Friday, July 28, 2017

News and notes from AMD, 7/28/17

August DHM Newsletter
https://www.umdeaf.org/news/

The Power of Rest
http://mhn-ucc.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-power-of-rest-and-saying-no-by-amy.html

ADA anniversary:
https://theconversation.com/fulfilling-the-promise-of-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-81426

Minding your pastor's mental health:
https://thebanner.org/departments/2016/12/minding-your-pastor-s-mental-health


Disability materials from DMC, DHM, and AMD to share at your Annual Conference:
https://www.umdisability.org/conference/

Room at the table: Celebrating people of all abilities
(DMC community event, August 13)
https://www.facebook.com/DisAbilityMinistriesUMC/

As we approach annual conference season, a reminder about the amendment to Article 4:
http://umdisability.blogspot.com/2017/02/umc-article-4-amendment.html

Updated information: 4th Global Missions Conference of the Deaf
https://www.umcd.org/newsnat/1708.html



--

Click here for a list of events of interest to people in disability ministry.
UMAMD logo with the UM Cross and Flame and several disability symbols
This newsletter is generally issued weekly by the
United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities,
a caucus of the United Methodist Church.

Click here to join this e-mail list.
Visit us on the web or Facebook

Friday, July 21, 2017

News and notes from AMD, 7/21/17

GCORR video, "Welcoming People with Disabilities"
http://www.gcorr.org/video/welcoming-differently-abled-people-in-church/

Where is the church family? NYT disability series:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/opinion/ehlers-danlos-family.html

"Want to be loving? Learn more."
https://www.facebook.com/RobertVoreOFMH/posts/1805616519749767

Preaching and mental illness:
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=4937

UM Disability blog: The Ripple Effect
http://umdisability.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-ripple-effect-tim-vermande.html


Disability materials from DMC, DHM, and AMD to share at your Annual Conference:
https://www.umdisability.org/conference/

Room at the table: Celebrating people of all abilities
(DMC community event, August 13)
https://www.facebook.com/DisAbilityMinistriesUMC/

As we approach annual conference season, a reminder about the amendment to Article 4:
http://umdisability.blogspot.com/2017/02/umc-article-4-amendment.html

Updated information: 4th Global Missions Conference of the Deaf
https://www.umcd.org/newsnat/1708.html


--

Click here for a list of events of interest to people in disability ministry.
UMAMD logo with the UM Cross and Flame and several disability symbols
This newsletter is generally issued weekly by the
United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities,
a caucus of the United Methodist Church.

Click here to join this e-mail list.
Visit us on the web or Facebook

Monday, July 17, 2017

The Ripple Effect -- Tim Vermande

Broad Ripple UMC in Indianapolis takes part in a neighborhood festival every July. This year, as a fund-raiser for a suicide prevention group, the church presented a choral concert and included speakers about various problems confronting the city. What follows are from Tim's prepared notes, addressing the audience about living with a disability.

During the week, if you watched the news, you’ve seen us on the tube, on Facebook, and all the other places, or you’ve heard about it. People with wheelchairs are blocking hallways, empty wheelchairs are sitting in pathways, and people are crawling up steps or otherwise getting in the way to make a point about access, health care, and the infrastructure of getting around.

(Exaggerated voice): the crips are getting restless. Whatever will we do?

We have a word for that: ableism.

Is it a new word to you?

Ableism is the presumption that “normal” (whatever that means) is the way for everyone to go, while anyone who doesn’t fit that definition has “special needs.” It takes many forms, such as ramps that are too steep, congressmen suggesting that I should have made better health choices to avoid pre-existing conditions (sure, before I was even born), being treated more as a medical diagnosis than a person to be included in society, or not assuming competence.

