Video Transcript: Unit 1, Video 3

Welcome again. We're going to launch into some more talking about creating  congregations of belonging with people of all abilities. I continue to just grow  excited about all of this, and so as this week is wrapping up, we are just getting  launched into where we're going to head throughout this whole course, but I  don't want us to lose sight of where we need to start from, and so that's why this segment, this ending of this week, is all about it starts with attitude. So welcome  you to think about being the shredded cheese of your casserole or at least  sprinkling it into your worshiping community, so that we're all becoming that  casserole we've talked about the church of belonging, and it really starts with  attitude. So you have been reading about attitude a little bit, and we're going to  continue to do that in that reading by Dan Vander Plaat, because what we are  trying to get here is attitudes toward disability that shape our worshiping  communities, because I believe, and I was taught that, and actually, I've seen it  in congregations around the United States for the last decade or more, is that  attitude really is where it all starts. You're not going to change behaviors. You're  not going to change the culture of a church. You're not going to change or  introduce all of these great strategies and have them work right off the bat,  unless people have bought into this idea that truly, truly, there are no asterisks.  People with disabilities belong in our churches. People of all abilities are a part  of our churches, and that's how it should be, how it needs to be, how we need to be intentional about working so that it continues to be that way. So it needs to be continually fostered, and it's got to be the leadership who believes this. So the  attitudes of the leaders are really where it's going to start to change the culture  of the church, the worshiping community, where you are and in your ministry  context, what place you have in leadership, whatever that is, whether you can  inform them, whether you can simply email them, whether you can simply say,  this would help me whether you are the leader of your community. Right now, I  encourage you use that voice to spark this attitude toward people with  disabilities belong here. And here is the thing. Leadership forms the culture. So  we need to foster the idea that people with disabilities belong right? We need to  nurture it at every given point. We need to teach it often so it's when you have  new people coming on board. And what does the training look like when you  have new volunteers to your greeting team, or new volunteers to your children's  ministry, or new volunteers or new leadership coming on every time somebody  new comes again, you're saying this is our attitude as a church toward people  with disabilities, towards everybody belonging in our congregation, that people  of all abilities belong here. This is our attitude, and so this is our statement of  faith, and this is our belief about this. It's how you train your greeters and what  they're going to say when you have visitors come in. It's what you talk about  when you're talking about reconstruction or updating your building or buying new chairs, or all of those things, or you're strategizing. You're planning a new kind of event, or that Easter service or that new summer schedule. It's you advocating 

and saying, Yep. And how does this work for people with disabilities? How does  this work for people with mobility differences, who who see differently, who hear  differently, right? All of those things. It's that voice at the table saying, great  thoughts. Have we thought about this and that this is always thinking about  people with disabilities, so it comes up continuously, right? It's constantly  fostered thing. So where do we draw from? We draw from Scripture. Yes, I am  bringing educational best practices into this. Yes, I am bringing experience from  congregations that I have worked with, but we've got to stay grounded in  Scripture. And has anybody else learned that people in ministry leadership want  to hear what the Bible says about things that is the truth upon which we stand  and which we lean content consistently, and that's as it should be. So I want to  give you some scriptures to lean on and lean into as you talk about this,  because we're not leaning on labels or diagnoses to tell us who we are or what it is that we need to do, or why we're excluded from the kingdom. We're leaning  on God's truth about what we should do. So Romans 15:7, a beautiful passage  that says, accept one another. Then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God, did you know that heaven erupts? Praise when you accept one  another. What a beautiful idea. That is such a key concept to what our churches  should be doing, causing heaven to erupt in praise to God. And I think this cover of a book called I choose Adam. Nothing special, please. It's all about the  communities who chose Adam. They accepted Him. They made heaven a  noisier place. They caused praise to God, and it's amazing how much he  worshiped alongside his friends in those communities. So it's a great book if  you're curious about it, but more, I would suggest read into Romans 15:7, and  lean into what God is saying about accepting one another of all abilities, just as  Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. I Corinthians 12:18, is a  passage you're going to see a lot in this. Course, God says, in his words that he  has placed the parts in the body, each one of them just as he wanted them to  be, like puzzle pieces that fit together. You hear where I'm going with that. You're going to hear a lot more about puzzle pieces as well, but the idea being right,  God has arranged who's in your congregation and who is coming. So get ready  for who God arranges to be there. But here's another truth, we encourage one  another and build each other up. That's a command from scripture, right? So my relationship with the woman in this picture is of CO encouragement. We  encourage one another in building up the kingdom. She leads a Bible study, and she encourages me in communicating with more churches and introducing  others to Bible study materials that work for people with intellectual disabilities.  And so we encourage one another. That's what we all need to be doing in our  congregations, is encouraging one another and lifting each other up. So that's a  great verse to lean into. Lean into Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus said, Go and make  disciples of all nations, all people, no asterisks, making them, baptizing them in  the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them.

