As Anabaptist Disabilities Network reaches its 15th anniversary, I’m gratified by the accomplishments of my co-laborers and predecessors; more church congregations consider accessibility and inclusion to be a part of their regular ministry.
This past Spring, I worked with Bill Gaventa, a leading voice in disability theology and justice, to craft a conference about disability, theology, and faith communities.
In May, Anabaptist Disabilities Network (ADN) celebrated fifteen years of helping congregations “catch the vision” of barrier-free worship, programs, leadership, and community life for everyone, regardless of their abilities.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. A good time to beg the question…. Are our pew-mates who experience persistent darkness finding support here?
Cam Taylor’s story is a personal journey with the health struggles, emotional impact, and sense of loss that he and his wife, Vicky, faced after they were involved in a traumatic motorcycle accident.
Peter and Mary Graber share about their daughter Emily’s membership ceremony at Sunnyside Mennonite Church in 2008.
We mourn and remember Kent Gunden
Anxiety and depression often escalate during the Christmas season. While the push-and-pull of joyfulness and despair during the advent season is exhausting, sometimes it’s more important to accept the gifts we’re given, regardless of how they’re wrapped.
The Gospel of Luke precedes the birth of Jesus with the birth of John the Baptist. According to Jewish law, custom, and tradition, newborn infant boys were to be named eight days after their birth and were to honor their fathers by being named after them.
On October 13, 2017, folks from a dozen Anabaptist congregations gathered for Anabaptist Disabilities Network (ADN)’s annual Circles of Love Banquet hosted this year at Prairie Street Mennonite Church.
I’ve lived all my life with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). When I entered kindergarten in 1949 few doctors, mental health professionals, teachers, or parents were familiar with ADD (or ADHD).
As mere humans, we are not the “givers” of God’s salvation, hope, or love. That’s God’s work and God’s gift. We are, however, called to provide the invitation and the environment in which all people can connect with the gospel message and grow in relationship with Jesus.
Birthdays are usually times of celebration. We celebrate the fact that one more year was added to a person’s life. For parents of kids with special healthcare needs, birthdays take on a deeper meaning.
Around a turkey dinner families will share words of gratitude and thankfulness. We typically thank God for good health, happiness, leisure time, quality time with family, the changing of seasons, delicious food.
These inspiring stories of spiritual growth among students with differing abilities show ways of worship as individual as they are.
While we rejoice in the promise of God’s presence and comfort through life’s changes, many people face the fear, confusion, of transition. For people with transitioning to new limitations or disabilities, it can be hard to discern what God’s plans are.
12.6 percent of the US population lives with a disability but few churches reflect this proportion. Tragically, it’s no secret that people with disabilities are under-represented in religious circles.
October 12, 1982 marks the day when I thought my heart would stop and the world would come to an end.
Pain is such a pain. You can seethe, groan, swear at it, pray over it, even scream, and it is still there. You just want it to go away, but it doesn’t. Finally, you wonder if there is anything you can do to put balance back in your life.
The theme of a conference I attended a conference this past April was April showers bring May flowers: How do we prepare, plant, and cultivate inner (and outer) change in our lives whether quickly or deliberately?
Many thanks to the many participants and volunteers who made ADN’s annual Circles of Love Banquet a success!
Rachel Joy, supported by Portland Mennonite Church, provides a few hours of editing services to ADN monthly. ADN is thrilled by this partnership!
At MC USA Convention in Orlando this summer, I led a workshop on autism in the church youth group.
Too often mental illness, self-harm, and suicidality goes unrecognized in youth. How can adults in the church intervene to be a lifeline?
During Tiara Coleman’s most significant experience with depression, suicide, and self-harm her youth pastor Ross reached out to her and entered into her struggles head on.
I grew up in Harrisonburg, Virginia and come from a well-known Mennonite family. In sophomore year I moved from the local public high school to Eastern Mennonite High School (EMHS). This is when I remember life started getting really hard for me.
The theme of this issue of Connections features creatively designing congregational life to remove barriers to full participation.
Worship within a biblical, warm, and supportive community is a wonderful experience that God desires for all of us. Yet, as a person with a (vision) disability and a pastor, I’m aware of many barriers that make worship difficult or uncomfortable for people with disabilities.
In 2014, Columbus Mennonite Church implemented the Icon Bulletin. As one of our church’s accessibility advocates and the mom of two boys with Down syndrome, I wanted our church to have a bulletin that could be meaningful to non-readers.
In this interview, Dan reflects on how his ministry and congregation has been shaped by his vision disability.
It’s a Friday evening at Hempfield Church of the Brethren, and worship is about to begin! Participants are moving into the sanctuary, chatting excitedly with each other and eagerly anticipating the coming hour of praising God.
