Acceptable and Accessible Churches with Chris Hulshof: Podcast Episode 036

In this episode, Sandra Peoples is joined by Chris Hulshof. Together they discuss the importance of churches that are both acceptable and accessible to those with disabilities.

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Quick Links:

Chris Hulshof’s Instagram

Jesus and Disability by Chris Hulshof

All Access Disability Ministry Conference

Transcript:

Sandra: Hi friends, I am so excited you're joining us today for episode 36 of key ministry the podcast. Today I have a special guest to talk about the importance of having a theology of disability as the starting point of your ministry. His book, Jesus and Disability shows how Christ was an example of inclusion. Excited about our chat today. Welcome, Chris Hulshof to the show.

Chris: Hi, thank you for having me it's. It's good to be here.

Sandra: Yeah, it's exciting. I'll tell our listeners that you and I have already been chatting for a little while and talked about so many different things that this just feels like an extension of what we've already been talking about. So this. Is going to be fun. So we have been friends on Instagram for a while, but really, this is like the first time we've had a real conversation. And so I know your passion for theology for disability. I know your passion for 80s music and 80s cars and 80s fashion.

Chris: Yes, all things 80s.

Sandra: Yes, that's so fun. So tell us a little bit about you and your family and your role there at liberty.

Chris: OK, so let's just talk about the 80s thing first. I love to tell people all the time I count it one of the blessings of God to have grown up in the 80s and to have spent, you know, my high school years in the 80s. So that's that, and so it's a little bit nostalgic. Anytime I come to find something I'm like, oh I had that. Or oh, I wanted that! That and now I can afford to have it, I’ll usually pick it up.

So I met my wife here at Liberty. We have one son, his name is Connor. He was born with infantile epilepsy which basically means that he was born having seizures. We went through a couple of years of medicine, diets, basically everything you could throw at seizures to get try and get them in control, but all of the bad brain tissue that was causing the seizures was on one side of his brain. So that gave us the opportunity to have brain surgery that basically would remove 1/2 of his brain and that would stop or control the seizures and for the most part. He still has a little bit of an aura here and there, but he doesn't have the brain situation anymore to allow it to spread—so it doesn't control him. 

So that's sort of how I got involved in disabilities and in this disability community, especially with how churches are or are not ministering to those who are disabled. Having you know, being involved in a number of churches—just seeing what's there—seeing how churches do ministry, whether it's a ministry that works in disability circles, whether it doesn't, so that's sort of how I got involved in that. It led to me working on a doctoral degree that was specifically tied to a theology of disability. And the book, Jesus and disability. And it also is kind of what I do here at Liberty University. I teach a class called Theology of Suffering and Disability. We spend the first six weeks talking about suffering. Why do we suffer? How do we help our friends who suffer? What does the Bible say about suffering? Just what is it? What does this look like—the reality of suffering, and all that's involved with that in a broken world? Then we spend 2 weeks talking about the image of God, what does it mean? How does that relate to suffering, and we use that even to go forward into disabilities? I use it sort of as the bridge between suffering and disabilities, and we take 8 weeks and talk about disabilities and the theology of disability. Good theology is practical theology. So what does it look like? To practice theology within the church. As far as disability ministry, my undergraduate degree is in Church Ministry. So I approach everything with a sort of church ministry aspect. If it only works in the classroom and it doesn't work in the church, then it's not good theology. Good theology is practical theology, so what does it look like to live that out outside of the walls of the classroom and in the church? It is a neat opportunity. I sometimes think it's a little awkward of a title, Theology of Suffering and Disability because not all suffering is a disability. Not all disability is suffering. Yeah, that's usually kind of how you see those two topics together. So the suffering section will help us as we talk through the disability section of the class. It's a great class—I think it's a great class, at least. It’s always full of students and I set the prereqs for the course pretty low so that if any student, either you know a family member or disabilities are something they were familiar with and wanted to be involved in learning about, that the course prerequisites didn't prohibit them from taking it. Same thing with true suffering. Someone who's going through something. You know, and they wanted to be a part of the class. I didn't want the prereqs to be so high that they couldn't be a part of the class. So the benefit of doing that, is I get students from all over the university as part of the class, so it is great. I had a student who was an Architecture major. She was studying architecture and I asked, "why did you take my class?" She said, "I want to be able to design—if I'm ever asked, I want to be able to design houses and hospitals and things like that, that are disability-friendly and that is disability-inclusive, and I think this will help me, kind of, think that through."

