Holistic Inclusion in the Church
Not long ago, I complained to my physical therapist about a pain in my shoulder. She listened carefully and then began working on my wrist. I thought perhaps she’d misunderstood until she explained, “A lot of times, tightness in the wrist is actually felt in the shoulder.”
Just like one part of our physical body can significantly affect another, the same is true in our spiritual body, the Church. That’s why, when we have a disability ministry, we need to think of how the church can holistically minister to families with disabilities.
Could your parking team station someone near the disabled parking spaces to escort those individuals into the church? If you attend a megachurch where cars are directed to park in specific places, could people with disabilities flash their lights to let parking attendants know they need to park closer to the building?
Do your greeters know how to offer assistance to someone with low vision? Do they know to walk on the opposite side of a service animal? Do they greet people with disabilities personally, speaking to the person with the disability as opposed to only addressing the caregiver?
Are your bathrooms accessible? Have you evaluated the ease with which your soap and paper towel dispensers can be used? Can someone in a wheelchair easily navigate your building?
Do your children and youth departments have noise-cancelling headphones? Have you developed a buddy system? Do your teachers have basic training in how to effectively minister to a child with a disability? Do they know how to identify and are they sensitive to individuals with invisible disabilities?
If you’re currently leading or working in a disability ministry, I’d like to challenge you to schedule a meeting with the heads of other ministries in your church—building maintenance, outreach, audio/video, music, the welcome team, parking attendants, etc. Sit down with these believers and brainstorm how their ministries can become more inclusive and effective for people with disabilities. Sometimes, in disability ministry, it’s easy to feel like you’re all alone, but my guess is, when you sit down with these ministry leaders to discuss how to integrate disability into the life of the church, you’ll discover it’s not that they don’t care. It’s that they don’t know.
Finally, if you need help, The Banquet Network is here for you. If you don’t know where to start or if you have an idea regarding disability inclusion you don’t know how to implement, contact us. We’d love to help your church become holistically inclusive.
Glenda Durano is a Board Member for The Banquet Network and frequently speaks to church and ministry groups about how God has used disability to show Himself in her family’s life. For more stories like this one, go to our blog page, or click to connect, learn or donate to the mission of The Banquet Network.