Disabling the Church from the Center for Disability and Ministry
Disabling the Church is a podcast by the Center for Disability and Ministry at Western Theological Seminary. This series amplifies the voices, giftedness, and perspectives of disabled people, challenging ableist biases and reimagining the church as a space of true belonging. Through conversations with scholars, ministers, and community members, the podcast explores how the church can dismantle barriers—physical, theological, and cultural—to create a more inclusive and enriched faith community.
Learn more about the Center for Disability and Ministry at Western Theological Seminary at westernsem.edu/cdm
Disabling the Church from the Center for Disability and Ministry
Beyond Inclusion: Creating Belonging
Through the conversation with Megan Kadoulis, we explore how viewing disability as a difference can enhance our understanding of identity and community. With insights into her life with Williams syndrome, Megan inspires us to appreciate diversity and fosters connections that truly care for one another.
• Rethinking disability as a divine gift
• The impact of living with Williams syndrome
• Emphasizing identity beyond medical labels
• Defining community and belonging
• Building connections through empathy and understanding
• Navigating conflicts and tensions gracefully
Disabling the Church is a production of the Center for Disability and Ministry at Western Theological Seminary. This series amplifies the voices, giftedness and perspectives of disabled people to enrich the ministry and witness of the church.
Speaker 2:and perspectives of disabled people to enrich the ministry and witness of the church. Hello, welcome to Disabling the Church. I'm your host, Dr LS Carlos Thompson. In today's episode you'll get a chance to meet my friend, Megan Kadoulis, who's a fourth-year Friendship House Fellow in the Friendship House. Over the course of the episode, we're being invited to rethink things like disability as deficit. We begin to be invited by Meg into reframing disability as difference, which is a part of diversity, which is a gift from God that connects us to what it means to divinely bear the image of Christ as a part of the body of Christ. Divinely bear the image of Christ as a part of the body of Christ. Listen closely as Meg introduces herself and we get a chance to introduce some larger theological categories in a conversation between myself and my good friend, Meg Kadoulis.
Speaker 3:All right, my name is Megan Kadoulis. I live on Meg, I am a fourth year Friendship House resident at the Friendship House and I am almost 29.
Speaker 2:Almost 29. When do you turn 29?
Speaker 3:In two weeks.
Speaker 2:For me, when birthdays roll around, I get a little bit reflective, somewhat pensive. As your birthday approaches, do you get nervous, do you get sad? Are you excited about the future? Invite us into that a little bit.
Speaker 3:I think that I am mostly excited to turn 29. I want to, in my almost 30 years of life, be more involved with creation, care, community pastoral care and being more involved in different things that happen around here. I think that the four years I've been in school, plus the year or so I've been in the house the friendship house I've learned through that, like community is very important, but the Bible also says that the world is important, like animals and creation is important, and so I want to be more involved with that and, like maybe dive in deeper into those categories.
Speaker 2:So I wonder creation care? You mentioned animals and creatures, and obviously human beings are co-creatures. We're created by God, created in the image of God. Maybe we can lean in a bit here. You also live with a disability, and so you come in with a whole set of life experiences that make it difficult to engage in theological dialogue because of the way that people approach you. Can you explain a little bit of what it's like to live with your medical diagnosis? And then I want to ask some questions around how that might shape how you understand interdependence or human need.
Speaker 3:So I was born with a disability. It's called Williams syndrome, and it happens when you have genes off of your seventh chromosome that are missing, and so I'm missing about like like 30-plus of them. And so people who are born with Leukemia usually have genetic heart defects, different other medical conditions, but I'm considered pretty healthy, thank you Jesus. And so having that disability that also affects my brain and how like I live my life, I have huge empathy for other people with disabilities and humans in general, the same empathy to like caring about the rainforest or like creatures in different countries, you know, because if we don't care about them, everyone's just gonna be gone.
Speaker 2:So, living with a medical diagnosis and you hear from doctors a particular way of explaining how you inhabit the world and some information about your DNA structure, right. But with that comes a certain amount of personality trait as well, this idea that you are naturally a very empathetic person. You are wired for relational connection, and in some ways all human beings are, but that does fluctuate in its particulars, right. So there's a part of you that has been told medically this is who you are, this is your limits and this is what your life will be. And yet you exist as a seminary student in a postgraduate institution, embedded in a community that challenges and stretches your theological frameworks. And, as a result, now you're saying things like it's my responsibility to care for creation and others, not just receive care. So I'm wondering how do you define yourself and your identity beyond just simple medicalized language attached to a diagnosis?
