Memories Moment...
As I was searching for something else on my laptop, I came across this letter written to The Times over I year ago...
Disability
and Senior Leadership
In July 2016 the General Synod had on its agenda a report (GS 2026)
entitled 'Nurturing and Discerning Senior Leaders' from the Development and
Appointments Group. It is part of the wider programme of 'Renewal
and Reform' - an "ambitious programme of work" to address mission and
growth, and to reverse the decline of the Church of England.
The Report (GS 2026) specifically relates to Senior Leaders - ie those
already ordained in the Church of England. Early in the Report it talks about
representation of diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and church
tradition. These areas are discussed and acknowledged throughout the
Report.
Disability is awarded a generous 2 sentences at Point 39
"The issue of disability has featured very little in the Church's
exploration of diversity within senior leadership. This will be an
additional focus for 2017-2019 and a further working group will be set up to
lead this work."
It appears that the stated desire for diversity does
not extend to Disability (as noted by Revd Zoe Hemming in her speech to General
Synod), and there is no mention of the Deaf community (the Report perhaps
making the faux pas that the word Disability includes Deaf people...)
Revd Tim Goode in his speech to General Synod noted that the language of the
Church of England in its reports is often unhelpful - "the issue of
disability" - pointing out that disabled people don't want to be thought
of as "issues" (and it is worth noting that the word issue doesn't come
up when discussing age, ethnicity or gender).
It would appear that
Deaf/disabled people are not expected to become senior leaders even though, as Revd Bill Braviner noted in
his speech to General Synod, disabled people are made in the image of God like
everyone else - they are not ‘mistakes' on God’s part. Everyone sits on a
spectrum for whatever ability/disability we care to mention, and God calls us
all to discipleship and ministry. Vocation, including to senior leadership,
arises across those spectra.
The report does not address this, and the omission
is only acknowledged in two sentences (almost as though someone mentioned it in
passing as it went to the printers...) and then as a future 2 year project.
The Report does not address the question of pre-ordination vocation and
discernment, namely the person 'in the pew' having a sense from God that they
should be ordained, and beginning the process of discernment. To be fair,
the Report was never given that 'start of process' remit. Equally, it
does assume that minorities and diversity is already represented within the
ordained body of the Church in order for the programme to identify and resource
such people into senior leadership roles.
Which begs the question - where is such a report which deals with
calling, discernment and vocation to ordained ministry, and does it include
reaching those who are Deaf and disabled? We have had events and
roadshows dealing with Young Vocations, Womens Vocations and BAME
Vocations. Where is the roadshow for Deaf & Disabled Vocations?
How many Deaf & disabled people are currently ordained in the Church of
England? How did they find the discernment process?
One priest I know, who has
a disability, described the discernment process as "trying to slip under
the radar of ablebodied-ism and become as abled as I could to 'hide' my
disability...it seemed to work".
Another said: "people in my
parish were encouraging and it was me who pushed against it, very hard indeed.
DDOs were sceptical, even hostile at the outset... The CofE does not actively
encourage vocations amongst disabled people in the same way as it does for
women, young vocations or BAME candidacy as evidenced by the fact that in [my] Diocese, at
least, stats for disability are not separated out."
Perhaps this is a grass roots call for all the Deaf and disabled
ordained ministers to create a roadshow of their own, and encourage vocations
by coming out of the shadows.
The Church of England has a paid National
Advisor for Disability, and various Committees, but as we have seen the
structures and reports are making no impact in this area (indeed, seem to have
no guidance or basic briefings to include it in their remit from the
start).
We at ‘Disability and Jesus’ are up for that challenge - who is with us?
Revd Katie
Tupling
Revd Bill
Braviner
Mr David
Lucas,
and guide dog Jarvis
Co-Founders
of ‘Disability and Jesus’
www.disabilityandjesus.org.uk
