Disabilities advocate Bill Gaventa makes the case for welcoming the stranger on ‘A Matter of Faith’ podcast

Podcast guest wraps up a series on how churches can better include people with disabilities

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Bill Gaventa

LOUISVILLE — Bill Gaventa sees biblical mandates for welcoming the stranger and being the body of Christ as important reasons for faith communities to provide inclusion — in ways that are both obvious and subtle — to people with disabilities.

Gaventa, the founder and emeritus director of the Institute on Theology and Disability, joined Hannah Millson, project coordinator for employment and business services at AHRC New York City, last week on “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast,” which can be heard here. Hosts of the weekly podcast are Simon Doong of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and the Rev. Lee Catoe of Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice.

The most recent edition of the podcast is the second of two installments on disability inclusion. Millson also participated in the first. Read about that edition here and listen to the podcast here.

The work of churches to step up inclusion efforts for people with disabilities, which Gaventa traces back to the 1994 publication of Nancy L. Eiesland’s book “The Disabled God,” is “a way of living out what it means to be Christian” by “befriending and advocating” and providing people — especially young people — “something they all yearn for: a group they can belong to,” Gaventa said.

“It becomes a place where you can help teenagers as they’re thinking about faith to live out that Christian faith,” Gaventa said, as well as helping them transition into congregational roles in ways they find meaningful. “That in turn becomes a way of helping the congregation see the personality, the individuality of a person with a disability,” Gaventa said. “They see a person wanting to give and contribute and they get known — ‘he’s the one who does that job.’ It’s a valuable contribution to our faith community.”

A few years ago, Gaventa heard of this comment from a parent in a church: “We kind of wish there weren’t as many kids with disabilities in the youth group. We’re not sure our kids can handle it.”

“Unpack that statement,” Gaventa suggested. “Where else but church would be a place where kids can learn how to relate to people who have different kinds of disabilities?” That may mean “developing honest relationships where you feel comfortable setting down boundaries,” including social boundaries. “Hopefully the youth group can hash out what it means to be a Christian and provide real ministry to others,” Gaventa said. “It raises hard questions.”

Gaventa noted that while many mainline congregations have worked “really hard on diversity,” some haven’t necessarily included “disability in that diversity. It may be seen as a medical issue rather than a diversity of different kinds of humankind.” A few seminaries “are beginning to focus on this,” offering their students courses on such needs as disability inclusion. “Part of that,” Gaventa said, “is occasioned by more people with disabilities going to seminary.”

Catoe noted that several biblical accounts focus on people with disabilities. However, “I still hear bad theology being preached and taught when it comes to people with disabilities,” Catoe said.

“I think the first thing congregations need to do is ask people with disabilities to tell them their faith story and their journey,” Gaventa replied. People may wonder about the history of the person’s disability. Could it have been related to something their parents did or didn’t do? “Jesus took care of that in John 9 pretty clearly,” Gaventa said. “What you have here is the opportunity for the grace of God to be manifest by your response to this person.”

“Talk to people first,” Gaventa advised preachers. “Once you hear their faith stories, there will be ways for you to work that into your preaching.”

Hannah Millson

“This idea of looking at all aspects of their life — my mind is a little blown,” Millson said. “I work in the field of vocational counseling and employment services for people with disabilities, and it never occurred to me there could be this intersectionality between faith and disabilities. I am working with them on job skills, but what about the other facets of their life? Can you speak to what that might look like?”

Indeed, Gaventa said, person-centered planning “works with the person’s strengths and limits and what they are interested in — what’s important to them as well as what’s important for them.” But few of those processes include the person’s spirituality.

“I’ve always been intrigued in Deuteronomy where the farmers are told to leave a tenth of their fields for the gleaners, giving people on the margins the dignity of work,” Gaventa said. “When a small group of people forms around an individual who needs support and gets to know [the person], they can say, ‘All right — how do we use the social capital in this congregation to find places where this person can try out some jobs? It’d be great for them to have a job that makes a difference to them.’”

“A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” with the Rev. Lee Catoe and Simon Doong drops each Thursday.

Asked by Doong about the work that remains bringing disability inclusion to more congregations, Gaventa repeated the need for “putting the voices of people with disabilities front and center. Instead of asking a supposed expert like me, talk to them and tell them to tell their story and what they want, and what their church experiences have been.”

Also, “Invite them into helping them to be contributors and helpers and leaders in faith communities so they aren’t the ones being ministered to, but they are also a ministry,” Gaventa suggested. “If we can’t find ways for people to do something in a congregation given the skills they have, it says more about our lack of imagination than it does about who they are as people.”

Last week, “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” celebrated its 90^th edition. Doong and Catoe plan to soon release a listening guide to those first 90 podcasts. Look for it here when it’s released.