Elaina sits down and talks with Lisa Jamieson from Walk Right In Ministries about family caregivers, the holidays, and ways the church can better support them.
The training, content, gatherings and experiences that we’ve created for pastors, church staff and ministry volunteers produced with the assistance of like-minded colleagues serving in disability ministry have become our principal service. So much of what we’re able do to help churches welcome and support families, we accomplish by bringing together experts from other ministry organizations.
November is Caregiver Awareness Month. As someone who became one of my dad’s caregivers before I started school, I grew up thinking everyone in the world was aware of caregivers and caregiving. As a young adult my husband and I cared for a son born with a life-threatening medical condition, and his typical sibling. As members of the sandwich generation, my brother, sister, and I cared for our mother for 15 years after she was diagnosed with dementia. This explains why, when I first heard that November is Caregiver Awareness Month, I was incredulous, and I still am.
In this episode, Lauren Hickman shares her personal journey and calling to disability ministry, describing how God has guided her every step of the way to serve families impacted by disability.
In today’s episode, Sandra talks about the challenges small to normative-sized churches face in disability ministry and shares how the churches she’s been a part of have overcome these challenges.
We’re supporting this project because persons with disabilities are disproportionately represented among children and adults who embrace non-traditional gender identities and leaders serving in disability or mental health ministry will greatly benefit from a deep understanding of gender and sexuality from a Biblical perspective.
After all my years of teaching middle school special education, specifically a significant disabilities/autism class, you’d think I would have learned by now that some of my best-laid plans were the last things my students needed…especially when it came to making friends. I personally believe that many of the social skills activities I’ve done with my students and my own children have been a great benefit. Our kids need the training and support we provide through role-playing, social stories, and other activities, but at what point do we take our hands off and give control of those friendships to our kids? Letting go of that control can be scary.
