169: Engaging Adults With Disabilities In Your Small Church: Respect, Support, & Connection | with Victoria White

Laurie Graham and Victoria White discuss the inclusion of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in the church. 

Victoria, an experienced advocate, shares her passion for this issue and the benefits of welcoming this population, such as slowing down and gaining new perspectives.

The conversation covers practical steps for churches to reach out and build relationships with the IDD community, as well as the importance of addressing attitudes and misconceptions. 

The key takeaways highlight the need to recognize the underrepresentation of people with IDD in many congregations and the transformative impact their presence can have.

Connect with Victoria White:
vwand2@gmail.com
www.disabilityministrynetwork.org
www.cityhopegr.org

Join our free Facebook Community: www.facebook.com/groups/smallchurchministry


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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. You. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. We are just going to jump right into our topic today, because my guest and I have a lot to say. It is always fun. Typically, when I do podcast interviews, we have time to talk ahead of time, and then we have to stop ourselves and go, wait, wait, this should be on the podcast. So we are jumping kind of midstream into a conversation we've been having about adults with intellectual development disabilities and the church, and where are they, and why are they here, and what are we doing, and what could we do, and how much Jesus honored all people, all people. And I was thinking of Jesus walking around, teaching on the hillside, and how church is so different for all of us in so many ways, and how in Jesus space, in Jesus world, I think maybe there were a little less obstacles in some ways, and in other ways, a lot more so Victoria White is here with us today. She has spent a few decades now advocating for people with disabilities in all sorts of arenas, professionally and personally, and we are so grateful to have Victoria. She's spoken at our conferences, she's been part of our community. Just love you so much in all these ways. Victoria, do you want to give a short introduction and also tell people why you're passionate about this field? Yeah, thanks,

Victoria White: 1:49

Laurie. I have been excited to be a part of your conferences, and we were just commenting on how much I've actually recommended to other organizations to check out your conferences because of the high quality in which you put them together. So I, yeah, I've been involved with disability in a ministry context for, yeah, a couple of decades. I was actually tossed into ministry as a kid, and because I was the children's ministry leaders kid, and then as they, as they transitioned out of it, they passed it off to somebody else. And I just followed along and maintained being a volunteer, and actually the woman under who I was a volunteer happened to also be the head of the Inclusive Education program at a local Christian School, which was pioneering what it meant to do inclusive education, which means that it was students with disabilities In general education classrooms with supports as well as some pull out times, but the goal being that peers are together as much as possible, and that's best for everyone. And so I was sort of addicted to this woman and the way she did life, and the way that she taught people, and she became my best friend. We were in small group together. We did ministry together. Then I worked for her at the school, so I was working directly with students with disabilities and kids of all abilities, and helping them be friends and helps facilitate learning. And it wasn't too long into all of that that we she launched working directly with other churches, which was first focused on children. And you and I have talked about this a few times, that can often be where churches start, as they say, oh, disability, yep, we can help kids with disabilities. But it wasn't very long before we were talking to churches that we realized really quickly that this, of course, is all ages and stages. And I firmly believe if there is anywhere that we think about eternal relationships, it's the church. So making friends in school is great, and being with peers in your school years is great, but as especially people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and that's how we say that intellectual and developmental disabilities means I D, D in the nice alphabet soup way of saying things. But you will see the gaps broaden with as their peers graduate high school, go on to college, start young families, right? And people with intellectual and developmental disabilities will stay in school longer depends on the state. Some states you can stay in school and receive services up to age 26 sometimes it's closer to 18 and anywhere in between there. But what you'll see right is these are the individuals who stay there while their peers go on into different places of life. And so what I think

Laurie Graham: 4:43

so we had been together, and now we're separating, right? You know, I want to go back to something you said when you were talking about your mentor. You said she taught and believed, and you believed this too, that it's best when we are all together, and there is some beauty in there that. Want to, I just want to unpack just a little bit, because decades ago, when you said that, decades ago, generations ago, people with all sorts of disabilities were hidden. They were put into institutions. Oftentimes they were not given good care. There was shame around it. There was fear around it. Oftentimes, there was some pretty whacked out, even faith beliefs around it. And we have come a long ways, I would say, since then, but we still have a long ways to go. Like, do you feel that too Absolutely,

Victoria White: 5:33

because look at any one of the nearly 380,000 churches in the US, most of which are small churches with fewer than 200 people participating? How many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are in those churches?

