Everybody belongs. Everybody serves.
Disability
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Jeannette Versteeg is Evan's mom. She is his #1 advocate, working to ensure that his community fully embraces him. Often she runs into roadblocks because Evan has Down Syndrome.
With universal design as our model, what preparation steps and options can we plant within our children’s ministries, recognizing that God creates children with great variation? Here are some ideas.
Dr. Jay Dolmage is a professor at the University of Waterloo. Recently he spoke on Academic Ableism at Western Theological Seminary. He has shared many great resources with us in this article.
Rather than creating special accommodations/requirements for a minority population, universal design reflects spaces and programs that can be accessed by everybody.
College for Students with Disabilities
This article has suggestions and resources to help your congregation considers having emotional support animals in your church.
What we say or fail to say about mental health concerns in worship settings can be profoundly formative for how Christian communities respond to these challenges.
An article I read about churches hiring people with disabilities contained helpful information but their approach emphasized that hiring anyone with a disability is fraught with "landmines." Ouch!
If someone is thinking of taking their own life, it’s not a secret to keep. For Disability Week this year, we have curated resources on suicide prevention, intervention and postvention.
Here are some great tools for pastors and church planters who want to learn to fully include people with disabilities.
As a family, we learned to put something back in its original place so he could find it again, and not to move the furniture without telling him. Yes, we learned the hard way to make those issues priorities.
A recent article published in USA Today looks at how Pixar's latest film "Finding Dory" is making some pretty big waves in the world of disability awareness. Have you seen it?
What does it look like for a seminary to be welcoming and inclusive for people with disabilities? In what ways can we equip pastors, theologians, missionaries and psychologists to be more sensitive to the issues surrounding disabilities?
Ann Ballard has found healing after experiencing abuse as an adolescent. Her abuser took advantage of the fact that she has night blindness and cannot hear without her hearing aids.
Fellow church members can make a critical, positive difference in the lives of stroke survivors and their loved ones when they make the effort to welcome and accept them.
We sometimes hear the phrases “the poorest of the poor” or “the least of these.” Interested in knowing who they are?
In this article, the Autism Society asks all faith leaders to answer the call and support over 3.5 million people with Autism Spectrum Disorders in inclusive faith communities.
Who wants to listen to people prattle on about “God’s will” when, frankly, they don’t have a clue what the mind of God is with regard to any particular situation?
Belonging to a support system provides encouragement, strength, and a feeling of acceptance. A well-run support group can do all that and much more.
Compassion for suffering, protection of vulnerable people and celebration and affirmation of life are three reasons why I am pro-life and oppose assisted suicide.
Speaking from the experience of the rise and fall of a Disabilities Support Group my wife and I initiated in 2011, I'll reflect on what went well and also the feedback on ways we could have improved.
Progress in creating accessible and inclusive spaces for people with disabilities can be slow. Yet, there are signs of hope. Check out this encouraging article about churches being proactive!
"In 1883, laws were taken up to prevent people with disabilities from moving to this country, marrying, or having children. In many instances, it led to the institutionalization and forced sterilization of disabled people."
What if churches and church leaders looked at ministry with people with serious mental illnesses not as burdens to be borne but as opportunities from God for ministry?
Here are some ideas for ministry with people who have mental illnesses. These ideas can be used in various ways — such as a bulletin insert, newsletter article, or read from the pulpit.