No Barriers - Special Guests Carla Monnier & Heather Magray

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Hey, everyone.

Welcome to episode 301 of this is Whole Life.

This week we are talking about no barriers because we have two special guests.

One who has been on the podcast.

I'm going to say this is number four.

She's very lovely.

She's a great conversationalist.

She lives at my house.

It's my wife, Heather.

Welcome, Heather.

Hi.

And this is at least number two with Carla.

And Carla is our young adult teenager.

No.

Did I do that?

I just did.

With the C.

Carla with the C.

Wrong one.

Please, someone help me out.

Bail me out.

Youth, not young adult youth.

Is that what I said?

No, I said young adult didn't.

I totally meant youth.

I have a youth who is under Carla and who enjoys Carla's company and her activities at the Church.

So I do know this to be fact.

So obviously I was not thinking clearly.

But this week we came into a subject and I'll be honest, I was really wondering if we were going to find ourselves in I don't know what the word?

But like overload.

It's been kind of heavy.

A couple of weeks ago, Bernie and I sat down after his message, which was amazing, but a lot to process, lots of things.

And all through Black History Month, we've been challenged.

And then we're following up Black History Month.

It was Dana Edmunds.

We did the podcast last week with the conferences, the regional conferences, and an amazing message.

If you didn't catch that yet, please do.

And then I'm like, are we going to be like the next thing that people are like, oh, no, there's another group of people that people are upset about or that people need help or that we're going to champion and maybe we're just tired.

Maybe we have fatigue, like empathy fatigue.

Maybe that's a good one.

And so it made me a little bit nervous until we started the program.

And then everything calmed down.

And then Carla made it to the stage and was giving a left handed sermon.

Everything then came into focus.

It did.

And so right now, shout out to all the lefties out there two of my favorite lefties, Alan and Tom and Carmen, a couple Ken here across the table.

And Carla left handed people.

So shout out to the lefties.

I know some really amazing people in my life that are left handed.

And we were really breaking down what it means for us to as we love people into a lifelong friendship with God and to really understand what that means and how we most authentically provide equal access in all areas of Church life and Ministry.

I love how the opening sentence or the excuse me, the closing sentence of this week's message paragraph laid that out.

And Carla went to a place in her message, which I was like, genius.

I didn't know ahead of time.

But all the parts of the body are a necessity.

One is not more important than the other.

You know, what good is an eye if it can't smell?

No, that's the Randy paraphrase.

So don't really Mark that down because that's not true at all.

But it's in there sort of like that.

But Carla, in your message, you broke down three things that we kind of as a no barriers committee feel are at the base of providing this atmosphere that just really allows everyone to thrive at whole life.

And it was love, inclusion and belonging in that order.

But if we love people in a lifelong friendship with God, aren't those three a given?

Why did you break it down into those three?

I think that love is just an easy thing to put out there, but I don't think we always take the time to think about the different steps we have to take to love someone.

And so people come to our Church, they feel accepted, they feel included, but they don't feel like they belong.

So what is that extra step that we can take to make sure that people do feel like they belong here is kind of what I was going for.

I liked it.

It was good.

Well, you made in some reference that if you don't belong, then the first two really?

I mean, can there be love if you don't belong and are you included, or do you feel like you're included if you don't feel like you belong?

There's no way, really, those other two can work.

But I heard someone say, isn't inclusion the same as participation?

Isn't that the same thing?

I think that inclusion and participation can have things in common, but I would say that there are two different things.

I think inclusion is more on.

I would say that participation is more on me.

Inclusion is more on you.

Participation is more on me.

Inclusion is more on you.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

When it comes to inclusion, I would say that inclusion is the responsibility of the other of another person to do.

It's my job to make sure that we're finding ways to include or to have inclusion for different people.

On the other hand, participation tends to be more it's my job to go out and participate myself.

I can invite other people to come participate, but it's more on me to go and participate.

That's to me, one of the differences in the way I would define it.

When I think of inclusion versus participation, I think of inclusion as people organizations are providing a way that anybody with any ability can participate.

Within the realm that we're speaking of right now.

The inclusion is a pretty important word because for years and years when it came to special needs communities, they were pulled out.

They were pulled out and put into a separate classroom, into a separate group of people, and they were basically, hey, you're blind, hang out with other blind people.

Hey, you're deaf, hang out with other deaf people.

Hey, whatever it is, go be over here.

And my research has kind of come to the conclusion of and I'm grateful to be married to an educator who educates me.

But basically, education and life happens better when you don't do that, when you actually take a person.

And rather than saying, well, you're different.

So go be around people that are different like you.

Instead you say, yeah, you're different.

That's okay.

We're going to figure out how to make it work with your differences in the group that we're in instead of saying, well, you just go somewhere else and play with a different group of people or different set of toys.

