Indispensable People
Making the Gospel Accessible to people of ALL abilities so that they may know Christ, grow in Him, and serve Him with the gifts He has given them.
Indispensable People
Breaking Down Labels
What happens when we reduce someone to a label? We miss the fullness of who they are. Tracie Corll tackles this crucial conversation, revealing why the church must move beyond disability diagnoses to truly welcome everyone.
Through personal stories about her son Noah, Tracie illustrates how environment and comfort level dramatically affect how someone presents. A child who's hilarious and creative at home might appear completely different in an unfamiliar church setting. This reality underscores why quick judgments based on diagnostic labels fail to capture someone's true essence. As Tracy puts it, "A label is not defining. A label is a piece."
The conversation extends into the tensions between person-first and identity-first language, with Tracie advocating for approaches that honor each individual's personhood first and foremost. She reminds us that ministry fundamentally rests on scripture and relationships – not on our ability to categorize people.
Ready to transform how your church welcomes people of all abilities? Visit indispensablepeople.com or find Tracy's books on Amazon to continue this vital journey. Together, we can create churches where everyone has the opportunity to know Christ, grow in Him, and serve with their God-given gifts.
Hi, my name is Tracy Correll and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a wife, mom, teacher, pastor and missionary and I believe that every person should have the opportunity to know Christ, grow in Him and serve Him with the gifts that he has given, no matter their ability. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 25% of the population. However, over 80% of them are not inside the walls of our church. Let's dive into those hard topics biblical foundations, perceptions and welcome to this episode of Indispensable People. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1:I am so excited to continue this journey with you on learning about individuals with different abilities, disabilities, special needs. The terms and the explanations could go on and on, and really it just determines who you're speaking to and where their thoughts are on this place. For example, I have done so many trainings where I talk about labels and understanding that a label cannot define you, and it is not necessarily in the empowering sense of saying that, right, a label can't define you. You aren't what you blah, blah, blah, whatever, but here's what I mean. So if I were to hand every single person a sheet of paper and I here's a pencil and write down one word that describes you, almost every single person would struggle. Why? Because one thing doesn't describe all of you and if you consider, okay, you in different facets of life, okay, you at work, you at school, you with your children, you at home, and not that you're different people, but different parts of you are activated based on the place you are in life, the age you are in life, the expectations that are on you in that stage of life, right. So one label is never an all-defining, all-encompassing thing and I can tell you that the relationships that I have with different people, you know I am more relaxed with you know my family and in my home, as opposed to you know, when I'm standing and speaking on stage on a Sunday morning, speaking on stage on a Sunday morning, and I'll tell you that where I was 10 years ago, standing and speaking on stage, I am a hundred times more comfortable and more myself than I've ever been. But it really it just is situational and environmental and has a lot to do with all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:I have spoken extensively about my son, noah, and I can tell you that his personality, first of all, he's hilarious, he's smart, he is a problem solver, he is super creative, but not everybody gets to see that part of him. Why? Because he struggles with anxiety and his anxiety around people that he doesn't know, in unfamiliar spaces kind of, he stiffens up so his funny parts don't come out when he's talking if he's going to talk at all and all of those different things and different places and different experiences really show him differently. But also, I say all of that to say that a label doesn't define someone, but getting to know them and having that experience, building a relationship, changes everything. And it's so important, first of all, to understand that ministry is built on scripture and relationships. Right, it's built on the word of God and the people who are delivering it, sharing it, teaching it, participating it and living it out. And we do that through those established relationships.
Speaker 1:And when you know someone on the surface, you see something very different than when you get to know someone. And so when you might have a child, a teenager, an adult who comes into your church and parents or caregiver or guardian or whoever is going to say you know something like, I just need you to know that they're diagnosed with autism or they have a Down syndrome diagnosis or they have ADHD or whatever it is, whatever that list comes from, and immediately your brain's going to start to compute an understanding of this individual. You have to fight that. You have to fight against it, because the stereotypes of what you know of those individuals are not the defining, determining factor. First of all, we have a creator that is so creative that no individual is exactly alike. Right, you have billions of people, and we can be identified by the lines on our fingers, our fingerprints. That's how different we are and that's on the outside of us, the things that we can see, the things on the inside, which are even more complex and more intricate and more creatively made. We cannot be defined in those first meet types of things. There's so much depth to us, and so I just want to warn you against labels.
Speaker 1:A label is not defining. A label is a piece. A label might be helping you to understand, to build compassion, to understand, consider strategies that might help break down barriers, accommodations that might help that person feel more comfortable and be a part of it. Might help you to figure out how to make your church more accessible to individuals that are generally known to have whatever disability. Might be reported, however and I say be reported, which is funny, because sometimes we don't know and we're not told, and sometimes that's almost better because we have to take the time to get to know someone, invest in them and then grow to know them and learn about them and experience them in the most natural way. And so knowing and learning and understanding that labels do not define, labels do not give a full explanation. Labels are not going to tell you every strategy and every accommodation you're going to need. Labels are not going to make your church accessible. Labels are primarily for medical coding and things like IEPs and assigning certain goals and tasks and things because of that.
Speaker 1:So in the church, setting a label is even more unimportant because we're talking about the person. We need to consider the person as a whole and, yes, we are working in a world that identity first is becoming a highly sought after way of speaking of people with disabilities, where in the past we have had the person first verbiage and I would say person first is still going to be most of important. Why? Because you're a person, because you're a creation, because you're made in the image of God, and that is our focus, that is our main concern, main consideration, because Jesus was concerned with those that he fearfully and wonderfully made, those that were created to glorify him, made with a purpose, all of those kinds of things and, yes, their disability diagnosis is a part of that story. That helps to shape them, it helps them, it develops their personalities and their character traits and perseverance and all different kinds of things that we could list that have come from that disability diagnosis. But that diagnosis is not who they are. It is a part of them.
Speaker 1:So we need to know that, we need to understand that, that a label will lead to a stereotype and we need to be cautious and careful. But we need to invest in the people. And when we can invest in the people, that's when we know that every person will have the opportunity to know Christ, to grow in Him and to serve Him. No-transcript. No-transcript. Do I have all the answers? Have I done everything perfectly? I have absolutely not, but we are going to continue this conversation so that people of all abilities can have the opportunity to know Christ, grow in Him and serve Him with the gifts that he has given them. For deeper dives into these topics and more, check out indispensablepeoplecom and visit Amazon to purchase the books the indispensable kid and gospel, accessibility and the indispensable people.
