We hear a lot about dying churches, and we bemoan their demise. As we should.
used by permission
However, perhaps we shouldn’t be so hard on all these churches. We’ve long known that most churches have life cycles. Perhaps people moved; perhaps new, more popular churches moved in; perhaps people grew old; and, yes, perhaps some poor decisions were made along the way that could have maintained their vitality.
But just because a church closes the doors doesn’t mean everything was for nothing. Because during the life of that church, the good news was taught, children were raised in the faith, a community was served, and people were baptized, married, and buried. None of that gets discounted just because the church decides it’s time to “land the plane.”
In 1997, the Central Church of Christ in Abilene decided it was time for the remaining members to meld into other congregations and quit meeting as a church.
Was it a failure? Absolutely not! These people prayed about what God might continue to do with their building, asked the Highland Church of Christ if we’d be willing to accept their property as a “gift” and do something good with it. This is now the home of Grace Fellowship. Exciting new things are happening there! The God who worked through the Central Church for many decades is still working in that location thanks to the vision the remaining members had.
In 2004, the Southside Church of Christ, a tiny group with premillennial roots, decided they’d come to the end of their congregational lifespan. They, too, asked the Highland Church to accept their building and do something for that part of Abilene. This is now the home of Freedom Fellowship.
These aren’t failures! Thankfully, devoted Christ-followers realized that it was time to pass their property on to someone else. And what a blessing it has been!
In the next decade or two, there are going to be lots of churches that decide it’s time to “close the doors.” But the doors don’t have to be closed! Perhaps they just need to pass the keys to others.
Find a congregation that has the energy, resources, and vision to do something new there. Or find a way to give the property to a group like Kairos or Mission Alive.
I’m especially thinking of places like the West Coast and the Northeast, where property is so expensive. What an amazing act of faith it would be for these churches that are winding down to prayerfully trust God to do something new through others.
This way, the vision doesn’t end; it just moves into a new world with new vigor. That door you thought you were closing may just be opening to an amazing future.
Dr. Ben Witherington on women and ministry (via Scot McKnight):
How does the church stand with families who have a child suffering from mental illness?
used by permission
I’ve asked Carmel, a long-time, dear friend of ours, to write about her journey with her son. Please feel free to continue offering suggestions in the comments section about how the church can help.
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Mourning Mental Illness: Grief that gives way to God’s Grace.
by Carmel Christine
A turn of events can catapult your life as you know it into a sphere so foreign, so cold, dark, distant and frightening that you barely recognize it. My teen son was diagnosed with Bipolar two and a half years ago. This disorder didn’t arrive subtly so we could slowly get our bearings and adjust to it. It showed itself as depression first. Our effervescent son of younger years was changing, becoming more moody, but as a teenager moodiness comes with the territory. Within a very short time, he almost took his life and only by the grace of God the attempt was interrupted. It was then life as we knew it changed.
At the moment his doctor told us we needed to get immediate help for our son, I felt as though my heart was being pulled out of my chest by hand. My head on the other hand was trying to take in the doctor’s words—very slowly: “. . . nurse is looking up numbers . . . treatment centers . . .” while also trying to process a mom’s to-do list: “pack suitcase . . . but what about his food allergies? . . . how far away will he be? . . .” Grief is setting in but there’s no time for it. I’m cold all over. I have to move. I have to make calls. Not just one call—many, because I discovered not all places were able to take a kid with life-threatening food allergies. The risk? He’s suicidal which means no sharp things, ties and strings off shoes, etc., but they can’t keep him from drinking a glass of milk. That’s all it would take since he’s anaphylactic to it.
The darkness gets darker and has pushed me toward an abyss, a chasm. I was led to pray in order to get to the other side of this. My inner prayer to God then was two simple words: “Father, God.” All I could do was repeat it over and over. God moved me to take this thing moment by moment. I made the calls, one at a time until finally the right doctor and the right help came. Now I could breathe. Not deeply, but enough to feel. I felt grief. This feeling was the same as what I felt for the passing of my parents the year earlier. I’m not comfortable with it, but then who is. My optimistic outlook, past losses and how God had used them for His glory, to show mercy and grace, spirit and life at the darkest of times, kept me focused this time.