And it's like, that would be like at whole life if we said, hey, we're really only a Church for people who don't have any physical disabilities.

And if you have a physical disability, then you should go ahead and start your own Church for that.

That would be terrible.

That would not be who we are.

It wouldn't be the spirit of what we do.

Instead, we say, okay, if you're hearing impaired, how can we help you here in our services if your mobility is challenged in one way or another?

What barriers can we get out of the way to help you with that?

And these are things usually it's like Carla said when we were talking at the very beginning of concern about being left handed.

Most people we live in a right handed world, and most people really have no idea the different things that as a lefthanded person I've gone through in my life, and I'm not believe me, it's like it's the least of problems that you could have.

But I just don't remember that I would always smudge the life out of my handwriting papers, and I get my grade docked in handwriting in elementary school because my papers were smudged.

Well, my right handed classmates didn't have that same problem.

They never got their scores marked down because they're not dragging their hand across their paper because of the way that writing is set up.

Right.

And a teacher wouldn't necessarily think about that if they're right handed.

They would just like, oh, he was being careless.

And look at what happened.

Inclusion says that the teacher go, oh, Ken's left handed.

Let's go ahead and either, A, have some Grace here, or, B, let's go ahead and see if there's some ways around this, some ways to teach them how to not make that happen.

And I think it's important for us to understand we don't always know what other people are going through.

And that doesn't make us a bad person until, like Carla said, which, by the way, that's the quote that my wife went home with and just loved Carla.

It was the Maya Angelo.

Right.

And you want to say it because I'll Butcher it if I do it.

Do the best you can until you know better.

And then once you know better.

Do better.

Yeah.

Beautiful quote.

And that's kind of the point.

I think, that we're trying to make a Church.

It's not that if you don't know something, you don't know, it you don't know to do better.

What is better if you don't know that you don't know what it's like to try to do handwriting left handed.

If you're right handed, that's okay.

It hurts.

But once you know, what can we do?

I can.

It doesn't hurt to write left handed.

I know.

Right.

But the point is, if you don't know, you don't know.

Yeah.

But the question is, are you looking to find out what somebody else is going through?

Are you interested in another human being's experience that may not be like yours?

Yeah.

Everything I heard from all three of you was basically what we're talking about here is like, empathetic teamwork, just being aware of the fact that we aren't the same in that small differences, even just like, as simple as the smudging of the paper from a left handed student is enough to at least make somebody go, that's not fair.

Like, why am I the person getting picked on just because this is how I write and this is who I am.

And so the teamwork with the Church and just like, people being open to the idea of, yeah, we're all different.

Let's do this together.

I like that a lot, because if you missed the inclusion and participation piece of it, I feel like a lot of people are lost right there.

I don't understand.

Well, if you're participating, you're included.

So what are we arguing about, or what is there to maybe go further into?

And then a question came through that I thought was interesting, what is the church's role in providing support for families and individuals with disabilities?

I know our panel answered that question, but I wanted to break it to apart a little bit further in that is, what's the role maybe together, because I think if you just assume it's a Church problem, that they're not providing something, I'm not sure that that's the total question to ask.

And yet as a family with someone with special needs, there's often times a feeling of, I can't do one more thing.

I literally can't do one more thing this week or like everything in the universe that I know that I'm balancing in all these plates, it's going to crash, it's going to fall.

And so I think that's the part that maybe we don't.

And it's really hard to communicate.

So I know this is a difficult question, but it's really hard to try to convey that to someone like, you don't know what you don't know.

And we're not asking you to feel something that it's impossible for you to feel if it's not your situation.

But I feel like there's got to be some kind of way we can help people understand that.

It's not an expectation necessarily when you feel somebody come alongside of you, it's a great feeling.

And so how do we find those relationships?

Maybe that benefit the person that figures out, man, they really do struggle with whatever it is in that situation.

And then the other person says, wow, someone listened to me, and then they actually did something that made even if it's just my day, sometimes I'm telling you, if you make somebody's day better, that's struggling like that, that's a huge thing.

So what do you think?

Am I totally crazy or how do we explain this maybe better than I'm doing?

Well, I think you're asking two things.

You're asking if we're calling people and we're bringing awareness to people about what other people with disabilities in our Church.

You're asking, does everybody have to do this?

Does everybody have to come alongside of us?

The expectation that everybody needs to get on board with this.

Right.

And everybody needs to help.

And I think that's not the expectation.

The expectation is we are opening the door for people to walk through who feel compelled to do that.

There's people at our Church, our Church is really amazing that have come alongside of us and just accepted Emily and accepted us.

And every week going, it's okay.

We're so glad you're here.

And that's all they said.

And it has been a place of welcoming and love.

