People with Disabilities – In Order to Belong,They Need to Be Missed!

People with disabilities are often excluded within our churches: Why is that so? This paper will explore why disabled people are not missed within our churches as a mission group and as a member of the body of Christ. It will also explore why the fact that they are not missed makes them feel like they do not belong in the church. The paper will conclude with what people with disabilities have to offer the church, and what the church can positively do to help them feel like they belong through our mission and inclusion of them into the full ministry of the church.     

Making Space,Offering Voice

By looking closely at the biblical narrative of the man born blind (John 9:1‐41), this article raises how Jesus enables and promotes the participation and, even more so, the leadership of people with disabilities in God’s transformative mission in the church and the world. Through examining each scene in the story through a disability lens, this article aims to challenge the church on how it views leaders with disabilities in God's mission, making space for our voices and our witness as disciples of Christ.     

Disability,Performance, and Discrimination in the Service to Humanity

In an age when the church is called upon to be an inclusive community, persons with disabilities in Nigeria are still grappling with exclusion. Disability is associated with multiple challenges. The challenges include degrading treatment, marginalization, and exclusion from recruitment opportunities, as well as discrimination in churches. Some people believe that disability has negative connotations and that persons with disabilities are hopeless, helpless burdens and passive “objects” meant to receive charity as well as physical and spiritual deliverance. Persons with disabilities are stereotypically seen as incapable of being productive. It is assumed that because people live with disabilities, they are not meant to occupy leadership positions or fully partake in church activities. The expectation that persons with disabilities be wholly embraced into the Christian fold is yet to be met. This article shares information on the context in which some of the challenges facing persons with disabilities are rooted. It examines the involvement and experiences of persons with disabilities in the activities of the church, church institutions, and church‐affiliated organizations in Nigeria while acknowledging the church’s mandate of inclusion. It finds that stereotyping and discrimination are challenges for persons with disabilities – individuals who are also made in the image of God. In the future, more research needs to be carried out on issues around the isolation of persons with disabilities in the body of Christ. The findings would help interested groups recognize the predicaments of persons with disabilities and find realistic strategies for a progressive inclusive church community – in this way assisting the efforts of the World Council of Churches’ programme on disability.     

Mission and People with Disabilities

This article begins with a few thoughts and some historical and canonical encounters about how lay and ordained people with disabilities have been involved in Orthodox mission work in the past. It then presents two concrete contemporary situations in which people with disabilities are involved in Orthodox ordained ministry work despite the persisting tradition that disabled people not be ordained. The first example is taken from the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, where the involvement of people with disabilities in both ordained and lay ministry provides significant support for a church that lives in a delicate situation. The second example is taken from the Romanian Orthodox Church and presents the case of Father Theophilus P?r?ian, one of the most prominent contemporary Romanian Orthodox monastic figures, who served as an ordained priest despite his disability. This article pleads for a deeper involvement of disabled people in both ordained and lay ministry in Orthodox churches.     

Paul’s “Thorn in the Flesh” and Christian Mission to People with Disabilities

This article attempts a holistic theological analysis of what the mission of the church to people living with disabilities (PLWDs) should be. The article pays attention to Paul’s reference to a “thorn in his flesh” using the theory of complex embodiment. It counters the emphasis in some churches on healing as the proper response to the needs of PLWDs. Rather, the article seek to present a theology that gives PLWDs greater knowledge of and control over their bodies to live meaningful lives even with their disabilities. The article argues that Paul lived with a disability and that although he sought to have it healed, he later accepted it and lived fully and meaningfully with it. It concludes that, from the example of Paul, the church’s mission to PLWDs should not necessarily be the healing of disabilities but their empowerment and integration in our societies.     

Radical incarnation and creative ambiguity

This article examines Martin Luther's perception of gender and ministry in relation to what may be coined his radical incarnation theology, the Word incarnate in Jesus Christ, in-fleshed in human beings and in the entire material, created world, and expressed in the verbum vocale through the ministry of the word. The article aims at presenting a thorough theological analysis of seminal texts on Luther's new understanding of the ecclesial office in the dialectics of the priesthood of all believers and the ministry of the word. The article claims that Luther's new perception of ministry opened avenues for women to gain authority as preachers, but that he was pressed – partly by his peers and particularly the papal church - and chose to express his liberal ideas by way of creative ambiguity.     

