Then the pandemic hit and everything moved online. Our church hosted multiple online ways to connect: Zoom calls, online teaching, podcasts, Instagram and Facebook communities, virtual camp, book clubs, park meetups, subscription boxes and more. I could fully integrate into the life of our church community and it was wonderful.
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.
“Draw the circle wide. Draw it wider still. Let this be our song. No one sits alone. Sitting side-by-side, draw the circle wide.”
Inshallah Choir has welcomed people of various genders, ages, races, ethnicities and musical abilities. It is now a place where at least 130 singers belong.
The wide range of less privileged guests Jesus adds to the VIP list: the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, serves as an indication that interacting with a wide cross-section of the diverse people that God created and loves is important to becoming Christ-like.
In today’s world, people with disabilities are largely ‘othered’, and there’s movement of self-advocacy afoot among them. There’s no telling what can happen when people unite across differences.
What if I told you that the Christian church has been silencing a prophetic presence in our midst?
Are we deliberate in our own lives to welcome someone with a disability to our table? Are we careful to recognize that person by their name, who they are, rather than their disability?
"Just come, just get here." Sometimes, the best first step is invitation. Who knows how many people don't attend on any given Sunday simply because no one has asked them? The video below, from Harvest Bible Chapel in Oakville, Ontario, is an excellent example of an invitation for families with children with special needs. It also goes [...]
1 Corinthians 12: 12-26 Paul writes to the Corinthians that our unique gifts, especially the gifts of those that appear to be weaker, are indispensableto the healthy functioning of the Body of Christ: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need [...]
