Everybody belongs. Everybody serves.
Disability
Worship 
lynn
Staci
Stanley & Monica
Born with severe childhood apraxia, Norah has been incredibly busy with therapy and activities that help develop her speech and gross motor skills. Her persistence is helping her make great strides!
"God taught me to adapt to this life when he restored my voice—through my eyes!"
My friend Cecil lives with Parkinson’s disease. My visits with him are both countercultural and a true delight!
Although Chris continues to accomplish many goals he has set for himself, he often is ignored, minimized, and isolated from community, including the church.
Though being asked “What?” can be frustrating, Elizabeth interprets the question as a signal someone cares enough to seek understanding of what she is saying, and that they value her as a person.
This issue features articles on people living with speech differences and the challenges they face, adaptations they've made, and the power of listening and being heard.
In this issue of Breaking Barriers, people with and without disabilities share their creative expression in poetry, story, song, and image.
For Summer 2021 Breaking Barriers, Terry DeYoung offers an editorial reflection on the intersection of disability and the arts.
For Breaking Barriers Summer 2021, Becky Jones shares about her work as an art therapist, working with many clients who live with disabilities and how art is a vehicle for personal expression.
For Breaking Barriers 2021, Kyla shares about how being involved in theatre and the arts helps her navigate and manage her anxiety.
Cassie leads worship for First Reformed Church. She wrote this song with a hymn-like structure with these core themes: solitude, community, and mission.
Michèle Gyselinck is a regional advocate for Disability Concerns. She lives with schizophrenia and expresses herself creatively through painting. Her art is featured in our Summer 2021 Breaking Barriers Newsletter.
Writing free-verse poems during the first year following his wife's death was cathartic for Ivan. He has shared a few of his poems in the Summer 2021 Breaking Barriers Newsletter.
Be encouraged by these creative expressions shared by residents of the Brothers and Sisters Homes in Holland, MI.
In one Disability Concerns workshop exercise, participants are asked to identify a number of personal characteristics that society values, including ones related to ethnicity and ability. Through this, we can begin addressing systems that privilege some but not others.
Individuals share their stories about the unique social challenges and limited opportunities that come with being Black, Indigenous, or a person of color living with a disability.
Angela has lived with multiple sclerosis for 35 years, yet how she experienced life with MS was a choice.
Yolanda shares her experience of living with an invisible disability within a culture and a community that does not understand her diagnosis or how it will affect her life.
Access to care, support, and the vaccine over the course of the pandemic has been a greater challenge for people living on the margins of our society. Churches must take steps to educate people and eliminate these inequalities.
Being Black and having a visible disability (cerebral palsy) has meant that Marcus has lost out on opportunities simply because people judge his appearance without knowing anything about him.
Dr. Watts has seen first hand the significant challenges of unconscious bias that many Black students have had to deal with and the devastating effects they can have.
During the pandemic, people with disabilities found that some barriers to participation actually were removed. The articles in this issue tell a few of those stories of unexpected access.
Pastor Dave shares his friendship with his parishioner, Carolyn, that has grown in the midst of the pandemic.
Out of adversity grew a larger sense of community.
While the rest of the world collectively mourned the loss of closeness and community, I suddenly found myself a new reason to smile.