So I think we're just kind of trying to let people know that we're here.

It's okay.

And we want to be that community to other people that are not coming to Church because they don't feel that and they've never felt that anywhere else.

And it's a part of our theme this year arise to me, this year is kind of an awareness here.

It's like, hey, these are some of the things that we're doing here at whole life.

These are some of the things that are going on.

Are you called to do every single one of them?

No way.

I'm not called to do every single one of them, much to some people's concerns.

But the point is that we all have our passion areas and things that and what we're trying to do is expose the Church to a lot of different opportunities and things that are going on.

And if you hear God's call on you for that thing, listen to God's call.

And if you don't think, well, I'm glad somebody else had an opportunity to hear something that maybe was useful.

And I suspect that anybody who came to Church this week walked away learning something.

Sure.

Maybe it's not that they're going to be offering respite care or they're going to be helping fund this, but maybe it's like, hey, I didn't know this, and I learned something more about those with disabilities and things like that is a good time for me to ask a question that did.

Yeah, let's sprinkle them in.

I think this is kind of a little relevant to what we're at at the moment.

This one comes from Nashville.

Tim and Tim asked, words are powerful and can be damaging.

What are some common words or phrases that can be offensive within this community?

Ouch.

Yeah.

I thought it was a really good question.

I was sad that I didn't see it in time to get it into the panel.

I think it's such a relevant thing, and a lot of us don't know what the right words are or may or may not be.

I would say that, like growing up, most of the playground words that you used to call kids that were meant to be hurtful, those all apply basically today in many ways.

And in our community, speaking of just us, is retarded the R word.

And there's been national campaigns done by the down syndrome Association, Nabs, the National Association, down syndrome.

And that's just a no no in our community.

And just speaking specifically, which down syndrome is a smaller community, if you're talking about things like autism and spectrum autism and things of that nature.

But it's not downs.

Ever downs.

Does your daughter have downs?

I don't know what that is.

The doctor that discovered it was Doctor down, and it is a syndrome.

So don't bring the s into the down.

It is down syndrome.

So down syndrome.

No s on.

No today.

I'll be honest.

I don't know how many people that just maybe it's us.

I doubt it.

I think it's infuriating when you know something and it's just not said the right way.

It's like somebody calling me Wetmore.

It's Wetmore.

Yeah.

I would say to speak to that.

Okay.

So we're speaking specifically to down syndrome because that's our journey.

That's where we're at.

Yes.

Downs is very derogatory.

And not just to Randy and I, but in the community it is.

But also I want to speak to the whole community as a whole.

It's people first language.

So when you're addressing somebody with a disability, it's not.

Oh, I know a person in a wheelchair.

I know Carla.

She's in a wheelchair.

Right.

Emily has down syndrome.

She's not a down syndrome child.

She's not someone with down.

She has down syndrome.

But the syndrome does not define her or autistic.

Right.

She's downs.

And it's like, what is that?

No, he's autistic or he has autism.

So you're talking and you're labeling the person as a person and then whatever disability that they have.

Especially one of the things that I thought was kind of neat about whole life in general when I arrived is that they've kind of gone with that people first philosophy within the Church.

So it's not doctor.

Soandso it's.

Soandso who is a doctor?

And it's not Pastor Ken.

It's Ken who is the senior pastor at all.

Right.

And so it's that people first idea that we're a human being first.

We're not defined by the labels that often will be put in front of people's names that either give them status or take away status in life.

So I like that.

And I think that's a good reminder because I think I can speak for myself.

I have a hard time remembering to do that.

I'll often put something in front of them.

Yeah, it's easy.

I mean, I think it's just our culture.

And so this is about bringing awareness.

Hi, Carla.

I wonder about you.

Are there any phrases or words within those who don't have mobility that are frowned upon?

Or is there a better way to say and some people be like, oh, what's the big deal about saying that?

Well, my thing is if it offends somebody, why would you want to say it even if you don't think it's a big deal?

If it's a big deal, then why wouldn't you just want to do it the right way?

Do it the way that makes them feel good.

So is there anything in your community that should be thought about?

I think sometimes when people call you crippled or crippled, I haven't had that ever happen.

But I know people who I follow have had that happen.

They don't appreciate it.

So that would be one.

But another thing to your question, and I think it's not completely related, but I think that talking about people's first language, I've had people in elevator rides, which is like, what a 1020 2nd ride?

Before they even ask me my name, they'll say, hey, why are you in a wheelchair?

And so that's something where you have to realize that when you ask a question about someone's child or about someone's disability, you are potentially entering the most fragile area of this person's life.

And so we kind of discussed this on Sabbath with one of the questions.

But when you're asking somebody a question, you need to check yourself as to why you're asking.

