Born blind, UCC pastor has knack for seeing into Souls
Massillon Independent, OH, USA Friday, February 23, 2007
Born blind, UCC pastor has knack for seeing into souls By STEPHEN HUBA

Rev. Barry Stirbens preaches with his hands. No, he doesn’t gesticulate wildly to make a point - he needs his hands to preach. Blind from birth, Stirbens
uses his hands to read the Bible in Braille or refer to sermon notes from the pulpit.

 Those hands have served him well in 33 years of ministry, whether
typing in a sermon or shaking a hand or comforting someone in a time of grief.Now they’re helping him serve the people of Grace United Church of Christ in Massillon. “I still don’t know every nook and cranny in this building, but
I’m learning,” Stirbens said, walking down the aisle past the wooden pews.

Stirbens, 59, of Jackson Township, began his pastorate here in September, during which time the people have come to love him and his ministry. “He sees
more than the average person,” said longtime member Stan Crofut, 70, of Massillon. “He’s inspiring.”

Crofut feels a special connection with Stirbens because he rebuilt the pulpit so that it would better hold the pastor’s large, floppy Braille Bible. His
first Sunday at Grace UCC, Stirbens could barely hold the Bible and read from it at the same time. As Stirbens readily admits, “It hasn’t always been an
easy road. It’s been a lot of hard work.”

A native of Youngstown, Stirbens and his twin brother were born six weeks premature. His blindness resulted from medical complications after the birth,
he said.

Stirbens’ calling to the ministry came early in life. By age 14, he felt “conscious of the fact that there was a God,” and by 17, he felt “very definitely”
called by God, he said. Once, in college, some well-meaning people laid hands on him and prayed for God to heal him of his blindness, but nothing happened.
That didn’t shake Stirbens’ nascent faith any. “I do believe in healing,” he said. “I believe that God heals us in the ways which are most profitable for
him.”

Stirbens went on to seminary, got married and was assigned to his first pastorate, in Talmage, Neb. He and his wife, Kathy, have a daughter, Elizabeth,
who is now a freshman at Kent State University.

After Nebraska, Stirbens spent 10 years serving three small UCC congregations in Holmes County. His arrival in Massillon last fall came after 20 years at
a church in Alliance. Church council President Bev Denholm was on the committee that extended the call to Stirbens and eventually hired him. “I was just
very impressed,” she said. “I was in awe.”

Denholm, 62, of Massillon, said Stirbens was selected for “his sincerity, his honesty and his feeling for the position.” She remembers talking to him on
the phone and then meeting him for the first time. “He arrived at the church before I did that night, and somebody had already let him in. He heard my
voice, and he said, ‘Well, Beverly’s here.’ He recognized me, and I was so impressed. Then he rattled off my phone number,” she said.

At first, Stirbens’ blindness was a distraction to some, Denholm said. But now, most parishioners are used to it. “I forget he’s blind. Most people do,
too,” she said. “I once told him, ‘Barry, we forgot you were blind,’ and he said, ‘That’s the nicest thing you could say to me.’”

Crofut thinks Stirbens’ disability still bothers some people in the church but that the majority are supportive. “He’s overcome a very severe handicap,
and he’s done it quite proudly,” he said.

Stirbens uses public transportation to get to and from work, but he relies on congregants to take him on hospital calls and shut-in visits. He also defers
to lay leaders for things like communion and the collection. “I don’t handle the (communion) elements,” he said. “I don’t have the best stability in the
world, and that grape juice stains.”

Because of his dependence on others, Stirbens sees his blindness as a blessing in disguise. It prompts others in the church to step up to the plate and
help out, he said. “I believe the blindness helps to contribute to a ministry where a lot of people get involved,” he said. “I can’t tell you the number
of times people have told me, ‘I never knew Mrs. Jones, or some other shut-in, before.’ It turns into a whole additional ministry for them.”

In other ways, especially computer technology, Stirbens is mostly self-sufficient. He uses a machine called a Braille ‘n’ Speak to type notes and have them
either printed or read to him later. He also uses adaptive screen reading technology - the software is Job Access With Speech (JAWS) for Windows - to read
the computer, prepare sermons and develop the order of weekly worship services.

Sometimes, people ask him if he is angry at God about his disability. Stirbens always has a ready answer. “I’m not angry at God. I think that God has been
able to use me in the capacity that I am in a positive way,” he said. “God can take any disability and use it for his glory.”

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