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.
Isolation has affected all of us. Racial tensions, struggles, and division in our country has affected everyone in America. We are all a little broken right now. As a pastor, it is hard to build up people when you cannot function. Recently, the amount of mental strain it costs me to function “normally” and put on a brave face is extreme. But I have returned to the point that I can rely on what I know instead of what I feel. Here’s how you can, too.
As I spent much time on bended knee, tending to this little girl with her endless needs, I experienced deeper worship than I’d ever known. I often found myself at the end of my own strength and skills, and I learned to depend much greater on God. Without a spoken word, she’s taught me more about Jesus than any sermon I’ve ever listened to.