When Flora Williams suddenly found herself trapped in a Mexican tour bus, her sunny vacation plans turned to shock and horror within mere minutes.
Monica Coleman’s Bipolar Faith is a raw look at the painful reality of mental illness within communities of faith and in the black community.
The experience of caregiving is unique to each person and family, and few generalizations can or should be made. However, I have collected stories in an attempt to heighten my own and others’ sensitivity to the complexity and challenge of being in the caregiver role and how the church can be helpful to persons on this journey.
This past year I got honest about my struggles with mental illness, particularly with those in my church community.
nspired by the life of and love for her brother born with Down syndrome, author Rhoda G. Penny weaves together a fictionalized, but genuine, account of the challenges and triumphs of a family touched by this disability.
Camp Safari began its mission with the focus of providing a Christian camping experience for campers with special needs.
Sparks of Redemptive Grace: Seeking and Seeing God Amid a Loved One’s Mental Illness offers, to those who love someone with a mental illness, hope and companionship on the journey.
Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness, by Heather Vacek (Baylor University Press, 2015), examines the history of American attitudes and responses toward mental illness over three centuries.
In Deaf Ministry: Ministry Models for Expanding the Kingdom of God, Leo Yates offers a plethora of suggestions, examples and ideas, worth the investment for anyone engaged in or seriously considering any aspect of Deaf Ministry.
Mark Pickens volunteers with Anabaptist Disabilities Network as a Field Associate. Field Associates partner with ADN from their home location to offer their services in program areas that contribute to ADN’s mission.
Rebekah Flores was honored to serve as Disability Ombudsman for the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference. This was the first year someone has served in this role.
I want to publicly thank Christine Guth for the ten years of service that she has given to Anabaptist Disabilities Network. Now, after a Spirit-led search for the next program director for ADN, I am pleased and excited to announce that Denise Reesor is joining us.
Following a sense that God had called her to the work of healing the wounds of war, Grace Mishler arrived in Vietnam in the year 2000. Grace soon found that her experience as a blind person would become an important part of her work.
Slate Hill Mennonite Church near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has found that a significant part of their mission in their community is to be with people from the Cumberland Vista Group Home for adults with developmental disabilities.
In this article, Lynn Swedberg introduces captioning as an important tool to assure that people with hearing difficulties are able to fully participate in community life.
A few weeks before Easter, the pastor made an announcement that we were going to have a baptismal service. Chrissie looked at me and gestured as if to say “What about me?” I said, “Chrissie, do you want to be baptized?” She said, “Yes!”
As I write this column, I am coming up on my one-year anniversary as executive director of ADN. Just as 2015 was a time of growth and transition for Anabaptist Disabilities Network in terms of adding resources, so has the past year been a time of learning and professional development for me personally.
Pastor Dan Longmore shares a few suggestions about how you can be helpful to someone who is visually impaired.
n Chasing the Rabbit, Derek Volk’s soul-baring transparency offers a window into a world that will resonate deeply with the intensity, challenges, and triumphs that parents of children on the autism spectrum know intimately, even though details will inevitably differ.
The colorfully detailed illustrations make this a good book for reading aloud to a group of children. Information about Down syndrome at the end adds useful content.
My journey with autism has been like the weather in Michigan: days of rain, ice, and snowstorm, but also sunny beautiful days.
Pastor Don Longmore reflects on his own visual impairment and blindness, offering tips for assisting people who are blind.
Partnership expanded for increased disability resources.
When I was 22, I felt God calling me to live and work alongside adults with developmental disabilities. With the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit and after much discernment I began my life in L’Arche Daybreak in Ontario.
The Church of the Brethren’s 2015 Open Roof Award was presented on behalf of the Disabilities Ministry of Congregational Life Ministries to two Church of the Brethren congregations: Cedar Lake Church of the Brethren (Auburn, Ind.) in Northern Indiana District, and Staunton (Va.) Church of the Brethren in Shenandoah District.
David Gullman has written an appealing new book that weaves together personal stories and reflection on the transformation that can occur when we welcome people with developmental disabilities into our lives and our faith communities.
Lorna Bradley’s new book, Special Needs Parenting, offers needed emotional and spiritual support for Christian parents raising children with disabilities.
It is an unfortunate truth that children and adults with chronic medical conditions or disabilities are at increased risk for abuse and neglect. Some churches establish a protection policy to help ensure safety for the congregation’s children and youth.
Only as an adult did I fully realize I had a disability and what that would mean in broader terms of life and work. Living in the “big world” has challenged my beliefs, perception of self, and outlook on life. In this stage of life, I am grateful to have found a community of believers that welcomes me and helps me along life’s journey.
Josue and Norma Vazquez Maldonado were anticipating the birth of their third child, six years after their second daughter was born.
