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.
As a senior pastor, I often tell my congregation, the church is “the ongoing witness of Jesus Christ in a broken and hurting world.” When we think about the church and the disability community, we often think about what the disability community needs from the church. I wonder, though, what does the church need from the disability community?
Each summer, our Shine Disabilities Ministry team hosts Camp Freedom, which an action-packed weekend where campers with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities experience summer camp in a way they most enjoy. The blessings and the memories and the logistics from the event always leave me asking “How did we do that?” But as we see through the ministry of Peter and John in Acts 3-4, we didn’t do any of it. The Holy Spirit did it!
Blockbuster movies and summertime are as American as baseball, fireworks, and apple pie. However, one recently released movie addressing human trafficking is generating significant cultural conversation. Here are three ways churches be equipped to support individuals who have experienced human trafficking.
As Jesus was teaching a large group of people, including church leaders, four men made it a priority to find a way to take their paralyzed friend to the Son of Man. And through their faith, Jesus healed the man both spiritually and physically. In this week’s episode, Garett Wall explores what our churches can learn from the urgency and faithfulness of the man’s friends and how God is glorified in all of it.
As members of the disability community or the parents/caregivers who love them, we know the Church is not overtly welcoming. The right body of believers is out there, but they may not know it…yet. They may not even be able to understand…yet. But they will be willing to learn. Consider this your formal invitation to be sure of what you cannot see.