Sandra: Wow, yeah, she's developing empathy. Yeah, that's so cool. That's really exciting, you know? Well, it's cool because you have like developed this theology of disability that helps you in ministry. But you and I are both parents, and it's important for us as parents to develop a theology of disability too. I mean, it really kind of guides how we see our kids, and how we raise them, and what God's purpose is in our families even.

Chris: Yeah, to have to think that through, not only as you're communicating it to students, but as you are living it out and you know, teaching it and talking about it with your son, and in my case, with Connor and helping him at you know, wherever he is, what does it look like to understand who Jesus is and what Jesus has done? And how to use theological language that somebody like him, with his cognitive impairment can understand.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah it's important and I don't think everybody—people who are new to it, whether they're coming at it, they're they have a child with a new diagnosis or they're in ministry and they're thinking about serving people with disabilities for the first time—I don't think they know how much the Bible has to say about disability. I mean really, from Genesis to Revelation we are seeing God's design and purpose for people, and that includes people with disabilities. Like throughout all of Scripture, and also in your book, Jesus and disability. You focus on Jesus's interactions with disabled people. Can you tell us why that was kind of the catalyst for your book, why you chose to focus there, and what prompted you to write about it specifically?

Chris: Yeah so, my original hope was to kind of do something bigger. And the first chapter kind of talks about how this is sort of an updated version of a dissertation that I had put together. So I had to narrow the focus down and so more specifically then instead of "OK, what does the Bible say about disabilities?" It became "Alright if Jesus and the redemptive narrative of scripture is the focus of scripture—if the Old Testament points forward to Jesus Christ, and then when you read the Gospels, they're talking about who Jesus Christ is—crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended. And if they're talking about Jesus in that way, then what can we say about Jesus and disability?" Since this redemptive thread runs through it and so my plan was to take the most amount of content that we had and as it relates to Jesus and disability. So I specifically looked for the miracle stories that were covered in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the Synoptic Gospels, and then any of the miracle stories that were included in John. But then they had to be Healing stories that were healing because of something we would say was a disability. So when Peter's mother-in-law had a fever that was not obviously one, but something that we would look at today and go, yeah, we would see that as a disability. So how did Jesus what was Jesus interact like that? And were there any markers in what he did that showed that Jesus was an inclusive leader? And what is inclusion as far as a biblical perspective of inclusion? And then how did Jesus demonstrate that? And then how did he pass that on to his disciples so that as he left them with the message, the Great Commission that the churches that they started were disability-inclusive churches?

Sandra: Yeah, that's really cool. I love there are so many examples from Jesus's life of his heart for people with disabilities and just kind of changing what had become normal customs at that time. Especially when you think about people with disabilities not having access to the temple, and not having access to the community that forms around the rhythms of the temple. Jesus came and broke down those barriers. That was one of the really cool things he did and so I love that you looked at a lot of those situations and helped us put ourselves in those stories and what we can learn from them.

Chris: Yeah, historical and cultural context is really important, especially when you're studying Scriptures. I think it's one of the things that we often do when we read the scriptures, we think of it in terms of our day before we think of it in terms of their day, right? And so what we don't consider is, what would it been. What would it have been like to be an individual with a disability back in those days and not have the modern conveniences we do—not have wheelchairs and accessibility and not have those things? We think about it in terms of our day. We pull the passage and we immediately kind of yank it out, and put it an hour day versus going wait, what does it look like in their day? Let me understand that first. And then I can talk about what it means to us today. Because now I understood the passage as it was to them.

Sandra: Yeah, that's really helpful. So I picked up your book the other day because I was writing specifically on the paralytic man who was lowered through the roof by his friends and I was kind of drawing some parallels on how ministry leaders can be like those friends, right? Like they're we're bringing people with disabilities to Jesus, and that man was forgiven and healed. So I was rereading it in Scripture and then pulled out your chapter on that and really loved some of the parallels you were making in the history, like giving us the context for all that was going on at that time. And all the things that they overcame. So I love that ministry leaders today can learn from that and say "we should do everything we can to provide access for people with disabilities." And so what did you learn when you were writing that chapter specifically that just encourages you in ministry?

