Video Transcript: 3-Part Plan for Ministry

I am delighted that within this coming year, probably in the fall of 2020, there will be a book produced by Zondervan that I wrote, and it's called Worship as One - A Guide to Including People of All Abilities. So I'm excited about that book. Again, that would be a great resource in print. Now you get the words and the expanded version to go with many of the things that are part of that book. But I'm delighted to talk about the three parts that I certainly have recommended to congregations over the years, as they think about this topic. Before we get to that, though, I wanted to mention two really important pieces, as we think about, Okay, we got to get something going here. We know we're thinking about strategies; we're not going to build a can. But where do we begin? 

I think one of two things that have to be on the floor, the place where you stand, before you even get to the three-part plan are these two things: your leadership needs to be on board, they need to be excited about this. You can't begin something if the leadership of the community doesn't understand or isn't supportive. So I'm excited that this is a Leaders Course, because you are leadership, and you will fill those roles if you don't already. This is a chance to take these ideas to that leadership level and say this is important for our community. So as you think about this, which leaders in your congregation might you also need to speak with? Who might need to get excited about this topic?

Another piece that I think is important, is that we bring the right book to the table. I know, you can bring in many cases, and I'm not saying it's bad; it's wonderful. There are laws in the lands that govern our positioning of persons with disabilities in that place, rules and regulations. Certainly, if you're an architect, you will know this because there are certain things that need to be built in too many buildings in order to pass the regulations. But I would suggest that's the wrong book that we bring to the table when we're thinking of including people of all abilities. I think in our congregations we need to bring scripture. So I enticed you in the true false quiz at the beginning. Do you remember that? I said, Are you are you going to make heaven noisier place? And I hope you said yes. 

I often use that verse from Romans 15:7 with children, but I'm going to use it today too because I think, again, we need the biblical blueprint to govern how we set up our church communities. That's the case that we need to make. How does God expect us to live with one another in community? That sets the practices within our church; that sets the procedures. So I'll often introduce children into that as well as adults. But I love this one, I'll say to children, and so imagine if you're like, a second grader, whatever that might look like. And then I'll often say, Tell me some ways that you can praise God. And you'll get lots of answers. You can sing, you can dance, you can pray, whatever. One child is going to say Jesus, because they always answer Jesus to some question, right? But I will often say to them, Do you know what? There's a way God talks about that you can praise God without singing even one note. And I'll often say to them, do you know what? I think that there's a shout of praise and heaven every time you accept one another in the community. So accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. 

So if you are outside, or you're going to your Sunday school class and you see somebody, they're sort of scared, they don't really want to go in the door. And you reach out to that person and you say, Here, come sit with me. There's like a shout of praise and heaven. Or, as you're thinking about a person to invite to come. Maybe you invite that person that others haven't invited before, because maybe for some reason, others don't think that person would “fit into that group.” But you noticed. God sent you that person and then you invite that person to come to Sunday school or whatever the group may be. There's a shout of praise and heaven. In fact, I think you can make heaven a noisier place by the end of the day today, just by the way you treat each other. 

So anyway, we have fun talking about that. But I would say that that is also true for us. I can guarantee you because I've done this long enough. Now remember, the 57-year-old? I've done this long enough now to be confident. There are people within a five-mile radius of where you meet. I don't know what that translates to in kilometers, but I should look that up. In any event, they're right around your setting, they're right around your congregation, and they are not coming, because they didn't think that they would be welcomed there. Perhaps those are the ones that have been booted out of several other church communities. And now it's there. They're confident it's going to happen again. 

You know what? It is to those people that we go and we say, You know what, we may not have all the answers, we're not sure. But we know that you belong here, along with all of us. Come. Shout of praise in heaven. 

As we position ourselves with our open arms to receiving people of all abilities, I imagine your congregation can make heaven a noisier place because of the way that you stretch your arms out. And I always get great comfort knowing that I'm not standing there with my arms out by myself. Absolutely not. We get to lean right into the arms of Jesus, who has done that for each one of us. The arms of Jesus are open, and we just simply rest ourselves within those arms and repeat those words. Right? Accept one another just as Christ accepted us, in order to bring praise to God.

