I was thinking some more about the previous post on the impact disability ministry could have on human services.
The more that the church gets into the lives of people with disabilities, particularly those with more severe disabilities who live in residential settings, a variety of things could happen. The first thing is that churches could bump up against the perceived regulations covering these facilities, get frustrated with their lack of access and then give up. From my experience, that is something that could happen. Community members who endeavor to form relationships with people under the care of the state are not always welcomed with open arms. If one is allowed access, there is a feeling that you are up to something no good. There is also a worry about what you might see and to whom you might reveal what you have seen.
We had a situation once where there was something a bit disconcerting which occurred at a home. We didn't say anything to anyone, but somehow word got out about it and the agency which regulated the group home confronted them about what had happened. The owner of the group home accused us of telling the regulating agency about them and for the next almost year, residents were not permitted to go to church. As I relate in the Sherlock Holmes post the folks who lived in the home, once again they were people with quite severe intellectual disabilities were taught the phrase, "We are taking a break from church." So, you bump up against human services and they restrict church attendance of their residents.
So the second lesson is that we need to be serious about our desire to include people in relationships and then be persistent in attempting to facilitate the changes needed for residents to experience community integration. We are moving from being complicit in large scale social isolation to wanting to facilitate true community integration. No wonder our motives might be questioned. We have not been interested in those folks for a very long time and our change in interest can be misunderstood. So we need to be at homes, regularly, so that we can become known. As prove we are trustworthy, we can then move toward social integration via relationships with real, unpaid, community members.
Perhaps a third lesson if we are unsuccessful in our efforts is to work in some areas of human services ourselves. That is, perhaps we can develop homes people can live in. I know Christian parents who are desperately looking for Christian alternatives where there is the freedom to attend church. Perhaps we can facilitate vocational training and placement with businesses represented by the people who attend church. Perhaps we can facilitate opportunities for service for persons who are friendly and would make great companions but end up either at home all day or in adult day care settings where their lives might be wasted. In a future posting I will describe efforts I am pursuing to develop a certificate in Christian service for adults with disabilities. But rather than relying exclusively on government programs, perhaps we might develop better programs to both serve our community and reflect a Christian perspective.
There are more avenues which might be pursued. Let's keep thinking. Things as they are are not great. There is much room for innovative thinking and the offering of alternatives which could be significantly better for all.[Jeff McNair]
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"Mysterious gifting" by Jeff McNair for Thursday, 22 September 2016
I met a man on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic. His name was Moses and like many people he found himself lost in life. Out of desperation he went to church in a poor area of Santo Domingo. The pastor allowed him to stay in a room at the church while he tried to figure out things in his life. While at the church, she introduced him to another woman who was running a ministry to children with disabilities. Largely comprised of street children, she opened her home providing food,comfort, education some volunteered professional services and of course love. He began to go to her home which she opened daily to children.
Over time, he experienced a kind of healing in his life. His relationship with God developed and he began to no longer feel lost. Somehow he found direction in life. Not necessarily to work with children with disabilities, but just in general.
Ok, so think about this in terms of gifting. Disabled street children mysteriously gave a man who lost his purpose in life a sense of direction. Also, they did this totally unknowingly and without any specific purpose to do so. Simply as a result of their presence he found direction. This reminds me of how the beaten man revealed the character of the three men who passed by him in the story of the Good Samaritan.
Paul tells us that we all (everyone of them 1Corinthians 12:18) are gifted. Verse 21 of this same passage says the weaker are indispensable. He doesn't need to tell us that the stronger are indispensable because we already think that. This chapter is all about how we are wrong. There are phrases that include this idea (it would not v 15, cannot say v 21, on the contrary v 22). Our thinking before being corrected results in the fact that some gifted people are excluded. Interestingly, because of exclusion of most severely disabled people, perhaps a whole category of gifting which might be more common in people with that characteristic have been excluded. The gifting of their presence alone which impacts the environment, sometimes clearly and sometimes mysteriously is largely absent. Yet as with the story of my friend Moses and the Good Samaritan there is gifting and it is expressed when given the opportunity.
The questions are, first, will we facilitate the integration of people into the church and second, will we seek to provide a platform (whatever that might be) for their gifting to be expressed? There is truly a mystery in this. But when we see the effects of integration we might also get some insights into what is now mysterious gifting.[Jeff McNair]
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