Nothing About Us Without Us in the Church

There is a great motto used by the disability community. 

Nothing About Us Without Us.

At the heart of this motto is a vision and mission statement for true disability inclusion and advocacy. It states that anything that is being done for the disability community, both physical and invisible, that is must be done with the perspective and influence of those within the community. No outreach, no advocacy, no policy change is fully effective without giving full attention and value to the experiences, concerns, and perspectives of actual disabled people and their families.

When it comes to ministry in the church, especially those targeting the disability community, it is often a motto that is not accepted. Instead of nothing about us without us, the church engages a mindset of “We want to do this for you but without you involved.”

Often, there are real and passionate concerns for people within the disability community in the church by those who seek to do ministry. I do not doubt or question the love, care, or compassion of ministry workers and volunteers who engage in ministry with the disability community. My concern is how, too often, our approach ignores the voice of those with real disabilities and presumes that experts and other professionals know better.

The problem with this approach is that it is harmed by elitism and ableism. It is elitist to presume that those with credentials or work for organizations are best equipped to teach or train churches on how to be in ministry with a community. While their input is valuable, they cannot be the only ones at the table when discussing ministry with disabled people. That is because no amount of education, training, or perspective can replace the real experience of living with a disability or caring for a disabled person. Real-life experience is valuable in understanding the context of words, what can or cannot work, and how to build a bridge to a community that often feels ignored by the church.

At the same time, ignoring the voice of the disabled community is ablest because it presumes that those with a disability cannot properly conduct or plan a ministry. Ableism is the most accepted sin in the church and the one least acknowledged. It too often expresses itself in marginalizing the skills of disabled people and the presumption that disabled people have too much on their plate to do a ministry event. Individuals with disabilities, like myself, can sense when something is ablest in its approach, and it will force us not to engage. Who would want to be a part of anything, in the church or outside of the church, that is conducted under the pretense that someone cannot do something? It invalidates the individual strengths of a person, and it ignores the image of God within them.

The result of doing ministry without the voice of the disability community is not just ablest ministries, but ministries that focus more on what is wrong about a person instead of valuing and including them as a child of God and a person of holy and sacred worth. It often leads to ministries focused on healing a person of their disability, or separating a person or group from the rest of the congregation to allow others to worship in a manner that is more comfortable (and less distracting) for non-disabled people.

We can do better as a church.

No ministry, no event, no conference, no anything involving the disability community in the church should ever be conducted with their full participation and perspective. Without it, we are just doing something that makes us feel better but does nothing to share the love of Christ with the disability community.