Dr. Steve Grcevich sits down and interviews Dr. Lamar Hardwick on his new book How Ableism Fuels Racism. This is Part 2 of a 3-part series!
Listen Anywhere You Find Podcasts!
Steve Grcevich: Hello everybody. I am Dr. Steve Grcevich. I am the president and founder of Key Ministry and I am delighted to be joined on the podcast today by our co-laborer and good friend Dr. Lamar Hardwick, AKA, the autism pastor. And we are continuing a conversation that we began last month based off of questions that I had on reading Lamar's recently published book, How Ableism Fuels Racism. This is the second book in a planned trilogy. If you have not read Disability in the Church and if you are interested at all in the field of disability ministry, I would very much encourage you to purchase that book too, because I happen to think that it's probably going to be the most impactful thing written in the disability ministry field for at least the next 10 years. And Lamar has some phenomenal ideas in terms of how he thinks about disability ministry and how he integrates the importance of that with scripture. So that I would very much encourage you to purchase that book along with the second book in the trilogy, How Ableism Fuels Racism.
And so when we had begun our conversation the last time, what we were doing was that I'm just firing away questions at Lamar, things that came up when I had an opportunity to read the book. And one of the things I want to ask you about, because I think there was a very important theme that cuts across the whole book, but in particular you emphasize this near the end, you talked about the importance of how individuals with disabilities, families impacted by disability, want to be pursued. And so could you talk a little bit about, what do you think it looks like in the church that is intentional and deliberate about pursuing persons with disability?
Lamar Hardwick: It's another good question. I'll start by saying I said that because I started to realize over the last several years of doing this work and being fortunate to be a partner with Key Ministry in a lot of ways and seeing the work that we're doing at the conferences, is that we do a lot of work and we should be, on preparing for families with disabilities. And so we teach, we train, but I think in that I found that there's a lost sense of the attributes of God that doesn't just prepare or I use the language in the book of 'tolerate,' even though that's not what we're doing, but there's a pursuit. And so you constantly see Jesus telling these stories about the kingdom and about what God is like. And in those stories, God is a pursuer, right? He goes after the lost sheep, the woman sweeps the whole house for the lost coin. The father runs out to meet the prodigal. He's a pursuer, not just a preparer. And so one of the things that I wanted to do is say, in addition to us being prepared, let's pursue, let's make families impacted by disabilities and individuals with disabilities feel pursued. So I think one of the ways that we do that is we take a hard look at some of the things, and I say this when I say the church, I mean the church universal, especially in the West. Let's look at some of the ways in which we have maybe unintentionally pushed them away and try to reverse engineer that.
So a big one would be, we kind of touched this in the previous conversation about ADA. And many people are now aware that the faith community, the church, has lobbied against or lobbied to be exempt from that. And I think that has always been a pretty poor witness of what it means to be Christ's followers and to mimic the attributes of God who pursues. And that decision was the decision I think that pushed us further away from the disability community. What I would love to see is some sort of declaration that can cut across denominations and affiliations and just say by the church that represents Jesus Christ and follows Jesus as our Lord and Savior to say, we, the church messed up and we repent. And we realize that that pushed us away. And I think that would be one step in reverse engineering the things that pushed us away from the disability community and helps us to make 'em 180 and start pursuing.
I think that would go a long way. But also I think on a individual level, community by community, church by church, is a look at what are some of the things that we may currently or in the past have unintentionally done that have pushed people away and then reverse engineer that. So if it has been not being prepared, if it has been not having the proper signage, it has not been making them a focal point of our evangelistic efforts, how do we do that? And some of that also means resourcing. I would love to see churches demonstrate their love for this community by putting some real dollars behind it and resourcing in the same way that we quote, “market” and try to draw in families to our churches with activities for youth. We have sports programs, we have scouting, we have all sorts of things that we resource because we want to draw people in from the community.
How many of those things can we reallocate our dollars toward and resource programs that specifically target and pursue the disability community and put real dollars behind it as a way to say, we want you there? And then lastly I'll say is to look at some of the organizations in our community, some of them para-church organizations, some of them other organizations that have been doing this work that do actively pursue the disability community. And what can our role be in bringing the light of Christ to those organizations by flooding those organizations with volunteers or representatives of our church, those who represent Jesus in the gospel and say that we're going to go to where the people who are impacted by disabilities are going to be served. Because a lot of times they're not necessarily coming to the church to get their needs met, but they are going to organizations in our communities.