Is it because you're just curious and you just want to know, or is it because you truly care about the person, you want to help them?

And I think that is so important.

When you go into starting conversations with people about how do I start a conversation with this person is you have to be ready to follow up with what they say.

And I think that is super important.

So it's a little spin off of what you're saying, but what's appropriate and what's not.

That's super good.

Can I play off of that?

Yeah, I'm going to take it a little bit farther, if that's okay.

I have people who will come up to me in the grocery store or when we first had Emily, even now and we'll say, you're so blessed God chose you to have Emily.

And the list goes on and on or, oh, I'm so sorry.

Again, that sensitivity and just being aware of what you're actually coming into.

So we do need to be careful and not make assumptions about the situation.

And I can reply to anything.

But it's very delicate in the disabled community.

Probably from that person's standpoint, they're meaning well with what they're trying to say.

I'm sure it doesn't feel like a blessing every day, right.

To have to go through the things at the same time.

It's not like you're wishing that away either, but that would be a pretty.

And sometimes when it's prefaced with, I have a grandchild that has down syndrome or my child, or you see them with their child and they'll come up to you, it's different because you're like, oh, you're on this.

You get it right?

So you know, that where they're coming from.

And I'm sure the same thing can be said of any situation.

But that's even true of people that may have the same diagnosis in our community.

It's not a secret that Emily has down syndrome, because typically people with down syndrome, it's very easy to see that they recognizable, right, that they have down syndrome, and everyone knows what that looks like.

But you can also even if you're in the community, you can easily offend somebody else who's not in the same place in the journey that you're at.

I had a client once who had seen pictures of Emily on my wall at my desk every time he came to see me.

And then him and his wife were pregnant.

And all of a sudden, I don't see this person for, like, ever.

They're not doing their checkups.

They're not doing all the stuff they're supposed to do.

And it's like we ended up going to an event together, and this person was also a doctor.

So I'm sure that didn't help, but very upset, bitter.

I don't want to be part of this club devastated.

I didn't sign up for any of this.

And so you have to be very careful.

And then over time as they watch, but at the same time they were watching and seeing, and then later on, it was like, oh, yeah, maybe I didn't want to be part of the club.

But now that I also see there's the real uniqueness and the love that people with down syndrome generally share at will with you, it becomes better.

But it's just also we don't even know sometimes tread lightly.

Just the look in your eyes, the intent.

I think it was on the panel.

And if you didn't see the message yet, please go back and look.

There was a lot of good questions that we're not going to ask today and a lot of good responses.

We had some professionals, Eddie Martinez.

And then who is Angela Samson?

Angela Samson.

They had some really good points from people that live in it every single day, and they're not living the journey themselves, but they live with all the families and try to help them through.

So please don't miss that part of the message as well.

That was the panel discussion.

I think one of the other offensive things that we ought to probably highlight that kind of goes along with the inclusion talk that we were talking about a little bit earlier is the assumption of what somebody can't do.

Right.

That happens an awful lot in all the communities that have disabilities.

That when I was a summer camp director, we ran a camp for the blind.

It was one of the things that we tried to drill home to our team was don't assume that the people cannot do things for themselves or that you kind of come into some kind of paternalistic.

Oh, here.

Is that something that.

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's something we're going to be addressing, I think, and working on so that we're not making those assumptions of what somebody can't do.

But that they can do things very smart people don't know what they don't know.

People in the medical community when Emily was born almost twelve years ago have been wrong on every single thing.

About 10% of what they told us to expect within hours of her birth have not come to fruition.

Have are largely based in antiquated medicine.

Things that the same people that would tell you just send them to a home, you don't need to take them home with you.

And people literally look at you if you say that, they don't say that anymore.

And it's like, yeah, they do.

We lived through it.

And so you think it's not a big problem until you just like we've said over and over, you don't know what you don't know.

And on our part, I think there's also what's the word I want to use?

There's a part that we play to be responsible and to be kind, even when sometimes we don't want to be, because I also feel like if you are just going to snap or you're going to rip somebody's face off for using the wrong word or the terminology, then all you've done is taking someone who is probably not pro you anyway or pro your family or person that has the disability.

And now you've just pushed them even farther off going, see, I knew I didn't like those people.

They weren't nice to me, and I was just trying to ask a question, and they just totally lost it.

But if we do that also give us Grace.

We do play a part because we have to advocate.

Right.

So we have to advocate with love.

Yeah.

I think that probably one of the things that we all need to think about in general is we don't know what's happening in any given person's day on any given day.

Right.

Yeah.

It's easy to see somebody gain snapping and whatever else and just say all that.

Just quickly label them as a rude person instead of saying, hey, maybe it's been a pretty rough week.

Maybe there's been a lot going on in their life I'm not aware of.

