The Rest of the Story

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Reformed Presbyterian Church

Ephrata PA

Submitted by: Dwight McKay, Ruling Elder

 

MNA SNM: Please tell us a little about your church’s disability ministry story. How did you first get involved in special needs ministry? How long ago? What does “disability ministry” look like in your local congregation?

Disability ministry was God’s plan for Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPC) long before it was ours. Twenty years ago our ministry was primarily a reactive response to needs expressed in the congregation. As member or regularly attending families coped with disability, the church looked for practical ways to be gracious and loving in each specific situation. Later, as the congregation grew, and as our awareness of disability among us grew, we came to a more intentional and purposeful approach to disability ministry.

The 1990’s brought two major happenings into the life of the congregation which impacted our disability ministry. Both caused us to move ahead farther and faster than we might have otherwise.

The first event was a building program for a new sanctuary and greatly expanded educational space. RPC needed to conform to ADA standards during construction, and that providentially dovetailed with our growing awareness of the very needs those standards were intended to address.

Then in the late 1990’s we were asked to partner with Friendship Community. Friendship Community is a local Christian nonprofit that provides residential and other services to people with developmental disabilities and their families. They were planning to place a number of individuals into supervised independent living in apartments not far from the church, and they asked us if we would take on the responsibility of being the “church home” of a number of those folks. Very rapidly six or eight adults with intellectual challenges became part of our worship, Sunday School and other activities. Our disability ministry knowledge base grew exponentially in a very short period of time.

Forward a decade or so to the present. Now we find that our ministry is attracting people who believe we can help to meet their needs for inclusion and spiritual nurture. We have learned that we don’t have the resources to meet every need, but along the way the congregation has developed a heart for disability ministry. So, more often than not, the answer that we give after evaluating families who contact us about whether we can minister to one of their family members with a disability is, “We’d like to try.” God has been gracious, and many of those trials have become continuing relationships.

MNA SNM: What do you see as the greatest challenges facing individuals and families touched by disability?

This varies a lot from family to family and disability to disability, but there are some constants.

One area that it seems incredible to need to confront still in the 21st Century is the issue of overcoming the prejudice of society toward the disabled. Sometimes it appears that programs and accommodations are haphazardly considered and grudgingly provided, at best. The church can be a place of genuine freedom for those with disabilities if we begin our ministries from a position of grace. Then we will minister not out of pity or condescension or duty, but out of a shared sense of inability in our own strength and out of thanksgiving to God for his abundant grace.

A major challenge that faces individuals and families touched by disability is the need to make lifestyle adjustments to adapt to the realities of the disability. Depending on the situation, this can be isolating and wearying. The church can express its love for these individuals and families by finding practical ways to provide fellowship, spiritual nurture and rest.

MNA SNM: What are the biggest barriers you’ve had to overcome to help your congregation develop a “comfort zone” with this type of ministry?

Like others, we have had our share of fear, selfishness and resistance to change — evidence that even those who choose to do ministry need the gospel. In general, though, throughout the congregation there has been a wonderful openness to disability ministry. Even so, one of the big challenges is to keep those individuals and families touched by disability in mind as we do our ministries — making sure that we don’t create circumstances that deny them inclusion and that we do create circumstances that encourage the use of their gifts.

MNA SNM: What practical steps have you taken to help your congregation that way?

We have organized our Special Needs Committee to act as a resource to the congregation. Our model is a ministry that works “across” the ministries of the church.

We have articulated our philosophy of disability ministry to the congregation in printed materials, on our website and in worship and educational settings.

We have provided content-appropriate training on disability issues to children, youth, adults and leaders.

We have a diaconal liaison on the Special Needs Committee so that diaconal issues relating to individuals and families touched by disability can be addressed as a part of normal process, not as something unique to disability.

We have encouraged broad congregational participation in disability ministry conferences and educational opportunities.

MNA SNM: In what ways have you seen your congregation grow in “owning” ministry to and alongside people touched by disability?

People are responding to one another. Over the years there have been some attempts to organize and direct fellowship and ministry opportunities. Those have often gone very well, and relationships have blossomed. But the best thing has been the many, many unplanned situations in which others in the congregation have interacted with those touched by disability in ways of love and grace. Human organization could not have begun to accomplish what divine providence brought to those encounters.

