EMQ » Oct – Dec 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 4

Accessible Gospel

Summary: People with disabilities experience a range of barriers to inclusion in the church. And those who are invited in are often still blocked from sharing their gifts with others and participating in Jesus’s mandate to share the gospel with all peoples and nations. Overcoming these barriers is essential to the holistic ministry for which Christ calls the church.

By Hilda Bih Muluh

One of the earliest memories I have of being different from other children is singing in church. In a boisterous little Sunday school building the young ones were crammed in, dressed in bright Sunday clothes. I struggled to keep my eyes on the cheerful teachers in the front and follow the hand motions they taught along with the song they were leading. No matter how hard I tried to be still and follow, I staggered and fell on the dusty floor. I gave up trying and stood against the wall for support while watching the other children sing gleefully at the top of their voices, clap, and dance along.

I was about six years old, and I was experiencing the onset of Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD). My family had no idea what was happening to me. The doctors we went to for answers, in and around my small town in the West Region of Cameroon, had none to provide. We were thrown into a whirlpool of confusion. Our frantic search for answers was fraught with accusations and counter accusations.

Church attendance was important to my family, so despite my growing weakness and decreasing mobility, we continued going to church. When I could, I walked the distance painstakingly slowly, many times getting there while the church service was closing. When I could no longer do it, family members carried me on their backs to church. My ability to walk diminished as I grew older and with no wheelchair or other assistive device available, I became more confined to my home. Angry and isolated, I started thinking God did not love or care for me.

Physical and Mental Barriers

The lack of mobility is one of many reasons disability is a daunting reality to live with in a developing country. I would find out later when I got a wheelchair, that the lack of one was not the biggest barrier I needed to overcome to make it to church. The more I ventured out, the more I noticed how unwelcoming most church structures were for one in a wheelchair and for others living with various impairments.

Whenever I made it into the church building, I had to rely on the goodwill of fellow church goers to carry me in my wheelchair up flights of steps. However, there were many days when I could not get enough help to go inside and had to sit in the scorching sun to follow the service from a distance or return home.

In my country, and many others like mine, physical barriers still exist in and around most church buildings. They constitute a great deterrent to persons with disability who desire to know Christ, serve alongside others, and partake in regular worship as well as other church activities.

Another category of hurdles that keep persons living with disability from accessing the good news of Christ is mental barriers. In my own experience, they constitute an even greater hurdle than the tangible ones. In some cultures, like mine, being born with or living with a disability is considered a bad omen or a curse to the family and society.

While I was blessed with a family that embraced and loved me with my disability, other children around me were not so fortunate. To preserve the honor of the family, most with severe disabilities were sent away. Some went to distant relatives in remote places, others to traditional healers or institutions. Most barely get a chance to attend a church let alone reach some place where they could be told about the hope that is in Christ.

Amid the changes in my physical abilities, the gospel message eventually brought me a profound sense of liberation. This makes it even more heartbreaking when I see practices persist which keep disabled people in a perpetual cycle of isolation, darkness, misery, and poverty.

According to the World Bank, in developing countries, disability and poverty are almost inextricable.

“Poverty may increase the risk of disability through malnutrition, inadequate access to education and health care, unsafe working conditions, a polluted environment, and lack of access to safe water and sanitation. Disability may also increase the risk of poverty, through lack of employment and education opportunities, lower wages, and increased cost of living… .”[i]

Rejected, isolated, and poor, persons with disabilities are often in dire need of very basic physical resources. As such, ministry to people living with disabilities presents the church with a dual challenge – that of ministering to their profound physical needs and the other of providing adequate spiritual care. It is impossible to do one without the other.

The sheer nature of such a ministry demands more resources and a deeper devotion than other ministries within the church. This can put off some who consider fulfilling the Great Commission among the disabled. Statistics show an astonishingly low number of people with disabilities regularly attend church services. [ii] This demonstrates that few churches and ministries are willing to significantly engage with the community of disabled people.

Reaching One of the Largest Unreached Groups

Dr. Dave Deuel observes in a 2023 Lausanne Movement article that “Sadly, most people with disabilities suffer from isolation and lack of care. Many spend their entire lives in their homes with only parents and siblings to care for them. People with disabilities are still among the poorest, least educated, and least cared-for groups in the world. Their lack of access to local church services also makes them the least churched population globally.”[iii]

When it comes to evangelism, persons living with disabilities are among the largest unreached or under-reached groups in the world according to the Lausanne Movement. Few, if any evangelistic efforts are made with them as the primary target population. It is no secret that some of the most renowned Christian mission organizations that exist to proclaim the gospel to every part of the world are still awakening to the need to include persons living with disabilities in their mission.

In the same vein, local churches in developing countries that take up the challenge to bring the gospel to the disabled are plagued by limited resources, inaccessible terrain, and sometimes by negative cultural practices. When ministries and mission agencies with resources from the developed world organize evangelistic campaigns in developing countries, these tend to end up mainly in urban areas where there are paved roads, potable water, electricity and other modern amenities. These strategies fail to penetrate the isolated backcountry where most persons with disabilities have been relegated.

There is no denying that a life of disability (no matter the disability) is a life of deprivation, most often one filled with pain and suffering. Before finally coming to a place of surrender, where I trusted Christ with my weakening, disabled body, I had spent many years pondering God’s goodness in my suffering, wrestling with questions of identity and life’s meaning in the reality of disability.

