Spirituality - Anabaptist Disabilities Network

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Anabaptist Disabilities Network
PO Box 959
Goshen, IN 46527-0959
Phone: 574-535-7053
Ph/Fax: 877-214-9838

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Disabilities and Spirituality

In the last number of years, there has been an increasing focus on Anabaptist spirituality. However, only rarely has there been attention given to the spiritual life of persons who are often at the margins of church life.

Ministering to families and persons with significant disabilities, including mental illness, must go beyond simply responding to crises. While crisis care is important to provide encouragement and to be a tangible sign of God's presence, true spiritual ministry goes beyond that to look at the larger picture.

Often when persons emerge from crises and life appears to be more "normal," there are still many hidden needs and the very real dangers of depression and collapse. Often, the church community breathes a sigh of relief and leaves a family still asking many questions and experiencing considerable anxiety and stress.

Often, the spiritual lives of persons with developmental disabilities and some forms of mental illness are often ignored. The church assumes that such persons are "innocent" and have little understanding of spiritual life. Often though, by paying particular attention to the inner spirit, we discover a rich spiritual life more in tune with important matters that often get left out of our hectic, achievement-oriented lives.

Below are links to ministries that pay particular attention to the spiritual lives of persons who live with disabilities.

What happens when all can worship?
Article by Milt Stoltzfus on the Friendship Community Worship Teams which first appeared in the March 2010 issue of the Connections newsletter.

L'Arche
L'Arche is an international movement providing homes for persons to live together in intentional community. L'Arche grows out of a strong Christian movement, Catholic in its origins, but now ecumenical and inter-faith.

"Too deep for words: Learning about prayer from people with developmental disabilities," by Paula Snyder Belousek. Published in Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology, Fall 2006.

"Is Christianity about IQ" in The Mennonite , Dec 2, 2008 written by Karen Smucker. Some people's gifts are easily seen, but what about the ones in our churches who are unable to make a clear statement of personal faith? What does inclusion of people with developmental disabilities mean in churches that practice believers baptism?

"Being Rather than Doing." Don't miss Paul Leichty's comments in the lower right column.

Bibliography

Ben Lamb, contributed this bibliography on "A Theological- Philosophical Understanding of Mental Illness and Disabilities" while he was a student at Messiah College. We commend this list to you. It is generally heavy reading for the serious student. An HTML version of this can be found on the Theology page.