Laurie Graham: 5:51

One very few. And I will say like I'm thinking of my experience right in the churches I have been in. Well, honestly, I think I knew less people with any type of disabilities in the larger churches I was in, but in the smaller churches I have been in with, let's say 100 people, 150 people, 75 people, I would say one, two or three at the most in most of my church experiences, Right?

Victoria White: 6:19

So that's anywhere from very few, from 3% to, yeah, like half a percent of the congregation. So just thinking about that statistically, right? We're missing out on a lot of people who, quite frankly, research has shown, are motivated to participate in church faith is important to them. Community is hugely important to them, and they're lonely. Now, you talked about institutionalization, right? And so we could talk about, yeah, back in the 70s and 80s, when the de institutionalization happened in the US. And so now people who were sometimes from birth with a way to live in an institution because, you know, their family had other plans or what, whatever the story was. But since then, right now, there are group homes, often, often called adult foster care group homes, and they're in our neighborhoods, but they've been so well, I'll use the word disguised to be a part of the community that our churches don't even know they're there. There's not a sign that says, right? This is a home where people with IDD live. It's just looks like another house. There might be a little extra fence, or there's a few extra vehicles there all the time, and people are just like, Huh? It's up with that house, right? And so I think it's been really great, and there are community based instruction for skill building things, and there's really a big push for a lot of services to be able to have people with IDD active in the community. But I think the church is missing out on some great opportunities. One for some volunteers who would love to come in and fold things, maybe clean things, it depends on what the person's passionate about doing, right? Yeah, their group. But to come in as volunteers and to just participate in your church, but also, like there are group homes all across the country, right in the neighborhoods of our churches who are super eager to be a part of community, and how many churches are struggling with the Battle of loneliness, or how to help someone who who just needs somebody else to talk To somebody to play Uno with, or Jenga or right? There's so many things that we could just connect some people in ways that build relationships and again. Like,

Laurie Graham: 8:49

Okay, I gotta say, I'm going to ask you in just a second why you think we are best together. Like, why is it that if we reach out, if we combine, if we welcome, if we involve people with IDD intellectual and development disability. Am I saying that right

Victoria White: 9:04

intellectual and developmental disabilities, and developmental

Laurie Graham: 9:08

disabilities, why our churches are better? But before I ask him, Give me a minute to think about that. Before you answer that, I when you were talking about service, I thought of a couple of my friends who have intellectual and developmental disabilities, they would be the best greeters. Like, they love it. They light up and we light up, and we see them like it's like, you could have the worst day, and when you're greeted or hugged, or, you know, just welcomed by this particular person, it like changes my day. And I thought, Why have they never been greeters like, what I bet you know, like they'd be the best. And so it's really sweet when you said that you know, just a few people in my life, in past churches just popped to mind. So, so why do you say, why is this part of your belief system that our churches would be better with more involved? Involvement and more inclusion of people with I'm practicing my terms if you're listening to intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Victoria White: 10:09

