Worship As One: Varied Abilities in the Body of Christ

Introduction

Many congregations put up welcome signs, set out welcome mats, and hold day-long conferences on how to be welcoming. It’s important for visitors and members alike to know that there is a place of welcome and belonging within that community of believers. Just as God throws out the welcome red carpet into His kingdom, we seek to mirror God’s heart as we welcome adults and children into our congregations.

A welcome, however, is not a one-sided act. The words and practices that spring up around the word welcome are then received by an individual. To be most effective, that person must interpret those actions as welcoming. For example, a person shaking your hand may have the best intention of being welcoming, but if that grip is too tight on your hand with arthritis, or if you happen to see the person coughing into his hand before shaking your own, you may not interpret this gesture as hospitable as it was intended to be.

Imagine...

A pastor’s invitation to partake of the Lord’s Supper to all those who believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. What sounds like a word of welcome to participate may actually be the sound of a door slamming shut if one of the believers is searching for the nonexistent gluten-free bread or wafer option.

A youth leader’s invitation to a community treasure hunt event for “all youth, grades six to twelve.” While it may sound like everyone is welcome, when the eleventh grader who is a wheelchair user shows up for the event, it’s clear the event is closed to that individual. No one had thought through the accessibility issues that would have truly allowed each member of that age group to participate.

The church initiative introducing adult small groups in several locations for the fall book study. The sign-up sheet forgot to mention that in order to participate, people would need to be proficient readers, writers, and speakers who are able to access evening transportation.

What congregations intend to be a welcoming practice can be the opposite for several individuals. How can they make some changes so that more people can receive a welcome and find a place of belonging instead of rejection or exclusion?

Three Parts Create a Holistic Plan

The plan is simple:

1.      Perspective: Puzzle Pieces

2.      Participation: Universal Design

3.      Personalization: Responsive Design

The leadership of the church must be on board with this plan for it to work. That is so important, I might have put it as the first part, making this a 4-part plan!

·         The leadership’s perspective is where this plan will have a firm foundation or be washed away.

·         The leadership’s pursuit of participation through universal design will make the changes happen that are necessary.

·         The leadership’s support of personalization through responsive design is what will ensure it is done and done well.

The plan for your congregation requires leadership to be on board.

Leadership that is on board will see value in having a person or committee to coordinate and oversee it working in the church. Many denominations and local churches have roles such as Accessibility Coordinator, Pastor of Care, Disability Ministry Director, Disability Advocate – someone who would get the phone call when a new family wants to come but needs to know what the church will do to welcome their family member with a disability.

Such a role is a great one to be cheering the leadership on and holding the church accountable to keeping the plan going. If the church is a casserole, I think of this person or committee as the shredded cheese throughout the whole thing, supporting and adding the right flavor to all the other ingredients.

It is my hope and prayer that after learning about the three-part plan and a variety of practical applications, congregations will extend welcome through greeters, the Lord’s Supper, youth group, adult small groups, and other programs and events—all of which will lead to places of belonging within our churches for people of all abilities.

I Choose Adam, Nothing Special Please

Excerpt from I Choose Adam: Nothing Special Please by David Winstrom. 

Copyright©2017 by David Winstrom.  (pp. 109-113). 

This book is the amazing and emotional journey of David, Jetta, his wife, and Adam their very special son who was born with Autism and Down syndrome. 

New Friends, New Churches

   As our rhythms and rituals changed to include Adam, many of our friends no longer recognized us as belonging in their own rhythms and rituals.  Friendship changed.  Adam added to our world by creating a condition to move us out of our old circle of friends into a new circle.  We avoided the special world of mother’s groups and groups that accepted the parents of children with Down syndrome.  There is a palpable difference between being included and being placed in social supports.

As Adam began to grow, we slowly became involved in two communities, and each had their own rhythms and rituals.  With each visit to the chiropractor, we got to know Mark a little better.  He was Lutheran and invited us to come to church with him.  Jetta was raised as  Lutheran and wanted our family to belong in a church community, so we went.  Naturally, Adam cried, and I couldn’t get him to stop, so I got up and took him out of the service.  One of the ushers followed me and suggested that “next time I could just start out in the special anti-room rather than disturb others.  I would probably be more comfortable anyway.”  It made no sense to me to go to church and not be included as part of the body.  The next week Jetta and I sat in the back, but I could tell I was not in the right place.

Jetta kept putting her hand on my knee because Adam and I were making noise. I told her I supported her going to church, but Adam and I would wait for her outside.  Mark was an elder in the church and did what he could to influence the church community but found himself in opposition to the church’s positions.  When the church leadership didn’t like Mark’s approach, they told him that a committee was going to be formed to decide the best procedures to deal with a situation like ours.  Forming a study committee is the typical response a system makes when it encounters opposition.  Active disagreement is not a welcoming experience.  Mark and his family remained our friends, but it was clear this church did not want us.

