My son James was diagnosed with autism in 2010. At the time, my husband pastored a small church in Pennsylvania. In the five years following James’s diagnosis, our church of about 150 people added new special-needs families, baptizing four adults from those families. We included children with disabilities in every activity: Sunday school, worship time, Vacation Bible School, and sports camp. We also held quarterly respite nights and hosted our community’s autism support group.
When we moved to Texas, our goal was to church plant, and during that season, we regularly visited four small churches in our area. And even though none of them had a disability ministry, they did all they could to welcome James and our family. James even had his own system for identifying them: there was “church with blocks” that met at a dance studio, “church at school” that met at his school, “church at church” that met at an actual church building, and “church with trains” that met at a movie theater. Even though our vision for planting a church didn’t work out as planned, the churches we visited with James got to know him and learned how to meet his needs, which gave them confidence to meet the needs of other special-needs families they reached with the gospel.
Eight years ago, my husband was interviewing for the pastor position at our current church, which ran about 350 at the time. During that process, we asked if they had a disability ministry. They said they didn’t. We said that if they wanted to hire Lee, we would need a plan for James to be included because he and I weren’t going to stay home each week. They said, “Great! We’ll do it.”
In each of these experiences, the small and normative-sized churches took steps of accessibility so our family could attend and so James could be discipled. They said yes to us and took each step as it came. Our experiences make it clear that small and normative-sized churches don’t have to leave inclusion to the big guys. In fact, if we want to reach every family in our community with the gospel, we can’t limit accessibility to only the biggest churches.
According to a study by Faith Communities Today: 70% of churches in the U.S. have 100 or fewer weekly attendees. Only 10% of them have more than 250 in weekly services. The largest percentage, 44% of churches, run 1-50 people.
If we left disability ministry to the big churches, thousands of families would not be able to attend church.
So why aren’t more small churches doing disability ministry?
Often small churches see their limitations instead of their potential and strengths. There’s a story in the Gospels of a group of people who had also reached their limits and a gathering with no more room. And like what often happens in churches today, in Mark 2, a person with disabilities was cut off from accessing Jesus and from the people who followed him. But instead of excuses and fear, we read what can happen when friends make a way to reach Jesus and about His power over sin.
“And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.” Mark 2:1-3
These men wanted to bring their friend to Jesus. They had likely heard of his reputation as a healer. And hearing that Jesus was in a home, they saw an opportunity to get their friend close to him. At this time, people with disabilities were blocked from having access to the temple. According to Craig Keener, teachings from the Mishnah Hagiga and other Jewish documents would have prevented those who were lame and blind from getting into the temple.
By being cut off from the temple, people with disabilities were also cut off from the community built around the rhythms related to worship, sacrifices, and feasts. No temple and no community. This paralytic man was in a desperate situation—a situation made worse by his inability to save himself. But his friends had hope. They just had to find a way in.
“And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay” (v. 4).
They had the same challenges we are faced with: no time (Jesus may only be passing through and there for a short time), no volunteers (It’s up to just the four friends), and no space (They couldn’t even open the door). But instead of these being hindrances they couldn’t overcome, they used them as motivation. I can almost hear their optimism: “There’s no time like the present! We can do it together! We can’t get through the door, but we can make a way through the roof!” They overcame the challenges and found a way to get their friend to the healer they had heard about.
Here’s the most important thing to remember when you feel overwhelmed by the idea of starting a disability ministry: We don’t have to have a plan in place for every person we can imagine walking through our doors. We just have to love and serve the ones who do. And churches of every size can do that.
If you are at a small or normative-sized church, and you wonder how to start, here are the first steps we took to launch a disability ministry:
- We assessed the needs we had in the church.
- We recruited leadership.
- We explored curriculum options.
- We offered a training meeting for volunteers.
- We scheduled a respite night and formed a plan to advertise it.
You can learn more about how to take all these steps from my book Accessible Church: A Gospel-Centered Vision for Including People with Disabilities and Their Families. It’s designed for small to normative-sized churches because that’s the size of church I have experience in serving. It will help you build a theology of disability, cast a vision for inclusion, and know how to take steps of accessibility so every family is welcome.
