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.
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