Learn More about Disability Concerns

Everybody Belongs, Everybody Serves

Most churches are very good at helping people through short-term crises such as accidents and illnesses. But churches have more trouble dealing with someone who is not going to “get better.” The paid and volunteer staff of Disability Concerns help churches to include all of God’s people in their life and ministry so that all members know that they belong and can use their gifts fully. Please contact us if you would like assistance for your congregation.

A director as well as administrative assistants working part-time in Grand Rapids, Mich., and in Burlington, Ont., comprise the paid staff. Their work is multiplied by a network of hundreds of volunteers who serve individual churches as church advocates, and who serve entire classes as regional advocates.

Disability Concerns committees in Canada, in Chicago, and in Michigan support the work of the regional advocates. The Canadian committee holds a training conference every spring in Ontario for the church advocates, and the Michigan committee sponsors an annual training workshop in the fall.

Disability Concerns also cooperates with Friendship Ministries in its ministry to people with cognitive impairments in the United States and Canada.

Quick Facts

• Disability Concerns communicates with churches primarily through its network of volunteers, and also through its newsletter, Breaking Barriers, our website, our Network and Facebook pages.
• Studies by the U.S. Census and Statistics Canada indicate that about 20 per cent of their populations live with at least one disability. That translates to about 54,000 Christian Reformed people, or 20 out of every one-hundred people in your church, who live day in and day out with a disability.