Horizons of Belonging

By Peter Stockland with Janet Nolan

January 28, 2016

The CEO of Christian Horizons talks about the gifts that people with intellectual disabilities give to the larger society, and what it means to move beyond welcome to genuine belonging.

JN: As an organization, as we’ve grown and matured, we’ve had to have those conversations: how is it that we’re an organization of faith, yet we welcome other people who don’t necessarily share that faith to participate with us? Some of the things that we spend a lot of time on are: What’s our theological perspective and why do we exist as an organization? What are our values? What are our core principles in how we provide service, how families experience an interaction with Christian Horizons, how our employees experience an interaction with us, what we represent at community tables with government and policy discussions? So, really being intentional and intentionally adding value in all of those places C: If life is messy, leadership is a kind of subset of that messiness, isn’t it? You’ve been with Christian Horizons for 25 years now and CEO for… If there’s one thing that I think over the last couple of years I’ve personally recognized, it’s the number of organizations, whether it’s serving people with intellectual disabilities or homelessness initiatives or nursing homes or wherever services are needed for people who are often left out of communities For Christian Horizons, what the Reeses introduced to the conversation was a community of a different sort, a community of faith that could come around people with intellectual disabilities and was not geographically based JN: It’s certainly been a question that we’ve talked about over the years and even just what reason do we have to be? Why is it that government needs to fund a Christian organization to do the work that we do? It’s a big question Last year it was hosted by Faith and Culture Inclusion Network, and I draw your attention to that because the concept of community of faith, community not just being the geography but that community of faith, was recognized by all of the people that work in the sector, not necessarily that everyone agrees this is the way they would like to be served or serve, but that it’s a critical part of the work There’s so many things that we accept as just a given that people don’t recognize as actually being provided through the community of faith The Faith and Culture Inclusion Network, what it’s done is given a place, a voice, a collaborative voice, for people that come from a bit of a different perspective on how their organization was built JN: I don’t think there’s a whole lot of people who get to middle age or later who can’t look back and say that life is messy Typically, in communities of faith, there’s a desire to be charitable and benevolent, so there’s already well-established in the Christian community an approach to reaching out to people who may have been seen as the least of these I think in our sector we have a unique opportunity because I would believe many people recognize that quality of life isn’t turning to government for services and programs I think Christian Horizons is uniquely positioned to really affect the opportunity for people to truly belong because we can look to government for funding and services and programs and laws and policies, but government can’t build community

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