Tag Archives: accessible to all (A2A)

Widening the Welcome is Coming!

by Rev. Kelli

Widening the Welcome 2013 Postcard

The Fourth Widening the Welcome: Inclusion for All Conference sponsored by UCC Disabilities Ministries and the UCC Mental Health Network. A Pre-Synod event will be held Thursday, June 27, 2013 in Long Beach, CA. 8am-8pm. Exact location to be announced.

Speakers will include Rev. Susan Gregg Schroeder, Founder of Mental Health Ministries and Rev. Kathy Reeves, Coordinator of the Ecumenical Disabilities Advocacy Network–North America, a program of the World Council of Churches.

Save the date, more details to come!

I am coordinating this event. I will also be offering the following workshop at the event:

Spiritual Care for Persons with Disabilities and Those Affected by Serious Brain Disorders Associated with Aging

This workshop is a multifaceted look at providing pastoral care to people with disabilities (PWD). This workshop will provide disability culture and awareness information that all professional pastoral care providers should be aware of in providing pastoral care to PWD. This workshop will touch on some historical ecumenical responses to disability, particularly the shift in ethical responses to disability that affect care provided. Finally this workshop will address providing pastoral care to persons affected with dementia, relying on first and second hand accounts as available. (Developed for professional pastoral care providers, and accessible to lay people.)

United Church of Christ Disability Ministry Board—new member is also a WWSIC!

by Rev. Kelli

Today I got word that I have been invited (or is elected the word?) to join the Board of the United Church of Christ’s Disability Ministry! Something like this has been on my mind for a few years now so when I was approached and asked if I would be interested my response was “ABSOLUTELY!!” I’d been waiting for it. Now all that being said, I don’t have all the details on this new position, yet.

Nonetheless, I am excited to further the work of inclusion and access for people with disability within the UCC and to work with the UCC Mental Illness Network. I have been working with some of these folks on the Widening the Welcome 2, disability ministry conference planning team this year, so I know I will be working with some wonderful people! So excited!

Since presenting a workshop on Accessibility to All (A2A) at Southern California Nevada Conference of the UCC Annual Gathering two weeks ago, I have been thinking about how to differentiate and express the specific inclusion needs of people with disability as distinct from “Open and Affirming” (ONA).  I have been thinking this because I spoke with a pastor at AG who did not see the need to become A2A because the congregation was ONA. It is clear to me how these are not the same and how one does not equal the other. There may be similarities in dismantling the social stigmas faced by GLBTQI people and people with disabilities but they can not be approached in the same way–I mean you don’t have to create curb or pew cuts to open yourselves to GLBTQI folks into your church, and you may need to do that to welcome people with disabilities. Also often times GLBTQI come to church looking to be accepted as part of the “norm,” whereas this is neither always a possibility or desire of people with disabilities and mental illness so the move to inclusion and accessibility is more nuanced than mere welcome and affirmation–it may mean helping the congregation interact with someone whose mental illness or disability may manifest as in a socially awkward or even anti-social way. I see ONA as a step, but it’s not all the way to A2A. I look forward to pondering how to more clearly convey these distinctions to my wider church community, and learning from the other members of this board!

Did I mention I also started a second ministry position with hospice this week? Oy vey! I’ll be needing to update the bio soon! First a nap!

Kelli to Teach Workshop on A2A at Annual Gathering!

by Rev. Kelli

Just want to let you all know that I will be teaching a workshop entitled “Widening our Welcome: Becoming Accessible to All (A2A)” at the Annual gathering of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the UCC on Friday June 3, 2011.

The workshop description is as follows: This workshop will explore the UCC’s historical commitment to including persons with disabilities. An explanation the 2005 General Synod resolution calling upon the UCC to become “Accessible to All” (A2A) and how congregations can work towards becoming A2A, as well as specific tools/skills to enhance how we welcome people with disabilities and their families will be provided. Please come learn and discuss how and why accessibility effects how we present our churches to others on Sunday mornings and throughout the week.

If time allows we may discuss what the UCC Disabilities Ministries (UCCDM) and UCC Mental Illness Network (MIN) are teaming up to do to further the discussion of accessibility and mission of inclusion within the UCC. Come learn about what our General Minister Geoffrey Black calls “a movement within the movement of the UCC.”