Yeah, well, number one, because we're all on the planet together, and we need to be a part of the Kingdom of God so that we could be together forever. So let's just start now. But also because, like you said, there is joy in individuals that I've known with IDD that I just need. I don't know about you, but I'm an overthinker, and I just hate things, right? And I honestly am not a lot of fun a lot of the time, because I'm just so serious I've been accused of that. And so my friends with IDD are a lot better at having fun than I am, and I need that in my life. And somebody who I have been learning from for several years, his name is Dr John Swinton. He's from Scotland, University of abery, so just really fun to listen to, but he challenges Christians to think about the pace of our lives. And I know there are some others speaking about this too, right, like the author of the book the ruthless elimination of hurry. But John Swinton wrote a book years ago called becoming friends of time, and he's worked with people with IDD for a very long time, as well as individuals with dementia, and just populations with whom you spend time with them, you have to slow down. And I think you pointed out something earlier about Jesus is never in a big hurry. And I think we are often in a hurry to get to the next ministry thing or the meeting or just to do this. We're just always in a hurry and and I think the power of just being together and being forced to slow down to do that. There's a Sabbath rest to that. There's a joy to that, that when you taste it, you realize how much you've been hungering for it. And again, that is just one of the reasons that I think we need people with IDD in our churches. I also think Jesus was called the good teacher. And he said, Well, why do you call Me good, right? But I think he really was a good teacher. He knew that if, if we as people were supposed to remember something, we weren't going to do it by just hearing words and remembering them. Now, the Hebrew culture is phenomenal at memorizing Scripture. So, you know, in context, Jesus was talking to people who were really good at remembering the Torah and the word of God, but He said, Remember this. And he gave us not just words to remember, but he gave bread to smell and feel and taste, and an environment in which our all of our senses were engaged. And I think in our churches, so much of our experiences are really at a really high intellectual level. So often it's written and spoken words. We read words on the screen to sing along, or in a book to sing along, or we, you know, we're reading God's word. If you're not reading your Bible every day, right? We hear that so often. Oh, what if you are non verbal? What if you don't read? What if reading is looking at the pictures in a picture book? What if participating in Bible study would mean looking through pictures and just raising your hand when it's your turn to signal you love the Lord again. It's just kind of pushing us to to just experience the Spirit of God and being with him and learning him, not just about him, in different ways that I think we all actually gain from so by having people among us who think differently than us. It's just like being among people who speak a different language right struggle through the communication differences, and it grows us as a person, and it helps expand our imagination for who God is, how he understands us, how he gets into our hearts and speaks to us. And sometimes some of the most profound prayers have come from those who use all of four words in a row, Yep,

Laurie Graham: 14:38

yeah, oh, it's so true. And you know, when we're around people with IDD, it forces us to think differently. And I want to go back to the word force. And you said, if you're around people with dementia, you need to like you need to be slower. And I'm going to say it doesn't force us, and we don't need to. We can not enjoy that. We cannot experience it. We can walk away from an opportunity. That God's given us. Because I know a lot of people who would never go into a dementia unit, or if they're talking with somebody with dementia or with IDD, they're literally trying to smile, but in their head, they are impatient and angry and just can't wait to get out and get out of that situation. Move on. Do something bigger, do something better. And I think when we talk about like it forces us to, or we need to, we don't need to. We can deny that opportunity that God's given us right in front of us. We can walk past in our in our city, the grocery store where I go, and there's a lot of people who work in the grocery store, several of them who have IDD, which is a new term for me, this IDD. I wasn't even, didn't even know that before today, but it's easy to walk past and not smile. It's easy to ignore people around us. You know, Victoria, do you have a stat? I'm just curious. I don't know if you do have a stat. How many people in the population, maybe in the US, or whatever, have some form of intellectual or developmental disability. Is there a stat for that? Yeah,

Victoria White: 16:04

the stats are a little broader, but the CDC numbers are one in four people have a disability, and that's just between the ages of 18 and 65 so people and

Laurie Graham: 16:16

that's intellectual or that's any disability, that's

Victoria White: 16:19

a broad range of disabilities. So I think numbers that are focusing on IDD is probably more like 10 or 12% if I can remember correctly, and I can,

Laurie Graham: 16:30

but in the scope of our churches, when we look at our churches, if our churches actually represented our communities, then then 10 to 25% of people in our churches. Now, we also know a lot of churches are never gonna slow things down or welcome or be inclusive of a disability population as well, and so, like, I but I think it's a really beautiful thing to go, oh yeah. Like when churches say we don't have any people like that. Well, why? Why is that? They're they are around us, they are in our community. You know, that's one of the things that churches will say is, well, we don't need to have, and I'll go into some other disability areas, we don't need to be, you know, have things for hearing impaired. We don't need to have things for, you know, that would serve autistic or we don't need to have, you know, these kind of access, because we don't have those people. Well, you do have those people in your reach, yeah, yeah. And why? There's Archies and they're not gone. Yeah, exactly, yep,

