Supporting Families with Village Eulogia (Guest Post)

The awareness for the need to support families with children with disabilities is what motivated me and other members of the core team at Village Eulogia to found this organization. Over the years, we have been working to strengthen relationships between couples, parents and siblings, and parents and children with disabilities. As we work alongside the families, we began to experience disability as a gift from God. Through disability, God taught us more than we ever imagined.

Friendship Festival (May 14th 2016, Oakville)

When I attend Friendship clubs and meet friends, mentors and volunteers at our festivals, there’s a sense a contagious joy and excitement that’s hard to put into words. As people arrive for a meeting, some friends are loud and talkative while others are quiet and reserved. But everyone radiates a message of belonging and acceptance.

It’s Hard Not to Stare. It’s Even Harder to Really See.

The strength of this book is the way in which it portrays people with all kinds of disabilities so that various differences in appearance and ability may not seem so strange. It suggests that we should look with our hearts and that the desire to understand someone's appearance or abilities should be motivated by kindness. This principle is reminiscent of (insert Scripture reference?) Which says, "people look at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart."

Sesame Street, Autism, and your Church! (video)

Thanks, Sesame Street for striving to "see amazing in all children," and helping to contextualize such an important biblical truth, that is, the value of embracing differences. As people of faith, may we be reminded that God sees amazing in all children as well as in all people. Further, may this be cause for the church to celebrate the different gifts of every person.

No Excuses – In Memory of Judith Snow

When I approached her, she asked me what my dream was; I said, "I want to be a motivational speaker!" She replied, "So why aren’t you?" I proceeded to list off various obstacles including, lack of credentials, lack of an accessible vehicle and lack of an agent. To my surprise she did not offer me solutions. She said, "Great, you know what the problems are; now all you have to do is get a group of people together and find a way to solve them."

What is Disability Ministry?

Does disability ministry require its own staff person or volunteers? Does it require its own room and time to meet? As a parent of two children with autism, I would just assume that any church that we attended would provide ministry even if there were no other children with special needs. It would never enter my mind that ministry would have to wait until “critical mass.” I am not criticizing churches that have organized disability ministries that have specific events for large groups of people with special needs. I am just saying that is not the only form of disability ministry.

Webinar Series on Supporting Spirituality and Inclusive Congregational Supports

In January, the National Collaborative on Faith and Disability will launch the new webinar series: Honoring Spiritual Needs and Gifts: From Inertia to Collaborative Action by Providers and Congregations. The series will run monthly, from January-June (excluding May), and will be free and available for viewing via Adobe Connect. The first webinar, “Including Spirituality in Assessment, Evaluation, and Person-Centered Planning Processes” takes place on Monday, January 26.

Creating a Culture of Inclusion for Churches (Video)

Creating a Culture of Inclusion for People with Disabilities is a series of 8 vignettes of real life situations in the First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, MI that is meant to be a study resource for faith communities.

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