And that's one of the things I think especially comes is true in the life of people who have disabilities and their families is that there's a lot going on underneath the surface outside looking in have no idea about what happened before Church began.

What happened when Church began.

As a parent, I can tell you that as a pastor, there's been some Sabbath where somebody said something really hurtful to my child, and I had to get up and preach ten minutes later.

And it is, for me, ridiculously hard to kind of pull myself together, try to be a professional, do my job, when I just know that my child just got hurt and I want to go find somebody, or worse yet, they're sitting there, you can see them.

Then your sermon takes on a whole new meaning.

Is that the weeks when you pray.

That'S when I look at you very directly, just so you know.

Now and then you say, God, please speak through me.

But my words may not be my words.

That's why I say that every week.

Actually, it's one of the joys of having your children growing up a little bit too, is that they're a little bit more on their own.

This is probably more of an issue when they were smaller and whatnot.

But I just go to that and I just think about what a lot of people go through during their week, and we just have no idea.

And that's across the board for people, no matter where you're coming from in life, there's often a lot of things.

You can even look at people that you think are pretty wealthy and well off, and you think, what do they have to worry about?

And you don't know that they're actually way in debt and they don't know how they're going to get out of this, that or another.

And so I think we all would probably do well just to continue doing what whole life talks about doing and showing Grace and saying, hey, if somebody gets snappy with me, I'll choose to not be taking it personally.

And I'll try to love that person.

Yeah, I agree.

I do want to say not to say what you're saying is wrong, but I say if you take that and you take that to every person, and then you think about a family that has a child with a disability or even an individual living with some sort of disability, and you think if somebody's having a hard time, say financially, if you apply that to a family that has a special needs child or living with a disability, it's probably three times as worse that they're living on a daily basis because they have three times as much more things to deal with.

No, I can totally understand that.

I think that's a good add on to what we're saying.

I mean, there are levels of difficulty in life.

And someone asked if we were just caught me in the hall in between first and second, this past week and kind of asked a question that is it just about people with diagnosis that we know about, like Emily or like, with Carla being up on stage, being right there, obviously, she's in a wheelchair.

Emily has down syndrome.

We can recognize that.

And I think part of it and something that we've talked a lot about within the committee that meets together is that we know families personally that don't come to Church because they don't feel it's a safe place.

And those are people that we know that already have diagnosis for their loved ones.

And how many kids we often know there's a lot of kids that don't have a diagnosis.

So if we change the culture, I think that's part and I don't know if we got to that or if we had enough time to get to that in the Church service.

But there are so many people in our midst that if we change the culture to this inclusion, that will help people that we know about, think of all the people that were all of a sudden helping, that we would have never known ever that we were helping or know how to help.

But we're probably catching a lot of the things that will also help them.

And I hope that brings them the comfort and peace and knows that their Church community, their Church family loves them.

And that if it's ever a time when that diagnosis comes that we're all here to stand by and be a part of your life and your journey.

And so I thought it was a really good question.

It's one that's not easy to ask when you're asking the dad of the girl who couldn't pull prayer off in first service but nailed it in second services.

You know what?

In my mind, she pulled it off as far as I'm concerned.

And I think it was to me, I know that we had staff meeting this morning, and somebody said that particular part of the service is the part that just hit them the most.

That was where God really touched them the most was watching himly do the prayer.

And it was very meaningful.

And to me, it is what Church should be.

That Church is an opportunity for all of us to engage and be a part of.

And I thought it was beautiful.

I thought it was beautiful both services.

Yeah.

I mean, it was a victory, but there's a silver lining.

And then there's always the underlying after first service.

It was really tough on Ellie to help her through it because she was embarrassed and she was like she said.

To be disappointed in herself as well.

Yeah.

And I said she was upset.

She was crying on my shoulder when she came down.

And so we were kind of thinking, like maybe we wouldn't have her try for second service.

And then see.

And I said, sweetie, I said, all you did was show people how to love and be patient with Emily when she knows she can do it and she's done it, she practiced it.

And she just needs someone there sometimes to either speak the words or as in the next one, OK.

Now I know someone is going to be there and they're going to walk me through it.

I can do it this time with just even a little less help.

And so I thought it was a unique opportunity that people could see that Ellie some people also saw that and asked if Ellie was okay and she was once she had a chance to look at it.

But those are the things where if you put yourself out there, we tend to think that God's going to bless you and not that he doesn't.

But sometimes it doesn't come in the way you think.

And it's not always Sunshine and roses either.

Well, I hope you let only know she did a fantastic job.

We did.

Emily is very fortunate to have Ellie for an older sister.

She is a phenomenal human being and vice versa.

Ellie knows she knows she's pretty lucky to have a sister who just wants to love her all the time.

