Disabling the Church from the Center for Disability and Ministry

Building Inclusive Community: The Journey of Friendship House

• Center for Disability and Ministry • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Friendship House represents a powerful model of intentional community where individuals with disabilities and seminary students live, learn, and grow together. This episode dives into the unique origins, shared experiences, and spiritual formation within Friendship House, showcasing how mutual support fosters growth and challenges preconceived notions about disability in ministry.

• Introduction to the Friendship House's unique community 
• Origins rooted in shared needs for affordable housing and independence 
• Positive growth outcomes documented among residents with disabilities 
• Emergence of the Fellows Program for vocational and spiritual formation 
• Daily life blending worship, study, and mutual learning 
• Emphasis on the importance of diversity in community living 
• Future episodes to delve deeper into community stories and experiences

Intro:

Disabling the Church is a production of the Center for Disability and Ministry at Western Theological Seminary. This series amplifies the voices, giftedness and perspectives of disabled people to enrich the ministry and witness of the church and perspectives of disabled people to enrich the ministry and witness of the church.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

Hello everyone and welcome to Disabling the Church the podcast. I am your host, dr LS Carlos Thompson. Today I'd like to invite you into the story of the place that I'm blessed to call home. I live in a place called the Friendship House in Holland, michigan. It's a place that has become home to many, including me. A place where people with and without disabilities live together and form intentional, healthy relationships that are governed toward bending to the formation of intentional community in Christ for the good of the world and the glory of God. We also exist to grow independent living skills and share in spiritual and vocational formation and the journey that God sort of called us into as members of the body of Christ.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

The Friendship House is a part of the campus housing at Western Theological Seminary, but what makes this place unique is the makeup of its resident population. The house is home to faculty like myself, students and individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The house was born out of a community conversation that took place between six local families with loved ones who lived with intellectual disabilities or IDDs and the Western Theological Seminary community. In 2007, the seminary desired to provide more affordable in-residence housing for its in-residence students and, around the same time, several families in the Holland community who had individuals in their families who lived with IDDs desired to provide an opportunity for their adult children to live more independently outside of the family home and to grow in their independent living skills and to form intentional, healthy, supportive relationships. Matt Floating, the seminary's dean of students at the time time, entered into conversations with local families, recognizing the possibility for collaboration around the shared need for more living space and more living options. On the one hand, our seminary needed to provide additional housing and, on the other hand, the seminary also desired to develop new ways of forming pastors and Christians for faithful ministry in the world, knowing that the world ministry in the world includes thinking seriously about what it means to walk alongside of people who live with intellectual disabilities and their family if you're going to do any work in the church and meaningful work in the community.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

When the house opened in 2007, these two groups students and folks with intellectual disabilities came together to organically create complementary ways of life and community. From 2007 to about 2018, students gained experience working with disabled individuals and living in a place that was affordable, and those who lived with intellectual disabilities cultivated their independent living skills as well as growing in their social and vocational skills. In the context of a community that was supportive, the seminary students were able to more concretely reflect on the material that they're learning in the classroom and ask questions that concretely challenged how the information they were learning came down into the lives of people who lived with intellectual disabilities or were simply just very different than them. People with intellectual disabilities, naturally, by way of being, are going to challenge a lot of the paradigms that govern what we gain in the context of theological education, and so this seemed like a natural pair, and the fruit that came out of this was faithful to trying to expand the worldview of seminary students. Likewise, the founding six members found that throughout the first six to eight years of life in the Friendship House, their relational, social and independent living skills grew immensely. A local special education professor named Jane Finn from Hope College collated test data from the first years of residency up until that point of about six to eight years, and it demonstrated immense growth that exceeded almost all measurable expectations, socially and relationally. Also, the independent living skills that were garnered in that period often moved way beyond what was expected. As a side note for more information on the founding ideals and visions behind the Friendship House. You can see the list of articles linked below that I'll explain more about a little later.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