Speaker 3:You know, I grew up where people said like, oh, people with disabilities are acts of the devil, like they're not fully human. You know, like, oh, satan must have done something, or oh, your mom and dad must have sinned or whatever. But when I came to Michigan and went to Hope, their Ready for Life program, which is a whole other subject I met someone who introduced me to Jesus and introduced me to faith. Then, and like I have grown so much ever since, like eight years ago basically.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you're in a place now where you can attach certain things like because I live with Williams syndrome, I have a well-developed empathic side to my way of being. I've read other things because of you inviting me in and teaching me things like people who live with Williams syndrome are often very quick to trust and form relationships, attach to music easily, those kinds of things right, and I find it, if I can just be blunt, I find it odd that things like hardwired for relationships, empathetic, quick to trust, those kinds of things are listed as somehow deficient medical traits. That seems kind of odd, but that maybe is a separate conversation. What I hear now is you, because of who you are, have entered a space where you're attaching certain elements of how you're wired to a vocational call and a certain communal theological expectation. Right, Because I am wired a certain way.
Speaker 2:What am I created for? Who am I created? To be in Christ. And then you reference things like creation, care, communal involvement, and so I'd like to just maybe develop that a little bit more. It seems like your vocation is coming out of the needs that you have as a person a need for connection, a need for others, a need to be connected to creation, a need to have a role to play in a community. It doesn't seem like your vocation is rooted in trying to structure your life in a way so that you don't need people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how would you lean into explaining to those who are listening the connection between what God has created you to do, who God's created you to be, and the needs that you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, god's created you to be and the needs that you have, yeah, community and make sure everyone feels like they're a part of community.
Speaker 3:It's a big part of my life and that might be like the pastoral care person coming out of me, and I think that everybody deserves to be seen, loved and heard, no matter who they are. They should have a community, and here at the Friendship House we have a very large community. Sometimes it's strong, sometimes it's not. I mean, we're only human, we bicker, we fight, but we also get along, which is great. And so, like I see myself being a person that fosters the care circles to like fix that hole, patch it up, take care of other people. I think that being a community like like we can all help each other heal, so like going from a place where, oh you know, like your mom and dad must have done something, you're an act of the devil, like you're not fully human to I am seen, I'm loved, I'm heard is community and going to church and just like different categories all whipped into one cake per se.
Speaker 2:So you use the word community as sort of a space where someone goes from a particular nefarious way or negative way of defining identity to being seen, known and heard. Can you walk me through how would you define a community, and then maybe we can lean into a little bit of how that plays out in the Friendship House?
Speaker 3:Okay, the community to me, in my opinion, is defined as people who are together. They don't just live together, but they do a lot of things together and if someone's missing, it's like, oh, where's that person? Like is she or he? Okay, you know, like do they need me for some reason or whatever? And so if you're not there, you're missed and like it's way different from oh, I'm just going to this group to do this thing and I'll go home and I'll be forgotten afterwards right.
Speaker 2:So what I hear there um is help me remember this rightly but um reverend dr john swinton out of the university of aberdeen in hisen.
Speaker 2:In a number of his writings, and some of which we read in class, he says belonging versus inclusion is sort of differentiated this way Inclusion says you're kind of welcomed into the room somehow, whether it's a ramp to get you in the building, or you're listened to in a conversation or maybe you're heard in a conversation. But belonging says that if you are absent from that space, you are so well known that you're missed, right. And then we sort of lean into that and press it a little bit further and say maybe belonging isn't so much that you're missed when you're absent, but it's that you're so well known that the good and the fruit of what happens in that space can't occur without you present, because the fullness of who you are actually changes a space. What does that mean then in terms of how life functions in the friendship house, if we seek to be a community and we seek to belong to one another? Let me phrase it this way how might you say or explain that the friendship house is a community versus a social group?