So I actually asked one or two questions, and you guys have, like, just picked them off my list one at a time.

So you've been doing a good job.

Do you have any more that came through?

I was looking through the list and I've actually been covered all the ones that came in that weren't covered by the panel.

That weren't by the panel.

Okay.

Because I checked both Facebook and chat roll.

Just checking you guys, because we've missed some in the past.

There was only one, and I think we asked it, but I just wanted to hit on it real quick.

And the question was, for 30 years, we've been doing our vision and mission.

Why does the Church care about disabilities now?

And this one just really just got me going.

I was on the front row and I'm just like, no, I've got the answer.

I've got the answer.

Pick me like, no, don't raise your hand.

No, don't walk up onto the stage.

We already have panel people in place.

This is not your time.

Sit down.

And I thought that there's a couple of reasons, and I just wanted to point them out because, again, you don't know what you don't know.

But people with disabilities have been hidden in the background for so long.

And as a general rule, this isn't obviously not across the board.

There's a general rule.

People with disabilities don't come to Church.

Their families don't bring them to Church.

It's too difficult.

There's a million reasons why there is everything from unsafe churches, which we've been a part of in the past, where it just wasn't a safe place for Emily.

Nobody enjoys getting dirty looks when they go to Church because your child has a disability if we don't stand for the least of these.

The first stop that came in my mind was Matthew 25.

And I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

And that broke my heart from the get go.

When you attend a Church that doesn't and the whole life has done so much for our family.

The first weekend that we dropped her off, I mean, the first day we went to BBS years ago, six years ago, July will be six years, I think.

And Ellie got in the car and she was like, she was crying a little bit.

And I'm like, what's matter?

And she's like, dad, they were so nice to Emily.

You cannot believe it.

They were just championing her and people were coming up and helping and just like, she just thought it was the coolest thing.

But it really tugged in our heartstrings because that hadn't been our journey with Church.

That's the case with a lot of people.

Yes, I think that's why we want to do this.

But I think I took that question a little bit differently than you would, as I naturally would, because I'm coming from a very different place than you are.

For me.

That was kind of the spirit of what the person was saying is, hey, aren't we doing a good job loving people?

Haven't we doing that?

And why are we is there something I don't know about that's going on here, where that's kind of the way I read it was like, is there something going on that I wasn't aware of?

Because I thought we were doing a pretty good job at that.

And what I would say on that one is I think whole life is doing a good job in a lot of ways.

And I think that with certain disabilities, we do better than with other ones.

I think a lot of times in Church it will also have to do with how well you're known.

For instance, if you have a strong friend group inside the Church and you have a disability or someone that you love has a disability, oftentimes that friend group will really rally around that person or that group and just kind of come around and surround and really be there.

But the question is what's happening for the person who walks in off the street, who doesn't have a friend group to start off with?

Do they have that?

And I think that you kind of mentioned that when you came in that there was a good reception to that.

But at the same time, you have shared things with me that would be helpful if we did a little bit better than we're doing right now.

And that's I think the point of what we're trying to go with this is it's not that whole life is not a loving place, not a Graceville place.

It's how can we take what we're doing to the next level?

And part of that is making sure that all of our Church members have a certain level of awareness about what's going on in the world when it comes to this particular topic.

It's like the week before when we talked about the black experience in Adventist churches.

Through the years, I have had very well educated, very smart people come up to me and say I had no idea.

No, I had no idea.

That was something I knew nothing about.

And I'd like to think that if people were paying attention in churches last Sabbath, they would say they're saying the same thing.

I had no idea.

I didn't really know that.

I didn't really understand this.

And that's really what part of what we're about is a Christian faith is about, is making people aware of the areas where suffering and pain are being multiplied because of a lack of awareness and not because anybody's trying to necessarily be mean sometimes, but because there's a lack of awareness.

And so when I heard that question, I thought it was coming from a super good place of just, hey, were we not doing a good job?

I thought we were.

And I kind of wanted to tell that person, yeah, you know what whole life is in my mind light years ahead of a lot of Christian churches out there.

But being light years ahead doesn't mean that you're still fully there.

It means that we keep working and trying to improve and just be the best Church that we can.

And I suspect whenever I wind up retiring or whatever, I suspect there's going to be a lot of work left to do still in this area because it's just always a growing experience.

There's just always one thing more that you can do a little bit better, try a little bit more, and that's good.

It's good to keep trying.

It's good to be aware that we can always be improving.

36 years is all you have left to go.

Sure.

I'm almost to a year, aren't I?

So close.

It's cruising.

I didn't take the question totally as a negative.

But I also think that if you've been like if this has been your Church experience for your entire life, it's like living in America and not realizing how good you have it.

If you grew up in Midwest, like in Wisconsin, Heather and I, we got married, we lived in Green Bay.

