The World's Okayest Pastor

Tips for Interacting with Individuals with Disabilities Remember to see and talk to the person not the disability. -           People are not defined by their disability. Talk to/ interact with them like you would anyone else. -           If the person is age wise an adult talk to them as an adult. Please avoid “baby talk.” -           If a person is with a staff please talk to the person not the staff. Staff might help clarify but they are there to support and not do for. -           If you don’t understand just ask for the person to repeat themselves. -           Just say “hi.” A conversation starts there. Be natural. Keep it simple. -           Sometimes individuals know certain words but may not use them at...

I tried taking a client to worship on a Wednesday and ran into some problems (different church from other posts). The door at the top of the wheelchair ramp did have a button so the door would automatically open. However, there's a switch that has to be turned on to allow the door to open. That switch wasn't on so I got to do some interesting moves to get the door opened without sending my client flying down a ramp. Other people were standing inside the doors and decided to watch this "dance" occur instead of help and when I finally got my client and myself in the door decided to tell me that there was switch on a wall over there and that it needed to be flipped. What was welcoming about being told how to make someone else's church accessible? What is welcoming about standing there and not doing something when you know what to do? I think there are a few missing links there. Another issue I've run into is congregations using lifts and ramps as a place to stor...

So clearly if you read a post of mine from a couple of days ago you know that I'm not a big fan of places of worship going overboard on crap. This past Saturday I returned with my 2 clients to go to worship to find that they were having their yearly celebration of summer. They rented inflatables, large grills for cook for the community. There was a petting zoo and all of the carnival stuff you could want. Celebrating the summer is great. Feeding the community (it was free and advertised as all are welcome - I'll give them points for that outreach to the community) is great. But there was a crucial thing that forgot - accessibility. In order to do this, this church blocked off a large part of their parking lot. They decided to use their church buses and rent large golf carts to transport people to and from parking spots they were using away from their property so people wouldn't have to walk so far. This was a very nice thought. But yet none of these carts or buses were equi...

Part of my job right now is to take clients to their places of worship. I don't mind taking them, in fact I encourage it if it's what they want to do. I can generally set aside my wants and tastes in worship for my clients because it's not about me. But this past weekend I hit a limit of what I could take in. With two of my clients with me I walked into VBS hell. While I applaud the congregations' desire to offer programing and to come up with their own curriculum, that's about the most positive I can offer. The church ripped off Mario brothers for their theme of "Game On with Jesus." No main characters but there was the coins, stars, plants, tubes, a large scale game controller and other things. Decorations were every where: hallways, worship centers (yes plural) and even in bathrooms. Do you really need to decorate the bathroom? Just just gross in general. Let the bathroom be the bathroom please. Apparently the "bad guy" (I have a whole other...