How can Canadian churches “build back better,” or—more accurately—create a “new normal” after COVID that’s healthier than the old? I would simply, and strongly, recommend one strategy that works for us at the IDRC: just ask, just listen.
Imagine what it could be like if pat answers, out-of-context bible verses and Christian clichés were ruled off-limits at church. What if saying you’re ok when you’re not ok wasn’t ok in the church?
I am limited in my humanity to understand why it took me 37 years to find my husband, and why it took me 9 years to learn teaching was not for me, but I also know that in those times of waiting the Lord was doing important work.
Even as a young child, I knew I could call on Jesus in my distress and I knew without a doubt that he was there.
Jesus loves me more than anyone else could. Jesus accepts me as I am. and he is always making me better.
... people with disabilities are often marginalized as well. Long before Christian Horizons articulated our vision that ‘people who experience disabilities belong to communities in which their God-given gifts are valued and respected’, Jesus helped others see our crucial need to belong. He makes it possible for people to belong.
Including people with disabilities can be an opportunity for creative disruption in the church and other places in society.
Well I finally did it. After three years of using this thing, I capsized my wheelchair; with me in it.
"I was born with cerebral palsy which makes it challenging for me to speak or use my arms and legs. ... It is difficult for me to express my thoughts and ideas to people who do not know me very well because many do not understand the way I talk or type. This takes patience and practice."
One of my fears is that we are losing the ability as a society to help someone who experiences a disability or is suffering in some way, because we are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing.