In my quest for answers, I was exposed to a theology that has become very prevalent in my culture. It teaches that disability is a mistake in God’s creation, which needs to be corrected for the person with disability to fully possess the image of God. This system of thought permeated my being and set me on a wild chase for a cure or a miracle that would restore my body and make me worthy of God’s love. Failure to get the much-desired miracle led to more frustration and alienation from God.

Just like it did for me for many years, it is sad to see how such distorted theology keeps many persons with disability from experiencing the good news of Christ. Jesus’s offer for his wholeness for their brokenness and his shining light in a hopeless world remains hidden to many. Even more heartbreaking is to see the proliferation of false teachers who take advantage of the disabled and other people rendered vulnerable by sickness and poverty, who promise miracles that never come to pass. Churches that adhere to a theology of disability that considers persons with disability as broken and incomplete increase the vulnerability of this community to these false teachers.

Church and ministry leaders need training on disability to shift this wrong theology. As more colleges and seminaries offer courses in disability theology and ministry, the influence of wrong theology can be attenuated so that more persons with disabilities know true freedom in Christ. It can equally enhance the way the mission and church leaders care, teach, and address the needs of individuals, families, and communities in a variety of settings.

Difficult But Not Impossible

Ministry to persons living with disability is difficult, but it is not impossible. Jesus shows us how it can be through the way he lived while on Earth and gives direction for its importance in his teachings. The parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:12–14 (NLT) offers insight:

“When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,” [Jesus] said, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.”

Here, Jesus points out that the poor and the disabled must not be neglected or excluded from Christian ministry. Making the gospel accessible to people with disabilities may require a little extra effort, but they are precisely who Jesus wants to see invited to evangelistic meetings, church services, ministry events, etc.

For some church and mission leaders, the perceived cost of ministry to people with disabilities is the main barrier. Author and pastor Dr. Lamar Hardwick argues that while pastors need to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to them, the most important is to value what God values. God values persons with disabilities. Hardwick writes:

“The discussion about the cost of special needs ministry at its core is a question about value. When financing the ministry becomes the ultimate barrier then the only reward we will ever see are the very people that Jesus tells us not to invite. With statistics currently showing an astonishingly low number of persons with disabilities who regularly attend church services, I think it is safe to say that we have received our reward for not including them.”[iv]

Including people with disabilities can start with finding out where they are and planning how to bring them in. Adjustment to facilities – like wider doors and ramps – can help people with disabilities gain entrance to buildings. In churches, reserved space near the front of the sanctuary can accommodate people who are hearing impaired, in wheelchairs, or on mats or stretchers. When possible, sign language interpreters can help spoken words to be understood by the Deaf.

These accommodations help persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to hear the gospel that saves, but engagement should not end there. When people with disabilities are kept as a special interest group and preserved to receive mercy and compassion from the rest of the body of Christ, they are kept from opportunities to grow in their knowledge of Christ and to disciple others. 

Vital to the Great Commission

Jesus commands in Matthew 28:19–20, that the discipleship process must continue with his followers sharing the gospel with all nations. The inclusion of persons with disability in the Great Commission is a vital means of portraying to the world that Christians serve the only God who created each person in his image with worth and dignity. As Joni Eareckson Tada says:

“Christians have the only message which vindicates God’s good name as one who is supremely and benevolently sovereign over deformities and disease. Christians have the gospel message which joins the sighted and blind, hearing and deaf, intellectually capable and mentally handicapped. No other ministry better demonstrates Christ’s heart of compassion than ministries to persons with disabilities. Helpless people can see themselves in the Man of Sorrows because he became one of them.”[v]

However, persons living with disabilities are rarely invited to use their God-given gifts in all the ministries of the church. It is even rarer to find them in the leadership circles of churches, ministries, and mission agencies. When the global body of Christ fails to lead by example, it is hard to convince a sinful world that persons living with disabilities are indeed made in the image of God.

Hilda Bih Muluh (hildabih0@gmail.com) is a Cameroonian broadcaster who was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy at a young age, leading her to use a wheelchair. Inspired by the gospel, she founded the Esther Project in 2014 to empower vulnerable individuals to reach their potential. A mouth painter, singer, and author, she serves on the board of Accessible Hope International (accessiblehope.org). She currently resides in Bladensburg, MD, USA.

[i] The World Bank, “Disability Inclusion,” accessed April 6, 2023, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/disability.

[ii] Erik W. Carter, Megan Tuttle, Emily Spann, Brianna Hawkins, Elise McMillan, Allison Bumpers, Erin Greenbarg, et al., “Addressing Accessibility Within the Church: Perspectives of People with Disabilities,” Journal of Religion and Health 62, no. 4 (August 2023): 2474–2495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01508-6.

[iii] David Deuel, “Waking the Sleeping Giant of Disability Ministry,” Lausanne Movement, May 10, 2023, https://lausanne.org/about/blog/waking-the-sleeping-giant-in-disability-ministry.

[iv] Lamar Hardwick, “A Conversation About the Cost of Special Needs Ministry,” Key Ministry, March 7, 2019, https://www.keyministry.org/church4everychild.

[v] Joni Eareckson Tada, “What Does the Gospel Have to Say to Disabled Persons?” Lausanne Movement, May 20, 2018, https://lausanne.org/content/what-does-the-gospel-have-to-say-to-disabled-persons.

EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 4. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.