And so how can we, in addition to all the great things that we do, we flood our homeless shelters with volunteers. We flood our hospitals with volunteers. We flood other places with volunteers. How can we do the same? One of the things that I taught years ago, Steve, and a message about the Good Samaritan was the person that we don't talk about is the innkeeper. The innkeepers were almost akin to tax collectors. People didn't trust them because they were always ripping people off. But this innkeeper, he took care of this man on the road who was, if not permanently, temporarily disabled by being beaten and was willing to do it on credit because Samaritan says, if this is not enough, I'll come and pay you later. But the thing I taught in a message years ago was that an innkeeper who sets up an end on this road from Jericho to Jerusalem knew that people were always getting beaten and robbed because everybody knew this road was dangerous.
So for him to do that, he knew that there was a chance that there were going to be people who couldn't pay him. And my point in the sermon was he set up his ministry on the part of the road called life where he knew people were always getting taken advantage of. And I think that we should do the same in pursuing people. How do we set up ministries for the disability community on this road called life in places they need help. They need to be loved on and cared for. And sometimes that means going out in the community and pursuing them and setting up our ministry in places where they frequent. How do we flood our schools with people who can go in and support parents when they have IEP meetings? How do we flood our hospitals and clinics with people who can just be a support for families who are wrestling with insurance issues? And so we're very good at placing ourselves in other positions in our community where we know people need support, but to feel pursued is for the church to show up in places where people are the most vulnerable in the disability community and say, we're here and we're pursuing you. We want to be in relationship with you.
Steve Grcevich: So until very recently, you were lead pastor at a couple of different churches. What was the single most impactful way that the churches you led pursued individuals and families impacted by disability?
Lamar Hardwick: I would say, wow, that's a great question. I think it was our connection with the school system because no matter how you slice it, there's lots of great organizations, but the school system knows which children and families are impacted by disability. They have IEPs on them. And so while they can't divulge all of medical information, those types of things, having a great relationship with the school system, a great relationship with the teachers and the counselors and those who have first touch contact with those families went a long way because it introduced those families and those schools to us as a resource. And so just doing things like one of the churches that formerly led, we had a fairly large facility, and so a lot of the kids who were part of the special education program, they would bust 'em out to do different projects.
Our church was a site where I think it was once or twice a month, we'd get two or three busloads of kids from special education, and would come in and just help our children's ministry do papers. They would cut out all the crafts for the kids for Sunday. I mean, our church was filled with kids from the school system with disabilities who loved to come to our church and help set up the rooms for Sunday. But then those are conversations that they would have with their parents, and they felt pursued. Even though they were coming to us, they felt pursued because they were adding value to what we did at our church. They felt like, this is our job. We have to make sure that everything is ready, all the snacks are prepared and put in the little baggies. All the cutouts are done, the crayons are organized, and they would also help clean and spend time with our children's pastor. And so they felt pursued because they felt like, this is our church. This is a part of what we do and who we are. And they have those conversations with their parents, but that also let the parents know that that was the place where their children were safe, but they were valued,
Steve Grcevich: Their gifts and talents were valued and that there was a place for them.
Lamar Hardwick: Absolutely. And so parents started to show up to say, Hey, well, this is a place where I know people are trained and people can come alongside our kids and they're valued, and that would be the highlight of their month. And the parents never stopped hearing about it. So I would say there's many ways, but I think that was one of the most significant ways because again, even though they had to come to us, they felt pursued because we set up once or twice a month opportunities for them to feel valued, to feel like they're making a contribution.
Steve Grcevich: If I could just add something to that, that as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I am perhaps in one of the professions that is least impacted by Christianity in North America. And I will say that, when I think about colleagues who in general I think are rather hostile to the gospel message, there is nothing that makes them reexamine. They're thinking about Christianity more than when they see our churches stepping up to care for and support kids who are vulnerable and their families. When the Cleveland Clinic is calling my office, because in their developmental pediatrics clinic and in their psychology and psychiatry clinics, the families are coming in talking about the respite care that they're getting for kids at different churches throughout northeast Ohio that really more so than anything else, I think challenges them to rethink their assumptions. So I think at the very same time that we're doing things to pursue folks in the disability community, that goes a long way toward changing perceptions about the church in other parts of the community as well. And to follow up on that a little bit, one of the things that, and I was thinking that, well, if you want to make it four books, that this is kind of sort of a teaser for another topic that you could develop at greater length, getting at the worship of perfectionism, in the church.
And can you talk about that a little bit? Because when you think about, and this is a lot of what we serve with the Key Ministry or these oftentimes larger non-denominational churches where you come to a worship service and everything is characterized by very high production value. Can you talk about that a little bit and whether that's something that's a problem for the church and as a result of that, this sort of desire to have high production values, do we end up excluding people from being visible as part of our worship services, performing as part of the worship theme, having more visible places in the church to be able to serve? Can you talk about that and how do we overcome that worship of perfectionism without, at the same time sort of going in the other direction and looking like we're virtue signaling by maybe putting folks in positions where there are other people who have greater gifting, let's just say?
