Faith Ability Religion and Disability News
That All May Worship Review
That All May Worship: An Interfatih Welcome to People With Disabilities
Publisher: National Organization on Disability, 2000
Editor: Ginny Thornburgh
Co-Authors: Ann Rose Davie, Ginny Thornburgh
Format: Handbook, 52 pp.
That All May Worship is an interfaith manual published by the National Organization on Disability.
From the introduction...
The purpose of the Handbook, That All May Worship, is to assist congregations, denominational groups and seminaries in welcoming people with disabilities. The Handbook is interfaith in scope and concerns people with all types of disabilities. The foundation of the House of God is weakened for all if barriers of attitude, communication or architecture prevent people with disabiliteis from participating fully in the worship, study, service and leadership of their congregation. That All May Worship is a step-by-step "coaching manual" written to enable congregations to identify and remove these barriers
Some of the sections in the manual include:
- How Shall We Begin?
- Pivotal Role of the Religious Leader
- Transportation: Getting to the House of God
- Information on Specific Disabilities
In the back fo the book is an Audit of Barriers: Attitudes, Communications and Architecture that can help a faith group identify barriers.
Functional Religious or Spiritual Skills
In public special education when a student reaches an appropriate age an opinion is generally formed as to the future direction of that students life. If a determination is made that the student will likely attend postsecondary education then a greater focus is placed on academic skills. On the other hand, if it is unlikely the student will attend postsecondary education then a greater emphasis is placed on more functional skills such as job training, cooking, grooming, etc...
Whether or not this decision is appropriate and when it should be made is a separate discussion. My question is whether or not there are functional spiritual skills that should be taught to students is religious education settings. When should be more of an emphasis on practical worship skills in lieu of becoming a gospel scholar? If so, what might some of those functional skills be for different religious organizations?
Religion, Spirituality and Disability Books
I added the beginnings of a collection of books on the topic of Religion, Spirituality and Disability. There are many more to add, but at least it is a beginning.