ARTICLE BY THE REV'D CANON TIMOTHY M. DOMBECK

Sixteen years ago this fall, our only
child, Jonathan, was born with
Down Syndrome. The gift of his birth
into our lives has been nothing less than
an epiphany, an eye-opening revelation
of a population to whom many if not
most of our churches are unprepared
(or, more likely, inadequately prepared)
to serve.
For a parent of a child with a permanent,
lifelong disability, sometimes just
getting basic services or simple
approvals for your child’s participation
in “normal” activities can be arduous.
Social service agencies, schools, employers, and other
organizations swing between being a champion of your
rights — or your child’s rights — and being the barrier to
a better life, education or therapy — sometimes all in the
same week. The last place where families like ours need
to deal with resistance is in church. But even the church
is not above resisting the changes needed to accommodate
adults or children with disabilities.
How we welcome people into our congregations matters
greatly. “The likelihood that people with disabilities
and their families attend a congregation certainly is influenced
by the extent to which they are welcomed and supported,”
writes Dr. Erik Carter, author of Including
People with Disabilities in Faith Communities. Dr.
Carter’s landmark book on this topic features a virtual
paint-by-numbers methodology for preparing people and
congregations to be that kind of supportive, welcoming
presence, and to have skill and grace in meeting the challenging
needs presented by those families.
Last fall at our diocesan ministry fair, my wife Beth and
I offered a workshop titled “Preparing for Children With
Disabilities” as a way of bridging this gap in knowledge
and practice for congregations wishing to be more welcoming.
Ultimately, it takes individuals in our churches
who want to learn how to do this, who want to welcome
people with disabilities, to make it happen. That has been
borne out in our experience time and time again. If you
have a person or a committed group of people in your
congregation who will say, “We can do this!” and are willing
to learn and implement what it takes to pull it off,
chances are your efforts will be successful.
As a model for how to begin welcoming children with
disabilities in a congregation, we shared our experiences
of success, and lessons from not-so-successful efforts we
learned about during the past 15 years. When I was called
as rector of St. James’ Church, Greenville, S.C., in 2000,
our son was 6 years old. During the interviews, when
asked if we had any questions for the search committee
and vestry, Beth asked point-blank: “Will my son,
Jonathan, be accepted here?” After an uncomfortable
silence, one vestry person ventured, “I can’t imagine that
he wouldn’t be accepted.” Not exactly reassuring. But we
discovered that people committed to making sure he was
included stepped up to make it work.
When we needed a one-on-one aide for Jonathan in
Sunday school, one person volunteered to help. Beth
took the time to share with her all the pertinent information
about Jonathan, his health and behavior, his communication
level (Jonathan’s biggest delay is his speech),
and how to motivate, redirect or correct him, when
needed. That information made it easier for this woman
to be his aide and for him to have a positive Sunday
school experience. Working with the teachers, Beth (a
special education resource teacher herself) demonstrated
how to adapt the curriculum in ways that could
include Jonathan in their activities, which eased their
comfort level and lessened any anxiety they might have
had about having a child with disabilities in their class.
As Jonathan got older, we discovered he had celiac disease,
which is a gluten intolerance (no wheat, barley or
oats can be consumed). St. James’ immediately added
gluten-free wafers to the celebrations of the Eucharist,
and we soon discovered
other people
who needed them.
When it came time
for Jonathan to move
up to the Episcopal
Youth Community
(EYC), the youth ministry
coordinator created
a method to
ensure that all the
kids had a chance to
get to know him better.
The entire EYC
group made up the
Ability Team —
known as the A-Team
— and each week,
two kids were paired
up with Jonathan to
go to EYC with him,
to ensure his inclusion in all the frenzied activity that
youth group can be, and to provide redirection when
needed. We provided his gluten-free pizza or pasta for
dinner, and the kids wound up loving the chance to be
Jonathan’s “partner” at EYC. The A-Team proved a great
success, and best of all, Jonathan made some lasting new
friendships. The young people of St. James’ also had the
valuable experience of accepting people with differences
and learning from them.
During our seven years there, Jonathan, who eventually
served as an acolyte, became such a beloved part of
St. James’ that when I announced my leaving, one parishioner
said, “What are we going to do without Jonathan?”
What a difference his presence made in their parish life!
Jonathan continues to be an acolyte regularly, and is a
member of the Rite-13 class (where he offers the closing
benediction prayer each week) in our home parish in Arizona.
Families of children with disabilities are looking for
faith communities that will accept them in the same way
they accept others. Think about it: The community of persons
with disabilities is an open community, perhaps the
most open community in society. People join it every day
— some through aging or as a result of an accident, an
injury, or illness, or sometimes by genetic difference at
birth. People with disabilities don’t discriminate on who
can join them, yet regularly they are discriminated
against purposefully or unwittingly by a culture too busy
to notice them. Sometimes the church also fails to notice
or respond.
Since the conclusion of our ministry fair, one congregation
in Arizona has called on the resources of our disability
awareness program group to train members on
including four children with autism into the life and routine
of their Sunday school and congregation. The need
for this kind of education and commitment in other con-
Families of children
with disabilities
are looking for
faith communities
that will accept
them in the same
way they accept
others.

We need to give people with disabilities
access to society’s most important
place: our compassionate heart. In fact,
if we each begin with opening our
heart, access to our church buildings,
programs and our lives will be a natural
expression of welcoming all God’s
children into the community of
Christ’s body, freely and without prejudice.
Our proactive inclusion of
adults and children with disabilities
into the full life of our churches then
will become the living and best example
of what our familiar blue-andwhite
signs proclaim to all: “The
Episcopal Church Welcomes You.”