As part of a general belief in promoting the social inclusion of people with learning disabilities, Michael Foster was keen to encourage more people to attend his local church. Here, he explains how The went about achieving his goal

The need to facilitate the expression of spirituality among people with a learning disability has occupied me for some years (Foster 2000). Recently, however, I had to test the (holy) water and attempt to do something about it. As part of my training for lay ministry as a Reader in the Anglican Church, I had to undertake a pastoral project. For this, I decided to combine my professional interests as a nurse lecturer in learning disabilities studies with my ministerial interests as a trainee Lay Reader; the issue of social inclusion provided the overlap between these two areas of my life.