As time went on and medical treatment began, each stage was met with another loss. Each new medicine tried was always a risk. Then there was school. You see, there was always hope he would go back to school but that didn’t work out. When I would walk into the building to pick up his books I see all the usual activity of a typical high school—banners on the walls announcing a school dance, the window case with the trophies of sports wins, students, his friends, laughing and going to class. Walking through the school one day, I happened to look across the top of one wall where an academic banner stretched across with names of proficient and distinguished students from the previous spring. My eyes scrolled down the list and there was my son’s name. My eyes welled up instantly—mostly with pride but then an uncomfortable, overwhelming sadness—not because I didn’t think he could be there again, but that it wouldn’t be the same. With his bipolar (not everyone with bipolar experiences it the same) he needs more time to study, to read, to take breaks—basically he has to move “with” his disorder to take advantage of his more productive moments, which are unpredictable, so when the “lows” hit, he won’t be too behind. With that kind of pace, the way he goes about his education has to be different; a new normal.
Going to dances or even events like July 4th celebrations present more difficulties because of the sounds and lights. They affect him and without going into it, it’s just another reminder that his activities have to be planned out and can’t be spontaneous. My point is there is a loss experienced.
The difference between a mourning of death and this kind of mourning is it is excruciatingly private. Unlike mourning the loss of a loved one, there are no neighborly visits from family or friends. No covered casseroles lined up on the kitchen counter; no notes or cards of encouragement or any of the markings of cherished care that comes when death interrupts life. No service with a preacher offering words of love and comfort, or ending in prayers for God’s grace. Still when mental illness forged its way into my 15-year-old son, it did so cruelly, ripping into the effervescent personality of our fun-loving teenager.
Where was the church in all this? Well, the year earlier when my mom died, I visited a small church in my town. After services, I approached the pastor, told him that I was visiting and my mom had recently passed away. He stood there and said he was sorry but he needed to go catch someone before they left. I said, sure go ahead. I left too. It would be another year before we would find a church but that was ok. We still had God.
The beginning of our new path together as a family is still developing. We have learned to reach out to a few people and have found a church family which means everything. The amazing courage my son has shown throughout this has overwhelmed me and taught me so much. Some things just don’t matter anymore. It doesn’t much matter if the house isn’t picked up when he has invited a friend over. We have learned who our friends are and who not to invest time with. I personally have reached a new place in my faith. There isn’t a lot of time for wasting—time involved in the things this world thinks is important. My focus is on God’s Kingdom. My son is mine to care for here but belongs to God.
Our son is very open with his condition. Still, many people find it hard to realize all that he copes with because unlike other disabilities, with mood disorders or mental illness, you can’t “see” it. But one fine thing you can see is his fun-loving spirit is back, he found God and loves Jesus! Praises always to our One & Only.
I wish you could spend some time with Kevin and Kamy Bibbee and their girls, Megan, Kaylin, and Morgan. What an amazing family—even with challenging circumstances. I’ve known Kamy since she was a college student; and I’ve been blessed abundantly to follow her and Kevin on this journey of parenting their three precious girls.
I’ve asked Kamy to write for this series. Read and be blessed!
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God’s plan for his church is so much more than going to a building for a short time every Sunday morning checking off a list of activities. The church is his family, saved by grace, coming together to keep on growing in our love for him and for each other.
But it isn’t always easy…is it?
My husband, Kevin, and I have three precious girls, two of them with special needs and significant dependencies. Megan, our oldest, was born with a rare chromosomal abnormality—an unbalanced translocation—a combination so rare that when she was diagnosed, they couldn’t find anyone else in the world like her.
Since Megan’s birth, I feel like I was yanked onto a roller coaster ride that I wasn’t quite ready for…and most days I have white knuckles from hanging on for dear life! Some days hold hairpin curves and hills that take my breath away; other days hold amazing views that I would never see if I wasn’t on this particular ride. I strain to see what is coming up so I can be ready for it, but the fact is the upcoming tracks are just out of my sight. Tomorrow, next month, next year—I don’t know what’s coming next. No one does . . . except the One who holds time in his hands. So we just keep hanging on.
I do remember experiencing a clear picture of what the church should look like. It happened soon after Megan was born. We had gone home with our newborn daughter, and within four hours our world turned upside down. Megan quit breathing . . . turned blue . . . we rushed back to the hospital where they hooked Megan up to all those machines. Our church family was barely over 100 people at that time, and more than 60 of them were in the NICU waiting room with us. The team of doctors came to get our “history” and ask 3,489 questions (maybe a couple more—I can’t remember!), and their eyes grew wide when they walked into our waiting room packed with people. They whispered, “Do you want to go somewhere so we can talk privately?” We said no, we’d rather stay.
