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!
“I shared my family’s hurt and pain of feeling excluded and unaccepted by the very church that I, as its pastor, am called to love and serve. I shared offensive words shared with me regarding my autistic son’s needs. I shared how these actions created a wall between our family and the church. We felt unwelcome.” Shannon Blosser shares about church hurt, and where the church can grow.
“I am disabled. For years that was so hard to admit. I couldn’t mention out loud my neurodivergence. I whispered about my post-traumatic stress disorder, insisting ‘I’m better now.’ I was a champion for the disabled who didn’t want to talk about her own disabilities. It was disingenuous, but I didn’t know how to come to terms with the fact that I was disabled. I was still scared that admitting my disability publicly would convince people I was not able to do anything.” Joanna French writes on her experience with disability.
In this episode, Lamar Hardwick examines how our theology influences disability ministry and how the experience of disability influences our understanding of God, faith, and life. We will talk about how understanding disability doesn’t begin with having all the right answers, but how understanding disability requires that we ask the right questions.
Beth sits down with Doc Hunsley, the founder and executive director of SOAR Special Needs Ministry, who will be leading a Ministry Intensive at the Disability & The Church 2024 conference. Doc shares his personal journey of becoming involved in disability ministry as well as his passion for helping churches take the next step towards disability inclusion. Doc's Ministry Intensive – Disability 101 – will cover various aspects of starting and enhancing a disability ministry, including volunteer recruitment, training, programming, and curriculum. Plus Beth learns a fact about Doc that she never would have guessed.
As a disability ministry leader, do you ever feel like you are caught up in a “Bigger or Better Party?” Do you find yourself comparing the ministry God has given to you with the ministry work of others? Have you ever found yourself longing for your ministry work to be bigger or better? Or, perhaps, both bigger and better? Steph Hubach writes on ministry envy, and how we should put on love.
