Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 28 July 2020
Disabled people and the Church - Moving from Access and Involvement to Inclusion
Disabled people’s experience of Christianity
Tweeted on 6th December 2019 by Gregory Mansfield
Stranger to me, a wheelchair user:
”If you believe in Jesus and seek forgiveness, you will walk again.”
Disability is not sinful.
Disability is not faithless.
Disability is not a punishment.
In July 2020, Tim Rourke started a one-year project to help the diocese, deaneries and churches in the Diocese of Derby to listen more closely to the voices of deaf and disabled people.
These voices include people in our churches, people who have been in our churches and left and people who have never felt that church was a safe place for them.
Tim works is involved in a pioneering community in Chesterfield called Holding Space.
They enable people affected by disability to meet with God in inclusive, accessible ways.
There is a group for disabled children (Saplings), disabled adults (Struggling Saints) and a group for carers (Solace).
This community also connects with people who don’t identify as disabled, but live lives affected by physical and mental health conditions and learning disabilities.
Tim also runs a weekly Biblical Reflection on Twitter (@Strgl_St_Bible) where, each week, readings are discussed through the lens of disability.
The reflections are always led by a disabled Christian, but anyone is welcome to join in.
Tim says: "When we studied the Trinity Sunday readings it became clear that similarity and difference are both vital to community – In the disabled community on twitter we experience a sense of togetherness and not fitting in that draws us together but the range of illness we have means we are different, but support one another."
Disability Inclusion Working Group
Tim is drawing a Disability Inclusion Working Group together to help him to listen to voices across the diocese, in our churches and beyond, to research with them models and theologies of disabilities that will help us examine how we currently engage.
The group will advocate for deaf and disabled people and provide training and encouragements for Christians in the Diocese of Derby who want to be more inclusive of people with different life experiences to their own.
It begin by finding out what is happening in churches across the diocese, who provides ministry to disabled people and how they encourage disabled people to respond to God’s call.
We also want to find out where Christians are engaged with groups that work in our local areas to support disabled people and how disabled people’s needs are integrated into local churches in their planning for mission, discipleship, worship and fellowship.
So what can you do to help…?
If you, or someone you care for, are deaf or disabled or have a life that is affected by long term physical or mental health conditions, please contact Tim to discuss how you might be able to help the Working Group.
This is especially true if you have an invisible disability as the current group is made up, largely of people who have problems with mobility and pain and wheelchair users.
If you are a member of a church community, or a deanery synod, Tim would like you to reflect on your expectations of deaf and disabled people in church.
Are they people who need to be cared for, or people who care for you? Are they disabled by their impairments, or by the expectations or limitations we as a church put on them? And how can we listen more to disabled people in our lives and have them lead us into discovering more about God.
Rachael Brooks: ordained deacon in September 2020 - ordained priest in June 2021
Do I need to wear a collar in order to be the bridge God is calling me to be?
My name is Rachael Brooks and I live in Derby with my husband, Andrew, and our son, Isaac.
I encountered God and gave my life to him at the age of 14.
Soon after, I experienced a sense of calling, although I didn’t recognise it as such until much later.
I met my husband, Andrew, at Nottingham University.
We both got jobs in Derby, me as a teacher at a junior school in Chaddesden and Andrew as a doctor on the Derby hospitals’ GP training scheme, so moved here when we married, in 1991.
We quickly found ourselves at the church which has been our home ever since - St Alkmund’s, Derby.
This is the place where my faith has deepened and matured, where I’ve found and given prayerful companionship through the ups and downs of life.
It has provided many roles in which I could serve and develop the gifts God had given me.
A few people over the years suggested I consider ordination but I always dismissed the idea that God was calling me to that.
I didn’t see myself leading a church.
In 2013, I was strongly advised by someone I looked up to to ‘have a go’ at Chaplaincy and, if I liked it, to explore ordination.
I started a voluntary role with Derby City Centre Chaplaincy in 2014, serving at a vocational training college for a few years and then at the council building.
This chaplaincy role seemed to fulfil what prayer had begun to reveal was my calling: to be a bridge - between God and the community.
A friend had a picture of me as a sparrow around this time.
The particular quality she felt God was drawing attention to was that sparrows alight gently, unobtrusively.
She was a bit apologetic, sparrows aren’t the most beautiful or rare of birds.
But I began to see that this also fitted with being a bridge: finding the people he wants to me to alight gently beside and to show his love.
The issue for me in considering ordination was ‘do I need to wear a collar in order to be the bridge God is calling me to be?’.
As I prayed and reflected I remembered those moments during chaplaincy in which I found myself thinking how I’d love to be the one to baptise the people I was walking alongside. Diocesan and national selection panels eventually ensued and I began training in 2017.
During my training at St Hild Theological College, God has stretched and challenged me further.
He’s done this through the rich community life among the students and staff and through precious times of worship: at the Sheffield site, at Mirfield and at Durham cathedral.
And through my church placement.
My calling was confirmed beyond question for me at the funeral of Rev’d Ian Mountford, in January, when in her address, Bishop Jan told us something I didn’t know - that the word ‘priest’ means ‘bridge’.
I’m so pleased to be undertaking the curacy phase of my formation adventure at St Peter’s, Littleover - the parish we happen to have lived in for most of the 29 years we’ve been in Derby - and St Andrew’s, Blagreaves.
Starting during lockdown is rather disconcerting, but it’s an opportunity to learn new skills and work creatively with God and the Church to bring the peace, love and freedom of God into a unique situation.