Everyone has gifts to share! Every summer, the Church of the Brethren provides opportunities for people to serve, worship, and have fun at workcamps.
This fall I visited with a pastor at Marion Mennonite Church in LaGrange County, Indiana. Only forty minutes away from Elkhart by car, the trip reminded me of traveling back in time or to another country as I carefully maneuvered around the Amish buggies sharing the roads.
Accessible Gospel, Inclusive Worship, by Barbara Newman offers a plan, or process, for including people with disabilities in the church setting.
We were sitting in the teacher’s lounge eating our lunch. I, and the two young adults with me, were taking a break from our on-the-job training. I was learning that Alex had a real love and knowledge of the online game, My Little Pony.
Growing up can be hard, but when you have a developmental disability it can be even harder. This summer, I got to make one small part of life easier for a few children with developmental disabilities.
After I moved to a retirement home, a friend asked where I attended church services. “Sometimes I go to local churches where my former grade school students lead in worship,” I replied. “Other times,” I added with a wink, “I go to the wheelchair walker united church.”
If you find yourself on the website of Beaver Creek Church of the Brethren, you will see the work of Doug Wood, photographer, a church member in his early thirties. When Doug, who is on the autism spectrum, took his camera to church in 2007, he was simply doing something that he had come to love—taking pictures.
In her recently released book, Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church, Sarah Griffith Lund reveals her own family’s devastating experiences with mental illness, and her personal search for spiritual truth.
For many pastors, depression can be a companion that accompanies their ministry in secrecy and shame. As Gary Lovejoy points out in A Pastor’s Guide for the Shadow of Depression, one in seven pastors will experience depression while serving a congregation.
The board of directors for Anabaptist Disabilities Network is pleased to welcome Kathy Nofziger Yeakey to the role of executive director for ADNet.
Cincinnati Mennonite Fellowship’s new addition replaces an outdoor stairway and second floor entrance. A fully accessible entrance complete with a lift is out of sight, just around the corner.
David Anderson also makes the Word of God the foundation for his book, REACHING OUT AND BRINGING IN: Ministry to and with Persons with Disabilities. This book encourages followers of Jesus to intentionally include individuals and families who are affected by disabilities in our faith communities.
In October 2014, Timothy Burkholder, ADNet Executive Director announced plans for full retirement at the end of the year.
As we grow older, we find that we gradually develop disabilities. In the church they may escape the awareness of others and often are dismissed as an inevitable part of growing old.
Every week, Natalie comes to church, women’s Bible study, and other weekly activities. Although born blind, this does not stop Natalie from participating in various ministries in the church: from helping with crafts in the summer Vacation Bible School, to leading worship, to energetically participating in a prayer meeting.
Working five days a week, alternating between a packaging company and a local woodworking shop, Darryl has shown me first-hand the positive effects of working a steady job.
Mental illness is “the only illness in the world where you never get a covered dish!” remarks mental health advocate Joyce Burland.
Edwin Cardona Guzman and Jazmin Guzman Carrillo married young, and they were happy to start a family. When their daughter, Jeimy (now 18) was born with Down syndrome, they worried about the hurdles she would face.
Supportive communities can make an enormous difference for families struggling to cope with autism, a sometimes-baffling condition that runs roughshod over parents’ expectations and dreams, and shapes family life in unimagined ways.
Death can be a terrifyingly mysterious thing, especially when it happens in unexpected ways or to the most vulnerable people like children.
Every day, then, I am giving the choice: whether to enter into my disability and share my life with them or whether to stay on the fringes as an ableistic person who sees myself as somehow better.
In 2003, Seattle Mennonite Church initiated a hospitality program for homeless residents in their Lake City neighborhood. Since then the program has blossomed into a comprehensive ministry combining practical assistance with empowering companionship.
We at Anabaptist Disabilities Network express our deep appreciation to College Mennonite Church (CMC) for the rent-free space they provided us over the past decade.
“I feel like I have become a bionic woman,” Christine says with a smile. “I get up in the morning and I put on my eyes; I put on my ears; and I put on my teeth.”
I met Bridget at breakfast on Wednesday, on my third trip to the annual Summer Institute on Theology and Disability, this time held in Chicago.
In communities that struggle ecumenically around who can and cannot receive communion, the tradition of washing one another’s feet has become a sign of true Christian unity. I
My life has been filled with experiences of reaching out those who are affected by disability. All of them are important. My stories below do not even come close to describing all of my life-shaping experiences for this type of ministry.
Christine Guth’s understanding of the word “human” shifted as her understanding of her autistic family members grew.
Our family needed help in responding to paranoid schizophrenia, an unwelcome intruder into our son’s life. We needed others who could come alongside us, who were willing to share our burdens, help us overcome obstacles, and encourage us.
