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.
When we see the presence of a disability in the New Testament, we are exposed to some very important Kingdom of God values that are essential in the Christian life and in the life of the local church. The value in having leaders with disabilities in our churches is that the church will remain intimately involved with the type of ministry that expresses the heart of God’s kingdom.
Recently, a homeless stranger approached me for assistance to feed himself and his son. We discussed many things in our brief interaction before I said to him, “You matter, and you are a person.” His response stood out to me: “It feels good to be thought of as a person.” In that encounter, I practiced Companionship, something that can be offered to anyone we encounter.
The church generally seeks to be a place of acceptance and care; we want to ensure that we look after all God’s children. But we must go further than caring for, we must acknowledge and encourage the gifts and talents that God has given to all His children, and that includes those with learning disabilities.
Keep listening to the voice of God as you ask: What gift has this person been given by God that might benefit those around them, and especially the Church? A person just being present is a gift to those around them. Who are we to judge who can and cannot have a relationship with God, or who can and cannot serve Him?
