Campus Minister Uses Sci Fi to Reach Out to Students with Disabilities

Four Grand Rapids Community College students with disabilities gathered around the classroom laptop and watched an opening episode of the long-running British television series Doctor Who.

Titled Genesis of the Daleks, the half-hour episode clearly grabbed their attention. They watched raptly as Doctor Who and his companions went to a planet to try and destroy the evil Daleks before they could wipe out the entire universe.

Peter Gordon, a Christian Reformed Home Missions campus pastor who runs a ministry to people with disabilities at the college, was showing this series as part of a Bible study on making choices about good and evil.

“They’re going to see in these episodes that Doctor Who faces different moral dilemmas such as whether he should change the course of evolution,” says Gordon.

Gordon says he uses science fiction and other creative approaches — such as video games, music, and art — to serve this population of students.

“I’m asking them to use their imaginations as a way of opening themselves up to God,” he says. “These are people who have a difficult time doing abstract thinking.”

Gordon is director of the three-year-old Jabez Ministries, the only campus ministry of its kind in the CRC.

It is is named after Jabez, the biblical character who was born in pain and called out to God, asking, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain” (1 Chronicles 4: 9-10).

“Jabez is the story of a person who wants to live with honor and dignity as a child of God, not according to the preconceptions or circumstances of life or to be a burden to others, but to have a meaningful existence in God’s kingdom,” says Gordon.

This is also true of persons with disabilities who want to be “working toward a meaningful life and worshiping God.”

Gordon himself lives with disabilities. He is nearly deaf and, although he has hearing aids, has needed to become proficient in lip reading.

In addition, he grew up with an Information Processing Disorder, an inability to process information in ways most so-called normal people do.

On the one hand, this is a gift. He is highly imaginative and able to make connections among disparate things that many people don’t notice. This can be a blessing when he preaches in a church.

“People often tell me that they are surprised by how I’m able to tie together different scriptures in ways that are new to them,” he says.

At the same time, his condition is a challenge.

“I had to go through Calvin Seminary twice,” he says. “I needed to be able to learn at my own pace.”

Given his struggles, Gordon has a heart for people who, like him, are considered to be disabled and are often left on the margins of mainstream society, including within the church, he says.

“Many students with disabilities find a relationship with God difficult,” he says. “Many don’t feel God’s grace when life is a constant exercise in adaptation.”

Gordon says Jabez Ministries serves students whose situations range from autism to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to different cognitive, emotional, and mental disorders.

Rev. Mark Stephenson, director of the CRC’s Office of Disabilities Concerns, says other campus ministers could look to Gordon as a role model in learning how to include people with disabilities in their ministries.

“Pete has walked the road of higher education himself as a person with disabilities,” says Stephenson. “He knows the challenges and prejudices in a personal way and can minister on a deeper level than a campus pastor who does not live with disabilities.”

At the community college, Gordon says, he often shares his story and the setbacks he faces, always doing so in the context of reaching out to students in ways that make sense to them.

“I use lots of approaches to try to show them how to grow and manage their faith within their disabilities,” he says. “Most of all, I let them know that when we’re together, it is safe to be who they are.”

A bearded man with an easygoing manner, Gordon likes joking and fist-bumping with students. But the ministry also has a serious side.

He says he does a fair amount of counseling with students, who often share personal stories about painful experiences.

“Well-meaning people can say the wrong thing believing they are helping,” says Gordon. “Being lonely in a crowded room is not an unusual feeling for persons with disabilities.”

Students say Gordon’s humor and creative ideas, combined with his compassion and deep faith, are making a difference for them.

Before the episode of Doctor Who began, Julie Nowakowski, who is studying sign language, recalled how she went on a mission trip with Gordon and others to New York City.

As someone with ADHD, she is easily stimulated, and the sights and sounds of the big city, along with being away from home and needing to sleep in a new place, were hard to deal with, she says.

But Gordon and her friends on the trip helped by reminding her to remain calm, to have faith, and to enjoy the experience, which she was able to do.

Jabez Ministries, she says, “has helped me exponentially in so many ways. It has helped me to see that I am good enough, and it has helped me to get close to God.”

Jessica Blair lived on the streets of Grand Rapids for a time and was only able to attend school periodically. But that changed. She now has a home and is enrolled in the culinary program at the community college. She is also deeply involved in Jabez Ministries.

“The ministry has helped to break me out of my shell and has given me more confidence,” says Blair, who has a cognitive disorder. “It has taught me that although I have disabilities, they don’t control my life.”

Both she and Nowakowski say they especially appreciate the different approaches Gordon offers, such as showing them science fiction programs and tying them in with the Bible.

“He uses these because they are interesting to us and help us get through things with a good foundation of faith,” says Blair.