Including People who have Disabilities

http://www.christianitytoday.com/amyjuliabecker/2014/april/including-people-with-disabilities-in-your-church.html

Amy Julia Becker has written about a topic close to my heart—including people with disabilities into our churches. She says,

“If people in your community are going to Wal-Mart in their wheelchairs but not coming to your church, a lot of times the church community calls them shut-ins. They’re not shut-ins; they’re just shut out of the church” (Ned Stoller (cited in Making Churches Accessible to the Disabled, 1998). When your church considers including people with disabilities in your congregation, what questions are you asking? Does the conversation run something like: What sort of accommodations should we make? Which ones would make sense since some accessibility options are really expensive? An elevator would take a major campaign!

What if we began to ask ourselves, our churches, and our ministries this question; “What is it that we are missing? What are we missing out on because we are not as inclusive of persons with disabilities as we truly would like to be?”

I commend this article for anyone interested in learning more about including those with disabilities as members of the whole body of Christ.  http://www.christianitytoday.com/amyjuliabecker/2014/april/including-people-with-disabilities-in-your-church.html

PHEWA (Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Assocaition) also has a network for those interested in this topic.

http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/phewa/