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What is next?

Quote ~ ~ Break The Roof ~ Leave a comment

We are overdue for some updated content on our home page. While it seems like we have been quiet, in reality we have been refining our mission and purpose and our skills as advocates for people with disabilities. Since Break The Roof was founded in Spring of 2016 so many meaningful interactions and relationships have blossomed. We have seen major wins and major set backs in media representations of people with disabilities. We have worked first hand with churches to become inclusive and change their way of thinking about disability. We have shared our story across the nation at different conferences and through various publications. With that being said: We have come to a bit of a head as an organization. We are asking, “what is next”.

Where do we focus our attention? There seems to be more voices than ever taking charge on social media for the plight of people with disabilities. So what will make us different?

I will tell you directly from my experience (this is Matt writing) as the founder of a nonprofit, a newlywed, working full-time at a job that has zero to do with disability advocacy and being disabled myself… life gets bogged down. Days without substantially cultivating Break The Roof turn into weeks and then into months. Sometimes you trust the wrong people in advocacy. Sometimes you get overwhelmed by personal circumstance. Sometimes you get burnt out. But the only thing that doesn’t change is the mission and the need.

As we get close to our 2nd birthday, I am asking more frequently: “How can Break The Roof serve the world around us?”

I wish I had a solid answer to that question today, but I am working daily towards an answer.

One way I am attacking this question is by evaluating our strengths as an organization. In case you weren’t aware, here are the ways that we excel as an advocacy organization:

  • We want to build relationships with the people around us, the people we are advocating TO and FOR.
  • We love story telling as a form of advocacy.
  • We experience, first hand, what a life being disabled is all about.
  • Our passion doesn’t seem to burn out no matter how often people and circumstances try to smother that flame.
  • Our approach to advocacy is just as creative as our commitment to adaptations and accessibility.
  • Our goal is to see the world, people and systems healed. Not bullied, “guilted” or demolished.
  • Our mission is influenced directly by our Faith. So we know that our purpose far outweighs any lowly moment of discrimination and marginalization that we may experience.

We have other strengths as an organization, but whatever is next for us, you can count on one thing: We will not settle until we see the people in our reach changed for the better.

So as we continue to formulate an in-depth answer to our “what is next?” question, know that we are here to lead trainings, speaking events, consultations, conferences, and social media campaigns to help people recognize the glaring needs of the disability community and how to meet those needs.

Keep an eye out for more awesome updates headed your way!

-Matt

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On Disability and Inclusion in the Church

~ Break The Roof ~ Leave a comment

What follows is an edited transcript from a short session our founder ran at the recent “TASH conference” in Nashville:

As I said at the beginning of this panel, my name is Matt Curcio. The capital letter “C” church has been a part of my life since I was about eleven years old. I have worked in churches, volunteered with ministries, gone to seminary and surrounded myself with Christian fellowship.

While I have been active in many different churches over the years, I have more often than not felt like I was on the outside looking in. But then again y’all are aware that there are still many obstacles and barriers to inclusion, which is why we are gathered here today.

One of the questions I pondered when writing this all down is, what exactly would it look like to be meaningfully included in a faith community?

I want to start with what it does not look like. It doesn’t look like people avoiding eye contact. It doesn’t look like being forgotten about or minimized to just the state of my physical body.

Not being meaningfully included is like the scene in Mark 2. Many of you here know the story of the paralyzed man who was lowered through a roof to meet Jesus.

Something I didn’t realize until recently is that it wasn’t steps blocking the man from meeting Jesus and being a part of something world changing. In fact, scripture clearly states it was a crowd blocking him. A crowd of people, unaware and uninterested blocking this man from a potential that was unimaginable.

For me to feel accepted and welcomed and desired is when a few of those people in that crowd become a community. They stop standing in the way and work with me to get into that house to see what all the commotion is about.

To be meaningfully included means ultimately for others to see my potential when I only see my brokenness. It is to have my name asked and to have my story heard. To be meaningfully included is to be treated like a human.

While for me there are still many instances where stairs are a major obstacle to me being meaningfully included, to me the complacent and disinterested attitudes are the biggest barriers.

It is a rare occasion wherein programs, lessons and buildings are planned with disabilities in mind. Stages are even more rarely designed with the thought that someone with a disability would ever lead or speak on it.

In fact even when I was ministering to students, it was an afterthought to me! I’d plan the lesson, write the illustration and map out the activity just to realize I didn’t even take into consideration my own limitations. How backwards is that? I don’t think that is what Paul meant by being everything to everyone.

But, its not all bad, because if there wasn’t hope I probably wouldn’t be up here speaking. I have been meaningfully included. One instance was so powerful it is still shaking up my life even though it occurred over two years ago

I was working at a church in San Antonio doing full time college ministry. I knew my wheelhouse. College kids were easy. They liked video games, coffee and long talks about Jesus. No problem, I excel at all those things. But there was a Youth Director at this church that became a fast friend. We’d grill and watch every sport under the sun. It wasn’t long, maybe a few weeks after my arrival that he began inviting me to come spend time with him and the middle schoolers.

I was sick to my stomach when he first invited me. I smiled and in my most gracious voice declined. On the inside I was screaming “Dude are you out of your mind? Me, with a bunch of wild middle schoolers, running around being hyper and active and fun? You DO realize I use a scooter right? I don’t play sports, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. This is a disaster waiting to happen.”

The Youth Director then proceeded to invite me every single week for the next month. He promised food and fellowship. Finally after a month of invitations I caved in to his persistence. Nerves a wreck, I showed up and ate hot dogs and talked about Maundy Thursday with ten eighth grade boys.

I thought I would just have to make it through those two hours and then never have to hear his offer again once I explained how I’m not a fit to work with youth.

If y’all could have seen his smug grin when he watched me fall in love with working with those kids. Two years later I’m obviously no longer at that church, but I still get weekly texts from the many high school and middle schoolers. I had no idea that potential was in me.

I had no idea that there was a gifting and strength to my story that could connect to kids that I had grown up unable to connect with.

Side note: Kids, no matter the age, love sitting in rollie chairs and holding onto the back of scooters like a train. Extra side note: get a parent’s permission and have the kids sign a waiver before you do something like that.

But a faith community saw it in me when I didn’t see it. And in this scenario once I got inside the house and saw what the crowd was staring at, it changed my world.

What I want to leave you with today is just a few pieces of advice:

  1. Invitation is at the heart of faith communities, do not be afraid to invite those with disabilities to serve, and to share their strengths. Which of course means you need to invite them into your life so that you may get to see their potential yourself.
  2. This is off topic, but I feel like it needs to be shared. Disability is draining. It consumes energy, health and finances, goodness is it expensive to be disabled. I will be the first to say that I do not want to be seen as a charity case, but those I trust, who know me authentically and intimately and not just as someone to be served. I am grateful to share my struggles and needs with them. It is not easy to support and invest in someone with a disability. But the best things in life are never easy. Get to know people’s needs, but first get to know them.
  3. Finally, become a community. Lay down the simplicity of being a crowd. Make your plans with an array of abilities in mind. If you work with youth, you already know not EVERY kid likes dodgeball. If you are preaching, hopefully it’s not news to you that it doesn’t take having a disability or learning difference to lose focus on what is being said. Every obstacle has an accommodation. And

Maybe accommodations shouldn’t be an overwhelming word, maybe it shouldn’t be such a dirty word.

But an opportunity to let your creativity run wild, to try something new (I know new can be scary), but what if by accommodating for a few you give way to something more potent, and more world changing than ever before?
Thank you.