Chris: I think one of the things that that I kind of resonate with out of that chapter, is the way in which these friends were all in for helping him, right? If you contrast it to John 5 with the man who's abandoned by the pool, who has no friends, who has no money, he's just there by himself. This guy's the opposite—he's got, people. Rather than just going "hey, sorry we're just going to leave you here." Here's a guy with some friends who go, "no, we're not going to leave you there we are going to take you to Jesus." And then not only with the way the friends are, but the way that Jesus approaches him—the friendly language that Jesus uses—so that yes, this guy had friends that brought him to Jesus, but when he meets Jesus, he finds a friend in Jesus. The way in which Jesus interacts with him is not, one of "wow, this is an interruption—this is in the middle of like everything." This is Jesus and He sees a man, you think you've got four friends, but now you got one more, I'm a friend too. And the way in which Jesus interacts with them, and I think you see, you can talk about–It might be a little bit of a stretch, but you could talk about accessibility first, right? Like these guys, whether their homeowner liked it or not, they just made their house accessible for this man.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: Right, but what they found is that not only were the friends acceptable, but Jesus was acceptable, right? And so oftentimes what I think happens in the church is we're one of two. We may be accessible. You know, we've got the ramps and we've got the parking and we've got the elevators, and we got the bathroom stall, we got the blue sticker stuck to the window. We are an accessible building, but the people inside aren't acceptable.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: Like so the building—it says the building says "come on in" to individuals who have a disability, but once they get in there they find that the people in there are not acceptable towards those who have a disability—or it's the opposite. The people are acceptable but they just don't know what to do as it relates to accessibility. And I think, to some extent, you can look at the story and say, "This has the earmarks of both accessibility and acceptability." I want to work so that there is accessibility so that my friend can see Jesus. And in Jesus you find friends first that are accepting of this man's condition—they're not leaving him by himself. But then, you find in Jesus not only someone who is acceptable, and it and not acceptable as in like "OK, I guess." But as in "friend". When you think of two areas that you could kind of center church ministry around in talking about accessibility and acceptability, you see that, I think, in this story.

Sandra: Yeah, I love that. As I was thinking about it, I was kind of thinking about the age of those men, you know. And I pictured them as—like you teach young people, my older son is 17—like I could see my son David coming up with this plan like, "yeah, we're gonna cut a hole through a roof and we're gonna..." You know, whereas my husband, in his mid-40s, is not coming up with that plan right? I just love the optimism, the overcoming of obstacles like these friends—and that's what kind of makes me think that—I wonder if they were they had been a friend group and some kind of accident had happened. And like you said, they didn't turn their back on the friend and then they bring him to Jesus, and man, I just love that picture of friendship. And then you're right like finding an even better friend, I mean, as good as those friends were, Jesus is an even better friend to us. He finds that and he says your sins are forgiven and get up and walk, and so he finds everything he's looking for in his friend Jesus. And in that new relationship.

Chris: Yeah, and he and I would suggest he finds even more than he was looking for. You know he finds not only physical healing, but he finds spiritual healing as well, and the way in which that spiritual healing sort of is a marker for those around to go "this is the Messiah." And it's one of the reasons why I like John's gospel. Because John is so very clear. These things that Jesus is doing, they're not miracles, they're signs. And if you pay attention, you can't miss that this is the one that the prophets told us about, that this is the one.

Sandra: Right?

Chris: And I always teach the gospel of John class here on campus, and I always called John "the Neon gospel" because you know, where Matthew and Mark and Luke are painting in primary colors of reds and blues—I don't even know if those are primary colors—but painting in those primary colors. John is painting in like Neon Pink and Dayglo orange and fluorescent green. He wants you to go "look, this is Jesus. He is the one we've been waiting for. He is the promised one. He is the one the Prophets wrote about." He doesn't want you to miss it. And so where? All the other gospel writers are like, well, these are miracles. John's, like "Nah, these are signs. These are way more than miracles, these are signs." And so you see, even bits and pieces of that in the other Gospels and the Synoptic Gospels, where you know this, this dual healing of both physical healing and spiritual healing are designed not only so this man knows who Jesus is, but the religious leaders can't help but now go, "OK, he heals somebody and he forgives sins, but only God can forgive sins."

Sandra: Right?

Chris: "So what's going on here?"

