Category: Theology
How Ministry Leaders Can Make Worship More Accessible
Did you know that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act? Despite the fact that the ADA is a quarter-century old, many religious institutions remain horrendously inaccessible for people with disabilities.
Here are six simple ways places of worship can extend a welcome to people with disabilities:
1. Conduct an accessibility audit
No one is going to feel welcome if they cannot get inside the building (or the bathroom)! The United Methodist Church offers an accessibility audit form that lists measurements for doors, sinks, and other fixtures that make them much easier for people with disabilities to use. An accessibility audit does not have to be done by professionals—it could be a great project for a youth group or Sunday School class. Whenever possible, someone with a disability should be included in the audit, as they may notice things that would otherwise be overlooked.
2. Provide transportation to and from events
Transportation is an enormous hurdle for people with disabilities, who in many cases cannot drive. Even where public transportation exists, it often is not accessible to wheelchair users and others with mobility issues. Getting from Point A to Point B thus becomes a giant logistical headache. Volunteers who are willing to transport others in their own vehicles or an accessible van can make a huge difference!
3. Train volunteers and staff in disability etiquette
Accessibility is not just physical, but also attitudinal. United Spinal Association has published an easy-to-read and fairly comprehensive disability etiquette handbook that might be a good starting point. Such training will help people recognize and avoid harmful stereotypes.
4. Explicitly welcome people with disabilities to events
Many places of worship have mission statements that welcome diverse groups of people to participate—and name every possible people group except for people with disabilities. This only magnifies the feeling of being overlooked! Welcomes should not include euphemistic language such as “differently-abled” or “physically challenged.” Many people with disabilities find these phrases offensive. It is also a good idea to include a note in bulletins and programs inviting people to share any accessibility concerns they might have with a designated staff person.
5. Watch out for ableist language
Christian scriptures are filled with disability-related metaphors (i.e., “spiritual blindness”) and stories of healings that cast disability in a negative light. It is important to know that many people with disabilities view their disabilities not as problems that should be healed, but as essential parts of their identities. Thus, these stories and metaphors must be analyzed critically. Many hymns contain similar language, and use outdated words like “lame” to describe disability. Omitting verses or offering suggested changes to the wording can help alleviate this problem.
6. Present material in a variety of formats
Many worship services rely heavily on spoken word and song, which may not be the most effective way to reach congregants with hearing loss or certain learning disabilities. Print all lyrics in the bulletin, and have printed copies of the sermon available upon request. Try techniques like breaking the congregation into small groups for discussion or including liturgical dance or visual art in services. This will likely make worship more enjoyable for everyone involved!
Caroline Bass is a third-year MDiv student at Boston University School of Theology, graduating in 2016. She is pursuing ordination as a deacon in the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church and plans to become a hospital chaplain.
Can Superhero Films Help You Rethink Liturgy?
Summer heralds the release of superhero films that draw people from the heat of the day into heavily air-conditioned and darkened theatres.
Captain America, Green Lantern, Thor, and the X-Men are on display this summer, part of a regular summer pattern in recent years of special effects driven action spectacles. While the hero of the summer changes each year, the superhero blockbuster returns with a fresh face battling the next evil doer. Whoever the hero, we go to the cinema and let our imaginations run free.
Be intentional about your worship structure and space so the imagination is given every opportunity to flourish and engage with the liturgical life of your community.
The imaginative world of superhero films and the structure of the theatre shape a specific experience. Superhero movies offer a few important features that make them useful illustrations for liturgy. Liturgical experience and the experience of the cinema both invite the participant community to a realm of imagination that refigures the mundane experience outside of the constructed space.
The structure of the cinema and the imaginative world of the superhero film offer tools for new understandings of liturgy in your congregation.
The Structure of Cinema, Liturgy and the Summer
The summer offers times of intense heat and long days, and the movie theatre beckons as a respite from normal summer space. The individual theatres themselves have doors and curtains that you walk through, you enter into a dimly lit space, and find a seat. The ritual action of passing through a gate keeping figure, passing through a threshold, and entering into a new space sets the space of the theatre apart from where you came.
The altered space of the theatre combined with the uncanny valley of the superhero develops a sense of mystery and imagination in the viewer, leading to an experience that reframes their return to ordinary space.