Victoria White: 17:23

yep,

Laurie Graham: 17:24

yeah. Well, and so do you want to talk about, like, some ways that churches can do better? So we kind of talked about, like, the need, we talked about our personal passions, a little bit of the joy. What can churches do to get started? And I say to get started, because most churches have not gotten started, right? Would you agree with that? Or am I being pessimistic there? Well, again, I think

Victoria White: 17:44

it depends on the church. And one of the things is that we often don't think about disability until it's part of our story. So if there's somebody in the church with a family member who has IDT, then your church has gotten started. Maybe you haven't realized it yet. And I think one of the beautiful things about small churches in particular is that we're very familial, right? And so who is a part of your 100 people? If one of them happens to have a family member with IDD, then your church is going to kind of do some ebbing, flowing and morphing, because you're small and every person matters. In big churches, it's more programmatic, right? And so those are that's just a different way of engaging with people. Yeah,

Laurie Graham: 18:30

in the small churches, if someone's around, we know them and we love them, or at least we try we see

Victoria White: 18:37

them, right? Yeah, right. And so I think that's a huge advantage. What I think sometimes small churches get stumped on is, oh, well, we don't have all the resources of the big church. So, you know, we don't have the money to go buy adaptive, you know, curriculum, or all of these other tools, or have a sensory room, or whatever it might be that they think they need to have. But again, I think it doesn't cost anything but time to get to know a person. And so what I would say to churches is, if you don't know anyone with IDD, and noone in your church has someone in their family or a friend or a connection within a school that they work in, or whatever, wherever your connections might lead you, and if you actually don't have people with IDD somehow connected with your church, then either I would love to help you do this, or simply Google or find on some of the databases adult foster care group homes that are right in your neighborhood or within maybe a 10 mile radius of your church, because I do think proximity matters. It can be really hard to try to form community with people, especially because this is a population who's not going to drive. So transportation will be something that either you're going to need to go to them or help figure out how to get them to your church, which is also a beautiful opportunity. Time in the car is time. Connecting, and I don't want to miss those opportunities either, but I think just getting to know someone who's near you is a hugely valuable place to start. And even just, can your church serve that group home in some way? Can you bring snacks to the whole residence, including those who live there, as well as the staff, who would be probably shocked that the church cared, and that's powerful too. So or family members, you just

Laurie Graham: 20:31

made me cry. So you just made me tear up, because that is so true, like I think they would be shocked.

Victoria White: 21:11

And so if you actually invite them and say, You know what, we have this fun hot dog roast going on at our church next Wednesday, would you all want to come? How can we help facilitate that happening so you can come have hot dogs with the rest of us at our picnic, or, you know, our family fun night, or our trunk or treat, or whatever it is you're doing, or your outdoor service, if, if you're a little nervous about, you know, will our indoor normal service work for people? Are they going to make noises or bring smells or, you know, be active when we're all sitting quietly? Like, how do we make that work? So try with just some of the looser activities that you do, but just invite them drop off flowers once in a while and say, we see you. We know you're here, just small acts of kindness that you would do to anyone who you care about. Just start to care is really powerful. One of the things that I keep thinking about is just our attitudes toward disability, and you mentioned right, that can mean a lot of things. So as we think about IDD, in particular, I think it's a really helpful tool to think about what, what is our attitude toward this population? And a friend of mine actually came up with something he calls the five stages of changing attitudes, and he was thinking specifically about people with IDD, because that's who he worked with at the time, but quickly realized it applied to people of all various forms of disabilities, and now he's saying this probably applies to all kinds of marginalized populations, and probably humans testing within the church to say, who else does this apply to? But the first stage is ignorance, which is not meant to be insulting to anybody, but it's just you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, if you've not had a friend who has IDD, you're a little unfamiliar with what this world looks like, right, right? But so then with a little bit of contact, then you might move into the pity phase. Oh, man, it's gotta be so rough to live with IDD. How few opportunities they can't drive. There's all these things they can't do. I feel so bad for that person. As a Christian, I you know, I really ought to, ought to do something for them which will move you into the phase of care, which is great. And yes, Scripture commands that we care for one another, and we care for orphans and widows and those in poverty, which people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty, but a whole other conversation, right? So so care absolutely we need to care, but a lot of times, our ministries also will just get stalled out there and oh, let's just keep providing for and caring for people, and we miss out on the other two stages, which are friendship and like we talked about, right, the sparking of joy and just the greeter, and how it lifts our spirits to be a mutual relationship. So friendship is the next phase, but there's one more to go, and I get so excited about this. And he calls it the CO laborer stage, because it's all about building the kingdom. That's what each one of us is called to do. Right? Psalm 150 says, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, not just the worship leaders who are gifted to play guitar and sing on tune every time. Right? Everybody, praise the Lord. God created you. You have breath. Praise the Lord. Do you not have words? Is is spoken language tricky for you is self control tricky for you, right? Is your cognitive level of functioning going to limit your ability to praise the Lord? No, but it might look no than mine, but we all are here to build His kingdom and draw others in with us. And so people with IDD are our CO laborers in that effort and and that's what I want the church just to see, is that if we are excluding people with IDD simply because we haven't thought about how to welcome them or invite them or do things maybe just a little bit differently, we're missing out. And so I don't want to I don't want to miss out. I don't want the kingdom to miss a huge population of people who were created to praise the Lord. So can we praise the Lord with some praise streamers instead of always having to use words? Is that an option? Can we be a part of the church community in ways that. Contribute by baking cookies together, and maybe this person who loves to stir, I actually just met a new friend with IDD who just loves to stir when baking things, baking sparks joy, not only because we like to eat cookies, but stirring the bowl is like highlight of the day. So yeah, we could do that together. Churches love this little cookies.