Details on this event can be found here. If you can not make this event but are interested in the content, please contact me. This workshop can be taken elsewhere for presentation.

UCC “Widening the Welcome” —Again…More ‘Firsts’

by Rev. Kelli

The UCC has a history of being a denomination of firsts! Thus, I lift up to you some new firsts that have occurred within the UCC. At the end of September approximately 300 people, from Maine to Hawaii, gathered in St Louis, Missouri for the “Widening the Welcome” Conference. It was the first UCC Disability Ministry Conference! It may have been the first disability ministry conference, ever. As I talked with other people in attendance it became apparent that this was also the first conference (religious, academic, or professional) that attendees could remember that brought the issues of mental illness/brain disorders and disability together for reflection, communion, and dialogue about the future of ministry and inclusion. In the disability and mental illness communities this gathering was rather a big deal!

Beside the breath-taking St Louis Arch that symbolizes what was once the gateway to new frontiers, UCC members, clergy, people living with and without disability and/or mental illness came together to reflect on the ministries of inclusion they were already involved with and to learn from one another how the local church might be more inclusive of people with disabilities or mental illness and their families. Keynote speakers included Dr. Sister Nancy Kehoe, a Clinical Instructor in Psychology who spoke about her experience integrating spirituality in the realm of mental health services and offered workshops on how this can be a practical and supportive ministry in local settings, and Dr. Debbie Cramer Assistant Professor at Iliff School of Theology spoke about disability theology. Rev. Dr. Jane Fisler Hoffman preached the importance of including persons, including clergy, with mental illness in our faith communities. Rev. Bob Molsberry challenged us to consider who the “guest” is and who the “host” might really be when we encounter people with disabilities in our churches. Rev. Peter Bauer was also a force at the conference reminding us that both traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress disorder are huge issues for soldiers returning from war and that this presents a challenge to clergy who “4 times out of 10” are the first professionals who people with PTSD may seek help from, as well as being a challenge for congregations that have members returning from war or congregations that are engaged in ministry to military families and personnel. There were many more wonderful discussions and speakers at the conference–this is only a sampling.

The Widening the Welcome (WtW) conference was important in content and more about that can be found at the conference’s website (below), but it was also important in fellowship. For the first time people involved in doing disability ministry, those involved with the academic writing of disability theology, persons with disabilities who had been included in the church, those with disabilities or family with disabilities who sought deeper inclusion in the church, clergy with disabilities, seminarians with disabilities, and their allies were all gathered in one place. It was a time to reflect on where the UCC really was thirty-three years after passing its first Synod resolution about including people with disabilities and where we have still to grow as local churches and as a denomination into our 2005 Synod resolution urging us to be churches “Accessible 2 All”. In fact, bearing witness to this gathering, our UCC General Conference Minister, Rev. Geoffery Black addressed the conference, saying that the Disability Ministry and Mental Illness Network of the UCC “are a movement within the movement of the UCC”. True to that statement, a small group of attendees met, post-conference, to plan what the UCC Disabilities Ministries and UCC Mental Illness Network will bring to the 2011 Synod and to start planning the next “Widening the Welcome” Conference for September 2011.

The ‘movement with’ the UCC to “widen the welcome”, again, has begun. Stay alert for information about the Widening the Welcome 2 Conference planned for September 2011. And, if you are wishing now that you had had the opportunity to tap into the vast resources the first conference provided then I offer you the following ideas:

  • The keynote addresses and individual workshops at WtW were recorded for distribution and are available on DVD; for more information on how to obtain these resources go to the Widening the Welcome conference website at: http://www.moredomainsforless.com/wideningthewelcome/index.htm.
  • Connect with the UCC Disabilities Ministries or the UCC Mental Illness Network, both have websites with lots of information; and Widening the Welcome has a Facebook presence you may join.
  • Get involved in disability ministry! The UCCDM resource ‘Anybody, Everybody, Christ’s Body’ is a wonderful resource for people who want to learn more or lead a congregational study on including people with disabilities, and you can download it for FREE!

Finally, if this is an interest to you, reach out! I would love to connect and work with people/congregations who are interested in disability ministry. Above all the UCC Disabilities Ministry conference highlighted that as a communion of local churches we are resources for one another in learning to continue to bring all persons on the margins not only into our doors but also into full participation with the gospel, our congregations, and our many ministries.