Participants register for the 2011 Widening the Welcome conference in Columbus, Ohio, presented by UCC Disabilities Ministries and the UCC Mental Illness Network. (Photo provided)

"We need this in the United Church of Christ," remarked the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC's executive minister for Local Church Ministries, in his closing plenary presentation at the second Widening the Welcome conference, held Sept. 29 – Oct. 1, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. "We're about widening the welcome and deepening relationships."

Guess' comments reflected the feelings of those attending this year's conference. The Widening the Welcome movement in the United Church of Christ continues to seek ways to break down the barriers in language about inclusion, disabilities, and mental illnesses, to overcome the inaccessibility of church buildings, to study the theology of disabilities, to confront attitudes about brain disorders/mental illness, to find ways to move congregations to become A2A (Accessible to All) and to encourage the development of Mental Health Ministries in all congregations. 

Presenters at this year's conference, sponsored by UCC Disabilities Ministries and the UCC Mental Illness Network, included Guess; Christine Guth, program director for Anabaptist Disabilities Network; Thomas Reynolds, associate professor of theology at Emmanuel College, Toronto; and Carolyn Thompson, retired from the Commission for Persons with Disabilities in Cambridge, MA. Additionally, attendees worshiped, spent connecting time in small groups - called CORE groups - and learned from 18 workshops related to disabilities and brain disorders/mental illnesses.

Guth challenged attendees to rethink common perceptions about the margins. "The person on the margin is in a unique position to see what is out of view for the people in the center." Her comments were closely tied to those of Tom Reynolds, who said, "A spirituality of attentiveness requires letting go of my agenda and learning to really listen with compassionate respect to the other. It means risking exposure, reversals and disruption of the status quo"

Conference attendees - who gathered from Maine and Massachusetts to Seattle and San Diego, and from Georgia and Texas to South Dakota and Minnesota, and states between - left inspired and challenged to widen the welcome and deepen relationships in their congregations, Associations and Conferences.

The Rev. Gunnar A. Cerda, pastor of Orchard Hill United Church of Christ in Chillicothe,Ohio, plans to convene an inclusion team for the Central Southeast Ohio Association. Karl Shallowhorn, a member of Pilgrim-St. Luke's UCC in Buffalo, NY, hopes to work with the soon-to-be formed New York Conference Disabilities Ministries working group. Shallowhorn said of the conference, "We received a clear message that simply blew me away. The body of Christ presumes a place for everybody."

"The Widening the Welcome movement in the United Church of Christ has begun," said the Rev. Kirk Moore, pastor of Union Congregational United Church of Christ in Somonauk, Ill., and web administrator for Widening the Welcome. "It continues. It presumes a place for everybody. And it calls all to share a love that is deep and wide. Deeper still and wider still. Still deeper and still wider."

Moore says plans are underway for the next Widening the Welcome gathering in 2012.

Further information about the Widening the Welcome movement, including conference resources and audio/video recordings for purchase, is available at <wideningthewelcome.com>.

More information and resources on A2A, physical disabilities, mental illnesses and other brain disorders, are available at <min-ucc.org> and <uccdm.org>.