A Comparison of Christians’ Concepts of Jesus Christ and God

In the god concept literature, little research has been conducted on how people think about and relate specifically to Jesus Christ. This study addresses the extent to which Christians distinguish between Jesus and God in terms of their concepts of Jesus and God, the pathways they use to connect with Jesus and God, and the benefits they seek and receive from Jesus and God. The study also tests whether participants’ concepts of Jesus have unique predictive power for psychological, social, and spiritual criterion variables after controlling for their concepts of God. The sample includes 165 college students and 107 church attendees who self-identified as Christians. Results indicate that although most participants view Jesus and God as being similar to each other, they perceive Jesus to be warmer but less transcendent and stern than God. Including participants’ concepts of Jesus in hierarchical multiple regressions accounted for significant additional variance after controlling for their concepts of God in predicting participants’ negative affect, social justice attitudes, spiritual emotions, and Christian orthodoxy. Participants generally used various pathways more to connect with God than with Jesus, and they reported seeking and receiving many benefits more from God than from Jesus. These results suggest that future research on god concepts among Christians ought to include separate measures of Jesus concepts and God concepts.     

The Woman at the Well

The woman at the well argued theology with Jesus, and he listened to her and engaged her in conversation. Theological education today must make spaces for the voices of the marginalized to be heard and prepare church leaders to listen respectfully to people from the margins.     

Jesus' Prophethood and Islam: Insights from the Risale‐i Nur

While Jesus’ prophethood is an indisputable component of his identity in the Christian tradition, it has been marginalized for centuries in favor of his identity as savior. In this article, I argue that an engagement with an understanding of Jesus’ prophethood in Islam, particularly as explicated by the Turkish thinker Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, can help Christians recover a more robust interpretation of Jesus as prophet that has a positive impact on a Christian articulation of the church and of discipleship today.     

Holistic Healing in Acts 3:1‐10

The understanding of healing focuses on Acts 3:1‐10, where the rereading of this text with its picture of healing will lead to an understanding of inclusive healing, in the sense that the marginalized people are included in this healing. This means that the healing is holistic, rather than focusing on either physical or spiritual healing only. The research on which this paper is based sought to explore the issue of holistic healing for a transformative church. The paper brings into perspective the following questions: What is entailed in Jesus’ healing people with disabilities? And how can the issue of healing be opened to the possibility of building a community of love, justice, peace, and diversity? In an attempt to answer the preceding questions, this paper has two parts: in the first section, I focus on my personal rereading in view of my own disability experience and my experience with the participants of Bible study, whereby I use narrative interpretation of existing literature, and I interpret from a psycho‐spiritual perspective framed by a liberation theology of disability. In the second section, I engage a dialogue between biblical scholars and ordinary people on the different perspectives on healing. My overall objective in this paper is to offer a new biblical understanding on the text and, on the other hand, a theological reflection on healing to assist church leaders and Christians to understand that people with disabilities, like any human being, deserve to be in fellowship with God and with other people for the sake of social transformation.     

Children's Attitudes towards Peers with Disabilities: Associations with Personal and Parental Factors

The purpose of this study was to investigate the following: (i) associations among children's prior contact with people with disabilities and the three dimensions of children's attitudes towards people with disabilities: children's understanding of and their feelings about people with disabilities and their behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions; (ii) the relation between children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions and the demands of activity contexts and the types of disabilities; and (iii) the association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes. Participants included 94 typically developing four‐ and five‐year‐old preschoolers. Children's understanding of disabilities and their prior contact with people with disabilities were found to be positively related to their feelings about people with disabilities; children's understanding of disabilities was a significant moderator of the relation between their behavioural intentions and activity contexts or types of disabilities. The hypothesized association between parents' attitudes and children's attitudes was not significant. Preschoolers may benefit from having more regular contact with people with disabilities to develop positive feelings towards their peers with disabilities, which is also related to their understanding of disabilities. Children's behavioural intentions to make inclusion decisions need to be understood in relation to their understanding of disabilities, the demand of activity contexts, and types of disabilities. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Churches in Ecumenical Transition

This is a brief introduction to the contribution of the Ecumencial Network for Multicultural Ministry (ENFORMM) to the new WCC affirmation on mission and evangelism, which was specifically commissioned by CWME in 2009 and will be fed into the new WCC affirmation on mission evangelism. Recognizing the critical significance of the emerging multicultural and migrant churches to mission and ministry in the twenty‐first century, CWME is keen that the new mission statement adequately reflects that important development. Clearly, the ministry and ecclesiology of migrant/multicultural churches are integral to the future mission and existence of the Christian church. “Cultural diversity as a fact of human existence”: This text assumes that cultural diversity is a fact of human societies, and migration is a fact of human existence. Throughout human history, societies have always enjoyed varied degrees of cultural pluralism largely because migration is a natural human predisposition. Migration is by no means limited to movements from South to North. People movements from South to South and North to South have equal importance and impact. With increased migration come increased cross‐cultural encounters and their attendant complexities. The paper highlights the unfortunate but pervasive and widespread misconception that migrants as such constitute the root cause of social tension and problems. The paper argues that “people movement around the globe (migration) not only calls for reframing the rhetoric on migration, it also calls for reframing the debate on mission.” “Cultural diversity as a fact of Christian communal life – migration‐shaped early church”:

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Democracy and the Church of Sweden

The Church of Sweden was democratized in the 1930s when party politics was introduced into church elections. Since then, party politics have more and more been part of the governing style of the Church of Sweden. In 2000 the church was disestablished and a new election system was introduced with direct elections to the General Synod. The system of political parties remained. This article questions the democracy of the church using criteria for democratic structures. It also focuses on the role of the ordained ministry in the governance of the church, as the bishops have not been full members of the Synod since 1982. The conclusions are that the Church of Sweden is not fully democratic since participation in elections is at about 10% and the electorate has few chances to understand what the elections are about. The bishops’ weak formal position in the Synod is not in accordance with the teachings of the church on episcopacy. The conflict between democratic principles, inherited from the Swedish constitution, and church teaching on the ordained ministry and its role has not been fully resolved so far.     