Laurie Graham: 25:53

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, when you said co laborers, I say this a lot to people in churches, like, we need to quit doing ministry to and for people, but we need to do ministry with people. And this is my one of my sticks is, like, we've got to quit having these little core teams and councils and, you know, just this, this tight ministry team that does all the Ministry for other people, because it's frustrating and that other people don't respond the way we want them to respond. Then we get frustrated or, you know, and we've got to start doing ministry more with people, which, you know, has obviously a lot of dynamics. But I, I really didn't think about that in terms of what you were saying until you talked about CO laborers. Because oftentimes people with disabilities, we think of how, if we are thinking of them, we think of how we can serve them, what we can do for them, for them, and to them, to bless them, to care for them. And I think we miss that piece of No, that's not all. They have value to add to the kingdom. They have value to add to our churches and to do ministry with them. It also changes the feeling of that burden of another thing to do, right, like another thing to do. We get into that a lot preach it. So that was just really beautiful, the way you said that. Yeah,

Victoria White: 27:06

you know, I have actually learned a ton from something called restorative practices. They just talk about relationships and how if, if we're not engaging, we're in the not box of how we do relationships, if our supporting people, but not really asking anything of them, we're doing things for people, which is fine when you know you're at Grandma's house and she's just going to do everything for you because you're her favorite grandchild, and she loves to do things for you, but if you're going to church and people constantly just do things for you, right? Yeah, you're not a contributing part of that body. So how can you be needed there, which is a big piece of belonging, and yet, on the other side of things, if all we do is demand things of people without giving them any support, we're constantly doing things to people. And like you mentioned, that's kind of one of the other things that we can do is we have, like, this exclusive club of the ones who are the doers, and they just do things to everybody else, but we serve the God who came as Emmanuel, God with us. So that's like the fight. That's where the level of support meets the level of demand. God says, I want you to be engaged in this, but I'm going to offer you the support it takes to be engaged in this as CO laborers. And I think if we just built our ideas of what it means to be a part of the church, knowing that we are asking people to participate, and that includes people with IDD, people who might not use spoken words, but we're going to offer the level of support it takes for them to participate. We can. We can pair them with a mentor who's been a greeter for the last five years at the church, and they together for the last 20 right, or whatever, right? And they together can be the greeting team, and lo and behold, there's support, but also a demand that this person participate, and now the the joyful smile of that person who is who is part of the greeting team is contributing, and people are better for it. And that could be true of coffee hosting or setting up chairs or right get to know what the person loves to do. You know, there's one really great story of a young man with Down syndrome whose pastor was like, okay, yep, we want to involve him in the church and he can contribute. So how about he be the one to supply me with my cup of water that's always in the pulpit when I need it. And this kiddo was like, a stupid job. I don't want to do it. So one day, he put hot water in the pastor's cup, and he goes take a sip, and he's like, and mentally, he took note and said, later, I think we need to find out what he wants to do to support the church, right? So you know it, it matters what we get excited about doing, but, um, but I think it's Yeah. We could carry people together and say, Why don't you learn to do this and try it out and see if that's how you want to serve the church too.