Speaker 3:So each and every week we do dinners every Thursday night usually. We do dinners every Thursday night usually and like if someone isn't going to come they'll let us know. On our text thread we have a communal thread that we text each other a lot and ask questions about. Like you don't just do that with everyday people. These people, you have to trust them, they have to trust you. Like there has to be more than, oh, this person is my friend, I'll ask him a random question and then, like it won't matter, but community is like a super, super strong spider web or a net strong spider web or a net if one part is not there, or if one part, one person, not part. But I'm saying part because that's how I feel like the thread is missing and so it's not fully uh strong as it should be.
Speaker 2:So community, to use the analogy, oh man, I can't believe you use the analogy of a spider web. That's icky and you don't like spiders, meg. So we can talk about that later. But, um, let's use the analogy, right? So a spider web or a net?
Speaker 2:Um, it's almost like community is the the place that holds you or catches you when you feel like you're in a bit of a free fall. It's not necessarily about achieving a task, so much as it is about being a particular kind of person in a particular kind of space. And so this idea of this is a place where we are regularly connected. You know a text thread dinners, doing life together, that kind of thing. But also this is a place where we're regularly connected and leaning on one another in and through our needs and our humanity, right. So let me just ask you this you do, as a person who identifies as a Christian, to welcome people into existing in the body of Christ, and vulnerably in the body of Christ. How do you exist as a person to make sure that you're inviting people into the kind of vulnerability that fosters community?
Speaker 3:I know everyone has opinions and I have opinions too and they're very strong at some points. But, like I try to be kind and to like just forget about my opinions at first, just like let them know, like hey, I'm Megan. Like let's get to know each other and we'll talk about our theological opinions later, as we get to know each other, and we'll talk about our theological opinions later, as we get to know each other. But like I want them to know that I see them, that I care about them, and I want to get to know, like maybe they had a struggle and I had that struggle too, so I can you know, like confirm with them and be on the same page, like identify the same role as them at some points.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what I think I hear you saying is maybe a step, maybe even step one, is recognizing that we should listen to one another in order to understand one another, not necessarily in order to respond right away. So here's a question and maybe we can close here how do you enter a space where you're trying to listen in order to invite someone into closer, deeper, richer relationship and you come across a very real difference in your way of being maybe a source of conflict or a source of tension, right as a Christian who's committed to living in community with other Christians? How do you navigate that conflict or difference or tension without letting it develop into a place of dissension?
Speaker 3:Yeah, perhaps let's just say that this person is not a Christian, this person doesn't know Jesus or whatever the Bible says to be the way of the light, like be more like Jesus. Bible says to be the way of the light, like be more like Jesus, and so I think that I would want to show them light. And if there is tension, then I just pray about it and see what the Bible says about it and then, like, defer from there because you don't want to leave someone like, oh, that person is a Christian and they're using the Bible against me because I'm different than them, or like I sin. People can say like, oh, you're a sinner, but wait, you're not a sinner too, you know. Like. That kind of stuff is also important to understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, meg, I hear you saying that Scripture and the Word is sort of a common anchor point. And we go back to and we say, as a Christian, I allow the Word to govern the choices I make, the conversations I have and the way that I act. But what about when I'm interacting with someone who doesn't have that same anchor point? Then we say, well, humility and gentleness is sort of how I enter this. For those of us who are entering these kinds of conversations for the first time, what's one piece of advice that you would leave our listeners with around how to engage in these kinds of conversations with people like you and me that have disabilities and maybe it's all new to them?
Speaker 3:I think that people with disabilities are very much alike everyone else, like typical people, and therefore like don't be afraid of that person because they're disabled and just act like you normally, act like you don't have to treat them special because you know there's the it can be a little bit mistreated and maybe that person doesn't want to be treated special, and so you have to understand we are people of God who God greatly loves and who Jesus is always by just as much as the person lives down the road.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Meg, and thank you so much for agreeing to share some time with me and all of us. Thank you for the way that you invite us into the life that God has given you. Thank you for being a member of the Friendship House community and such a beautiful friend to me and so many others. Please remember that this is Disabling the Church and we look forward to being with you in subsequent weeks. Thank you all for being willing to share some time with Meg and I. I look forward to inviting with you in subsequent weeks. Thank you all for being willing to share some time with Meg and I. I look forward to inviting you back in the next episode and also inviting Meg back in subsequent episodes as we continue our conversation. May God bless and keep you. May God's face shine upon you and give you peace.
Speaker 1:This has been a Center for Disability and Ministry production. Join us next time for another insightful episode.