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: Rethinking the Church’s Social Practices
Jeff, thanks for this explanation and challenge to all of us who believe our own churches are "friendly" without realizing that we exclude people from relationships because they are not able to follow the social rules of our church.
You also raise an interesting question in your suggestion that "the reason for the exclusion of persons with disabilities from churches is social skill deficits." Do others of you have examples of people pushed to the margins of a church because they have social skill deficits?
Posted in: Rethinking the Church’s Social Practices
Doug, this is a great example, and a common one. I would suggest that no one is "driven away" by a person who talks too much, but they choose to walk away and stay away. It may be lack of verbal discipline, but as likely as not there could be many other factors involved in someone talking too much. So what can be done? Clearly, individuals need to help this person understand in a loving way that their not allowing others to get a word in edgewise is preventing them from hearing from others and learning from others who also have important things to say. Then those loving individuals would need to ask permission to give some sort of prompt when they are with the person who talks too much to remind them to stop speaking so that others can speak. As McNair says, the people who can adjust their social style need to do so to be able to lovingly interact with those who find this more difficult.
This call to adjust our social style is not a call to abandon setting boundaries on what we will and will not accept as appropriate behavior. But it does call us to lovingly help people understand how their behavior affects others and to help them learn new and socially more effective behaviors. We might be tempted to say, "That's not my job," or "It's none of my business." But in the body of Christ, mentoring and being mentored are both called for in the pursuit of learning to love in a Christlike way.
The hardest part about this is that it requires a lot of patience, but then imagine how we try God's patience every single day. If God is so patient with us, should we not also demonstrate some patience with others?
Posted in: Q & A on the ADA: The Church and the Americans With Disabilities Act
Sarah, I'm sorry to hear about this. How painful for your daughter, you, and your whole family. When our children hurt, we parents hurt all the more. You may have some recourse. If this camp is in the United States or in Ontario, federal or provincial laws apply if this dog fits the law's definition of a service animal. This page describes the American law specific to service animals. Ontario provincial law likewise requires certain accommodations for service animals.
Posted in: Rethinking the Church’s Social Practices
Yes, wisdom and discernment. Grace and patience. Truth and love. We all have our weaknesses and challenges. Barb Newman says that we're all puzzle pieces with green and pink parts. The green parts are things we're good at, and the pink parts are things we're not so good at. What a safe and delightful fellowship a church could be if EVERY one of us lived that out. The people with the greenest green parts never became prideful and were always willing to be ministered to by others. And the people with the pinkest pink parts always knew that their gifts were encouraged and well received by other members of the congregation.
Posted in: Rethinking the Church’s Social Practices
Amen, brother Case! Amen.
Posted in: Two Paths to Inclusion
Fronse,
Great to hear from you. I hope you are doing well.
Have you done this before? It seems that you are picturing a group of people, some disabled and some nondisabled, with the disabled people sharing their stories and the nondisabled reflecting and interacting about those stories. Do I have that right? Sounds like it would be an excellent time of learning and growth for all.
I've done this kind of interaction before in anti-racism workshops in which people of color share their stories and the people from the dominant culture (the white people) listen and interact. It was very helpful to me as a white person to listen and learn.
Mark
Posted in: Rethinking the Church’s Social Practices
Here's a great article by someone on the autism spectrum about developing Cultural Competency in interacting with people with autism. It's the same basic idea as McNair's applied specifically to autism.
Posted in: Two Paths to Inclusion
So in this case, absolution would be a feeling of the listener: "I'm absolved of my participation in ableism and/or racism because I have (partially) listened to this other person." I'm hearing your say that the story sharing is more helpful in assuaging the conscience of the listener than in bringing about a deeper relationship between listeners and speaker.
Like you, I wish we could dispense with language of disabled and non-disabled. At the very least, I myself should be careful never to talk about disabled people, but instead use language like "people with disabilities." But even then, the term "disabilities" labels people resulting in "categorization and sympathy" as you say.
Loving as Christ taught us to love is so difficult. You are talking about the huge challenges in people developing real understanding of each other, and the exclusion of some people from participating "fully in human experience." But I would hope that people in churches (and society) will not say, "It's too difficult, so why try at all?" My work as director of Disability Concerns is motivated by the hope that real change for the better can happen in church communities.
Have you ever experienced a situation in which people without disabilities have experienced change in their consciousness and approach to people with disabilities? Or to put it another way, have you ever seen some barriers to participating fully in human experience broken, with greater relationship and participation as a result?
Mark
Posted in: Two Paths to Inclusion
Yes, I pray that God will keep changing me too.
Posted in: Including a Boy With Disabilities in Cadets
Beverlee, thanks for sharing your painful experience. It's important for people to talk about these experiences so that others know that they are happening and can do something about it. So Del, thanks so much for this offer and for making this clear statement on behalf of the whole Cadet corps, that boys, whether or not they have disabilities, are welcome!
Posted in: Getting Intentional About Inclusive Church Education
Yes, I think of it as a visual variation on the multiple instruments that the psalmist talks about in Psalm 150. My own congregation, Crosswinds Church, has a collection of satin solid-color pennants mounted on dowels for people to use in praising God. Many of the children (and some adults) love to wave them during songs.
Posted in: Including People With Disabilities in Church Life
Katrina, Thanks for your note. So if I understand you right, you are saying that when people have said to you, "God doesn't make mistakes," it felt to you that their underlying assumption is that people with disabilities just might be mistakes. I can see that that would be hurtful. What have you found to be helpful comments from others? Mark