Worship Resources: Inclusion Sunday 2009

Call to Worship

One: God calls us to gather together.
All: We gather together to worship.
One: God calls us to sing praise.
All: We sing together in praise.
One: God calls us to pray.
All: We gather together for worship, for praise and for prayer.
One: Sing praise as we gather together for worship.
All: Alleluia! Let us worship our Lord.

— Sarah Nettleton

Prayer of Confession

We confess, oh God, that we have so often been preoccupied by our own interests. We have not sought to hear your voice or follow your example. We confess the ways we have failed to show love, mercy and compassion to others. We have ignored the touch of those seeking to know and be known, we have been indifferent to others’ calls for inclusion and participation and tuned out cries for justice.

God of infinite tenderness and strong compassion, weave your will into the fabric of our lives and our community of faith. Give us a new heart. Use us to touch the lives of others walking lonely roads, those who are brokenhearted because they have been ignored and labeled as “needy” rather than as “bearers of the image of God.” Open our hearts that we may celebrate the dignity of all. And, Dear God, may our lives echo your desire that all might have life and have it to the fullest. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

— The Rev. Donna Whitmore

Sermon Ideas and Tips

Prior to writing your sermon, consider gathering a few persons from your church community who have a disability or are a parent of a child with a disability to talk about what they experience, what scriptures are particularly helpful or hurtful, what life experiences might be used as sermon illustrations, etc. It is the old adage: “Nothing about us, without us.”

In worship planning, remember to include persons with disabilities as liturgists, ushers, communion servers, preachers — all the ways people who are able-bodied share their gifts with the church. Some things to keep in mind when preparing your sermon:

• Use “people first language,” not the disabling condition (the child who is blind vs. the blind child).
• Scripture is rich with stories that can be used for developing sermons. Most of the accounts we have of Jesus interacting with individuals were with people who had some kind of disability, were marginalized or considered outcasts.
• Emphasize that persons with disabilities are made in the Image of God and that we all make up the Body of Christ — with value, dignity and gifts.
• Scripture does not teach that having a disability is the result of sin or a lack of faith. A cure is not withheld because a person did not pray hard enough. Healing comes in different ways and there is a difference between the concepts of “healing” and “cure.”
• Promote mutuality of ministry. Persons with disabilities can minister to others. They are not looking to be the objects of charity or to be “fixed.”
• Persons with disabilities are not super-human, more spiritual or more gifted by God because they live with a disability.
• Disability is not the will of God.
• We are all interdependent, wounded and broken.
• Preaching should never contribute to a person’s isolation or exclusion. Demonstrate pastoral care in the midst of preaching.
• Use special care when preaching the gospel healing stories. A wonderful resource is A Healing Homiletic by Kathy Black.
• Avoid using terms like “blindness,” “deafness,” etc. as spiritual metaphors (we are blind to our transgressions; deaf to hearing the word of God).
• Use persons who have disabilities as positive models.

— From the 2005 Access Sunday Packet

This Church

a poem by Ann Weems

We don’t pretend to understand the mystery of what goes on in God’s Church.

We just know we feel a pervading spirit of love that reaches into the niches of all of us and pulls us out into the open, free and alive and belonging.

We believe this spirit of love exists because God’s spirit lives within this Church, this unity of persons trying to be the Good News.

We see this Church as a circle of persons holding hands ... and dancing ... supporting each other, accepting each other.

Each person in this dancing circle is facing outward ... reaching into God’s world, listening for the whimpering, watching for the hurting, willing to offer a cup of cold water in His name.

Sometimes they need the water; sometimes you need the water; sometimes I need the water.

Being a part of the Church means knowing that the cup is always filled in His name.

— Ann Weems, Searching for Shalom, Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991, p. 54.