One doctor looked around and asked, “Are all these people your family?” Kevin did not hesitate before he replied, “Yes, this is our family.” They were there—not saying a lot of words . . . just staying close by . . . sitting for hours with us . . . bringing us food when we didn’t want to leave the waiting room . . . praying with us . . . just being near us. Thinking back on that time more than 16 years ago, I clearly remember feeling loved and supported by our church family just being beside us.
We hung on for the ride over the next several years, and God added Kaylin and Morgan to our family. Kaylin is now a healthy, typical 11-year-old—oops, she’s saying, “MOM! I’m almost 12!” Morgan was born in 2002 with the same genetic abnormality big sister Megan has—a faith-shaking time for us. This was a very different answer to our prayers than we had expected. But our family joke is that we have twins; they were just born seven years apart!
One time I was coming into the church building pushing Megan and Morgan in their wheelchairs. (Yes, I can push two chairs at one time; in fact, I feel strange when I’m not pushing a wheelchair!) Anyway, this particular Sunday morning a few years ago I remember someone opened the door for us and as I went in, people were moving toward the walls and telling their children to get out of our way—and I remember thinking, “Why do I feel like we are Moses with the Red Sea parting before us?” I didn’t feel cared for; I felt contagious! Were these people, my church family, purposely trying to hurt us? Of course not! I know that. But I remember thinking, Please, stay IN our way . . . make it hard for us to get down the hall . . . turn around and look at my girls . . . they would enjoy being greeted . . . I need a hug . . . take time to find out what makes my girls smile . . . touch us . . . I know we may be different . . . but we are the same in our need for love and connection.
When we moved to North Carolina three years ago, a family helped us by organizing a rotating schedule for people to take care of Megan and Morgan so I can be in the auditorium. This has been absolutely wonderful! And can I just say how nice it is for someone else to recruit helpers for my children? It’s tough to ask and I do understand some people are hesitant, but having someone else in charge of this is nice!
One of the greatest things about this rotating schedule is how other people get to know my girls better. When we walk into the church building now, I don’t get more than a few feet without hearing, “Hey, girls! How are you?” Megan and Morgan don’t answer with words, but they are seen and loved on by our church family.
A few months ago the teens in our church family said, “Megan is 16. Why isn’t she in class with us?” So now Megan IS in class with them. They even threw her a birthday party recently! I don’t think they have any idea how they are blessing our family by just wanting to be beside us.
We are hanging on for this crazy ride called LIFE. Our church family is on this journey with us—we are learning a lot together. I’d rather be stumbling and learning and growing . . . and crying and laughing and loving and longing along with other people who are stumbling and learning and growing…and crying and laughing and loving and longing right beside me. It’s so much better than trying to do this LIFE thing on my own.
God has a plan for His family—and you know what? I think we should stick pretty close to Megan and Morgan. They’ll keep us heading in the right direction toward home—where we belong.
This morning I came across a note I don’t remember. It’s from three weeks after my daughter died; I probably stuck it away knowing someday I’d need it.
Walt Whitman . . . used by permission
A couple posts ago I mentioned Don Bowen, an attorney who used his skill and influence to help us in a battle with our insurance company during our daughter’s final years. This note is from him (13 years now since his death from pancreatic cancer). After his words of comfort, he ends with this quote from Walt Whitman:
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier . . .
We ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We find our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak . . .
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
To give an idea of how much I like Dr. Glenn Pemberton’s new book on the Psalms of lament, entitled Hurting With God, here’s the blurb I wrote for it: “This book is honest—it’s honest about God, about faith, about suffering, about disappointments. It’s also profound, encouraging, and pastoral. A remarkable Old Testament scholar, Glenn Pemberton writes as one who has known his share of suffering and who understands that lament flows not from an absence of faith but from an abundance of faith. For its biblical insight, this book will sit proudly on my shelf next to Brueggemann’s works on Psalms; for its pastoral care, I’ll be handing out copies to many friends who seek to trust God in a world that hasn’t yet been set completely right and to church leaders who will be encouraged to return to this deep expression of faith-amid-loss called lament.”
I have permission to run an excerpt when the book comes out in about a month. But here is Glenn talking about lament:
I write today’s post holding my breath. Because, again, I don’t want anyone to think parents of children who are disabled want sympathy.
But sometimes they can use help. So let me share four stories (and there could be so many more!).