Sandra: Yeah, yeah. Because even in that story the Pharisees are like—they're grumbling, they're thinking, and Jesus calls them out. And he says what? "Which is harder to say, your sins are forgiven or get up and walk?" And he really doesn't answer it. He kind of leaves that floating, you know? And for us to think well which is harder is it? Is it healing? Or is it forgiving sins? And because it's a sign and not just a miracle, it's a sign of his power over sin over disability, and over death. Eventually, we will see his power over everything.

Chris: This little in-breaking of the kingdom right? Where you can see it's not—it's not Jesus suspending something, it's the in-breaking of the Kingdom. So that the order that once was, you can see it fully restored, and so it's even in that story. It's our glimpse into our eternal home where disability isn't a part of the picture anymore. And so even in these healing miracles that involve disabilities, it's our opportunity to catch just a glimpse of what our eternal home looks like that will be disability-free.

Sandra: Yeah, yeah, it's exciting. Well, another favorite of mine, both as a parent and a ministry leader is John 9. You talked about John being neon when Jesus and his disciples encountered the man who was born blind and many of us are familiar with that passage because the disciples asked Jesus why he was blind—if it was the fault of the manner of his parents. And Jesus responded that it wasn't because of sin, but was so the works of God would be displayed in him. I'm excited to tell our listeners that you were going to be the keynote speaker at an online conference that's happening in February called All Access, and it's a conference that we have down here in the Houston area. Every other year we do it online. This is an online year, and you're going to be our keynote speaker, and you're going to be speaking on that passage from John 9 in your keynote address.

Chris: Yeah, John 9 and John 10—I love the Gospel of John and there's so much in John, but John especially John 9—especially the guy in John 9! I tell my students all the time, I hope that—we don't have his name right? Like he doesn't have a name. So I'm hoping that when I get to heaven, he has a "hello, my name is" sticker on because I want to meet this guy. And he's such the opposite of the guy in John 5. Because the guy in John 5—every time the guy in John 5 speaks, it's just excuses—everything he says is an excuse. This guy defends Jesus even before he sees him.

Sandra: Right.

Chris: Like Jesus, and I think it's strategic the way that Jesus heals him by sending him away from him—from Jesus to wash his eyes, and then they come back so he's not seeing Jesus at all. And as a matter of fact, you almost even get the sense that he doesn't even remember what Jesus sounds like. Because when Jesus catches up with him in the temple and they have this, you know discussion about the son of man and the son of David and who Jesus is, and they have that discussion, he doesn't, he "tell me who he is!" Yeah, well, like he hasn't seen him so that makes sense. But even in this discussion now he has with Jesus, he's still "oh wait, this sounds like the guy," Sandra: Yeah.

Chris: He still doesn't, but he's already defended him before the religious leaders, and so there's something about the way that this guy defends Jesus without even seeing Jesus. That meant I don't know who the first apologist is, but in my mind, it's this guy, right? Like he's the first apologist, in his defense, because he goes to the religious leaders and he walks through like "OK, let's talk about what we can agree on all right?" And he'll list three or four things that we can agree on based on the scriptures. Yes, OK, so based on that, the only conclusion we could draw about Jesus is this, and they go, "oh, we're cornered," and then their only response is now to attack him and they go "you were steeped in sin" and in some sense they're answering the question the disciples asked, right? You were born in sin, and so they just attack him and it's Jesus who will then not only meet the man, he'll pursue the man and meet him in the temple. But not only will he meet him, but then he will also then address what the religious leaders did. I think that one of the connections we often miss is that John 9 and John 10 go together, right? There's no—unfortunately for us, we get a giant #10 in the middle of this in this thing—but it really goes John 9:1 through about 10:25 or somewhere around the 10:21 I think, is where it ends. And that's the whole, that's the whole narrative. That's the discourse, right? And so this the discussion that follows that we're real familiar with the Good Shepherd discourse. Why is it that Jesus Gives the Good Shepherd discourse? It isn't because he looks around at the crowd and goes, "Wow, what am I going to talk about today, huh? Looks like we got some shepherds out here, so let's talk about sheep and shepherds."