I hope and pray. And I have been praying. And I have a team of people that have been praying over this course, praying that heaven will be that noisier place because of the way we do this for people of all abilities in our communities. 

At All Belong, where I work, that organization, you know what? We have tools, we have items. We have practices, we have ideas, but you are the frontline. You are the ones that make the difference. You are the ones that make a change in the story that's told through people. Yes. You're the one that can say yes to that child so that the first time they are in a church is not in a casket. You're the ones that can change those stories. And as we all lean against those arms of Jesus and say, you're welcome here, right? What a gift make heaven a noisier place. So that's one scripture I'll often use depending on the age and adapt that, but I love that picture of God cares how we accept, how we treat one another, and counts that as praise. Wow. 

1 Corinthians 12, of course, one of my favorites, you'll hear this a few times, but talks about the body of Christ. But in fact, God has arranged the parts of the body, each one of them just as he wanted them to be. Are there puzzle pieces? Are there people? Are there individuals who are wanting to be part of your community? Has God taken that time and said, I'm going to arrange this person here, because I want to teach you something. 

I love that word arranged. But in fact, God has arranged the parts of the body placed depends on what version you use. What a what a beautiful picture that is of God's design for our communities. And, and the opportunity, we have to trust God. This is the pose of that God communicates. And guess what? I'm arranging people. I'm placing people to grow you, to make you stronger, to turn you into something different.

So I would contend the best place, and one of the most powerful ways that we impact leadership in our community, is to come with scripture, and with some how-to’s, so that people are confident of the why; they've been explained the why. And also one other highlight here. Remember that in most church communities, leadership changes over time. So you may have a rotation of every three years you get a new batch of people in, or every five, or whatever that rotation looks like.

Equipping leadership with a vision is not a one and done sort of thing in a church. That needs to be part of leadership retreats; it needs to be part of conversations; it needs to be part of, perhaps a handbook that's given to those who are coming in as elders, whatever that may be; but you can't just say well, good, we got that checked off. We equipped our leadership. No, those things change over time. 

So here's a quick peek at that puzzle piece, or at the three-part plan. And the first one of the plan, and I’ll start with P, is Perspective.  How important it is to have Perspective. And you're going to see this green and pink puzzle piece several times over because I think in many ways, this gives us a picture not only of God's creative work in individuals, but also gives us a picture of how we fit our pieces together with one another in community. And so we're going to talk a lot about Perspective because, as a congregation as a whole, children through adults’ leadership, those that volunteer. We want to cast a vision, a perspective of who we each are as a puzzle piece, but then also who we are when we connect our puzzle pieces together and formed this thing called a congregation. So, you'll be experiencing that very soon, and just wanted to highlight that here, however, puzzle piece Perspective, and that's part one of the plan. 

The second part of the plan is something that I call Participation. And I want to explain this a little bit with these elevators and doors on the graphic here. You know, architects are familiar with a term called universal design as are educators. So, if you're an architect, and they thought of this many years ago, you know what, let's build buildings with this idea called universal design. So architects, many and it depends on, I get this, countries are different, but here I know in the US and several others, if you build a building, the people building this do not run around to the homes that have a ramp or they know that there's a person who's a wheelchair user in that home, they don't run over there and say, excuse me, you get planning on using that building, because then we'll go ahead and throw an elevator in there. No, that's not how it works. They put an elevator in the building, are you ready for the word – expecting  - expecting people of varied abilities to use that building.  So they build it that way from the beginning, they put in an elevator, sometimes there's Braille on the wall, there's curb cutouts, there's bars in the in the bathrooms, there's, there's certain widths and doors and other places. There's, again, lots of different opportunities within a building because they are expecting people of varied abilities to use that place. 

I think educators got so excited about this, they created a whole initiative called Universal Design for Learning. So they are aware when they prepare a lesson plan that the students sitting in front of them, well, some of them will learn best with words, others with pictures, right? Others with actual items, because they need to see items and think about things in different ways, right? So educators prepare material expecting students to learn differently. They're going to build in options, not just speak your report, because some people will do that very well. Others might rather write it out, or create a PowerPoint, or a collage about what they've learned. 

