a creature made in God's image.
The urgency and even panic in the host's voice show how desperate he was to be accepted. He cannot bear the disgrace of having prepared food ready for so many and having no guests.
For a long time this man has lived with disability. For a long time he’s had no one to help him—no wife, no family, no friends. No one.
This letter is not from one of our congregation members, but it may help you to understand and support the people sitting near you in the pew or people who don’t come to church often or at all.
Athlete, actor, model, and bilateral below-the-knee amputee, Aimee Mullins reflects on language and her own experiences in this lecture. For those of us who believe in the power of the Word, we need to take seriously the power of our words as well.