An Interview with disability advocate Dr Lousie Gosbell, who runs workshops equipping and training churches in disability and accessibility. She will lead Belonging Workshop: Making your Church a Disability Inclusive Community Saturday May 27 from 1-4:30pm at All Saints Anglican, North Epping and Sunday June 25 from 1-4:30pm at St Matt’s Anglican, Botany. Gosbell is also part of a panel of key experts who will respond to a lecture by Professor John Swinton at St Andrews Cathedral this Friday night.
- Dr Louise Gosbell you are leading training to help churches be welcoming places for people with disabilities. What are the main things churches need to learn (and how can you possibly fit that into an afternoon!)
I’d be happy to talk about disability and inclusion ad nauseum so yes, there are definitely challenges to covering what we’d like to cover in an afternoon. That said, what we are hoping to do is start people on a journey of thinking more intentionally about what it means to make their churches places of welcome and belonging for people with disability.
We set up the framework for that in the training workshops and give them some guidance on where to go from there. The big thing really is helping people understand that we are talking about more than just ticking off a list and saying ‘yes, we’ve done disability inclusion.’ It’s easy to say, ‘we have a ramp and accessible bathrooms’ and think that covers everything.
But helping churches create communities of belonging is about more than just a checklist. And actually, is about more than just physical access too. There can be many other barriers that can make it challenging for a person with disability to be an active member of a church community. Church halls are often noisy and trying to talk to people after church can be hard for people who hearing loss or anxiety.
Often we put our song lyrics up on the screen in small letters or with pictures in the background that make them hard to read (I would argue, they make it hard to read for everyone!) but especially so for people with some vision loss. Whether we realise it or not, some of the ways we do things in churches – the way we run our programs, the way we communicate with people – can inadvertently put up barriers that make it harder for people with disability and their family to be active and participating members of a church community. In our workshops, we help people identify some of those barriers and ways to overcome those barriers.
We also try and encourage people to recognise that there is a difference between inclusion and belonging. You can have a ramp and accessible toilets which helps people be able to get into the building, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can access all the same programs or opportunities the church offers. Being present at church is not the same thing as knowing you are welcome, known, valued, and that you belong in that community. That’s why our aim in offering training at Our Place is about helping churches to be places where people with disability are:
- Safe and known
- Connected and growing
- Celebrated and loved
- Blessing and being blessed
This is much richer and deeper than simply being able to get through the front door of the church.
At the end of the day, churches will find their own church members with disability will be their best resource on knowing that changes or improvements can be made in their own community. We offer guidance and support on helping church communities begin this journey.
At the end of 2022, the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church published a set of guidelines on disability inclusion which I wrote (with the help of Rev. Bec Baines) and after an extensive consultation period with lots of people with disability and their families inside and outside the diocese. This also offers some guidance on steps churches can take towards creating communities of belonging for people with disability.
- What has led you into leadership in this area?
It’s a story I’ve told a lot over the years but I first became interested in disability and inclusion in churches because of something that happened to my brother-in-law with disability. I had just finished up a degree in theology and was contemplating doing an honours year. My supervisor told me to think about something I would want to write about for my thesis. I can remember thinking, ‘what can I possibly write about that 2000 years of biblical scholars haven’t already addressed 1000 times over?!’ but within a few days, something happened that set me on the path to disability.
My brother-in-law John has Down Syndrome. At the time, he’d been involved in his local church community for many years. He would help at services with carrying in candles for liturgy, welcoming people at the door, handing out church bulletins etc.
But at the time I was contemplating a research topic, a new minister started at the church and told my mother-in-law that John was no longer allowed to help at church. His view was that someone with an intellectual disability couldn’t understand the gospel, so couldn’t really call themselves a Christian and shouldn’t be allowed to represent the church in any way even if that was just welcoming people as they came into church. For me, that was my starting point to think about disability from a biblical perspective. I literally thought I would write that honours thesis and move on to something else but I felt like God had different plans for me. I wrote the honours thesis (took a few years off to have my kids) and then eventually wrote my PhD on the same topic. And here I am all these years later still writing about disability.