Lamar Hardwick: Yeah, I think a couple things with that. I think that sort of the worship of perfectionism I talk about, I think in maybe it's chapter three, we talk about beauty and desirability and all those types of things. And I think a large part of that is the ongoing residue of the seeker sensitive, sensitive movement, which was a specific strategy to try to get non-church goers. And for the most part, I get it. I understand that. But I think it morphed into sort of church being this production that I think has taken away from the sense of congregationalism that used to be more important in the church, which is this idea that even back in the day before we had the smoke and the lights and all these things and churches was more congregational. It was more about all of us lifting our voices about all of us clapping our hands, reading scripture together.
And so you found that there was less production and less production communicates the idea that we're not looking for perfection because congregational church is not rehearsed, the participation of all of the saints, all of us coming together. And so I think what we substituted and moving to more of a production is that we started to resource, we started to professionalize some of the things that used to be done even in the New Testament. And Paul says, everybody should come with a song, a hymn, or a spiritual song. And I think we professionalized that to the extent that it created a culture to which where, and this is kind of how I was raised, when I first understood that came into the seeker sensitive movement in the church that I've previously pastored and we sort of did away with a lot of that stuff when we became more serious about disability inclusion.
But the phrase I was always taught was, we want to produce a distraction-less worship experience. Well, that's kind of a pseudonym for, we don't want anything unsightly or unattractive to distract us from this production. And so that can mean a lot of things. Yes, I understand that we don't want to have gaps in technology and those types of things, but I think it silently and subtly produced this idea that we needed to professionalize and to perfect the worship experience. And by doing that, we eliminated Congregationalism, we eliminated the opportunity for everyone to participate. And so we'll just throw the words up on the screen, but only the people on the stage can have mics because they are the professionals. And so we don't really want to hear you sing. We don't want to hear your children cry. We don't want to have certain things that are distractions or unsightly or unattractive.
And I think what that does is, is it subtly communicates to people who already feel, especially if they're not Christians, who already feel unwanted and unattractive in certain ways. It sets up a whole atmosphere to where I'm not sure that based on the production value and the way that this church runs, that there will ever be a place for someone like me who the world has already told is unattractive or unsightly or I could be a distraction because of my disability, my inability to walk or my outbursts because I'm autistic. All those don't seem to fit, and it doesn't have to be exclusively said. I think that's what I wanted to get at in that chapter when I said that the church doesn't necessarily support what used to be called the ugly laws, which were laws that were designed to keep unsightly beggars and unsightly people with disabilities off the streets.
Those were actually laws in our country years ago. We don't have those, and we don't exclusively say that, but by professionalizing and creating these productions that are distraction-less, I think we unintentionally communicate. We don't want anything there that's going to take away from we say God, but ultimately the reality is we don't want anything that's going to take away from the production. And I think that's part of the problem. I love to kind of go back to the old-school where churches were very congregational, where we just cracked the hymnals open and we all sang. There was nobody on the stage, the deacons, whoever would stand in front and read the scripture. It could be whoever. And it was less polished and less rehearsed. And yes, somebody's going to sing off key, and yes, somebody's going to mispronounce something in the scripture, but that created an environment that was more congregational, more inclusive of all people, all levels, all abilities, all educations, all economic levels.
When something is professional, you sort of narrow that down to a certain group of elite people who are allowed to lead. And that just sort of filters out into the culture of the church where everything has to be perfect, everything has, and we start to sort of worship that, not intentionally, but it becomes, I talk about the creation of idols in this church. It becomes a idol in a way where I've served at churches to where there'd be whole meetings about somebody who pronounce a word wrong or something was spelled wrong on the screen during a lyric. And it's like, okay, it's not that serious. We're here for Jesus. We're not here to craft this perfectly produced concert and Ted talk, right? We're here to worship and to be empowered and to be discipled. And so sort of is just saying, let's rethink that and kind of even maybe go back to some congregational ways of doing things where everybody feels included.
Steve Grcevich: So I mean, if we're going to be doing true confessions here, one of the places where we wrestle with this doing a Disability & the Church Conference, it has to do with different performers during our worship that you and I, we've been to conferences where someone with an obvious disability will be given an opportunity to get up and sing. Would we do that for a person who didn't have a recognized disability, but obviously maybe singing on a stage or teaching in the midst of a weekend worship service would not be their area of spiritual gifting?
