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What Does Discipleship in Disability Ministry Look Like?
The Gospel Is for Everyone: Discipleship in Disability Ministry
In the late 1990s, my big sister walked the aisle at First Baptist Church in Duncan, Oklahoma, and told Brother Brad she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and wanted to be baptized. Even though she was the oldest sibling in our family, she was the last one to make this decision, and we all rejoiced with her. She could not answer every question Brother Brad usually asked teenagers when they committed their lives to following Jesus, but she understood that Jesus loved her and forgave her sins. My sister had Down syndrome, an intellectual, developmental disability that affected her motor skills and her cognitive abilities, but it did not stop her from putting her faith in Jesus and following him. When she passed away a few years ago, she left behind dozens of journals full of prayer requests and sermon notes. God worked in her life to bring her to salvation, to grow her in Christlikeness, and to call her home to him.
Growing up with a sister with Down syndrome is the catalyst for my current ministry calling—helping churches take steps of accessibility so people with disabilities and their families can attend. We grew up in a church that modeled that well, which is why we were all able to attend each week, hear the gospel, and be baptized. If the church had not accepted Syble and made accommodations, then Mom, Dad, my younger sister Sarah, and I wouldn’t have been able to attend and participate. It would have changed my family for generations.
My advocacy continues because I have a son with level three autism and intellectual disabilities. James is functionally non-verbal, so even though he is the same age as my sister when she was saved and baptized, he is not able to articulate his faith and understanding, even at the level she could. But that does not stop our current church from speaking the gospel over him, teaching him the Bible, giving him opportunities to be in community with friends, and praying for his salvation and sanctification.
Accessible Church
Sandra Peoples
Sharing years of expertise and personal experience as a caregiver, ministry consultant and professor Sandra Peoples shows churches how to remove physical and social barriers to create a welcoming, inclusive space for disability families.
The Potential for Evangelism and Discipleship Exists in Every Community
According to the 2000 census, nearly 1 in 5 families in the US has a member with a disability.1 But most of us aren’t seeing this 20 percent of the population represented in our worship centers. They are missing from our children’s ministry classrooms, our youth group activities, and our adult small groups. When we got James’s autism diagnosis in 2010, we looked around our small church in Pennsylvania and didn’t see that percentage represented. We realized the accessibility my family had when I was growing up didn’t happen without attention and effort.
And at the core of those accessibility steps is the understanding that special-needs ministry isn’t just babysitting. Because each person is made in the image of God, they have the potential to have a relationship with God. As John Hammet writes, “The image of God is the capacity of human beings to have a relationship with God.”2
As ministry leaders and volunteers, we can be aware of the limitations people with disabilities have, while also making our church environments feel like more than just babysitting people with disabilities during the time their families are being discipled. We can disciple them as well! Doing this well includes creating accessible ministry environments and making accommodations so each person can be discipled.
What Does Discipleship in Disability Ministry Look Like?
Our disability ministry focuses on inclusion, so we support anyone who needs adjustments to the lesson or the environment to understand the message and feel comfortable. This includes participants who have special needs, learning disabilities, and mental health or behavioral diagnoses. This also includes participants without a diagnosis who exhibit behavior that communicates a need for adjustments.
We have multiple ministry environments where this can happen:
- In a specialized class designed to meet sensory and learning needs (at all age levels)
- In a typical, inclusive class with help from a buddy (in children’s and youth ministry)
- In a typical, inclusive class with support from friends/teachers (in adult ministry)
How do we determine which environment is the right fit? We ask: Where can this participant best hear, understand, and respond to the gospel?
In our specialized classes, we focus on:
- Showing Christ’s love as we care for their needs
- Speaking simple truths of the gospel over them
- Using curriculum designed to meet their learning needs (like from Awe & Wonder or Lifeway’s Special Buddies curriculum for children and Access curriculum for adults)
This type of class is a great fit for my son James. He isn’t able to articulate what he believes about God, but each week he hears that Jesus loves him and does a Bible lesson with sensory activities and a craft. Our specialized classes for teens and young adults also join the worship service for the singing and go back to their class for a lesson on their level during the sermon.
In our typical, inclusive children’s ministry and youth ministry classes, we focus on:
- Understanding sensory needs and meeting those needs with tools like fidgets, a visual timer, a predictable routine that brings comfort, and noise-reducing headphones
- Having a buddy close to help the child or teen with academic work and navigating social situations
- Creating Individual Spiritual Plans to help reach their discipleship goals
Similar to what schools use for students with disabilities, an ISP takes a child’s strengths, challenges, and potential into consideration to set goals for growing in Christlikeness. ISPs are a helpful tool for remembering that children and teens with disabilities can be discipled, even if that requires a different plan than what’s in place for the majority of children in the classroom.
When we create environments where people with disabilities feel comfortable sharing what they need to fully participate, our church families are stronger.
Here’s an example of what setting an ISP goal for the spiritual disciple of prayer would look like. Which level of participation could the child/teen do with success?
- Repeat a simple prayer (like at snack time)
- Sit quietly during prayer time (have a posture of prayer)
- Pray with prompting
- Share prayer requests (when appropriate)
- Lead group prayer
- Pray for a friend who shares a request
Communicating these ISP goals with the teacher and volunteers helps everyone remember we can have expectations and discipleship goals, even if we need to make adjustments for some of our ministry participants.
In our typical, inclusive adult ministry classes, we focus on:
- Offering mutual care
- Adjusting to meet unique needs
- Providing service opportunities for everyone
When everyone is looking not only to their own interests but also to the interests of others (Phil. 2:4), we have adult members with physical disabilities and other needs that can easily be met by friends in our adult classes. It may include offering a ride to church or a Bible study or getting a copy of the Bible in the dyslexia-friendly font3. When we create environments where people with disabilities feel comfortable sharing what they need to fully participate, our church families are stronger. As Paul writes, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable (1 Cor. 12:22).
The Gospel Is for Everyone
The word “disability” describes unique situations and impairments for over a billion people living around the world, and meeting their evangelism and discipleship needs feels like an overwhelming task. But when we focus on the families in our communities—the preschooler going through the diagnosis process for autism, the teenager with ADHD, and the adult with a traumatic brain injury—we can reach each one with the hope of the gospel and a church home where they can be discipled.
Like the friends in Mark 2, let’s do what we can to introduce people with disabilities to Jesus so their sins can be forgiven and they can live out Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Notes:
- https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/miscellaneous/cb12-134.html
- Akin, Daniel. A Theology for the Church ( B&H Publishing, 2014), 319).
- https://www.crossway.org/bibles/esv-holy-bible-tru/
Sandra Peoples is the author of Accessible Church: A Gospel-Centered Vision for Including People with Disabilities and Their Families.
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Sandra Peoples advises the ways that every church can make disability families feel they belong, are welcomed, and loved.