Story 1: Marti O
The first day we walked into Highland, Marti O’Rear, the children’s minister, met us with her smile that can light a room. She said, “Ok, let me have her. When she’s here, she’s mine.” (Funny, I tear up a bit as I write this—21 years later.) She wanted to be sure that Diane could attend class and the assembly without having to take care of Megan. (For those who maybe don’t know, I was the church’s preacher. I got there at 6:00 and was busy until early afternoon.) Marti knew that our care of Megan was around-the-clock, that we got very little sleep, and that we needed help on Sundays and Wednesdays—but wouldn’t ask. I’ve had several parents of specially challenged children tell me that they have just given up on trying to attend Sunday assemblies because it’s too hard. The easiest place of all is home.
Marti had a team who worked with our daughter. They learned how to incorporate her into classes; and they learned how to give her special attention when she needed to get away for a bit (translation: when she started pulling everyone’s hair). As Megan’s health deteriorated, this team went through training to learn how to provide the care she needed.
What can I say? It helped us? Too mild. It blessed us? Yes, but not enough. It saved us? Bingo.
Story 2: Don B
As Megan’s health deteriorated, life became more complicated. The routine was 24/7 care: percussion treatments, oxygen, g-tube feedings, meds, etc. We wore down. And with the medical complications, she was no longer able to go to school often.
She continued having bouts with aspiration pneumonia which would send her to pediatric ER. Each stay could run up to tens of thousands of dollars. We tried to convince our insurance carrier that just a minimum of home nursing care—which would be a fraction of the cost of one stay in ER—could help keep her out of the hospital. Our case manager said to Diane, I kid you not: “If you were a better mother, you wouldn’t be needing this help.” I know, it sounds like something out of a Grisham novel. But it was our life. We rarely slept, we tried to keep Megan (and two sons!) well, and I tried to keep all my other responsibilities at Highland going. And on top of all that for a long, long time we fought our insurance company every step of the way.
Until Diane went to her prayer group that evening and burst into tears talking about what this case agent from BC/BS had said to her. It just so happened that one of the women in the group was married to a lawyer who was connected to people in high places in Austin (translation: Gov. Richards).
The next morning we got a call from a man who was very eager to provide whatever help we needed. He said that we were being assigned a new case worker who’d be on our side. Home nursing care began shortly after that. (Of course, this was only a few months before Megan’s death. It would have been nice a couple years earlier. But later was better than never!)
Parents of children with special challenges often finding themselves “fighting the system.” They are doing just what they ought to do: being advocates for their kids! They often meet resistance from insurance companies, school administrators, parents of other children at school (who complain that all the “special attention” is taking away from their son or daughter’s education), etc.
What Don did made life a little easier. But even more, it reminded us that we weren’t fighting for Megan alone. Our friend, our brother, was fighting for her, too.
Those at your church who have children with disabilities need other advocates. And let me say the obvious: they don’t need to fight the same battles at church!
Story 3: Clark and Marci
My mom (and dad) took care of Megan a week every year so we could get away. It was a sacrificial gift that kept our marriage together. Of course, it was an act of love. Megan was her granddaughter. But it was exhausting and, in her last years, complicated. (I remember the call from my dad in the middle of the night saying they’d had to rush Megan to ICU where she was on a ventilator.)
But there were those other 51 weeks. Among the many people from church who helped us were Clark and Marci. They went through training to be able to care for Megan overnight. For the last year of year life, Megan spent a whole 24 hours with this couple she loved about once a month, allowing us to . . . wait for it . . . sleep! (Also, to reengage with the boys and with each other.)
Story 4: Dickie and Becky
There were so many times in the middle of the night when we went knocking on the neighbors’ door. They knew what it meant: we were rushing to the hospital, and we needed to drop the boys off. It was up to them to figure out how to get Matt ready for school and to football or basketball practice, and to watch Chris until we could work out the next step. They always—always—received the boys eagerly, no matter what time it was. They became Chris’s “other parents”!
Like the Hebrews writer . . . “What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about. . .” Kay, Stephanie, E, Gary, Maria, Judy, Vicky, Beth, Ric, Lauren, Lindy, Jayma, Bob, Suzetta, etc. (It’s dangerous to begin this list, because, again to borrow from the Hebrews writer, “there were others.”)
But these were the people who surrounded us. Even then, life was challenging—as well as exhaustingly wonderful. But I can’t imagine having made it without them.
So . . . if you have a family at your congregation who has a child or children with special needs and you’re wondering what you could do, ask. Tell them you mean it. Be prepared to push a bit. Without being pushy, of course. Let them know that you’d like to assist with meals . . . or doctors’ visits . . . or bills (in some cases) . . . or babysitting . . . .
I’m not a fan of reducing the voices in worship assemblies to a few professionals. I want to hear from the church. Slick and efficient just don’t work for me.
