Christine Drummond is one of three ‘Roofbreaker disability champions’ from Peebles Baptist Church, working to break down barriers for people who live with disability, illness or impairments. Through the Roof is a registered charity that exists to Transform lives through Jesus with disabled people. They provide a wide range of resources and support for churches and have produced free resources for Disability Awareness Sunday (DAS) with the hope all churches can make use of these to talk about disability in their church on 28th September, or a Sunday of their choice.
Christine reflects on the challenges her church has overcome on the journey to becoming a Dementia Friendly Church, and shares their determination to mark Disability Awareness Sunday. Christine also suggests some excellent resources for other churches keen to become more disability and dementia aware…
“The “wallpaper effect” means we become habituated to our everyday environment. We’re safe and comfortable in it, and we’ve got other demands on our attention. The theological reasons for churches to be welcoming and inclusive of people with dementia or any other impairment are just “a given”.
Sometimes it takes an external circumstance, like a close friend’s diagnosis, or the stark prediction from Alzheimer’s Research UK that half of us will be affected by dementia in some way, to prod us into thinking hard about how the environment in which we’ve grown comfortable might be experienced by someone living with dementia.
In 2017, twenty-one of us from our small church at Peebles Baptist signed up with Alzheimer Scotland to become “Dementia Friends”. In the intervening years, a lot has happened- Covid; a much-loved pastor and his family moving on; the stalling of a building project; relocation to different accommodation for Sunday services; the deaths of six church family members; four people having to move into residential care; others amongst us becoming increasingly frail. That list is by no means exhaustive- and I should emphasise that good things have happened, too, in the interim! But “dementia friendliness” has not been as high on the agenda as it ought to have been.
There’s now a huge amount of information available online, some of which we can use to help us get back on track, including:
- I’d particularly recommend the Dementia Resource Pack “audit” available (amongst other resources) at https://www.bristol.anglican.org/dementia#resource-pack
- The Scottish organisation “Faith in Older People” is sadly no longer active, but still provides an excellent interactive resource which you can download online: https://faithinolderpeople.org.uk/our-work/dementia-care-and-faith-communities/one-step-at-a-time/
- The experience and observations of former GP Jennifer Bute, documented in her book “Dementia from the Inside” and on her website https://www.gloriousopportunity.org/ offer hugely valuable insights on living with dementia.
- Christian disability charity, “Through the Roof” hosted a very worthwhile online session on 15 September 2025 with another charity, “Embracing Age“. You can find out more about Through the Roof from Grace, the Scotland Roofbreaker Co-ordinator: grace@throughtheroof.org
The association with more generic disability organisations is important- thinking about the challenges of dementia in the wider context of disabilities emphasises that enabling strategies can achieve improvements. That’s also a potential means of reducing stigma. So we’re glad to be observing Disability Awareness Sunday – the resources can be used at any time if local circumstances mean you can’t do so on this exact day!
Every church is different, and every individual person with dementia is different, with different challenges and different strengths. Of course we won’t get it absolutely right for everyone- but the action I’m going to prioritise after this reflection, is to arrange an audit of our church’s accommodation and of a Sunday service. Two of the auditors will be ‘mystery shoppers’, one a person living with dementia, and one a family carer. It’s a bit scary, but long overdue!’
To get a free resource for churches to celebrate Disability Awareness Sunday on 28 September 2025 (or any day!) visit:
https://throughtheroof.org/forchurches/disability-awareness-sunday/