Laurie Graham: 30:08

Yeah. You know, I think the bottom line is there's opportunity around us all the time, every day, and it's not always what we're looking for. I think of churches who often say, Yeah, we're trying all these things, but they're not coming. Well, have you tried this? Have you opened your door to this person, this population, this people group, this and I don't even just mean the the population we're talking about today. I'm just. Saying, like, sometimes we have something in our mind, and God is doing something else, like, right in our midst. And it could be this podcast, like, if you're listening to this podcast, like, what is stirring in your heart? Was there a person who popped to mind? Is there a person in your church? Is there a person down the street? Is there a person in the grocery store? Do you wonder if that house you've driven by is some type of a group home, like, like, what could be, I don't know, what could be rising up in your heart right now as you're listening. You know, I, I love having these conversations, and often when I have people on the podcast, you know, there's always those questions, well, how do you prepare? And is there an outline? And I like to say, listen, we're gonna have a conversation, and we're gonna let a whole lot of people listen in. And what you all do with this conversation, I believe, is where our faith gets put into action. Will you share this podcast with someone? Will you have this discussion with somebody in your church? Whether you're in women's ministry, children's ministry, maybe you do the lawn maintenance. Maybe you don't even know what your place is in your small church. Like, let's have conversations that are deep, that are thoughtful, that are loving, because I believe Jesus was part of this conversation. I don't think we have to intellectualize the Bible to have Jesus being part of this conversation. He's here right now, like we think so often, that our faith is built on Bible study and understanding scripture, and you know, all the systematic theology or whatever kind of ways that you like to study the Bible, God is there absolutely and he's also here in this conversation right now, like this is holy crowned. And wherever you're listening from, whether you're in the car, you're on the treadmill, you're cooking dinner, wherever you are hearing this, this podcast from, I truly believe this is holy crowned right now.

Victoria White: 32:10

I believe it as well, amen. And I get I, I don't want people to feel condemned either, right? And go, oh, 100% I'm in that ignorance category, right? Oh no, I haven't been doing things. I'm in the not box or Oh no, I've done things to people or just for them out of pity or care, right? Yeah, that's okay. But what I do hope is that it gets you excited to meet somebody and to say, Lord, I would be open. Maybe my life is missing something because I don't have relationship with someone with IDD, God, would you put someone in my life? I mean, look out a little bit right, dangerous prayers, right? When you when you pray, Lord, put something in my life, or, you know, give the patience, or whatever it might be, we pray dangerous prayers, because God's going to do something, yeah, but I just, I want to inspire people to say, wow, you know what? Maybe God does have something for me that he wasn't even looking for, and this could be a beautiful, joyful moment in my life that could develop into, who knows what he might do, so just being excited about what God could do through relationships and again, right? If, if you, if you're thinking, Man, my church supports missionaries all over the planet, and that's so cool, but I'm not going anywhere talk about missionaries right in your own neighborhood, and people who are not coming to churches again, right? Because they might need a ride to get there. Nobody ever invited them. Group homes people with disabilities, because one in three households all across the nation is impacted by disability and so there's so much opportunity to just introduce people to Jesus who live right near your church and and it's so there's, there's such a low bar when it comes to what it might take to engage right drop off snacks. Say, can we bring Christmas stockings to you this year? You know, whatever it might be. There's so many ways to just start to engage. And then, like you said, as you invite Jesus into the process that becomes holy ground as is, as you do it with the heart of, I want to be with Jesus, and I want, I don't want others to be with him. He will be there in it with you, and he's going to work out whether that person accepts salvation or what it looks like for them to become a disciple of Jesus and grow as a disciple and then make other disciples. That's up to him and the Holy Spirit to do. But are you willing to go along for the ride? If the Holy Spirit invites you hop on the train, right? Let's go. So that's the labor we just want. That's what I want us to I want us to be excited about being co laborers. Would you call me a co labor instead of fitting me where I'm at?