People come with such varied abilities to a classroom setting that educators have learned about Universal Design for Learning. They are expecting it from the beginning. Way easier to build a building, to plan a lesson at the beginning with those features built in as opposed to retrofitting a building with an elevator. The cost in that is just horrific. The price of that is horrific. But if you plan it that way from the beginning, it makes a difference. 

So here's the thing, participation through universal design. What if we built our children's ministry expecting children of varied abilities to show up? What if we planned our worship services expecting people of all abilities to show up? What if we planned our seniors’ outing expecting people of all abilities to show up? I would contend Universal Design is one of these amazing things, because it's not accessible design. It's universal design. Accessible Design is for those persons who have a disability. Universal design is for 100% of us. So we build in these features, options. You know, some weeks we might choose that, other weeks we might not need that. We might go through ages, seasons, stages, where we'll need certain features that are built in but we build them in from the beginning so that that tool is there. 

As I said before, my father, even though it looked like it was perhaps geared towards children to have that order of worship with both words and pictures, at the age of, you know, 90, was much more drawn to those pictures that stabilized his world. Universal design. Let's just have it available. 

Anyway. And so I'm excited to talk about this concept of universal design. Apply that within a variety of settings and again, we're going to take significant time because quite honestly, I believe that if our congregations pour energy and effort into Universal Design, it saves a whole lot of time in trying to come up with individual programs or ideas and retrofitting our opportunities with different options. So again, this to me is important. So Perspective is a puzzle piece.  Participation through universal design, again, we want 100% of the people to have access to a worship service. And Universal Design is one of those ways to get there. 

And yet, I want to point out that sometimes we need to have a personalized plan. And that's part three: Perspective, Participation, Personalization. Sometimes there will be members of a community that we really need to get to know their puzzle piece well. We need to get to know who they are, what's easy for that person, what gifts do they have, what things are challenging, what are some areas where they could benefit from some opportunities to have support? We really need to get to know that individual in order for that person to have access to the worship service, or Sunday school, or an adult small group, or whatever that is that you're responsible for. So Responsive Design is a word we've used to say, look, we're going to get to know that person, and then we're going to respond to that individual by putting together a personalized plan. I don't know what that would look like. It could be a whole host of things. I mean, in some respects, it may be an individual that we would say you know what, this particular individual is unable to access words. And so we're going to do singing, maybe this responsive design plan would then allow this individual to wave a streamer during that time of the worship service, or whatever that might look like. 

So we're going to personalize this, although I always said you'll find this out, we'll definitely let you know every good personalized plan has at least two parts. Because if we give this to this individual to wave, I often say to pastors, how many letters are you going to get? And these people will say, Oh, John was such a…. yeah, I bet you filled it in… a distraction. Right? So personalized plans always have to have two parts: not only do we have a plan for that individual and what access points that person might have, or tools in order to participate, but also, it might be what a pastor would designate as in giving information to the congregation. That's part two of the plan. We need to equip the eyes of the people watching and experiencing so that they truly can worship together. 

So I was hearing about a pastor who got up at the pulpit and said, You know, I've asked John to wave this during our singing today, preparing to talk about the significance of the promise of the rainbow through, you know, Noah's Ark. And I've asked him to waive this as we worship to get our hearts prepared for that today. Just that short statement is almost always enough to prepare a congregation. I'm guessing, while one pastor did say, I'm still getting one letter or email, most communities will get zero because, again, we've now had two parts to our personalized plan - John, but we've also given people eyes so that they can see John's waving a streamer as an act of worship and actually worship leadership for that community on that day. 

So again, three-part plan. I hope you're getting excited. I hope you're thinking about the statistics in your community. I hope you're thinking about shredded cheese and how you can get the leaders of those cans excited and joined together with you as you imagine how we can cast a perspective how we can increase and motivate participation from 100% of the people through universal design and how we may still have some individuals who would benefit from that personalized plan. 

So instructions for homework this week are embedded in your course syllabus. Really excited for this time together. I hope you have gotten excited with me as we engage in this course together.