5 Statistics We Can't Ignore: Disability and The Gospel

In almost every country in the world, a disability often results in a significant decrease in quality of life due to medical complications, poor health, limited independence, little physical fitness, social marginalization and joblessness. (2)

Five Heart-Hitting statistics:

  1. About 56.7 million people — 19 percent of the population or 1 in 5 people — had a disability in 2010, according to a broad definition of disability, with more than half of them reporting the disability was severe. (U.S. Census Bureau)

  2. Over one billion people or 15% of the world’s population live with some form of disability, and of these, between 110 and 190 million have significant difficulties in functioning, according to the World Report on Disability

  3. Estimates are that 80 percent to 85 percent of churches don’t have any level of special needs ministry. (1)

  4. Only 5 to 10% of the world’s disabled are effectively reached with the gospel, making the disability community one of the largest unreached — some say under-reached — or hidden people groups in the world (2)

  5. More than 90% of church-going special needs parents cited the most helpful support to be a “welcoming attitude toward people with disabilities.” Meanwhile, only about 80% of those parents said that welcoming attitude was present at their church. (3)

“Jesus, aware that this population would be overlooked, made people with disabilities a target group of the Great Commission (Luke 14:12-24).”

We have access to a God that heals, transforms, and loves. May we, as the Church, prayerfully and lovingly show the Way to Him.

 

References

  1. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/let-no-special-need-hinder-the-spread-of-the-gospel/

  2. https://www.lausanne.org/content/ministry-among-people-disabilities-lop-35b

  3. https://church4everychild.org/2016/02/09/what-are-the-stats-on-disability-and-church/#_edn7 this and the rest of the bullet points in this section are drawn from Melinda Jones Ault’s doctoral dissertation, which included a sample of more than 400 special needs parents involved in faith communities in America.

The Banquet Networkstatistics, gospel, unreached