When I am weak, then I am strong

Since my previous post, I've been to see a couple of people connected with Prospects; studied the DVD-Rom, 'Opening the Doors' made for the Archbishop's Council Learning Disability Working Party; and read The Strength of Weakness by Roy Clements. This book is an exposition of 2 Corinthians, approached from the perspective of Paul's repeated assertion that God's preference is to use those who utterly depend on him, rather than those who are 'strong in their own strength'. The title of this post is taken from 2 Cor, 12.10, which follows shortly after the famous 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness' (v 9).

In other words, it isn't simply a case of saying that the church needs to be nice to people with learning disabilities. Our call is to so include all people that we might grow together in Christ, discovering more about Him from one another, and thus being more effective in our evangelism and mission. Making the church more inclusive means taking seriously the comments about accessibility in my last post. A small example from Stephen Cotterill, Bishop of Reading: "I believe the songs from the Prospects groups have a lot to teach the wider church". How might each local church have its sense of identity enhanced by having its own congregational song? How much more attractive might our worship be to not-yet believers if we kept it simpler and more contemporary? What if Sundays were essentially about the various groups of the church coming together for praise and celebration, with the hard yards of prayer and wrestling with the scriptures being done in appropriate groups through the week? (Yes, I know, it's called Cell Church.)

Joe Halfpenny kindly showed me round Marion House, Bournemouth, to give me a glimpse of the other side of Prospects' work in residential and day care. Many of the residents are Christians, some because of the work of Prospects.

My sincere thanks to Andrew Mackie, Prospects Mission Development Co-ordinator, Central South. Andrew freely gave me of his time and energy in preparation, during, and at the end of the sabbatical. Over pizza, we were able to talk about what I'd discovered. I had found that, after all, the experience had not been so daunting as I thought at the beginning. It was good to spend so much time around people with learning disabilities.

Was God in it all? Oh yes. I rather sidled into this sabbatical, not at all sure how it was going to be of relevance post-retirement. It was about a month ago I discovered that the URC in the area where I now know I'll be retiring is already working with learning disabled people, and is planning to extend its ministry. I wait to see what He has for me!

If you want to discover more, you will find resources and information on the following two websites:
http://www.throughtheroof.org/
http://www.prospects.org.uk

Thanks for your partnership in my sabbatical.

Penultimate Post

My thanks to those who responded to my previous post. The funeral went well - thank you for your prayers - but for the purposes of my sabbatical, it meant that the main activity looking at issues around physical ability didn't happen. So the sabbatical essentially has been about the work of Prospects. I will summarise my thoughts about that in my next and final post.

However, I had always intended to reflect on issues around the church and physical disability, and the following thoughts will be fairly random. My primary concern is about making our premises accessible to those whom we seek to reach with the Gospel.

Hearing disabilities. Induction loops were already commonplace when I became a minister, but why is there so little signing? For profoundly deaf people signing is not only useful for the spoken word, but also for following hymns. I appreciate signing will only happen as people sense a call to train, but perhaps we are not encouraging this idea as much as we ought. There is anecdotal evidence that churches which use signers attract people who depend on signing. This is hardly a surprise.

Visual impairment of course comes in a variety of forms. In my first church, a lady who had been blind from birth joined us. We gave her cassettes (it was that long ago!) of songs she didn't know, so she could learn the words. We were also able to provide many of the songs in Braille. A church member recorded the content of our church membership booklet so she had the same information as the others in her membership group. The use of data projectors is of great benefit in improving the quality of worship and teaching, but the needs of people with serious visual problems, such as macular degeneration, need to be born in mind. Different conditions require different responses, so talking with people in the church is a good idea! Glare is to be avoided, no matter what the impairment. Fortunately, most screens sold today have matte surfaces.

Pews are not good for people with chronic back pain etc. A local church has wooden seats with no cushioning. Other churches have cushioned seats but with large gaps between seat and backrest, offering little support. Emmanuel, Worthing URC has a substantial number of seats (not just one or two conspicuous) with full backs - easily the most comfortable for people with a variety of pain problems. All of this is perfectly obvious, yet still churches make bad decisions about seating.

Often it seems churches fail to see needs, only reacting when legislation forces them to. How did people with physical disabilities get to some of our Victorian churches, accessible only via long flights of outside stone steps? One church I know installed an outside lift to respond to this. Unfortunately, it's slow and conspicuous - not attractive to someone thinking about beginning to attend church. A church I came across on this sabbatical was built above a supermarket, possibly in the 1970s or 80s. It is only reachable via a series of long ramps. My wife, for example, would be unable to reach the front door on foot and I would be unable to push her in a wheelchair. Again, what kind of message does that send to the people we are trying to reach with the Gospel? The church I currently serve was built on two floors at the beginning of the '80s. There is no lift, and it is difficult or impossible for our wheelchair bound people to transfer to the stair lift, thus shutting them out of all events on the upper floor. There is now nowhere a lift could be installed..

I'm well aware that lack of finance is an ever present factor in deciding how to make our churches accessible to people with physical disabilities, but I wonder whether we care enough. A friend tells of a recent conversation with the leader of a church with poor access for wheelchairs. The leader's view was that there was no problem as they didn't have any wheelchair users in the congregation. Mmmm.