Creative Ideas for Worship with All Abilities

By Hazel Bradley and Jim Cargin

This vital resource explores the essential considerations of pastoral work with those with intellectual disabilities.

Drawing on the vast experience of the L’Arche community that fully includes and centers those with intellectual disabilities, this practical guide offers ideas for imaginative worship to engage people with all abilities. It gives suggestions for enabling participation and building familiarity while keeping worship fresh and varied, with ready-to-use themed service outlines that are appropriate throughout the Christian year. It includes a compendium of resources for creating your own acts of worship, including prayers, blessings, stories, quotes, a directory of online resources, ideas for what to keep in a “liturgy box,” ideas or seasonal decoration of the worship space, and many more resources from L’Arche.

This book is rooted in the belief that each human being is on a spiritual quest to find meaning in their life, and while each person’s path is uniquely their own, we share the journey together. The important thing is to encourage each other’s personal development, and celebrate the gifts and talents that emerge within and for the whole community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Release date: Apr 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640654006

Hazel Bradley

HAZEL BRADLEY has forty years of international experience of L’Arche. She has created many worship services for L’Arche International, L’Arche UK and various communities. These include funeral services, jubilee celebrations and large assemblies. She has also co-authored a workbook available on the World Community for Christian Meditation website on meditating with groups of people with and without learning disabilities.

Book preview

PART 1

Towards an inclusive church:

How to include people with a learning

disability in the life of the church

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A questionnaire on disability and inclusion

for a church leadership team

This questionnaire aims to encourage greater awareness of disability. In filling in this form, it would be helpful to consult individuals with disabilities in the church, and where needed, their friends and/or support workers. (The form may be downloaded free of charge from the Canterbury Press website: www.canterburypress.co.uk).

How does disability and learning disability fit with our theological outlook?

What difference would it make if people with learning disabilities were not here?

How can we make sure that adults with learning disabilities are fully welcomed and included in the life of our church?

Before the service?

During the service? Think about participation/language/choreography and movement

After the service?

Between Sundays?

What are the particular gifts and ministries of the individual people with learning disabilities in our church?

How can we better enable those people to exercise their gifts and ministries?

Is our welcome genuinely inclusive, or simply tokenistic?

Examples of specific ministries including

people with learning disabilities

Through baptism, a human being is recognized as a member of God’s family. The Holy Spirit pours out plentiful gifts on each, so that they can serve Christ’s mission in a way suited to their unique mix of strengths and weaknesses, be they of body, mind or spirit. In order to discover a person’s gift, it is vital to get to know them as an individual. This is as true for a person with a learning disability as it is for anyone else.

When it comes to church services, many people with learning disabilities can join in with most things that happen, and love to be given an opportunity. Each example below shows how this can work in practice. While some can accomplish their ministry independently, others may need prompting, to a greater or lesser extent. But the fact that someone needs extra support should not be considered a disadvantage. On the contrary, this gives a clear message to the congregation and visitors, that ‘we are a church where ministry is something shared by many; a church where we support each other to bring forth our gifts; and this is nothing exceptional, but part and parcel of our life in