However, after those six years, things began to change Within the seminary community. Questions were raised about how we gauge and measure what is faithful and fruitful when we live intentionally in a community with people who live with intellectual disabilities. How ought we desire to learn from one another and be shaped by one another, and what sort of responsibility does a place like a seminary have to all the individuals whom God calls into this kind of unique community, regardless of their race, disability or gender, etc. Around 2018, questions were raised about what the Friendship House could continue to do and who this community could continue to be faithfully and fruitfully within the context of trying to live as the body of Christ in a particular way that involves theological education and vocational discernment. So, born out of these questions and the discussion that followed, the Friendship House Fellows Program came to be. The program introduced intentional theological education, formation and vocational discernment for residents with intellectual disabilities and placed the emphasis on spiritual formation rather than independent living skills alone. In a way, the Fellows Program was born out of a desire to say that it's not only the seminary student or the individual registered for a degree program who has a call from God, but rather anyone living together in the name of Jesus, who is being mutually formed by other people who are siblings in the faith, has a vocation that expresses the love of God for the world and Christ's redemptive plan. In short, we as a seminary recognize our responsibility to partner in God's work and to begin shaping the vocation and offering tools for vocational discernment, regardless of the diverse background that someone might come from. That's, in fact, what enriches a community that reflects the body of Christ. So in part, I came to the seminary as a doctoral fellow as part of the Nowen Fellows Program. To help facilitate this transformation in the Friendship House and its self-understanding in relation to the seminary, I have since joined the faculty as the Assistant Professor of Christian Ministry and Disability Theology. I serve as the Director of the Friendship House and the Director of the Friendship House Fellows Program housed therein.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

Life in the Friendship House resembles a mutually shared, intentional Christian community embedded in a seminary context and, to the extent that this is possible, everyone in the house and even in the seminary are involved in intentionally committing to the cultivation of mutual discipleship in the context of the community, the house that we call home. Some of the more formal ways that formation begins to happen revolve around our commitment to reading scripture through the lens of Lectio Divina, twice a week at Bible study. That draws all the members of the community and some of the broader seminary community around the study of scripture and conversations around passages and what the Spirit may be teaching us. And there are options to participate in evening vespers or evening prayer that's guided by an adaptation of the North American Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer, and this is an option Monday through Thursday in the lounge in the house. And then we have community dinner together once a week and we celebrate birthdays and other holidays around these same rhythms. So the house as it exists now is much more intentionally and formally embedded in a kind of monastic rhythm of doing life together, praying together, worshiping together, and revolves around the reading and the recitation of the word together, because we are all disciples of Jesus, members of the body of Christ, tasked with discipling one another in Christ and living together so that we can become more like Christ.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

It's not contingent on whether or not we believe socially that someone has the capacities needed to do that individually. We believe that life and work are contingent on God's calling people into these kinds of spaces so that we can belong to Christ and, through Christ, belong to one another. It's in this belonging, then, that we learn to befriend one another, that we teach one another and that we learn from one another, giving to one another and receiving from one another. So in this context, fellows do life alongside of other seminary students and founding members of the community who have since matriculated out of the program and, as a founding member, have transitioned into more independent housing, no longer on the seminary campus. Now all the founding members live independently in their own apartments down the street and remain very involved as members of the Friendship House community. And we have residents who live then in the Friendship House part of the fellows program, and other seminary students, and then they live within this sort of broader community of people who no longer live in the Friendship House, and this includes the founding members. We are part of a community that is committed to growing in our faith together and we gather together out of a commitment and a desire to make this house home, gather together out of a commitment and a desire to make this house home.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