Laurie Graham: 35:02

You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. And I'm really glad that you brought up no condemnation, because I think for those of us who are overly responsible or doers, we feel a heavy weight, and we're worker bees, and you know that, and that is most of the people who would who are listening this podcast right now. Sometimes we put on our shoulders that, oh, this is a new program, and I've been missing out. I need to do this, and we need to start something with this group home and and I'm so glad you said what you said, because that's really not even where my mind was going. My mind is going to the person. Who helped me at the grocery store this morning. Like, that's where my mind went. Like, I don't think we need to do more and do more programs. I think we just need to be where we are and and reach out to a neighbor, someone down the street, someone that you know, you know, like you mentioned, and and definitely, I do hope that some people listening are like, Oh my gosh, this has been on the hour for a long time, and they're gonna go find that group home. Yeah. But is that for every church? Maybe not, maybe not, but for you listening? I mean, at the very least, I think this is an awareness and a call to kindness, to love, to grace, to the to the thought the possibility of CO laboring. Like, so beautiful, okay, Victoria, like, I keep going on and on, and you keep going on and on. So do you have a like, a final like, do you want to wrap us up here and then let people know how they can get in touch with you or or resources that you think are valuable? Yeah,

Victoria White: 36:25

absolutely. Thank you. And I think one thing that you just made me think of as well as some advice that I got from colleagues years ago that said the worst thing we could do is nothing. And so, you know, people are nervous about, well, if I say it wrong, if, if I don't say IDD, or, you know, the right political language for what we're talking about when it comes to the disability community, dare to do it wrong. If there's a community with grace, it's the disability community. And so just, just say it. Say, I don't know, how should I refer to what's going on here, you know, yeah, just start somewhere, and that's going to be great. You can get a hold of me in my email, V, W, A, n, d, two@gmail.com I also, yeah, I just have been jotting down. I have lots of links and other places that I could share about the Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities is really exploring what's going on in churches currently, and what, what can the collaborative on faith and disability that they've just started do to empower churches all over the country to do this well with people with IDD, I already mentioned the five stages, and so I want to share links to that kind of information. And even, like a fun movie just called produce, that's about a man with IDD who works in the produce section of a grocery store. And it's a phenomenal story of redemption and how God works through someone. So it's ministry by a person with IDD. That is,

Laurie Graham: 37:53

where is that? Where can we find the movie produce? Is

Victoria White: 37:57

anywhere, everywhere? Something, yeah, yep, yep. It's just okay. I don't remember what year it came out, but it's been a little bit a little while, so sweet.

Laurie Graham: 38:05

I love it. Okay. We will make sure to drop links in the show notes. And also, we're going to be twisting Victoria's arm to write a little blog post that we can also link you to at small church ministry.com that really talks about faith and disabilities. You know where to go, what the options are for those of you who are interested in exploring that little more, or maybe God's been tugging at your heart. So Victoria, thank you so much for being with us today, like thanks for taking the time. It is always a pleasure. Can't wait to have you back at future conferences, and you know, see you around in the community and everybody who's listening. So can I dare you just to share this podcast episode with one person, like, just share it with one person. Say, Hey, listen to this podcast, and let's talk about it. Just have a discussion whether or not your church would ever do anything. Could be your daughter. Could be sharing it with your you know, somebody in your home, whatever. Just share this podcast with somebody. Let's get these discussions going because they're meaningful, they're good, they're godly, they're Christ centered, and they're important. They're so important. We've come a long way, but we got a long ways to go. Love to hear what

Victoria White: 39:06

conversation. So share it with somebody and then tell us how it went. I'd love that, yes,

Laurie Graham: 39:11

that would be awesome. We can, yes, for sure, share it in our Facebook community. Creative solutions for small churches, like we can get the discussions going there. Shoot Victoria an email. I know that when I get an email from somebody randomly saying, Wow, that what you said, like we're doing this, it is not just a spark, but it's a story we can share with others who are looking at the same thing. So all right, we shall be off. Everybody. Have an incredible week, and until next week, be a light. You.