February 2017
By Ramona Tausz
Rev. Paul Klopke is hard at work in the Northern Illinois District, raising disability awareness among NID congregations and teaching pastors and laypeople how to be sensitive to people who have a disability and provide them with optimal spiritual care.
He has served for about two years as senior care and special needs pastor at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Arlington Heights, Illinois, but he also works as North Regional Director for Voice of Care, a recognized service organization of the LCMS that works to provide spiritual care to those with disabilities.
“I’m not just a pastor at St. Peter’s,” Klopke said. He feels he has a mission to encourage special needs ministry in the district.
One of his teaching tools is an interactive station presentation that he and some fellow staff from Voice of Care put together several years ago, aiming to raise disability awareness among children. Klopke now travels around the district to offer this station presentation at different churches, classrooms, and in Sunday Schools.
“One station is a braille station,” Klopke said. “The Lutheran Braille society has given us worksheets, and students have to put blindfolds on and experience what it’s like to read braille.”
The experience involves about eight different interactive stations, each designed to teach students about a different disability. At one station, students have to experience what it’s like to sit in and maneuver a wheelchair. At another station, students have to walk around obstacles while wearing a blindfold and using a walking cane.
“I then have questions for the kids and talk about ‘What is a disability?’” Klopke said. “I tell them that in the Bible, one of the disciples has a disability; the Apostle Paul had the sword in the flesh.”
At some locations, Klopke leads a chapel service with a presentation on disability awareness instead of the full station presentation.
“Some of these schools don’t want to do the stations,” he said. “So in the chapel service I’m teaching them sign language and creating an awareness of what it’s like to be disabled and how that affects worship.”
Part of Klopke’s mission is to educate pastors and laymen about what he calls “inclusive worship.” According to Klopke, there are many small techniques pastors can use to make people with disabilities feel more involved in the service, like making sure people with special needs have a buddy with them to help them find hymn numbers.
“Some people don’t know how to sing—and how can they worship if they don’t know how to sing?” Klopke said. “We think of ways in which they can still worship, like by having a rhythm instrument, whether it’s a tambourine or a drum. Or they could worship by raising their hands.”
“It could be as simple as the pastor asking people to stand,” he added. “Instead of saying ‘Please stand,’ you can say ‘Please stand in body or in spirit.’ Even if you can’t stand with your body, you could just sit there in spirit and ‘stand’.”
He also encourages pastors to think about using sign language in the liturgy.
“For confession and absolution, I often teach the congregation how to say ‘I’m sorry’ in sign language,” he said. “Or for the prayers, we’ll pray a prayer and I’ll have them sign ‘Lord, have mercy’ together as a congregation.”
Klopke has given these disability awareness presentations throughout the district—at Lutheran day schools, other Christian schools, Sunday schools, and in churches. Contact Voice of Care if you are interested in having him demonstrate this station presentation or give a chapel service at your organization (office@voiceofcare.org or call their office at 630-231-3862).