Sandra: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: He gets to it because He is fully aware of what the religious leaders did. Rather than caring for the sheep in Israel like they were supposed to do, they're just like the bad sheep that Ezekiel warns about. He says, "look, you guys aren't good shepherds, you're bad shepherds. And here's the difference," So then he explores that theme with them. Then he draws it in even further and says "I am the Good Shepherd," and I think when we look at that we can draw some points of emphasis on how Jesus talks about himself as a Good Shepherd, and then what that means for—and I talk about it in terms of disability leadership, but I think it's just in terms of church leadership. What does it look like to be a disability-effective leader? But it's also what does it look like to be just an empathetic church leader? I think you see that in how Jesus frames out the Good Shepherd discourse as a response to the religious leaders who, rather than caring for the man, just cast him out and said "no, get out of here" and they throw him out of the synagogue and he's got no. Even that in itself is completely—if you think of being thrown out of a church, you go OK, well, you know, there's like five others in my town, so I'm good. But they don't have that. You get thrown out of a synagogue, there goes your religious life. There goes your social life. There goes—if you got a business—there goes your business life, right? So there's so much involved and so rather than them celebrating what Jesus has done and embracing the work of Jesus, they just throw the guy out and say "no, we're done with you."

Sandra: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. I think we can all learn from the empathetic leader, you know, and learn how to shepherd people well. Whether we're children's ministers or disability ministers, or head pastors, we can all learn from Jesus's example of being the Good Shepherd and showing that pattern for us. So the tickets for the online conference actually go on sale today! So you can learn more about it at allaccesshtx.com. The link will be in our show notes! And my podcast cohosts Beth, Catherine, and the Key Ministries founder and President Steve, Doctor G Steve—they'll all be breakout speakers. We're really excited about the opportunity for this conference and that everybody listening can show up because they don't even have—I mean, I love to travel. I love being in Houston in February, right? Like we can still go to the beach or go to the pool if we wear enough layers while we're doing it. I love to have people here on the years we have it in person, but this way nobody has to travel and they still get to hear all of the good content that will be involved. So we're excited about it. Excited to have you as the keynote speaker!

Chris: I'm excited to be a part of it!

Sandra: Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be really fun. All right, Chris, thank you so much for being with us today. It was a helpful, edifying conversation. Hopefully, it has encouraged everybody listening as much as it has encouraged me today.

Chris: Well, thank you. I enjoy being here. I enjoyed our discussions. I enjoyed the time that—the first time we've actually gotten to talk to each other through a camera and through a computer versus just on Instagram.

Sandra: I know, I know, Instagram is pretty fun though. Like yeah, the first time I was talking about you to somebody else and I didn't know how to say your last name, I actually called you Chris Hasselhoff, like from David Hasselhoff—which felt like a good tie-in for like the 80s nostalgia that you bring. I think in my mind all of those things went together and I was like "Ohh that's it, right?" And I was like "No, that's just well..."

Chris: If you look at my Instagram name that's sort of how that came about because we had a guy on campus who worked in one of the offices here, and he always called me "the Hoff," that and so that's exactly.

Sandra: Oh, funny.

Chris: So that's exactly how that happened. He took my phone because he said "are you on Instagram?" I said, "No, I'm not on Instagram. I'm barely on any social media!" And so he took my phone and created the Instagram account. So it looks like it's Das Hoff is what it is—basically because he called me "the Hoff," so that's how you weren't too far off because that's.

Sandra: It wasn't far off!

Chris: That's exactly, that's exactly how it happened.

Sandra: That brain pathway was working with the same logic that your friend—

Chris: That's right.

Sandra: Alright, well we'll put your Instagram handle in the show notes so people can find you there and connect with you. And especially so they can see more about the classes that you teach and all that you have going on. That's just really what I love— when your students comment on some of the posts that you do, and you can see and tell what they're learning, and how they're growing. Even just their comments that encourage you also encourage me because I'm like "they're getting it! This next generation—they're getting it." And it just is really energizing for me and exciting.

Chris: Yeah, it's super encouraging to see a group of students who are excited for "what does it look like to care for and minister to and create a community of faith where those who are disabled aren't marginalized and on the outside, but are active participants in the full body life of the church?"

Sandra: Yeah, yeah, that's really—this new generation there, I mean—I'm just so optimistic about the world that they're going to create for our kids. 

So well, friends, I hope you'll get a copy of Chris's book Jesus and Disability, wherever you buy books. We'll have the Amazon link in our show notes at keyministry.org/podcast, so you can grab a copy there. Thank you for listening and make sure that you hit subscribe and like so that next week's podcast with Beth will show up on your phone next Thursday and you can learn from her as well. So thanks again for your time, Chris.

Chris: Thank you for having me.

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