Green Bay is the largest Church in the area.

And you drive what, 35, 40 minutes to Fox Valley if you want to go to the next to another Church, which is a 10th of the size, 8th of the size.

If you go north, you'd have to go to 20 churches which there aren't in order to be the same size Church, or you travel to Madison two and a half hours away.

So if you're stuck in a Church where a lot of people wouldn't find the kind of Church you're in because it doesn't exist.

And there's not another one closer.

We live in Orlando.

We're spoiled number one, because we're at Whole Life Church number two, there are other churches that you can attempt to go to and find that community.

But yeah, I see what you're saying, too.

It goes both ways.

Yeah, I think that's a good point, Randy, though.

I mean, I do think that part of what we try to do at Whole Life is educate outside of our walls.

Right.

So we have literally hundreds of people that tune in to our Church services from literally all over the world.

And then you have the people in house.

And so for me, it's like this twofold thing, the people who may not attend our Church and have this experience.

I'm glad for them to know that there is a Church that cares and is doing things.

And there are actually more than a few churches that are doing this, but I'm glad for them to know that.

And then I'm also glad for us as we have our Church members, life happens.

People move different places.

I'm happy to be able to send out missionaries to enrich and make other places better.

I concern myself a little bit of a missionary in this one, too, because it was my experience up at Madison Campus Church that when I showed up here and you came and talked to me, I was ready.

I was like, oh.

Yeah, I had a family there.

We started doing something like this up there.

And this is a need.

And I'm glad you're talking to me about this.

And so it prepared me.

So I'm hoping that as we do things here, it prepares other people as they may wind up in other places to go.

Hey, I could start a new barriers committee at the next Church.

I show up and I can go ahead and be an advocate for that parent that I see struggling or that human being that I see struggling as they're trying to attend Church and find a place of belonging.

Absolutely.

That's important.

I can just tell you the closest that's kind of having two small children under the age of three at one time and preaching and being on the road with Rochelle because I was a conference communication director at the time and walking, people literally thought she was a single mom bringing her kids to Church because I'd usually make a beeline in find who I was supposed to, and she would slowly come along with the other kids.

And I can tell you time after time that there were churches that we never wanted to go back to again because of the way they treated our kids and my wife.

And then there are other churches.

I remember one Church where the pastor met us in the parking lot when we pulled up.

And so I know you got little kids here's, some people that are going to come around you and help you today, because I can only imagine how hard it must be for you in a new Church.

And I was like, wow.

And I aspire to be you.

Craig, if you listen, that's awesome.

Well, I want to give everyone just a chance to say anything that didn't come out in the panel we haven't talked about today in the podcast as we start to wrap it up.

And for me, it's just I hope that if there is someone listening that it can watch our Church online.

If you're not local, know that what we're trying to do.

It's tough to do it, I guess, through the Internet.

But that's the heart of who you see and what you see of Whole Life Church is what we're trying to do.

And I hope that makes it through the interweb somehow.

And it welcomes you to know that we don't care who you are.

We would just love for you to be a part of our family.

And if you are local and you have a family member or yourself that has some kind of barrier that we would love to have you come to Whole Life Church and be a part of our Church family.

And we'd love to meet you and just would love to shake your hand, come and see us.

And we are working to be better all the time.

And I think, like Ken said, we already do a great job.

We feel loved, and we just want to pass that on to as many as possible.

Heather, let's go around the table.

Anything else?

It's okay to say no if there's not?

Well, I think you've really covered it.

I feel the same way.

I just want people to know that you have a place at Whole Life Church and there are people here that may be on the same journey as you.

And we may not have everything right now, but we're working towards it because we care about you and your family.

That's the message that I want to get across.

That's my heart.

That's why I'm involved in this, because I've experienced things that I don't want people to experience, and I want them to know that there's somebody there that understands and cares and will just listen and do whatever we can to invite you into a relationship with Jesus.

Yeah.

I want to say thank you to the no Barriers Committee, Heather, to you as the leader of that.

I just really appreciate what's happening.

I'm excited about how we can improve and grow.

And I appreciate the fact that you trusted me enough as a new pastor to come up and say, hey, Ken, I've got a burden on my heart, so I'm grateful.

I hope others will feel the same if they're listening to this.

If there's something that's a burden on your heart, it may have to do with disability or nothing to do with disability, but I hope you feel safe to do that.

And I especially appreciate that not only did you feel a burden, but you are willing to do something about that burden and you are willing to jump in and work on that.

So I really appreciate that, Carlos.

Yeah, same thing.

Thank you to Randy and Heather for having the courage to say something, because I think that's where it starts if somebody has to have the courage to do that, because whether we like it or not, there is shame in society around disabilities.