So within the Friendship House Fellows Program there's a set curriculum that Fellows are invited into alongside of other seminary students, a series of blended classes. One of those classes is called Living into Community. It's a class that I teach around forming or giving students the tools to begin to articulate a theology of community, where students are invited to read a series of texts from the Christian tradition and then the biblical text and then conversationally flesh out a theology of community that considers this kind of mutual diversity as an expression of a gift from divinity, rather than assuming that diversity or difference is just a sign of deficiency. Diversity or difference is just a sign of deficiency. Understanding what it is to be connected to the body of Christ is a place where fellows can begin to tease things out theologically alongside of their fellow students and co-learners as equals in the classroom. This is a mutual space where the learning and formation that begins to happen for the seminary student is shared as something that every student, fellow or seminary student without a disability are welcomed into for a mutual good conversation where we are all equal contributors forming one another carries over into conversations about scripture that then influences our evening Bible studies, our evening prayers, and is discussed very organically around the dinner table when we gather in the lounge. Many of those conversations, though they're not formally scripted, they are very indicative of the foundational values that govern how we've committed to doing life together. So we listen to and we learn from and we enrich one another in the spirit. And this sort of formal emphasis on mutuality and stability and of being committed to being with one another is the shift that has given birth to the fellows program.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

After that six-year mark, when things kind of level out relationally, socially and likewise, then it's reasonable as a seminary to ask questions like where do we go from here? Where do we go to move forward faithfully in the face of the fact that we are a seminary and we want to give birth to all that aligns with God's intention for the world and not simply settle for what's comfortable or familiar to us? How should we commit to engaging people regardless of gender, ability or perceived capacity? And as we start asking these questions in humility and with gentleness, then our hopes expand and our convictions allow more space for us to live in really beautiful ways that are uncomfortable, new, innovative, but they also reinvigorate space to ask questions around. What does it mean for us to be a part of the body of Christ and an expression of the presence of Christ to one another, for the good of the world and the glory of God.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

I hope that you've enjoyed this introduction to the house that I love, this place that I have the honor of calling home. Remember that a house is a home because of the people that share it and further, a home is a home through the continual practice of reconciliation, forgiveness and the extension of grace. I want to let you know that there will be subsequent episodes where we begin to hear from members of the founding group and the fellows program and we'll have more intentional space to engage questions like what does it mean to have a vocation in Christ? What is it like to live day to day in the friendship house? How does a communal understanding of this kind of interior life and what it like to live day to day in the friendship house? How does a communal understanding of this kind of interior life and what it means to be a Christian inform how you understand your purpose in life or how a person might come to know what it means to even be a Christian in the first place? How does living in a space like this impact your understanding of the importance of community in relation to how you understand what it even means to be a member of the body of Christ.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

But if you're anything like me, this sort of conversation spurs some further interest and you want to do some further reading. There will be additional links underneath that point you into a direction where you can begin to tease out and learn about some of the earlier days in the friendship house and what burst the initial vision for the friendship house. An article that was written by me was. It can be found in comment magazine and it's titled the beauty of belonging and it's based on a series of conversations that I'm reflecting on between myself and one of the founding members of the community named Seth Vanderbrook, who you'll meet later in other episodes. There's also another article that you can read that's found in the Journal for Disability and Theology and it's an article that takes a bit of time to read but it's kind of critiquing theological education or disabling theological education and engaging some of what might have been some of the missing points in the earlier days of the vision of the Friendship House, and it helps to explain a little bit more of how the Fellows Program came to be by emphasizing a more formalized structure that gave birth to intentional theological formation. Then, as a result of a series of conversations with founding members of the community over a long period, some of these articles came to be and we'll begin to reflect on some of how that impacts, even still to this day, our daily functioning as a community.

Dr. LS Carlos Thompson:

A series of things you can read if you want to enter into a conversation gently and wait as you kind of learn how to develop a vernacular for any of these conversations can be found in these articles. But by no means is it a comprehensive way to enter this conversation. So I hope that you will continue to listen to subsequent episodes and, as always, it's good to be with you. I look forward to being with you. May God bless you. May God keep you and my friends until next time. Be blessed.

Intro:

This has been a Center for Disability and Ministry production. Join us next time for another insightful episode.