What are other Conference and Association Accessibility Committees doing?

I have been chairing this committee now since 1991. Shortly after the ADA was signed in 1990, there were a number of multi-state conferences sponsored by UCC to begin to look at the role of our churches in light of the ADA. I went to one of those conferences, and came back to NH recommending that NH should have a group to deal with these issues.

Over the years, our membership has fluctuated; however we have not lost sight of our goal. We began as a task force, and after we wrote our mission statement, we became a committee attached to one of the conference commissiions. The conference has been very supportive of our work. When our conference was building its new office building, they turned to our committee for advice re: accessibility.

Since the new A2A curriculum came out, our committee has been presenting it at our annual conference meeting as well as at a “Prepared to Serve” Conference. Although attendance is low (5-8) people at a time , the response has been favorable. I have NO clue as to how many Churches are actually using the curriculum.

Joyce Beairsto at joyharts@yahoo.com

Several churches have written to ask about funding resourcces. Please comment here about how your church has funded its accessibility projects and/or what your conference or association Accessibility/Inclusion Committee offers.

Thank you.
The Web Editor

Three resources on web accessibility:

Church website design tips: things to DO

Here are three guidelines for legibility from

Effective Color Contrast

1. Exaggerate lightness differences between foreground and background
colors, and avoid using colors of similar lightness adjacent to one another,
even if they differ in saturation or hue.

2. Choose dark colors with hues from the bottom half of this hue circle
against light colors from the top half of the circle. Avoid contrasting
light colors from the bottom half against dark colors from the top half. The
orientation of this hue circle was chosen to illustrate this point.

3. Avoid contrasting hues from adjacent parts of the hue circle, especially
if the colors do not contrast sharply in lightness.
(from the work of Aries Arditi, PhD, Senior Fellow in Vision Science,
Lighthouse International)

By Jo Ackerman, Pastor of Clay Center, Nebraska

The Nebraska Conference is proud of its churches that are making an effort to be accessible to all of God’s people. The term “accessible,” as used in many of our churches, means being able to gain entrance to the building. Some churches have constructed ramps and installed elevators; others consider a rear entrance sufficient.
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What are some of the things your conference has done in the area of disabilities ministries, inclusion coaches, and/or accessibility board?

How have you managed the geographical space among your board members?

This year, the DM Committee is trying a new means of meeting in order to save mileage and physical energy. This is a combination of email communication, through a group email, and telephone conference calls. We are building the conference calls and reimbursement for an interpreter for the deaf into our budget.

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After serving twenty-five years in parish ministry, Dave was called as minister for the Eastern Association, Minnesota Conference UCC, in 1995.

I have lived with aggressive Crohn’s Disease all my adult life. Some manage to control it without surgery and achieve long periods of remission from active symptoms. Others lose their entire intestinal track and must receive all fluids and nutrients intravenously.

To date, I have had eleven major surgeries and about a hundred hospitalizations. At age 32, I had my first colostomy surgery. I now have an ileostomy, which has been revised several times.

In my twenties with still much bowel remaining, I enjoyed remission and resumed distance running. Some years even later, I could compete in a dozen road races some years. In between, flare-ups brought me close to death.

In recent years because of the loss of most intestine, I struggle to avoid dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Twice,, I have been denied admission to public events. One event was at a 1993 General Synod session.

Long ago, I decided not to hand over to this fierce disease *my life, identity, and deep * sense of calling to ordained ministry. A defining moment happened shortly after my first colostomy surgery. While registering at a United Ostomy Association meeting, I noticed the pre-registration name tags of Sue Smith, “ileostomate;” Ray Jones, “urostomate;” Nat Doe, “colostomate.” I crossed out “colostomate” on mine and added in tiny print, “Child of God, son, husband, father, brother, minister.” Some thought I was just being cute. For me, it was then and remains a deeply important issue. Persons with disabilities should not be defined by what does not work. We are people first.

During a recent sabbatical, I started writing a book, tentatively titled, “Laughing at the Devil: Spiritual Resources for Living with Chronic Illness.” I began to think systematically about how, despite its great liability, living with Crohn’s has become a gift for ministry and how those same gifts might be discovered by others in unique circumstances.

We develop these competencies in response to a personal need. Most spiritual resources do not show up ready to use but require considerable shaping and refining. When first emerging, they may collide with something else already in place.

Part of my ministry is to assist persons in the course of pastoral conversation to find their own way to one or more of these spiritual resources:

• Finding voice in the midst of a powerful, sophisticated medical culture;
• Discerning how to receive needed help without losing sense of self;
• Listening deeply to others’ voices;
• Praying when tending to pray cautiously;
• Laughing as a medium for experiencing God’s grace and mercy;
• Seeing the life that God has put in us when all the world sees is disability; and
• Recognizing signs of grace and mercy around and within us.

As Eastern Association Minister in the Minnesota Conference, living with this invisible disability also influences how I prepare local church search committees to consider ministerial candidates who may have a disability. Teaching how to read ministerial profiles, I suggest:

“Many pastors who live with a disability will talk about their situation in profile item #13, ‘Special Factors.’ I urge pastors to disclose to search committees a disability that they may have because I think that folks like you will respond well to being trusted with such information.

“Even more, I urge pastors who have a disability to let you know how living with that disability has become a gift for ministry. Sometimes pastors who have a disability are afraid to mention it in their profiles for fear that search committees will stop reading, immediately rejecting them.

“I encourage you not to do that but rather to focus on each pastor’s gifts for ministry. You may find someone with a disability who has discovered and developed incredibly great gifts for ministry out of that disability. Those may be exactly the cluster of gifts for ministry that your church needs.”

Most search committees take this to heart and genuinely open themselves to considering these gifts for ministry.

People will ask questions from spiritual struggles that they suspect I also have encountered. The most common, “Don’t you ever wonder why God allowed a disease like this that can be so physically painful and debilitating and socially isolating to happen to you?”

I just do not blame God or connect God with the onset of this crummy disease. What does amaze me is the abundance of God’s grace and blessing. Over and over it lifts me out of despair, giving me the capacity to see what a blessing my life is by God’s grace and to laugh at the devil.

From UCC DM Newsletter Archive

This is an “It’s About Time” project that will enable users of manual wheelchairs to slip into the bath house with ease and to negotiate cabin entry with neither sweat nor snarl. Read the rest of this entry…