Rev. Bill Gaventa with Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche International - - a federation of residential communities around the world for those with intellectual disabilities - - at a symposium in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Rev. Bill Gaventa has spent the last 30 years working to enable congregations to be truly inclusive of all God's people. An American Baptist chaplain endorsed through National Ministries, Gaventa knows that sometimes this is not the case, especially for people with developmental disabilities such as autism and mental illness or those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Gaventa directs the Community and Congregational Supports program at the Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, part of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick. Through his work, he's come to understand that sometimes churches feel uncomfortable around people with developmental disabilities and may not know how to welcome and include them.

It was just after seminary, during a year-long CPE residency at UNC Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill (a program similar to The Boggs Center) when he first became interested in connecting families with disabled children and church communities. A question "glared out at me," he says. "What does it mean to be a pastor to families with children with mental retardation, as the term was in those days?"

The stories and experiences of family and clergy formed his call and fueled his passion, he says, "both because of the horror and the possibilities." He heard of the horror of spiritual abuse in churches that did not take seriously the spirituality or core humanity of people with disabilities. At the same time, he saw the possibilities for the church to become a welcoming place for all people—a place that could minister to the spiritual needs of people with disabilities, needs that are much like everyone else's .

Rev. Bill Gaventa conducting a presentation at the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability in Capetown, South Africa.

Over time, through his involvement with families and churches, he came to see his task as "re-storing the sanctuary, helping to create a safe place around the altars of our faiths for people with disabilities and mental illness." Making the church a safe place became Gaventa's passion, his clear call from God, and he has worked to encourage creation of a true sanctuary where everyone—everyone—knows they are "okay" and "beloved," just as they are.

Even more than helping churches create safe places, Gaventa helps them see with "eyes that look for gifts and strengths as well as needs and deficits of people too often deemed to have no value." He works to help churches create a space where all people, including people with disabilities and other conditions, experience God's call to put their gifts into action in God's service.

"We are about the task of re-membering the body of Christ," he says, as he seeks to bring together people who have been separated. "When people who have been excluded or set apart, are now included, what we are about as a faith community is…re-membering them, helping them become members again. It is a move from being set apart to being part of the community of faith."

Throughout his years of ministry, Gaventa learned lessons about how "re-storing the sanctuary" could happen. He learned from his own experience, when, for a year, he suffered from clinical depression, living life in the church as a person with a disability. Also, as he talked with families and churches through his work in various agencies, he learned from their experiences what could happen in a church committed to including everyone.

Gaventa's recent article, "Children with Disabilities and Poverty: Breaking Free of Limiting Conditions ," in National Ministries' The Christian Citizen explains the problems loving families with disabled children and low incomes face. These include not just dealing with the disability, such as autism, but also dealing with issues related to employment, crime, housing, education and hunger.

"What can the church do?" Gaventa asks, offering specific suggestions such as including the family and children in church activities, becoming an advocate for the family with public agencies, and starting a support group so families can learn from each other.

Autism and Faith: A Journey into Community, Gaventa's latest project, is a 52-page resource that compiles what concerned and creative members of all faiths are doing across the country to include people who have autism. This resource—the result of his work with families and the work of the Boggs Center's Autism and Faith Task Force—is packed with ideas that can be implemented in local congregations to support families and programs in the church.

Is your church a "safe sanctuary" for all people? If not, Gaventa's resource can lead your congregation on the journey toward that place.

Order Autism and Faith ($5) online or write to The Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, 335 George St., P.O. Box 2688, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-2688. (The first copy of this resource is available free of charge to New Jersey residents.)

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