So part of how we've tried to address this is if you think about Delnora Reed the last couple of years, and Lori Sealy this year, these are folks that, Nora has been very open in terms of talking about some of her issues with ADHD, these are both professional recording artists. Lori's been very open in terms of writing about her experience as a woman with autism. Can we address this by treating, thinking about folks with disabilities as having specific gifts, but making sure that we use them in their areas of giftedness? Because there've been times that I've gone to these conferences and maybe there've been some people who've been performing who aren't quite as gifted, but it seems like it's more of one of these, look at us, look at how inclusive we are. And in some ways maybe exploiting a person who, if it were not for them having an obvious disability, that they're being put in a situation where that's not really sort of where their gifts and talents lie. And I don't know what your thoughts are about that or whether we need to, when we think about this for 2025, whether we need to change our ways in terms of how we think about even dealing with that at our conference.
Lamar Hardwick: No, I totally agree. I think, and this is what I have said at churches sometimes when I talk to 'em, I guess if you would call it consulting, is I tell them, I don't advocate for church. I advocate for churches to do what you do and do what you do well, but consider the barriers that are placed on people with disabilities being able to participate. And in saying that, when I say do what you do, it is, I think it is still right to help people serve according to their gifting, to what they are gifted to do. I think anything outside of that is, like you said, it becomes more about the organization. And so I'll just say this, it's still a production if you move outside of that because what you're trying to do is to create this perfectly curated moment where you produce a moment in the service to show how inclusive you are, right?
And so in a backdoor way, it's still a production, right? Because you know that there's an agenda behind that and there's a purpose behind that. And so this moment in the service is going to be curated as such to promote this idea about how inclusive we are. And so for me, I think it still comes from the same heart as what I just previously talked about, if it is something that is not exclusive to that person's gift or even their desire to serve in that area of ministry. And then the last thing I'll say about it is that it also speaks to our lack of creativity and being able to find places for people with disabilities to serve according to their gifts. Because when a church is very production focused, it's very narrow in its descriptions of what ministry gifts look like and how those are to be utilized in the worship experience.
And so we're far less creative, right? Because this is a production. We do have a cue sheet. We do have all these things that need to happen at this time in that time. And it doesn't allow us to think creatively like, okay, we do have this child with Down syndrome or this adult with Down syndrome or this person and they don't sing or they don't do this, but what are other ways that they can help serve in the worship experience? And so I think moving away from the production allows us also to get a little bit more creative about how we can use people and help them to serve according to their gifting, because we don't have these narrow ways of doing the service that require things to be produced perfectly. So I can have a whole team of ushers or a whole team of greeters from disability ministry.
I can have scripture readers, I can have all sorts of things. And just because they can't sing or they can't play an instrument or some of the narrow ways that we do the production, doesn't mean that they can't serve. And those different areas of ministry when we're creative don't require it to be perfectly curated or produced. And so I think we just need to be more creative. But that happens when we lessen our reins on trying to produce something so perfectly that we eliminate a whole population of people. There's certain things that we did at our church where I don't need you to be ‘perfect’, I don't need the greeters to be perfect. I don't need the ushers to be perfectly curated. Do you need to be able to sing? Yes, we need you to be able to carry a tune. So that needs to still work.
But there's so many other areas backstage people. We have in one of my churches, we had people, we created a position called the Stage Manager, and their job was just to set the podium up when the worship team was done to take it off. When I'm done preaching, while I'm praying, if there are any props or anything. And that could be done by anyone. And sometimes they don't come out on time. Sometimes they do. But you know what? That part of the service doesn't need to be perfectly curated, but it gives opportunities, gave opportunities for our younger people with disabilities to say, okay, your job is just to bring out the music stand, and then to take it off or to turn off the lights when we do a video. Or sometimes the light goes off halfway through the video sometimes, but you know what, that's fine. It gives them something to do, and it doesn't have to be perfectly curated.
Steve Grcevich: Anyway, we will go ahead and wrap things up today. Again, I'd like to thank Lamar Hardwick for joining us and to remind you to check out his book that we've been discussing How Ableism Fuels Racism available from Baker Books or Amazon, and I'm sure from many other locations that people purchase their books for online. Lamar, where can people go if they want to learn more about you and your ministry and other resources that you have to offer?
Lamar Hardwick: The best way is my website, which is autismpastor.com There you can find how to contact me. There's links to my books, other articles that I've written, and all my social media accounts are also on there. So that's the best way to find out what's going on with me and how you can purchase any of the books that I've written.
Steve Grcevich: Anyway, Lamar, thanks so much for taking the time. I look forward to our third and final segment that we'll run next month. And again, I'd like to thank everybody who listens to and downloads the Key Ministry podcast. We very much appreciate your support and would encourage you to check it out if you haven't had an opportunity to yet, the first segment of this interview that I've done with Lamar, which ran last month, as well as the interview that Lamar did with Catherine Boyle in late February that came and was intended to be time with the release of the book. Again, thank you for your support at Key Ministry and I look forward to talking to you next month.
