Disabling the Church from the Center for Disability and Ministry

Inclusive Theology: Empowering Individuals with Disabilities and Embracing Childlike Wonder in the Church

• Center for Disability and Ministry • Season 1 • Episode 5

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The episode delves into how the church can better embrace and empower individuals with disabilities within its mission and evangelism strategies. Dr. Rochelle Sheuermann shares her insights on rethinking the definitions of evangelism and engaging the diverse gifts of all people, including those with disabilities.

• Dr. Rochelle Sherman discusses her journey toward understanding evangelism and disability 
• She emphasizes the need for churches to look beyond limitations and recognize gifts 
• The importance of childlike faith in experiencing God’s presence is highlighted 
• Exploration of the reduced definition of evangelism and its implications 
• The conversation encourages a holistic understanding of God’s mission that integrates disability

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome again to Disabling the Church podcast.

Speaker 2:

I am your host, dr LS Carlos, and today I'm joined by a new friend, reverend Dr Rochelle Sherman, who is the Associate Professor of Evangelism and Leadership at Wheaton.

Speaker 2:

She also has an administrative load that she carries, but as part of her faculty load she teaches on evangelism and leadership and has begun to enter the conversation around disability and theology, which brings her here today, and I'd love to invite her into telling us a little bit about her research, her writing and her passion for the church, and a bit about her life story. As you listen in, be mindful of the fact that these conversations are not scripted, and so what you're being invited into is an opportunity to hear the voice of the Spirit in another person and in the midst of a conversation shared between two people. But if this conversation opens something new for you, feel free to write in, make comments, ask questions, and I'll do what I can to get in touch again with Dr Sherman and see if she'd be willing to continue to expand the conversation. So, without further ado, welcome. Thank you, rochelle, for agreeing to share some time with me. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and then what is it that kind of pivoted you toward the research that you're doing now?

Speaker 3:

Thanks, carlos, so good to be with you.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

When I got married, my husband and I were looking toward having children and decided that it was time for us to adopt. And when we adopted our first son, he was actually born with Down syndrome. And so we entered into this conversation, I think somewhat naive, thinking that we knew what we were getting into, and we really didn't, but we were open to whatever God had for us. Now, backing up a bit my professional life, I've been in education, I've pastored, and my real heart is for helping the church understand God's mission and how to engage in God's mission.

Speaker 3:

And not long after we'd adopted our son, I had an encounter where a woman approached us just out of the blue and was saying how excited she was that she had this thought that, hey, can I pray for your son so that he can be healed? And like I'm wondering, is it going to change his physical features too? And it was such an astounding kind of in-your-face experience that I didn't know what to do with it, and one of my first instincts was to say well, what does my discipline say about this? There has to be something in my discipline, pete.

Speaker 2:

Such a good academic.

Speaker 3:

Jennifer, a total academic and it's supposed to be a practical field that says how do we engage people and society well with the gospel? And there was nothing. I found one book by Ben Connor on disabling mission and as I read it it just sparked something in me and I realized that this was what I think. In some sense God put me here to do to engage the church and help expand the conversation. And so my research really does try to intersect theologically how do we understand disability from a theological standpoint? How do we understand disability from a theological standpoint? How do we relate disability to God's mission and what God is doing in the world? And then to try to think practically what does this mean?

Speaker 3:

So currently I am working on how to understand disability and evangelism and to say how do we understand where people fit within God's story and how do we practically engage people with disabilities in evangelism, and not just as recipients, which we absolutely need to do? Research tells us people with disabilities are just not being reached by the gospel, so we're not even seeing people with disabilities as part of our mission and evangelism strategies. But then the whole goal of evangelism is to incorporate people as full-fledged members of the body of Christ. So how is it that, for those that are in the church, how are we releasing their gifts to participate and to lead in the mission evangelism practices? Because people with disabilities very much have giftings and callings by God and they have a story to tell and God wants to use them as well in that process.

Speaker 2:

Wow, Thank you. Thank you, Rochelle. Would you be willing to just provide a clear definition of when you use the word evangelism. How are you defining this?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So for me, evangelism is helping people understand the full story of God. So we're not doing a propositional truth, but we're actually telling a true good news story, and we're doing so in a way that gives witness to what Jesus has done in our lives and has an opportunity for others to then be drawn into that story, as we can invite them along that journey to maybe make a step toward toward Jesus.

Speaker 2:

So I wonder if, in a room filled with people who live with people with disabilities or have disabilities themselves, you've already touched on the fact that that gets complicated right. So much of the conversation then pivots toward how do we preach to you, how do we reach you with the gospel, how do we evangelize you right? And so much of what you're saying says yes, and people with disabilities have gifts and have been called by God and should be involved in the mission of God and the work of God in the world. So how do you make that move with people?

Speaker 3:

So let me start with a story about my own son. We were at a church again when he was fairly young and when he had aged out of the nursery we were ready to put him into the next class and there was immediate hesitation, with the usual questions Well, is he going to get anything out of it? Can he follow directions? We're just not sure. And we let him in for the first Sunday and he had a great time and they kind of came back with well, we think he followed directions. We really don't know that he got anything. But the excuse became the TV's not bolted down and it's not safe for him to be there. So until we make some of these physical adjustments he needs to go back to the nursery. Now they hadn't made those physical adjustments for any other kid in the room, even though at the age of three the two and three-year-olds the TV should be bolted down. After that much resistance we left.

Speaker 3:

But when we went to our next church the family ministries pastor we had a conversation with her first time we ever met her and she's asking questions like well, tell me about your son, what do we need to get to know about him?

Speaker 3:

And as she listened, she rubbed his back and she said to him I can't wait to see what gifts God has for the church through you.

Speaker 3:

And it wasn't directed even to us. It was directed to him, and the change in that outlook completely flipped the script for him, to the point that when he turned four and was still one year away from being in the next classroom, she recognized that he wasn't getting what he needed to become a disciple, and she actually advanced him early to the next class and within that year he was singing the doxology, the Lord's Prayer, the Celtic benediction. He was blessing people in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit, and so, for me, walking people down that path is simply flipping the script from what can't you do to what is God wanting to do through you. And the moment we see that person as God has something for you, then we're looking for opportunities to pull them along, to speak in their language, to provide them the tools and whatever it is that they need to grow and expand, because if we're looking for gifts, we're going to find gifts.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like so much of what you are sort of entering into is linked inseparably to what your family has also walked through. So what do you say, in the midst of wanting to expand the way that people do theology and engage evangelism? Some of what you've talked about it's related to gifts, but are there other things, like the way that the church talks about evangelism or mission or theology, that can be changed or expanded so that people like you, people like your son, are actually invited in instead of kept out?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think, in particular, the first starting point that comes to mind is even how we understand what evangelism is and what the gospel story is, because we've really reduced the gospel to this propositional statement that you need to believe a very deep theological truth Jesus died in place of you and if you believe that then you get to go to heaven. And in that it's a very rational propositional statement that for everybody, regardless of your ability, is not giving you the full gospel message. The full gospel is a Genesis to Revelation, robust story of God's mission, his call, his purpose for what he has created and how we are to live and function in the world. And instead we've reduced it to a proposition that people have to give some sort of a mental assent. And then we've developed all of these practices of. This is what it means for you to check the boxes to say I've bought into that proposition. And all of those things can be very exclusive of people like my son, who don't think in propositional, rational, logical steps, who when you ask a question and want them to pare it back, something like they can't even answer the boxes.

Speaker 3:

And so part of what we have to think is number one how are we telling the gospel story. Where is it placing people with disability in that gospel story? That their lives really aren't about the fall. They really are part of the good creation that God has created, even as we wrestle with the complexities of what the fall produces in people. But we start with what is the gospel story and then we think of how is it that we're sharing that with other people?

Speaker 3:

And for my son, we're thinking very creatively about how we incorporate God into our conversations and what that looks like, the ways that we need to think pictorially and full body movement. What concepts are really important for Him to the ultimate goal of? How do we think about what does it look like for Him to be a follower of Christ? And I think, as we think about that, it actually helps us in all circumstances to have a better understanding of conversion, that we're pointing people toward Christ and watching them turn their lives in a Christ-ward direction, rather than simply giving a mental assent to something that may or may not have actually brought about full life transformation.

Speaker 3:

When you go back to scripture and you actually ask the question what does conversion look like? When you go back to scripture and you actually ask the question, what does conversion look like? In the narrative that we have been given, you actually see multiple ways in which that is displayed. You see Jesus telling us that we have to have childlike faith, that we need to become like a child to enter the kingdom of God. That doesn't require a deep theological propositional truth that we have to give assent to logical, propositional truth that we have to give assent to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the idea of so childlike faith that phrase is often mentioned in discourse around disability. Right, it sounds like the way that you're framing it is more connected with the capacity to wonder and not become stagnant in terms of how we engage the day-to-day world Children. When they're meandering through the world, they're fascinated by blades of grass and leaves, and colors and the sky and the sound of birds or whatever it might be. They're not so much derailed by what's familiar, because everything is unfamiliar. And is that kind of what you talk about, when you think about, when you use the word childlike faith?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think in two directions, and both. I'm going to relate to my son. There was one time where we took a nature walk with him and we were just walking around and we kept calling him to come to us and we turned around and here he was, a child of maybe three years old and he is standing there looking off. We turned around and here he was, a child of maybe three years old and he is standing there looking off across a field and the wind is blowing and there is this sense of wonder on his face and he just stands there and he's taking it in and he's slowly touching all of the blades of grass, the flowers, and it drew us into this holy moment of saying God is present in this creation and he is experiencing it in a way that we so often just miss because we're not looking for God. And yet Scripture's clear All of creation declares His wonders and he communed with God in that way. So I think it's that childlike wonder that you talked about, and I think it's also just a I don't know. There's just this I'm trying to find the right word for it but children are not caught up by all of the things that capture our brains. They can just say things as they are and it's unfiltered.

Speaker 3:

And there was a moment where we were reading through his Bible. He's got the big picture story Bible and we read through it a lot and there's moments where he can look at a picture and he's starting to figure out what part of the story it is. And so he remembers that when Abraham looked up into the sky and suddenly believed because he saw the stars, the Bible says a word about God was happy and as he looks at the book he'll get to that picture and he'll just say and God was happy. But I'm struck by the fact that when we got to the crucifixion, you have the crucifixion and then they have one chapter about it being a very dark day as the disciples are not sure what happens, and then resurrection happens. And when we got to that we were trying to ask him well, do you know what story we're at now? And he looked at it and he studied the picture and he said God's holy darkness.

Speaker 3:

And I've never understood it before but in that moment I was like he has just captured a deep theological truth that I don't think is even fully something that he recognizes, but he articulates it in a way that that childlike faith spoke deep theology, and that's the kind of childlike faith that we need present in the church.

Speaker 2:

Wow, if you're listening today and you're interested in checking out this big picture story Bible that Rochelle just mentioned, we'll attach a link below this where you can learn more about that.

Speaker 2:

And some of what you're mentioning, rochelle, makes me think about a grant that is sort of in play here presently overlapping nature and the natural world with children with disabilities and following children into nature and sort of trying to observe as the spirit does work in these children, interacting with horses and nature and animals, but not as sort of a peripheral reality in the church, but as central to the body of Christ and how God engages humanity and his people.

Speaker 2:

And it sounds like that's part of the gift and beauty of inviting someone into your life and being invited into his life that is drastically different than you and in some ways that's all of us.

Speaker 2:

We're all different from each other. We all come with different things to the table and the spirit kind of unites us and works in us as a result of the people sitting next to us who are different from us, and there's this innate gift of wonder that a child holds onto, because what becomes familiar for us is still unfamiliar for them, and maybe if we can embrace the fact that God is always, in a beautiful way, unfamiliar, because there's always more to know it should always create a sense of wonder in us and children, people who are different from us, cultures that are different than ours. They create a space to say remember the gift and the beauty of wonder and never lose it, and that's. That's pretty great. As we kind of wrap things up, would you mind telling us a little bit about your most recent book and why maybe we should pick it up, if these are the kinds of things that we are interested in?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so it's still in process. I'm hopeful that next year it will be out in publication, that next year it'll be out in publication. But it really is looking at this idea of disability and evangelism and I've kind of split it into two sections where the first really is dealing with the theological side. How do we actually understand what disability is and what it means to fit into God's story? Where does it fit in terms of creation? How do we understand disability in terms of the fall and what sin produces in the world? How do we understand what the cross does for us so that we understand what new creation looks like?

Speaker 3:

And it tries to make sure that the good news really is good news for everyone and not just for people that we considered able-bodied, that the good news is not just about, oh, people with disabilities, regardless of what it is, we're just looking for heaven and give them a perfect body.

Speaker 3:

But actually, to expand the conversation, say there is something a lot deeper and more important than what we're dealing with with our bodies, while saying our bodies fully matter in what God has done in creation, what God has done in redemption and what God will do in new creation. So I'm trying to map that out, and once we get everybody kind of on the same page theologically, I'm then diving into. Well, what do we mean then by evangelism? And so we'll look at evangelism and conversion and how that intersects with people with disability, to the point that we look at some specific evangelism practices that are very common in the church to say how is it that we can actually make sure that we are thinking about reaching people with disability through these different types of evangelism? How is it that we're taking the people in our church that do have disabilities and actually incorporating them into these ministries as well, equipping them and releasing them as participants and at times even leaders, in what the mission of the church is doing? That sounds incredible.

Speaker 2:

Do you have a working title for that book? And at times even leaders in what the mission of the church is doing. That sounds incredible. Do you have a working title for that book?

Speaker 3:

I've kept it at Disability and Evangelism right now. At some point we'll probably need to snazz it up just a little bit, but I figured we'll start with what it really is, and because I think even in that sense everybody's looking for something on how do we understand evangelism and its intersection with disability.

Speaker 2:

That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for agreeing to share some time with us.

Speaker 3:

My pleasure.

Speaker 2:

And I look forward to continuing this conversation as the Lord wills. Thank you all for listening and sharing some time with us today. May the Lord keep you. May the Lord bless you. May the Lord call His face to shine upon you. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, be blessed.

Speaker 1:

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