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Meet Phillip, a member of Chelwood CRC. He was recently ordained as a deacon in his church. He has shared his unique gifts that God has given him for many years at his church. What a blessing!
As we draw near to the end of 2020, it's important that we take time to both lament and reflect on the important lessons we have learned about community.
God has allowed people to develop mental illnesses for the same reason some people have heart disease or cerebral palsy; it’s a consequence of original sin, and nothing they did.
Traveling when you depend on a ventilator to breath requires a great deal of planning. Caregivers are also a part of the travel plans.
As I read through the book Finding Jesus in the Storm, I come across parts that are emotionally difficult to deal with. They’re difficult because they make me angry.
Mark shares about family trips and the planning involved in order to make sure that his daughter who lives with multiple disabilities was properly cared for and accommodated so that all family members could participate in the vacation.
Though many important accessibility issues have yet to be addressed, Syd, a paraplegic, encourages those in the disability community to consider traveling and experiencing new places if you can!
For a congregation to show agility in accommodating their congregants with disabilities means they cannot continue to do things the way they always did.
Élise was a bright young woman who developed paranoid psychosis at roughly the same age as I did my schizophrenia—around mid-twenties to early thirties. The two illnesses are related. They are both psychotic.
Disability Concerns will be hosting two book clubs: one in November and one in the new year. Join us!
On June 23 of this year, Barb sent us a message that began, “I heard someone say that there are times in life when you are driving on this great road and you hit a patch of black ice. All of a sudden, life seems quite out of control."
September is suicide prevention month. In order to address this epidemic, we need to share our stories. Here is one such story.
Disability Concerns hosted their first fully online Leadership Training event this year! It was a very successful event that focused on the theme of agility.
Social distancing has not stopped many of us from speaking out for an end to the killing of unarmed black men and women by police. Did you know that 30 to 80 percent of those killed have been persons with some type of disability?
30 years ago today, the US adopted landmark civil rights legislation called the Americans with Disabilities Act. The worst barriers faced by people with disabilities usually result from attitudes and environments that we all create and could change.
Since his behavior was not normal, some people assumed that it must have been mental illness.
People of color and people with disabilities both are harmed by long-held parallel beliefs or practices that devalue, discriminate, and oppress them because of their identity.
My mom told me when I was a teenager that doctors weren’t at all sure what my future held, probably early-onset arthritis, premature aging, perhaps an early death.
White Picket Fences: Turning toward Love in a World Divided by Privilege, by author Amy Julia Becker, is a must-read today as we look at the topics of race, disability, and privilege.
Disability Concerns Ministry congratulates Terry DeYoung, coordinator of the Disability Concerns ministry for the RCA, on receiving the 2020 Henri Nouwen Award.
In an episode of North Woods Law, Fish and Game wardens and volunteers carried a girl who had broken her ankle down a mountain in the rain. My roommate commented on the danger of hiking in the rain.
Have you considered the challenges face masks pose to people who are hard of hearing? Have you considered the struggles someone with social anxiety may feel when no one will go near them?
Shortly after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, a team from CRC Disability Concerns recognized its importance for congregations, especially because the ADA explicitly excluded faith communities from its requirements.
Crisis planning for COVID-19 to hit, and hit hard, is sobering work. We and congregate settings everywhere stand in need of your faithful prayer.
A few years ago my sister bought a board game titled Pandemic. Every time we played, we lost. We used to think we were doing something wrong. Now I think it's the nature of the beast.