So I want to thank you guys and thank you to everyone else who is on the committee, because I think it is something that is very important.

It's the committee.

And Melinda and Susan and Olga Ken has been with us multiple times.

And just to make sure that everyone's not just running off the tracks, wild, crazy things like that.

I show up to let you know I care.

And who else, please don't let me forget anybody, because that's everything.

It takes all of us.

It's everybody pouring their heart into it.

Everybody bringing their skills, their experience to the team.

That makes it a really amazing team.

And I've had people come up to me and say, I want to be part of this.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

We had a couple of comments that came through that.

And Alicia said, I just have to say that this is why I'm a part of this Church.

I'm an occupational therapist, and this area is so important to me.

No other Church I've been to have had this discussion.

This is so unbelievably special and needed.

Thank you.

And when you see things like that, when you feel like you're touching someone's heart and Tammy said, it's not about doing stuff for them.

It's getting to know them.

And when people are resonating with what you're saying and their thoughts that come out during the service, just show that.

And then it just makes you feel like you're just on the right path.

And what God has put on your heart is true.

And even though it was a rough, rough week leading up to last Saturday, it was just a lot of prayers and a lot of tears.

But through it all, it went really, really well.

And so many people just shared with us.

And it was amazing.

So if you have anything else to add, obviously we would love to hear from you.

We didn't have any takeaways this week, but you can always reach out 407-965-1607 text or email, and that is anonymous if you'd like to be and podcast at wholelife Church if you find it easier to email.

And then our final thoughts.

This one, I laughed and it just made my heart feel good that Carla just took Ken's usual the Kwp the Ken Whitmore paraphrase, and made the CMP the Carla Monet paraphrase.

She said, some of us are paralyzed autistic, developmentally delayed Dyslexic, have CP or ADHD, but we all have a part to play in the body of Christ.

And the way it was worded was I heard a lot of amens throughout the day, but especially there.

And that was a fun way to end it today as well.

Just that realization.

So next week, Ken is finally we're taking the baton out of his hand because he wouldn't let it go just by himself.

He wants to be worship host every week now.

Every week.

Every week, we're going to make him go back to preaching because Carla said ten minutes was enough for me.

More than enough.

You're uncomfortable sitting here even thinking about the idea?

Like I would have to preach.

You say that now a couple of weeks.

So you probably won't be saying that one at a time, huh?

No.

Everything turned out amazing.

So new series.

And did I hear eleven parts?

Eleven parts for the Ten Commandments?

Yes.

I do know that there are only Ten Commandments, but next week we're actually doing like an intro to it.

And the Ten Commitment series is called Love at Work, a Rise to Love at Work, which is a little acronym for L-A-L-I got you right there.

Yeah, I was with you.

There's a lot of blank looks in Church.

I'm just saying.

I got it.

Okay.

All right.

Anyway, maybe it's just like and move on, Ken.

But yeah, we're going to be doing that.

And next week we're starting off with the very first part of the Ten Commandments.

And a lot of times we leave this off, but God actually prefaces it before he begins.

He says, I am the God that brought you out of Egypt.

And then he gives the Ten Commandments.

And so what I want to kind of touch on is why God would start off the Ten Commandments by saying that and what the significance of the Ten Commandments are the whole point of then I'll just give you the you can show up to Church or not.

But the quick thing I want people to know is the law is not about a loss of freedom.

It's about a gaining of freedom.

That's why we're going to be talking about.

All right, well, one final thing.

We didn't say it here, although many people have said it this past week.

The worship group, Albert and Kelsey, Stevie.

Thank you.

Kelsey, Stevie.

And who played the keys this week?

Oh, Moises did the keys this week.

And that was good.

So the music was out there.

The music was fabulous.

And they did a fantastic job.

And so we just want them to know that as well, and that's it.

So new series.

Oh, I know what I forgot to say.

Read your notes.

Randy Carlotte had mentioned that we did a series.

I think it was nine parts on Love, and she referenced it in her message.

And so for any of you all that maybe didn't catch that part of the podcast.

Maybe you're new.

I've heard from a couple of you recently who just found the podcast.

If you swipe up in today's show notes or whatever player you're on, if you go to the show notes, there will be a link to a collection.

All nine of those are in one collection.

So you don't have to click out.

You don't have to lose your place.

You don't have to try to find the next episode.

They're all in one collection.

It will come up on your phone and you can listen to all nine of those that we did well, that was a couple of months ago.

We finished those up but that was a fantastic series.

So just because love is what we have to start with, according to Carla and I happen to agree and according to Ken, so I'll double agree.

Heather shaking your head so level, triple agree.

We are all in agreement.

It is carried we have a second.

We don't need one that is going to do it for this week.

Thanks for listening everyone and have a great weekend.