Mark Stephenson
After receiving an M.Div. degree, I served as pastor of two Christian Reformed churches for a total of 17 years. From 2006 through 2021, I was the Director of Disability Concerns for the Christian Reformed Church, and relish the close working relationship CRC Disability Concerns has with the Reformed Church in America Disability Concerns ministry. I have served as interim Director of the CRC's Offices of Race Relations and Social Justice since Feb 2020. My wife Bev and I have five living children, two daughters-in-law, and three grandchildren. Our oldest child, Nicole, was born extremely prematurely in the late 1980’s and lives joyfully with severe, multiple impairments. That label does not define her. She loves magazines, loves interacting with people, loves roller-coasters and wild amusement park rides, and she loves to worship and to pray with God’s people. In any group, she shares her own unique gifts.
Posted in: Pray for Shalom After Attack on Disabled Man in Chicago
Dean, thanks for your comment. I pray that people can demonstrate the kind of courage you demonstrated yourself in 2000 when you were mayor. We live in a pluralistic society, and increasingly diverse. Unless we are willing to see the image of God in each individual and make decisions out of respect for others rather than fear of others, incidents like this one will only increase.
Posted in: Pray for Shalom After Attack on Disabled Man in Chicago
New friends! Beautiful! I think we miss out on a lot of life, and we are less Christ-like, when fear is the primary approach we take when encountering other people. I assume those are two of the reasons the apostle John wrote, "Perfect love drives out fear . . . The one who fears is not made perfect in love." What a radically different message from the one we hear from so many leaders, commentators, and loud voices on social media today!
Posted in: When Healing is Elusive
Linda, thanks for this. Your article wrestles with something that nearly all Christians have to confront at some point. I certainly have! I appreciate the way you have addressed this difficult topic so biblically and transparently.
Posted in: Pray for Shalom After Attack on Disabled Man in Chicago
No, Michele, I don't either.
Posted in: Being Fed With Stone Soup
Michele, thanks for your comment. I do not live with a disability yet, though I assume I will someday. Our daughter taught my wife and me about living joyfully with disability, and in fact God used her to lead both my wife and me to the callings we have today. I serve the CRC as Director of Disability Concerns after 17 years as a pastor in parish ministry, and my wife once taught German and now teaches special education. I would have opted out of our daughter living with disability, but she has had a profound impact on many people because of and through her disability.
Posted in: A Life of Mystery and Faith
Hi Michele, thanks for sharing about your own journey. Your last comment prompted me to look up the stats. About 1 percent of people in the U.S. and in Canada have Schizophrenia and nearly all are diagnosed in their teens and early 20's. That's over 3.6 million people in our two countries; sadly, youth's greatest disabler indeed.
Posted in: Enough Room for Everyone
Thanks Leslie! Great thoughts. Here's one for you: I'm beginning to wonder if "accommodations" is even the right word. (And it's one that I use often, so this is something I'm wondering about and I invite you to wonder with me.) "Accommodations" implies that you, whoever the "you" is, are special, and so we'll do something special for you to be a part of us. We don't call stairs an "accommodation", even though there are some people in church who could move from one floor to another using nothing but a rope. Nor do we consider electric lights or toilets or microphones and speakers to be "accommodations". Here's another book to consider, Turning Barriers into Bridges: The Inclusive Use of Information and Communication Technology for Churches in America, Britain, and Canada by John Jay Frank. In that book he argues that what some of us think of as "accommodations" are actually just ways for people to participate. So in the case of the man you describe, the unplugged mic is not an accommodation for the man who would use it sometimes, it's an opportunity for the whole congregation to be more the community that God calls your congregation to be. So I wonder, if we don't use the word "accommodation", what would be a better word?
Posted in: Happy Dependence Day!
Hi Michele, yes, independence for nations is much different than independence for individuals. I was playing off the U.S. celebration of Independence Day to make a point about how much each of us needs each other and God.
Posted in: National Disability Voter Registration Week
Michele, thanks for your mother's story. You are right that most accessibility thought is put into accessibility for people who use wheelchairs, but other challenges must be considered too, such as the struggle your mother has walking long distances. I also wonder how well people with visual impairments are able to place their vote.
Posted in: National Disability Voter Registration Week
Cindy, thanks for your comment and for your plan of action. Please post another comment with the results! One other way to encourage citizens with physical disabilities to vote is to make absentee voting not only easier to do but also intentionally promoted by election officials. If citizens knew that absentee voting was available to them, and if they had an easy path to receive a ballot and send it in, that would go a long ways toward giving more people the vote.
Posted in: National Disability Voter Registration Week
Michele, I too have heard similar reports. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision three years ago to invalidate several parts of the voting rights act may make matters worse for African American voters this time they vote for president.
Posted in: Who Are We Excluding From Worship?
Tom, thanks for your comment. The way most services are structured, and the way most sanctuaries are constructed, we send the message that "worship" is what happens up front, even though that's not a Reformed perspective of worship as a dialog between God and his people. As a result, any "inappropriate" sounds by people in the "audience" are "disruptions". I hope that we who are connected to disability in various ways can help all of God's people recognize and celebrate that worship is EVERYONE participating, not just the people up front.