Some of my favorite memories of worship include prayers, scriptures, and communion thoughts led by members of our church who are mentally disabled. They were asked to lead not because they’re mentally disabled but because they are a vital part of the family, people of deep faith.
It’s important to parents of children with disabilities that the church recognize the humanity and giftedness of their kids. These children are not just a project of the church; they are the church.
A child with disabilities is first and foremost a boy or girl made in the image of God. They reflect his glory. They are humans! So please, don’t put them in some parallel universe by calling them angels (or something similar).
I love Brett Webb-Mitchell’s insight in his moving book Unexpected Guests at God’s Banquet: Welcoming People with Disabilities in the Church
“How then shall we look at, listen to, work, live, and worship with those whom society has labeled as disabled? On a television talk show a few years ago, the newspaper columnist George Will, whose son is mentally retarded due to Down’s Syndrome, spoke about the very human nature of his child. . . . Many people try to make those with disabling conditions, like mental retardation, either Holy Innocents of God . . . or evil incarnate as a child of the devil. Will said that his son is human, full of the same complex emotions, drives, and stressors as any other child. There are times that his son is joyful and spiteful, happy and sad, sharing and greedy, loving and hating . . . all in all, the child is human nothing more and nothing less. Maybe the greatest way to approach his son and others who have some serious limitations and wonderful gifts is as a human being.”
In his equally thought-provoking Dancing with Disabilities: Opening the Church to All God’s Children
“In one church, after a chorus of people with mental retardation sang the anthem for Sunday morning worship, the pastor began talking about angels. He started by talking about the angels in the Bible—the angel who wrestled with Jacob and the angels who sang ‘Gloria,’ announcing the birth of Jesus. Then he compared the sometimes sweet, frequently off-key sound of the present chorus of people with mental retardation as being a contemporary ‘sound of angels.’ But by labeling them as angels, he inadvertently robbed them of the richness of being human and left them with the barrenness of one-dimensional, postcard innocence.”
Our daughter, Megan, was mentally disabled. The older she got (up to her death at the age of ten), the more physically challenged she became. As I often have said, she only said one full sentence that I can remember: “I’m Megan.”
Yet we were blessed with people who saw in Megan the full humanity of one who bears the image of God. She was a reminder that we must not define “fully human” in terms of abilities (or disabilities).
It’s also important that the church recognize the special gifts brought to the church by these children. We parents of specially challenged children understand well the life and writings of Henri Nouwen; we get why someone would leave the most hallowed circles of academic achievement to live among the mentally disabled. When Nouwen writes of his friend Adam and others in their community, it isn’t with sympathy; rather, it’s with admiration. He learned how to be human, he learned about giving and compassion from his mentally disabled brothers and sisters.
So how can the church help? I’m not asking you to put children with disabilities on a pedestal. But treat them like other children: see in them the image of God, learn about their unique gifts and temperaments, and invite them into the full life of the family of believers.
“[One Sunday] when I was nearly lost in grief and discouragement, I looked at a line of people waiting to visit me. I was exhausted from preaching and from grief, and I didn’t know if I had the energy for the conversations to come.
“Then I saw Kenneth, a mentally disabled member of our church, who’d come to the front of the line. He bellowed loudly, ‘Hey, Mike. I just read this in the Bible and wanted to read it to you. “How beautiful are the feel of those who bring good news.” I just thought you might like to know that.’
“Then he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
“Years have passed since Kenneth read those words to me, but they still carry a tremendous power in my life. . . . Kenneth expressed the values of the kingdom in his urgency and terse words unclouded by comment.”
(from Megan’s Secrets: What My Mentally Disabled Daughter Taught Me about Life
Finally, this thanksgiving by Webb-Mitchell to the children with disabilities in his life — those with Braille pads, wheelchairs, hearing aids, autism, mental retardation, etc.:
“To all these people, and others like them, I say:
“You teach us the virtues of constancy and perseverance.
“You teach us patience.
“You teach us hospitality, hosting our laughter and tears.
“You challenge our assumptions about what life is, and what living with others in Christian community is.
“You are crossers of borders, showing us new borders we never knew the church had.
Megan
“You engage us in fitful acts of imagination, teaching us that imagination and creativity are skills and disciplined crafts learned in church.
“You teach us of the unpredictability and undomesticated nature of God’s love that rules this world. There is hope.
“Finally, you teach us that we depend on you, as you depend on us, bearing on your shoulders, and embodying in ways too magnificent for our senses to behold, the church, the body of Christ, as perhaps God means it to be. Thanks be to God for these politics of the body of Christ, which institutes our good.”
