Purpose
and Plans
By Dr. Mike Townsend, Chair of Trustees
Do you ever wonder if God has any purpose for you? Many disabled people struggle with their personal sense of value( and it’ s not just disabled people!)
I am writing this just after our first Every Church Needs a Roofbreaker day in Ashtead. The keynote message drew our attention to an amazing fact. We are‘ created in the image of God’( Genesis 1:27). We all reflected on what this means. Does it include everyone? Even those with profound disabilities who struggle to communicate?
I used to run family houseparties. In the evenings I told the children exciting serial stories illustrating God’ s message for the day. Daniel was a regular from the age of eight. He had absolutely no communication, and just lay there in his flat carriage. I used to wonder if he understood anything. When Daniel was thirteen, he arrived with a communication aid. He used Dectalk synthetic speech- like Stephen Hawking. Daniel had broken the communication barrier! He described to me, in great detail, the stories I had told them back to when he was eight.
In the silence, God spoke to Daniel and he was now finding purpose in telling others about Jesus.
At the Roofbreaker day, we were privileged to have Becky Tyler speak. Becky had preached at the main Sunday service at Greenbelt last year. She is 15, and uses a computer to speak, controlling it with her eyes. She
Time for sharing and discussion among Roofbreakers
prepared her sermon in advance, and delivered it very effectively using glances to the screen.
Referring to the book of Romans( 8:28),‘ In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’, Becky testified that with her profound disabilities she is“ created in God’ s image” and therefore God has a plan for her.“ All things” are not always“ good”. But the real meaning of that verse is that God uses our experiences for his“ good” purposes.
There are two sides to the work of Roofbreakers. Firstly, they enable disabled people to engage with church. Roofbreakers look for ways to include people and encourage leadership to make this happen. However, real belonging is a two way street. We are not just“ to be served but to serve”. Roofbreaking includes enabling disabled people to use our gifts for the glory of God.
God has a plan for Becky, for me, and for you too.
New Logo
Last year we created a special logo to celebrate Through the Roof’ s 20th Anniversary. It was designed to reflect the unity and dynamism of the charity’ s mission and its 3 programmes, as well as incorporating its roof-shaped graphic and colour schemes of each area of work: the red of the charity, the green of Wheels for the World, blue of DCF, and purple of Churches inc. Trustees are so pleased with it we have decided to adopt it for the charity on-going, and you should start seeing it on all of our new publications soon. www. throughtheroof. org www. throughtheroof. org