Theatres often are heavily air conditioned, cooling you from the summer heat, another sign that this space is not like the space from where you came. The screen is large, much larger than even the largest plasma televisions at home, with sound systems that immerse you in an experience you cannot find in daily living. The architecture of the space enhances your disposition and expectation that you will soon have an experience.
Like the cinema, the sanctuary houses the space for evoking the imagination of those present. The entryways are marked, specific attire is worn, and regular repeated rituals with seasonal variation mark the time of the year and the rhythm of worship life. The liturgical year has rhythms of offerings like film, with Christmas and Easter marking highly dramatic times. The structure of the liturgical space represents a place set apart, with decorations and colors and seating unlike other spaces.
The Imaginative World of the Superhero Films
Theatres offer the same space for all movies, but superhero movies play on this space well. Superheroes live in the uncanny valley. They are largely normal humans with a small twist that makes them not quite human. Telepathy, control of magnetism, flight, super strength, speed, and endurance displayed by superheroes do not occur in the lives of moviegoers.
However, since they are just a step removed from humanity we can enter into their world and imagine what it would be like, how we would be if we had the same powers but the same often terrifying responsibilities and choices.
the realm of imagination is within us at all times, but the space of the theatre brings the imaginative world to life
The movie is an experience where imagination mixes with morality and excitement. For a time disbelief is suspended and good ultimately conquers evil, but not without a price and conflict. The altered space of the theatre combined with the uncanny valley of the superhero develops a sense of mystery and imagination in the viewer, leading to an experience that reframes the viewer's return to ordinary space.
Making the Space
Gerard Loughlin writes on the space of the cinema in his provocatively titled text on theology and film, Alien Sex, where he likens the cinema to Plato’s cave.
Traditionally, philosophers have scorned the residents of the cave as a place of viewing the ghosts of ghosts. Plato would have us transcend the fantasy of the cave to find the true and the good.
Loughlin has a kinder reading of the cave.
For Loughlin, the cave is where dreams are projected. We enter the theatre cave conscious of the difference between the imaginative reality that the movie explores and the reality from which we enter. The realm of the imagination is no less real than the quotidian life outside of theatre, since the realm of imagination is within us at all times, but the space of the theatre brings the imaginative world to life.
Loughlin links the function of the cave in cinema to the function of the cave in the temple or church. In liturgical space, the imagination is free to project its dreams and allow the participants an experience of a specifically guided imaginative space. The imagination of participants in worship is guided through the music selection, prayer time, sacred texts and sacraments of word and communion.
When done well, liturgical space excites the imagination to change the very real character of the participant. The use of the imagination brings the participant to deeper levels of discipleship and self-understanding as a participant in the faith community. Done poorly, it shuts down the imagination as the boredom of the participant rises and her feelings of alienation from the community grow.
Rethinking Liturgical Space
In your congregation's worship, what marks the change of space that separates the space from the rest of your congregation's lives?
How have you prepared the sanctuary for the visual shift marking a separate and special event?
What rhythms of the year do you presently already have, and how can you work with them to establish a ritual pattern that provides different experiences of the faith journey for your congregation?
The world of imagination and the uncanny valley are important for liturgy. Often we make the world of scriptural texts a domestic adaptation of our own world. We forget the truly different context of the ancient near east with the powers of Rome, Babylon, and Egypt conquering Israel. The scriptural world is still made of people, still on the same earth. Yet is at times radically different from our contemporary context.
Be intentional about your worship structure and space so the imagination is given every opportunity to flourish and engage with the liturgical life of your community. Liturgy can bring participants into the world of faith, which is a different world from the contemporary context.
The community participates in stories we uplift as sacred in the past through scripture and in the present through witness and testimony. The flow of worship rises to specific climaxes such as the sermon or communion, and needs the rise and ebb of energy to touch the imagination and play out the drama of the scriptural world.
The vibrancy of the tradition is most fully present in the imagination of the congregation only once the true grandeur and difference of the scriptural world from our own is acknowledged. Your liturgy, based on imagining how you structure both the worship space and pattern of ritual helps let the imaginative world live in the minds of your congregation.
Andrew Tripp is a doctoral student in Practical Theology at Boston University, and studies how narratives are used and performed by communities. View more of his work on his Academia.edu page