Richard and Julie as well as Mary Beth, another one of Jetta’s friends from school, remained our friends.  One day Jetta, Adam and I were visiting with Richard and Julie when Toby the Rabbi from the Temple just happened to come over.  He came in and immediately walked over to Jetta and asked if he could hold Adam.  Jetta handed Adam to Toby, and we all watched as he with gentleness and assurance looked Adam all over.  Then he held Adam up and said, “HaShem…Adam, you are a perfect creation!” and danced Adam around the room.  He did the same dance Richard had done with Adam in the hospital.  Then Toby turned to me and asked, “Have you started blessing Adam every Friday evening.  It is never too early to start, you know!”.

He invited us to the Temple, and I choked our, “You know…we aren’t…um…Jewish.”

Just as I said “Jewish,” he said, “members, it’s okay everyone is always welcome.”  Then he added, “And if Adam makes noise…ahhh we can sing louder.  Let him join in.  If he needs to be bounced, bounce him.  If you need to walk around, walk.  We are 400 men and women; do you imagine we cannot find a way to include a baby?  But you are not Jewish…Christian then?”

I said, “Yes.”

“All Christians are Jewish first.”

Jetta, Adam and I only went a few times, but the Rabbi was right when he said, “sit or walk during the service, but just come and be part of community.”  Sometimes Mary Beth would take Adam to church with her, but she said she never held Adam through the whole service because someone would always ask if they could please hold him.  A community was affirming Adam.  A community was wanting him to belong.  A community was welcoming us, and it was not a program or technique; it was a fundamental knowing that all belong and all are welcome.  I learned that I will always be a good Jew first and then a Christian.  Jetta, Adam and I were always welcomed and had an open invitation to come to Temple, parties and gatherings.  Good people found us.  I began blessing Adam every Friday night, and I thanked HaShem for loaning me Adam, His perfect creation.

Jetta wanted a community in Grand Haven for her family.  The Temple was in Grand Rapids and did not offer her the day-to-day experience she hungered for.  She found a small church led by a preacher named Andy DeJong.  She went to her new church in Grand Haven and Adam and I enjoyed what I called the Church of the Big Sky—nature.  We would walk and see what God was doing today.

Eventually, Jetta’s desire to include Adam and me in church culminated in a home visit from Pastor Andy.  I liked him right away.  He was bright and caring and had just the right edge of uncertainty to make any smug piety impossible.  He told us Adam was welcome.  Andy told us his brother also had Down syndrome and that we should come whenever we can and sit, stand or stay as needed.  It was just what Jetta wanted to hear.  She and Adam would go to the new church.  Andy and I talked, and I explained to him that I found God in my Church of the Big Sky and would trust the safety and well-being of Jett and Adam to him.  And what an impact Adam had on that church. 

Remembering Adam’s First Sunday

The first time Adam showed up with his mother, Jetta, at church, there might have been some worshipers that Sunday who hoped it would be his last.

Music can be a very sensory experience.  This is especially the case for a person with Autism like Adam.  Although Covenant Life Church had already made the transition from more traditional hymnody to contemporary worship music, most worshipers kept their hands, arms and hips fairly disengaged, leaving the voice to do all the work of worship.  That might have lasted for quiet some time had Adam not shown up that memorable Sunday.  The worship team had lined up some high-energy songs and Adam could not have been more pleased.  Adam’s arms were thrashing the air, his hips were gyrating, and his voice was entirely discordant and loud.  But it was authentic!

And that’s really the point. Adam brought into our presence his authenticity.  His free expression was Unbridled by social or religious decorum, and his demeanor was always non-judgmental and his love Unconditional.  Adam incarnated so much of Christ’s teaching and lifestyle and that it spooked some people in the church.  It was almost too real this Christ-like presence.

After several weeks went by with what I perceived to be a growing discomfort with Adam’s presence I decided through God’s grace not to become upset with People and their negative responses to Adam.  It was too tempting to say something from the pulpit and risk even further disturbance among our people. 

So, one morning, after the singing was finished I came forward to extend a welcome to everyone.  I did this verbally.  But then I walked off the raised platform, walked down the aisle in which Adam and Jetta were seated, put my hand on Adam’s shoulder and said simply, “You are welcome here!”  Adam jumped up and there, in that holy moment, we hugged each other as though we were long lost brother who hadn’t seen each other for far too long.

And that’s all it took.  Love not spoken but physically expressed.

It became the turning point for the church as well as for Adam and Jetta and eventually David to all of us as belonging to the broken body of Christ where each person fulfills a necessary function for the body to thrive.  I like to think of Adam as the heart.  But if not that, he certainly was for us our rhythm, our de facto “spirit of soul.” 

-Pastor Andy DeJong