Evangelism as Discipleship

This article gives attention to the challenges that the missional and conversational relationship of the church poses in the intercourse between evangelism, discipleship, theological education and leadership formation in its ministry and mission. This multi‐faceted and complex process brings together competing interests with different agendas that, in a number of contexts, have resulted in mis‐evangelization. This has called into question issues about human dignity and respect and the need for reciprocity to inform all missional response of the churches. The article argues that an appropriate model of theological education is needed to equip leaders for effective witness to the gospel. This necessitates the recruitment and mentoring of emerging leaders who have had a life‐changing encounter with the life‐giving Spirit of Jesus that controls their identity, vocation and witness. Some experiences of formal and informal theological education and formation within the Anglo‐Caribbean context were identified that disconnected and disorientated leaders from the Church's missional task of bearing effective witness to the gospel. This article calls for an overhaul of seminary‐ and university‐based theological education careerism, because they serve as an encumbrance to nurturing effective contextual witness of churches. The article argues that if Jesus calls and makes us into his disciples, then faithfulness in discipleship necessitates that (1) authentic evangelism must be grounded in humility and respect for all, (2) leadership formation must be infectiously relational, and (3) the gospel must be communicated through genuine interpersonal and community‐affirming relationships. The article ends with an invitation to all churches to embrace a missional model of witnessing that invests in living with, learning from and sharing with people in communities depending on the Spirit of God in Christ to lead and bear fruit in God's time.     

Sexual abuse: Helping the church recognize and respond to victims

Sexual abuse victims can be members of churches which serve people in many ways, yet some of these victims are unable to report the abuse to a church leader or other members. In the church's efforts to understand and meet needs in the world today, helping victims of sexual trauma is part of God's work to touch lives through ministry in His church. Whether these victims are children or adults, the church can play an active role in recognizing and meeting needs of sexually abused persons.completing a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling and a Master of Arts in Religious Education.     

Mental health counselling in the Black American Church: reflections and recommendations from counsellors serving in a counselling ministry

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between “The Black Church”, the mental health needs of its members, and addressing those needs from the perspective of counsellors within the church. Four in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the mental health counselling team at one large, African American-serving church in the Midwest to explore their thoughts about their church pastor’s desire to expand their current ministry to a fully operating counselling centre. The findings suggest that “the Black Church” not only has a role and responsibility in addressing the mental health needs of African Americans within and outside of the church but can also use religiosity as a facilitator rather than a barrier to mental health service use among African Americans.     

The Search for a Current Mission Model in Cambodia

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Differences in attitudes towards inclusion between parents of children with and without disabilities

IntroductionInclusion is among the greatest challenges facing educational systems throughout the world today. Parents’ attitudes play a key role in the successful implementation of inclusion. Therefore, there is a growing interest in comparing the attitudes towards inclusion among parents of children with and without disabilities.ObjectiveThe current study was set out to assess if there are differences in attitudes towards inclusion between parents of children with and without disabilities.MethodThe sample consisted of 332 parents (127 parents of children with disabilities and 205 parents of children without disabilities). All children attended general education primary schools. Participants completed anonymously the Greek version of Attitude Survey Towards Inclusive Education – Parents (de Boer et al., 2012a, b).ResultsThe findings showed no significant differences in attitudes towards inclusion between parents of children with and without disabilities. However, significant differences were found in parents’ attitudes towards inclusion based on their familiarity with a disabled person and the type of disabilities (congenital or acquired).ConclusionThese findings highlight the need to take into consideration parents’ and children's factors during the development of interventions to change attitudes towards inclusion.     

Discovering Jesus Anew

In light of the political and ritual abuse of religion in India today, this article underlines the importance of Christian women’s engagement with women of all faiths to resist discrimination and violence. The Indian Christian Women’s Movement draws on Jesus’ liberative practice and teaching as women find creative and subversive ways to strengthen Christian women’s solidarity with women of other faiths. While all faith traditions carry embedded patriarchal biases that have been used to legitimize the second-class status of women, they also have streams of liberation motifs. The article employs a feminist epistemology to reconstruct dominant theological motifs and assumptions based on an ethic of care, compassion, and mutuality in relationships.