But my personal relationship to disability has also changed over the years. My husband and I now have a daughter with disability. And I now live with disability myself also. I live with some significant Covid-related conditions which include chronic pericarditis, chronic fatigue, and an alphabet soup of other acronyms for various diagnoses. I had to leave a full-time academic position as a result of my conditions, and what I can manage on a daily basis is significantly less than what I could do 17 months before I became unwell. And while my particular situation is rare and unusual (so my medical peeps keep telling me), in some respects, my experience isn’t that unusual.
While I think most people think of disability as uncommon and something that impacts people ‘that small group of people over there away from everyone else’, the reality is that this isn’t the case. Almost 1 in 5 Australians live with some kind of disability. That’s not a small number of people at all. And stats tell us that the average person in countries like Australia with a life expectancy over 70 will spend more than 8 years of their life with some kind of disability.
So statistically, every single one of us will spend some part of our life with disability. It is inevitable that we will encounter disability in our own bodies and that of our parents, our children, our siblings, our partners…and yet, for many people, and sadly for many churches, disability is not on the radar. It’s often not something we talk about or offering training workshops in. But it’s 1 in 5 Australians. We need to ask ourselves if that is reflected in our congregations and if not, why not? What are we doing or not doing as church communities that might make it hard for people with disability and their families to participate in church communities?
- You have joined the staff of a group called Our Place Christian Communities. Who and what are they?
I was working full-time in a theological college until December last year but as I mentioned earlier, I had to resign due to my own health issues. But through God’s gracious provision, this role came up with Our Place around the same time. Technically I’m employed two days a week but I’m only working 1 day a week at present as it’s all I can manage with my health the way it is but the plan will be to increase those hours as I’m able to. My role is two-fold. Part of the role is equipping and training churches in disability and accessibility like the workshop we are running at North Epping on Saturday 27th May. The second part of my role, when I’m well enough to pick it up, will be working with residents living in houses being developed by our partner organisation, Hope Christian Homes. HCH is focusing on building mixed-ability, neurodiverse, residential Christian housing in living relationship with local churches. Part of my role will also be working with the neurodivergent members of those households, facilitating pastoral care and disciple-making for them and supporting churches to integrate residents into the life of the church.
- What would churches look like if they caught the vision?
As I mentioned earlier, we are really wanting to help churches become places of welcome and belonging for people with disability. We want to see people with disability as active participants of church communities rather than just being on the margins or fringes of church communities (or not attending at all). We want to help churches become places of belonging for people with disability so they are:
- Safe and known
- Connected and growing
- Celebrated and loved
- Blessing and being blessed
I think that churches generally want to do this but perhaps don’t know where to begin. Or sometimes, churches don’t aren’t aware of the things we do or don’t do, that can make it harder for people with disability to participate as church members. So we are here to journey alongside churches as they take steps towards this.
- Are you being realistic about that big aim?
People often think that when we speak about making changes to accommodate people with disability that those changes are always big and expensive like putting in ramps and accessible bathrooms. But not all changes are big and expensive.
Small changes can also make a big difference to fostering inclusion and belonging. Creating large print versions of church bulletins; having clearer signage around the church; having more pictures on your church website of what the inside of the church looks like, where the parking is, where the entrance is…these are all relatively easy and cheap but can make a huge difference to someone’s ability to be able to participate in church.
One of the positive things that came out of the pandemic was a normalising of participating in meetings and Bible study groups via Zoom. For lots of people with disability, health issues or mental health issues, being able to attend things like bible study every week can be really challenging. Offering people the opportunity to join online when they need to can make a big difference.
And the reality is, these sorts of changes don’t only benefit people with disability. Generally, the changes you make to accommodate people with disability will actually benefit the congregation more broadly. So it is just making participating possible for some people but enabling greater opportunities for belonging and participation for everyone.
- You’re part of a big event at St Andrew’s Cathedral – tell us about that one.
Our Place along with Anglican Deaconess Ministries are sponsoring a lecture at the cathedral this Friday night with Professor John Swinton. He’ll be speaking on disability and the church. Swinton is probably one of the best known disability theologians on the planet so it is a wonderful opportunity for people to hear him speak. He’s a fabulous presenter. Rev Dr Kirk Patston, co-founder of Our Place, and myself will also be on a panel with Swinton after his lecture.
You can join us in person for that event or online. It’s completely free and a great opportunity to dip your toe into the water a little in thinking about disability theology.
More about Our Place Christian Community events maybe you can have a workshop at your church.
John Swinton keynote and panel (scroll down)