People are responding to ministry opportunities. Recently we sought to staff a rotation of individuals who would work one-on-one with a teen who has Autism during the worship service so the parents could worship together (something they had not been able to do for a long time). We hoped to sign up about seven or eight. We actually recruited about a dozen!

MNA SNM: How is your congregation a different place because people with disabilities and their families are part of the church family?

Given the individualized nature of disability, there will always be a reactive element to disability ministry that is based on the specific needs of specific persons. But we are more proactive now than we have been in the past, and we believe that if we create an environment that is conducive to ministry and encourages ministry, we will have ministry to do (“If you build it, they will come.”)

Individuals and families touched by disability are in the flow of congregational life. The fabric of our worship and fellowship is a great deal richer for the fact of their participation with us.

MNA SNM: How has God used your local church to usher in the power of the gospel – in word and deed- into the lives of families touched by disability?

The gospel helps us to see that, since we are all broken, those with disabilities should be able to safely find a place in the family of God in which to assert all the possibilities of what is normal for them in their lives in this world. Truth can be told without fear of violations of confidentiality. Faith can be questioned without fear of ostracism. Spiritual growth can be individualized, and no one is made to feel inadequate because of a “one size fits all” sense of spiritual maturity.

MNA SNM: How has your church supported and encouraged individuals and families in practical ways?

The following are a few examples of practical support:

• The congregation readily signs up to provide meals for families in crisis.
• Covenant Care groups (family-specific support groups) are occasionally established under carefully developed ministry guidelines. These groups have three functions:
  1) to act as a link between the family and the pastoral staff and church leadership,
  2) to act as a buffer between the family and the congregation to provide a sense of privacy and normalcy, and
  3) to facilitate ministry by mobilizing the church to provide emotional, physical and spiritual support to the family.
• We have organized to provide transportation to services and activities for a number of folks.
• RPC has provided space, staffing and financial support for formally organized respite care; and members have lovingly provided one another informal respite care times without number.
• We modified the Jobs for Life soft job skills curriculum (typically used with the unemployed and underemployed in the general population) for use with a number of our members who have intellectual disabilities.

Our deacons have helped with home modifications, financial assistance, moving labor and in a great many other practical ways.

MNA SNM: How has your church supported and encouraged individuals and families spiritually?

Once again, here are few examples:

• We have a Sunday School class specifically designed for adults with intellectual disabilities.
• When new families come to our attention, there is an assessment of the specifics of each situation in an attempt to provide the child, young person or adult with a disability a “win-win” placement in our educational or youth program settings.
• We seek to identify the spiritual gifts of all our members, including those with disabilities, and utilize those gifts in ministry.
• Sometimes families or individuals can benefit from Christian counseling. Our deacons have provided monetary support for some who wished to utilize that resource but had difficulty with the cost.
• We encourage fellowship, spiritual growth and ministry for all members, including those with disabilities. And we try to remember that there is a spiritual dimension to many of our “practical” support methodologies (respite care, Covenant Care Groups, etc.).
  

MNA SNM: What biblical truths have been demonstrated in 3-D through the work of God displayed in the lives of people touched by disability?

These passages [all NIV], among others, have come to have a special place for us:

Genesis 1:26-27
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

2 Corinthians 12:9
“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…”

John 15:12
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

MNA SNM: How has your involvement with families touched by disability inside you congregation caused you to reach out to others outside of your church’s walls?

The same mindset in the congregation that cares about and staffs our disability ministry has enabled RPC to rise to other ministry challenges in youth ministry, children’s ministry and community outreach.

As our ministry matures, we find our awareness growing so that we are becoming more sensitive to needs, not just within our congregation, but in the community as a whole.

MNA SNM: What’s your “next frontier?” What is the area in which your church recognizes that it still has a long way to go?

“It still has a long way to go” is an excellent way to put it. The more we do this ministry, the more we see the potential. There is a real need to constantly revitalize and reinvent what we do without neglecting the on-going efforts that bring the grace of Christ into the lives that are touched by the ministry.

If there is a “next frontier” for our disability ministry, it likely is seeking for more effective ways to impact the community around us — to reach the unchurched who have disabilities or who have family members with disabilities. Because of Christ we can provide an experience of gospel “inclusion” that, while not overcoming disability, can mitigate some of its more isolating and separating elements.

 

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