So when asked to speak living with a disability here, I thought the best thing to do would be to keep a diary and go through some notes. Here’s some of what I came up with.
·         In the early years of school, the assumption that since I couldn’t walk well, I couldn’t learn, and the rationalization when I showed them wrong
·         Learning later that a degree in history didn’t make me qualified to teach it, since I can’t coach football
·         The job notice for a computer-based teaching job that required the ability to lift 50 pound loads and carry them up stairs
·         Other job interviews with hurried, barely audible discussion, sometimes followed by an embarrassed “let’s use this room” or “oh, we just filled that job”
·         The last couple of years, when I go to work, the guard meets me at the door, because it weighs too much for me to wrestle with opening it, and the power door has repeatedly misfired and tried to crunch my ankles
·         Like JJ in Speechless, a trip to the store means dodging the people who apparently can’t see me and walk into me, while others jump right in front of me in a hurry, like a track hurdle
·         Wondering what someone was thinking when they placed a floor-mounted grab rail right down the middle of the stall in a restroom
·         Restaurants that, despite a large number of empty and convenient tables up front, can only find us a cramped booth next to a drafty door off to the side
·         Other restaurants where the server asks my wife what I want. Her favorite answer a few years ago was “he’s a graduate student at … ask him.”
·         Ongoing struggle with a hotel chain that can’t figure out that a towel rack isn’t a grab bar, and it takes more than that to be accessible, or even that we reserve accessible rooms because we need them
·         Conversations with some friends who were they can’t join churches because the Bible states that “faith comes by hearing,” so Deaf people aren’t able to have faith
·         Conversations and my own experience with seminary students and pastors who state that I can’t “run the race” of faith or need to be healed to show my faith before I can join
·         Rooms whose doors are just an inch or two too narrow to get through
·         The notes kept of a committee meeting a couple of years ago by someone with an intellectual disability: the committee talked about a bunch of stuff, and we met in an incredibly beautiful room that showed God’s light in so many ways.

Sometimes we miss the forest for the trees. We are so caught up in differences and making up schemes to classify them that we forget that each of us shows God’s light in a unique way.

Or, as one of my favorite cartoons put it, a little girl asks her mother “what’s normal?”

She hears in reply, “Normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

Thank you.


Friday, July 14, 2017

News and notes from AMD, 7/14/17

     Mental Health Friendly Language:
https://www.robert-vore.com/blog/2016/10/11/4-language-changes-to-make-your-church-more-mental-health-friendly

Disability theology and health care
http://mailchi.mp/uchicago/sightings-213621

Not a problem to be fixed:
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-privilege-of-deafness-for-chantal-deguire-the-absence-of-hearing-isnt-a-problem-to-be-fixed/wcm/84caeed5-5c4a-4ea0-8b0c-9c657ce0b0bf

Turning design against stigma:
https://www.hearinglikeme.com/deaf-is-cool-fashion-brand-breaking-down-stigmas-of-hearing-loss/

New book: Max and his hearing aids
https://www.hearinglikeme.com/childrens-book-hearing-aids/

NYT disability series
"I believe strongly that everything should have been made accessible yesterday," https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/opinion/my-life-with-paralysis-its-a-workout.html

Disability materials from DMC, DHM, and AMD to share at your Annual Conference:
https://www.umdisability.org/conference/

Room at the table: Celebrating people of all abilities
(DMC community event, August 13)
https://www.facebook.com/DisAbilityMinistriesUMC/

As we approach annual conference season, a reminder about the amendment to Article 4:
http://umdisability.blogspot.com/2017/02/umc-article-4-amendment.html

Updated information: 4th Global Missions Conference of the Deaf
https://www.umcd.org/newsnat/1708.html
--

Click here for a list of events of interest to people in disability ministry.
UMAMD logo with the UM Cross and Flame and several disability symbols
This newsletter is generally issued weekly by the
United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities,
a caucus of the United Methodist Church.

Click here to join this e-mail list.
Visit us on the web or Facebook.

Friday, July 7, 2017

News and notes from AMD, 7/07/17

DHM grant reports added:
https://www.umdeaf.org/fund/story.html

UM Com: ministry to people with dementia
http://www.umcom.org/learn/10-ways-churches-can-minister-to-those-with-dementia-and-their-families

Bishop Graves on health care
http://www.awfumc.org/newsdetail/a-word-from-bishop-graves-health-care-for-all-people-8667557


Disability materials from DMC, DHM, and AMD to share at your Annual Conference:
https://www.umdisability.org/conference/

Room at the table: Celebrating people of all abilities
(DMC community event, August 13)
https://www.facebook.com/DisAbilityMinistriesUMC/

As we approach annual conference season, a reminder about the amendment to Article 4:
http://umdisability.blogspot.com/2017/02/umc-article-4-amendment.html

Updated information: 4th Global Missions Conference of the Deaf
https://www.umcd.org/newsnat/1708.html
--


--

Click here for a list of events of interest to people in disability ministry.
UMAMD logo with the UM Cross and Flame and several disability symbols
This newsletter is generally issued weekly by the
United Methodist Association of Ministers with Disabilities,
a caucus of the United Methodist Church.

Click here to join this e-mail list.
Visit us on the web or Facebook.