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.
This week Elaina, from Key Ministry, sits down with Sergei Marchenko, Lead Pastor of Chatham Bible Church, and Special Needs Parent. They discuss preparing for the holiday season, church inclusion, special needs parenting and more!
David reminds us in Psalm 139 that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made and that the works of God in us are truly wonderful. David helps us to understand the value of life because he reminds us that God knew us and formed us and designed us for his glory. In this week’s episode, we reflect on that Biblical truth and how the church is called to celebrate God’s wonderful works in all things, including disability.
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!
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.
Strength in Numbers is a slogan that not only helped create a winning culture for an NBA team, but it also echoes the message from Scripture in Ecclesiastes 4 where a “cord of three strands is not easily broken.” In this week’s episode, Garett Wall examines how strength in numbers and the cord of three can serve as the foundation for helping your church build a pathway to belonging for adults with disabilities.
