Beyond Accessibility: Toward Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Faith Communities - Softcover

Webb-Mitchell, Brett

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0898696410 ISBN 13: 9780898696417

Verlag: Church Publishing, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

A church has built an accessibility ramp and perhaps refitted its restrooms to accommodate a wheelchair. Now what? This new resource by a noted author of several books on people with disabilities offers a theological and practical approach for congregations, with clear, targeted strategies for full inclusion of all members, recognizing and using the gifts that each member brings to the congregations life together.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Brett Webb-Mitchell is an author, educator, and minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He leads pilgrimages in the U.S. and abroad and is the founder and director of the School of the Pilgrim. His previous books on people with disabilities include God Plays Piano, Too; Unexpected Guests at God's Banquet; Dancing with Disabilities, and with Diane Archer, Sacred Seasons.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

BEYOND ACCESSIBILITY

Toward Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Faith CommunitiesBy Brett Webb-Mitchell

Church Publishing

Copyright © 2010 Brett Webb-Mitchell
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89869-641-7

Contents

Acknowledgments................................................................ixPART ONE Images for an Inclusiveness Community................................1Chapter One • Introduction: Beyond Accessibility..........................5Chapter Two • The Church: The Body of Christ..............................27Chapter Three • Gifts, Talents, and Services..............................43Chapter Four • Moving toward Community....................................57PART TWO From Acceptance to Full Inclusion: The Practices.....................69Chapter Five • Hospitality and the Stranger...............................75Chapter Six • Accessibility and Acceptance................................93Chapter Seven • Inclusion and Gestures....................................113Chapter Eight • Practicing Love...........................................133

Chapter One

Introduction: Beyond Accessibility

"People react weird to people with disabilities like me," said Rich, sitting comfortably in his modern electric wheelchair. "They act like a disability is something they can catch, like it is infectious. At church, most people are unable to get past my disability. They stare not at me but at my disability." I sit in the taupe Lazy Boy recliner directly across from him. While I am not sure if I can separate a disability from someone's personhood—anymore than I can separate gender, race, or sexual orientation from someone's personhood—I think I get the point: people look at his wheelchair and his body sitting in the chair—with a brace supporting his head, and the limp position of his left arm, hand, and legs—rather than at him. From time to time during our conversation he casually moves one of his two fingers on his right hand onto the space-age control pad situated on the right armrest to adjust and readjust the wheelchair to a height and reclined position that is comfortable for him.

From where I sit in his family's large, austere living room, furniture pushed aside to make it easier for Rich to move around in his wheelchair, I silently admire his chair and the technology behind and in it. His chair is incredibly sophisticated in all its electronic marvels; even the ergonomics are intriguing to my naïve eyes. While I study and admire the chair in the comforts of his living room, I quickly remember a time in my life when wheelchairs were not so sophisticated.

At the time, I was working in my first position as a music therapist at a state hospital for children and adults with multiple physical, emotional, and developmental disabilities. I would push children in larger-than-life metal wheelchairs, that were universal in size and not made to fit any human body per se, through cheerless, cluttered hallways of a state institution—called a hospital back then—for people with developmental disabilities or, as it was called then, "the mentally retarded." Not surprisingly, the generic wheelchairs often did not accommodate the small bodies of the children. In response, carpenters on the grounds made some rather crude physical adaptations to the basic wheelchairs without changing the chairs themselves. The challenge for the carpenters was to craft chairs for children of all shapes, sizes, and disabilities. For example, carpenters added a fascinating array of cushions and pads to fit the shape and requirements of children with microcephalis (unusually small head and underdeveloped brain), hydrocephalis (unusually large heads because of the build up of fluid inside the skull, leading to brain swelling), and sometimes for young people with almost paralyzing cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, or other physical disabilities. The strategy for building a customized wheel chair usually involved taking a basic wheelchair—it seemed that all that was available in those days were big, medium, and small sizes—adding a pad to separate the legs so that they wouldn't rub together, and then attaching a large "S" shaped pad in the back to protect the patient from further scoliosis or curvature of the spine. At the top of the chair the carpenters usually affixed two large padded mounds that looked like lollipops on a stick, making it possible for a person to be angled in such a way that their head would fall backwards onto the blue plastic-covered cushion rather than falling forward. Automobile seat belts were attached to the metal frame to keep the child in the chair. There were no electric chairs at the institution. An electric wheelchair like the one Rich sits in today was, at that time, a dream for the future, a la "Star Trek."

The future is today.

I've been to Rich's Dutch Colonial style house several times over the year because he is a member of the church where I am interim pastor. He is also one of the "shut ins," a category given to those people who are not able to leave their homes easily. Usually this category means those who are elderly and infirm. In this case, Rich is not elderly (he is my age, after all, and I'm not elderly), but he is infirm. Rich has made it to worship only once in the last year since I've been interim pastor—Christmas Eve to be exact—so, along with another Elder of the church, I bring Holy Communion to his home from time to time. My bringing him the elements of Holy Communion at home is easier for him and his family. Since Rich has become more limited in the use of his limbs because of his multiple sclerosis (MS), it often takes a great deal of effort to get Rich out of the house and into the church. Such an adventure—even though the church building is only a few blocks or roughly a half-mile from the home—takes Rich and his family some time to get him dressed, get him into the van, get him out of the van, get him into the church, and get him down the aisle to the place where there is a half-pew space for wheelchairs.

So I bring Communion to Rich, and in our time together I realize the truth behind Jesus' promise: wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there (Matthew 18:20). The Spirit of Christ is in our discussions about life, God, and the Church, and in sharing Holy Communion with one another.

Our discussions of topics related to the Church in particular, and Christian life in general, are not a stretch for Rich. Rich is a "P.K.," an abbreviation for what we in the church business translate as a "Preacher's Kid." Rich grew up in New Jersey, raised in a home where his dad was a minister in the Reformed Church of America and his mom was the minister's wife and a nurse. His mom, now deceased, was initially annoyed that Rich hadn't asked Jesus to heal him. Rich tells me that he did ask to be healed but, well, sometimes for no rhyme or reason these things just happen in life.

Today, Rich is married and is a proud father of three strong-willed, creative children, and grandfather of three. Rich had a successful career as a hospital administrator for most of his life, having worked at the nearby community hospital before multiple sclerosis progressed to such a point that it now controls most of his body.

Rich's perspective on living with a disability is not sugarcoated or draped in a romantic, faithful banter that minimizes the pain of living with a chronic disease and physical...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Church Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0898696410
• ISBN 13: 9780898696417
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland