The United Church of Christ National Committee on Persons with Disabilities has as its major goal the full integration of persons with disabilities and their families into the life of the church.
Many of us have attended churches where the c
hurch bulletin bore the quotations, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go in to the House of the Lord.'” We must be certain that the doors to that house are always open to all, no matter what difficulties they or those they love may face in seeking to enter, so that the gladness and joy of acceptance can be known by all. May it be so, and soon!
In late 1990 we wrote to all Conference Ministers of the United Church of Christ, asking them to nominate programs and persons that, in their judgment, best served the goal of full inclusiveness. The stories herein offer examples of loving and inclusive ministries, ministries which are themselves both visions of hope and models of the inclusiveness of the Kingdom of God.
Churches honored include:
First Congregational Church, UCC in Cadillac, Michigan
First Congregational Church, UCC in Camden, Maine
First Congregational Church, UCC in Great Falls, Montana
Central Congregational Church, UCC in Topeka, Kansas
St. John’s UCC in Storm Lake, Iowa, and First Congregational Church, UCC, in Newell, Iowa
St. Peter’s Church, UCC in Washington, Missouri
Three churches in Rhode Island Conference: Chepachet Union Church; Riverside Congregational Church, UCC; and United Congregational Church of Litltle Compton
Individuals honored include:
Rev. Dr. Dallas A. Brauninger, First Congregational Church, UCC in Hemingford, Nebraska
Rev. Kathi D. Wolfe, UCC Office of Communication
Rev. Nancy Erickson, Lincoln, Nebraska
Rev. Ronald A. Getsay, Marion, Ohio
Mrs. Roberta Martin and her son Christ Martin of Southwest UCC in Portland, Oregon
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Cadillac, Michigan, has an active ministry with persons who are deaf or hearing impaired. In early 1987, an individual who is deaf offered a sign language class for people in the community. Several people from the church took the class.
During this time it became clear that people who were deaf needed a place to socialize. First Congregational offered its facilities and the Deaf Fellowship Club was begun. This club has met spontaneously since 1987. People from an area of 50 miles around the church have attended those social gatherings.
Later the church began to offer ten-week sign language classes at the church itself. There was an excellent response to the offer from the community as well as from members of the church. Seventy people attended, and the group had to be divided into two groups. Through publicity about the sign language class, the church became identified with sign language and persons who are deaf.
This sensitivity to the needs of persons who are deaf led in turn to having worship services “signed†at least once a month. Sometimes as many as ten persons who are deaf attend these worship services. Again because of the church’s concern for persons who are deaf or hearing impaired, several have become active members of First Congregational. Some have served or are serving as deacons, others host dinners and coffee hours, and many have become active participants in worship by signing poems or songs, or sharing prayer concerns.
The congregation has also installed a ramp to make the sanctuary and offices accessible to persons with mobility impairments, has large print bulletins, and has hymns in large print available upon request. It has also installed grab bars in the women’s rest room as well as TTY (telephone for the deaf.)
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First Congregational Church, UCC in Camden, Maine. From 1971-1988 the church has provided space for a school for 40 intellectually disabled individuals, who use the Sunday school rooms as classrooms. The school was run in conjunction with the local school board, and lunches provided by the school board were brought to the church each noon during the school year.
All students who attended public school classes at the church are now in a nearby sheltered workshop, and the church building is no longer needed. Every Friday evening, however, a group of persons with intellectual disabilities meet for a social evening. Many of them are people who formerly attended the school held at the church. In April of 1990 a group of these young people put on the musical, Grease.
We saluted First Congregational Church, UCC for providing space for work and play for so many persons with disabilities.
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In 1987 the Montana-Northern Wyoming Conference passed a resolution asking all the churches in the conference to make their churches accessible; it repeated that request in 1990. First Congregational Church, UCC in Great Falls, a church with 450 members, responded quickly, with an impressive list of past and present actions and future plans for making their church totally accessible.
Prior to the 1987 Conference Resolution, the church had:
• Reserved parking spaces for persons with disabilities
• An accessible sanctuary and offices
• An accessible restroom
• Hearing aids in the sanctuary, and
• A lift installed to make fellowship hall accessible.
Since 1987, it has added:
• Large print bulletins
• Increased parking spaces for per sons with disabilities
• Additional pulpit microphone for those with hearing impairments
• Accessibility signs on the building and in the telephone book
• The signing of one service per month for hearing impaired. (This is the only local televised service that is interpreted.)
First Congregational now plans to upgrade its accessible restroom from one unisex restroom to making both men’s and women’s restrooms accessible and to add an elevator which will reach the downstairs Christian Education Wing.
When these future plans are completed, First Congregational UCC of Great Falls, Montana will be TOTALLY accessible. We salute them for their fine work.
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Central Congregational, UCC in Topeka, Kansas has made significant progress in its long range plans to be physically and attitudinally accessible. It has built a ramp to make the sanctuary accessible and prints large-print bulletins each week. It has also hired a signer to include hearing-impaired children of members and others in the Sunday school and worship experiences.
A few years ago the Diaconate instituted a transportation program for shut-ins, which included volunteers who would take the initiative to call and inquire of shut-ins whether they would like to be picked up for Sunday worship. This effort aimed to remove the stigma of needing (and having to ask for_ special care by having the volunteers express the congregation’s desire to include in worship those without their own transportation.
That effort proved so successful that the church purchased a van. Suddenly more persons expressed interest. Because the first van was difficult for some to enter and exit, a second, larger van with a wheelchair lift has been added. The ramp is no longer a passive invitation to those who are able to get to church on their own. Now the congregation is sensitive to the need to be physically barrier-free from door-to-door, and attitudinally barrier-free, from invitation—to welcome- to “see you again!â€
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St. John’s UCC in Storm Lake, Iowa, and First Congregational Church, UCC, in Newell, Iowa enthusiastically called the Rev. Peter Wenzel as their pastor. He accepted this call as his first full-time parish and began his ministry with the two churches on March 1, 1990. Mr. Wenzel was born with spina bifida and is unable to walk without crutches; occasionally he uses a wheelchair to get around. He is a man of many gifts who has been received in the church and community and is becoming active in the Iowa Conference programs.
We are pleased to honor the two churches who recognized his ability for ministry, and to honor the Rev. peter Wenzel, both for his courage and determination and for his devotion to the life of Christ’s church.
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For many decades, St. Peter’s Church, UCC in Washington, Missouri, has expressed concern for people with disabilities. The consciousness of the church regarding persons with disabilities was raised many years ago by the Wilke family, of which the well-known Rev. Dr. Harold Wilke, a man who was born without arms, is a part.
Over a period of ten years the church has expressed this commitment by building a ramp, installing an elevator and accessible restrooms, and putting in a new amplification system. In addition, many in the congregation have been strong supporters of the Emmaus Homes for individuals who are mentally disabled. They sponsor birthday parties for residents’ birthdays, give other holiday parties, have provided scorekeepers for Emmaus’ bowling league, and have painted, landscaped, and done other maintenance work projects. They also helped develop and staff a sheltered workshop near the Marthasville campus.
Despite some resistance from the town, they are turning their old parsonage, across from the church, into a group home for six individuals who have been residing at t he Emmaus Home.
The church had also given a ramp for an Emmaus van, and has during the past two years contributed $1,000.00 each year to help underwrite the yearly “Open Your Heart†Dinner. Proceeds from this dinner go into a resident’s trust fund to pay the expenses of those whose families cannot cover their child’s expenses. The dinner costs $20,000.00 to put on, and each guest pays $100.00 per plate. At the last dinner 37 members from St. Peter’s attended.
In 1984, when St. Peter’s celebrated its 140th anniversary, it gave $14,000 as an anniversary gift to Emmaus; during a five year capital fund campaign, St. Peter’s raised $77,000.00 for Emmaus. Numerous members of St. Peter’s have served on the Board of Directors of the Emmaus Hmes and have provided significant leadership. Currently t he pastor, William Schwab, and two others, Delores Borcherding and Elmer Heidmann, are board members. We honor them for their continuing devotion.
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We honor three Rhode Island Churches:
Chepachet Union Church has removed pews in the front of the church to accommodate wheelchairs; installed an automatic chairlift into the sanctuary; remodeled its bathrooms to make them wheelchair accessible, designated handicapped parking spaces, and installed ramps to the main doorway and to the bathrooms;
Riverside Congregational UCC has installed a handicapped entrance ramp with railings, made restrooms accessible to persons with disabilities, created seating for persons in wheelchairs within the body of the congregation, installed hearing aids for those who need them, and made large print bulletins available on request; and
The United Congregational Church of Little Compton has installed an elevator which goes directly from a ramp entrance into the sanctuary, has renovated the bathroom to provide a wide doorway, and elevated the fixtures to proper heights, and had installed a new speaker system so that those who have difficulty hearing can sit anywhere in the church.
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The Rev. Dr. Dallas “Dee†Brauninger served with her husband, Bob, as co-pastor of First Congregational Church, UCC, in Hemingford, Nebraska until acute arthritis affected her jaw to the point that she found it difficult to speak. At present, she is almost entirely sightless, and has a leader Dog. Because she is an excellent writer, however, her ministry now consists primarily by use of the written word.
It was very painful for Dee to have to give up preaching and the active pastoral ministry. Yet, she consciously continues her ministry not only by writing but by minimizing her disability. Her goal is to make blindness look easy, so that people see the person first and not the disability.
This admirable clergywoman is constantly looking for ways to minister to those around her. For example, Dee studies the Bible by having friends read parts of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible to her (just published and she was curious), while she types passages onto her computer. As she does so, she begins to hear various voices of the congregation which combine to form choral readings. She has put together different groups to read to her, such as “family groupings, disputing individuals, combinations of generations and those who needed lifting up as creatures of God.†In this wonderful way she involves those who might not ordinarily participate in worship.
There are many other creative ways this creative lady ministers. She prepared, at the request of the Conference office, a tape for a man who went through a difficult time visually. The tape dealt with ways to compensate and cope with lack of sight. She also coordinates the taping of UCC News, having a retired RN in the congregation do the reading. The nurse had to retire early due to rheumatoid arthritis. Another of Dee’s projects is a weekly ecology column in the local newspaper. The list of important projects Dee undertakes goes on and on.
Chicago Theological Seminary recently awarded both Bob and Dee Brauninger the degree of Doctor of Divinity for their faithful ministry on a rural setting. We honor Dee Brauninger as an outstanding clergy person, not because of a disability, but in spite of it.
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The Rev. Kathi D. Wolfe, a United Church of Christ National staff member with the Office of Communications, is not only a valued member of the National Committee on Persons with Disabilities, but she has recently been appointed to the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.
In inviting her to serve as chairperson of the Committee, Justin Dart cited her “commitment and dedication to advance opportunities for persons with disabilities.†On the President’s Committee, Ms Wolfe will address disability-related employment concerns, especially those of women, minorities, and older workers.
A native of New Hope, PA, Kathi earned the degree of bachelor of arts in 1975 from Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, and the degree of Masters of Divinity in 1978 from Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. She was ordained to Christian ministry in 1980 by the Central Atlantic Conference of the UCC. She now is a member of the Euclid Avenue Congregational UCC in Cleveland, and holds her ministerial standing in the Ohio Conference.
As Coordinator for Special Projects for the UCC National Office of Communications, she was the producer of “Reaching for a Dream,†a videotape on people of color with disabilities. Prior to assuming her present position with the UCC Office of Communications, she worked in that office as a staff writer from 1987 to the present.
Kathi Wolfe has held many other positions, including that of Minister of Outreach at First Congregational Church, UCC, in Passaic, NJ; that of social worker with the Social Service Federation of Englewood, NJ; and field representative with the New Jersey Department of Public Advocates on the Division of Advocacy for the Developmentally Disabled. She was the first project access coordinator with New Jersey’s transit bus operations in Maplewood, NJ, where she set up a program to publicize the corporation’s fleet of wheelchair accessible buses.
Kathi is a published poet, who also serves on the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Blind, and has been a member of the New Jersey Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities.
In nominating Kathi Wolfe for her outstanding contributions as an individual with a disability, the Rev. Curtis Clare, her former conference minister, attested to her sense of humor, her sensitivity, and to the inspiration she gave him when he himself was experiencing vision problems.
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The Rev. Nancy Erickson is a paraplegic ([paralyzed in both the upper and lower parts of her body). Despite this disability, she is now the first chaplain of the Lancaster County Jail in Lincoln, Nebraska. She holds a B.A. in sociology and psychology (1969), a M.A. (1971) in educational psychology, and a M. Div. from Yale Divinity School (1989). She was a delegate from Nebraska to the White House Conference on handicapped individuals in 197, was listed in Who’s Who Among American College and University Students in 1969, and in Who’s Who in America in 1980.
During her senior year at Yale, Nancy began to experience the frustration shared by many bright persons with disabilities. Her profile was widely circulated, but she kept receiving rejection letters while her classmates, many of whom had far less experience, found employment in local parishes. In late July, 1989, a friend suggested that she volunteer at the Lancaster County Jail. She met with the Director and Program Director of the Jail, who agreed to allow her to volunteer as a chaplain and suggested that she attend a Sunday worship to “get a feel for the work.â€
On the Sunday she came “to visit,†the minister scheduled to speak failed to appear, so Nancy stepped in. Her reception was overwhelmingly positive, and in November of that same year Nancy Erickson began her work as chaplain t Lancaster County Jail. Working first with a small salary provided by her church, First Plymouth Congregational, UCC, pastured by Rev. Otis young, and then by the Lincoln Interfaith Church, she has since received a small grant from the UCBHM to enable her to continue this work.
Her tasks as chaplain include leading workshops, counseling, and listening to and praying with those in jail. She sees a parallel between persons with disabilities and those who are incarcerated, since she believes that if either raised questions about their circumstances, their questions are seen not as legitimate objections but as troublemaking. Her personal experience has led her to question her role in an unjust system, and to cry for justice for all. As Christians committed to justice, we are grateful for Nancy Erickson and others like her who are willing to face and attempt to deal with injustice wherever it appears.
{Editorial Note, 2010: Nancy went on to become an Associate Minister of First Plymouth, the largest UCC in Nebraska. She can be contacted through the staff link at First Plymouth.]
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The Rev. Ronald A. Getsay is a native of Ohio, having spent his childhood in Warren, Ohio. He attended Heidelberg College and Youngstown University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1962. He is a graduate of united Theological Seminary and was ordained by the Eastern Ohio Association in 1965.
Ron began his ministry in Waldo, Ohio where he served the yoked parishes of Sr. Joseph and St. John’s UCC. Shortly after beginning his work in Waldo, he discovered that he had multiple sclerosis and was hospitalized. After being released from the hospital, Ron gradually resumed his pastoral duties, and for a time it seemed as if his multiple sclerosis had been arrested. In 1968, however, he found the pastorate of two churches too taxing. He resigned and became the pastor of Salem UCC in Marion, Ohio. Then, in 1972, Ron experienced more and more limitations. He struggled, but in February, 1976, he realize he could no longer meet the needs of a local parish, and he resigned.
Ron, however, has never given up being a faithful servant of Christ. Since leaving the pastorate because of lagging strength, he has been a leader for persons with disabilities both in the Ohio Conference, UCC, as well as in the Ohio Council of Churches. During the 1970’s and 1980’s he was chair person of the Ohio Task Force on Disabilities, now renamed Enabling Ministries Together.
C. William Wealand, Minister for Outdoor ministries, stated, “The renaming of the task force was initiated by Ron Getsay, and is symbolic of his own growth. He has been, and is, a principal mover, raising sensitivities about differently-abled persons taking action to change the location of the Northwest Ohio Association and the Ohio Conference office to facilities that are accessible, and working for the inclusion of differently abled persons in positions of leadership in the Ohio Conference.â€
In 1983 Ron wrote a book entitled, An Inclusive Church: Character and Ministry. In it, he wrote:
An inclusive personality is a reality we can help bring into being. In his longing to be free of his affliction, the apostle Paul prayed three times that it would be removed. His prayer was unanswered: “My grace is all you need, for my power is stronger when you are weak.†Our acknowledgment of God’s presence and power in our lives, and our acceptance of our own weakness, offers us the reality of an inclusive personality. It has been my experience in the past sixteen years, and particularly most recently, that when I allow the grace and power of God to be alive in my being, I can live with myself and others.
Thus we honor Ronald A. Getsay, a man who has truly used his disability for the glory of God and the good of humankind.
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Roberta Martin of Milwaukee, Oregon, active and activist church member, has a son, Chris, who was born with Downs Syndrome. Because of the efforts of his mother, Christ, now 36, has been from his earliest years mainstreamed into the life of the Southwest UCC in Portland, OR. Each Sunday Chris Martin rings the bell signifying the beginning of the worship service; he then serves as acolyte, sets up music stands for the prelude, arranges flowers, helps prepare refreshments, and confers with his pastor, the Rev. Richard S. Kidmore.
The church has been a source of strength for Christ, who has completed a program at Pacific State University for persons with Downs and moved into a group home which provides semi-independent living. Christ now attends a sheltered workshop.
Christ is described as an exemplary individual who gives unselfishly to others, and as a great competitor who loves to win but accepts defeat. Certainly these attributes were fostered and encouraged by his parents, and especially by his mother, Roberta, who has worked tirelessly not only for him but for all persons with developmental disabilities. She has served on the Board od Directors and has been President of the Portland Habilitation Center, a vocational and residential service program for adults with developmental disabilities. She has also served on the Board of Rainbow Adult Living Facilities, Inc., investigated the development of statewide guardianship programs, and has provided an advocacy program within the association for retarded citizens of Oregon.
She also has taught at Portland Habilitation Center and served on its Board, where she has been a supportive friend and advisor to many parents who have children with developmental disabilities. She was honored in the 1970’s as “Woman of the Year†in recognition of her tireless efforts on behalf of people with developmental disabilities and their families.
Roberta is the author of C is for Christopher, a book about the relationship between her son and Lloyd Renolds, renowned lecturer, author, and calligrapher. Chris and Lloyd illustrated the book. All proceeds from sales go directly to the Association of Retarded Citizens of Multnomah County, Portland, OR, for the benefit of those they serve. She also developed a very fine brochure for the Central pacific Conference of the UCC on Disabilities and the church.
We salute Roberta Martin for all she has done not only for her own son, Chris, but for all other persons with developmental disabilities and their families.
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