And so we make disciples. We teach people. It's the work of the Father, the Son  and the Holy Spirit in hearts to create belief and faith and fruit of the Spirit.  That's not up to us. It's up to us to go and to make disciples and to teach. And  so I want to give you tools throughout this course to do that very thing with  people of all abilities. Because here's the truth. Ephesians 2:10 tells us we are  His workmanship. That's each and every person created uniquely. God has has  created us uniquely in his workmanship, and we are created in Christ Jesus for  good works which God has prepared. We don't know what those are, but He's  created us uniquely. He's given us life experiences. He's given us needs for  support in order to do the works that he prepared in advance for us to do. So  lean into these verses, pray into them. Leaders can lean into these verses and  know that God has designed people of all abilities to participate in this work. And if nothing else, convinces people go to Psalm 150:6, Let everything that has  breath praise the Lord, not just the people who are gifted at songwriting or guitar playing or leading others or preaching or teaching, everything that has breath.  Do you have breath? Then praise the Lord. Right? This is such a beautiful  evangelism tool, such a beautiful reminder for each one of us, if we have breath, we praise the Lord, and that means that he has gifted us in ways to praise him.  Maybe it's simply by accepting others, and that's how we bring praise to Him,  but we each have been uniquely designed to bring praise to Him. The young  man in this picture is depicting Jesus in a wordless drama. He praised God with  his whole body by depicting his savior, whom he loved deeply. And it was  powerful to see people come to Jesus through this wordless drama that he  participated in. So Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, not just those  who have certain gifts and abilities that our churches think of. And finally, Psalm  139 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Think about that  just the way God made each one of us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.  This video by First Presbyterian Church of Aurora, Illinois, uses people of all  abilities expressing this psalm in sign language and in Spanish and through  communication devices. I would love for you to just linger on these things for a  little while. Listen to God's word and notice that people of all abilities are  speaking it to you. Are sharing with you their love for the Lord, their  understanding that the Lord loves who they are. We are each important part of  the body of Christ. So I'll put the link in the course material so that you can  watch this full video. But are you getting a little encouraged, a little excited that  we have some attitudes, some scriptural truths that we can lean on as we go  through this course. Now, I don't want to leave you hanging, so we're going to  have how tos. And the how tos are going to focus on a three part plan for  building these congregations with people of all abilities, because concepts are  fantastic and attitudes are definitely where it starts. But you're going to need  some practical things to have the have the feet on the ground doing the work  right? So we're going to get into a lot of that pretty quickly throughout this 

course. But again, I just want to say all the tools in the world aren't going to help  unless we have the right starting place. And the right starting place is this  attitude. So the start of the plan is perspective, attitude represented by a puzzle  piece, and that's where we're going to spend next week talking more about it. All starts with attitude. The second part of this simple, three part plan is participation and including everyone as we think about what can we put in place so that there are options for everyone to participate in worship, in fellowship, in learning and  in serving the finally, we talk about a third part, which is personalization, and that is simply getting around the idea that we'll put options in place. We want  everyone to participate, so we're going to put some options in place, and we're  going to use something we call universal design for that participation. But there  will always be individuals who need a personalized plan, and that is the beautiful opportunity for us to get to know individuals and their families and find out what  works for them. Do they need to take the Lord's Supper in a very unique way,  because they use a feeding tube, right? Those kinds of questions are what will  pop up for individuals who do require a personalized plan. And so we'll get into  that as well in the weeks ahead. Are you ready to dive into this course with me?  Week One has been a delight, and I'm excited to jump into Week Two with you,  where we start with attitude, perspective, and it's going to launch us.