SPOKANE, Wash – Rene’ Devantier, the Pastorat Fowler New Day Church, says his mission is for everyone who walks into his church to feel as though there is a place for them.
“People with disabilities have God already. They just show him in a different way, and they understand God and different way and we can learn so much from them,” said Devantier.
He says the idea to make the church more accessible came to him partly because of his son Ryan, who has autism, “I know what it takes. I know what it means not to be able to go to church because he’s too hard, too loud. He’s gonna walk around.”
Devantier has changed spaces around the sanctuary to accommodate wheelchairs, widened distances between pews to accommodate walkers, and created a sensory room within the church, which he says is essential for that space to feel connected to the heart of the building, the sanctuary.
“Worship should be generational, and it should be inclusive, and so if a family or a person is disabled, I don’t want to take them out and put them in another room. I want them to be able to be with their family and worship together,” said Devantier.
Diane Strobeck, the Office Administrator and parishioner as a Mom, says these changes hit close to home. She says her son has ADHD and has had a difficult journey with going to church, “he was bouncing off the walls and climbing them, and I had to go chase them and keep them down, and people would give you those looks of, you know, get him out of here.”
Strobeck wishes something like this was available to her son when he was younger. She says when she walks into Fowler New Day, seeing the acceptance not just by leaders, but also fellow parishioners means the world, “It’s just nice, because not anybody in the church will look at you weird and tell you to go away. They were like, okay, come on. Let’s make some noise.”
Devantier says that’s exactly what he wants his worship to look like, “They’re not going to be, you know, told to be quiet or to go somewhere else or go in the back room. They’re gonna know that they’re included, I think, isn’t what we all want.”
However, Devantier says their work is not done yet. They are looking to make the space more accessible and have started a GoFundMe.
