Dear Church,
Every day, I thank God for the ministry of the church and the love it shares. The body of Christ, the church, is ongoing witness of Jesus Christ in a broken and hurting world. I love how we seek to provide hope in a world torn apart by chaos and despair. Though imperfect, we seek to love in response to the love shared with us by the Perfect One whose death and resurrection call us into a new life of hope and grace.
I love the church, but too often, I wonder if it truly loves and embraces people with disabilities. Even though we are making improvements in accessibility, I believe we struggle to truly welcome and include those who are different from the larger body of our local worshiping community.
The church often gets defensive at this suggestion of reality. We don’t like hearing where we have failed to love. Too often, I have been told that the church loves people with disabilities, that it embraces people, and accepts people. We may say that, but our words don’t always match our actions. I have experienced the willingness to do things for the disability community seldom including wanting to know the person and build a relationship with them. We struggle to build authentic relationships with the disability community that is rooted in love and acceptance.
It is here that we talk about what we have done as a church. You talk about your ramps, elevators, and extra room in the sanctuary. In doing so, you say, “Look, we did this to welcome you.” Simply having a ramp in a church or an extra parking space does not mean that a church is truly welcoming and accepting. It is doing what a law requires, but a legal law on the books does not change the hearts and minds of the soul.
You want to be celebrated for your ramps, elevators, and extra space and say it is a sign of progress and a victory for slow and small wins. I disagree. We do not celebrate the customer who goes to the store, picks out their needed items, and properly pays for them instead of running out without paying them. Doing what the law requires is not acceptance. Ramps are no indication of a community being accessible and accepting a person with disabilities. Show me your heart, and desire to love the person with a disability, before you show me your ramp.
Acceptance is a matter of the heart. It is about seeing the imago Dei in every person and seeing the person with a disability as equal to us. We cannot accept someone that we do not see as a child of God and a person with sacred and holy worth. Too often, the experience of the church from people with disabilities is that we are not seen as equal members of God’s community. We are seen as deficient, not like others, and a burden.
Our ableism prevents the church from truly accepting people with disabilities because the church does not see us as capable and equal people. We have a sin problem that prevents us from loving people with disabilities.
Ableism is the sin of the belief that some bodies and people are more capable of doing things than others. It is a form of bigotry in our hearts where we are unable to accept that people with disabilities and their families can do things and function in society.
Ableism refuses to see the good in the disabled person. It only sees what is wrong with the person.
Thus, in our conversations with the disability community, we express what we truly believe and feel about the disabled person. We speak in terms of praying the disability away, in ways that suggest a disabled person is a threat to our understanding of the created goodness of God. We dismiss the calling of people with disabilities by holding onto spaces that do not allow for a disabled person to speak. We talk in derogatory terms of deficit when it comes to the disabled person, instead of seeing the joy the person brings. We talk about not wanting to hear their struggles and challenges because we say we have our own life to live.
I could continue to express words that have been shared with the disability community and actions done by the church. We may have a disability ministry, but we do not seek authentic community with the disability community. How can we truly love someone whom we see as not equal or, even, a deficient member of God’s family? The disability community deserves better than the church’s sinful practices of ableism.
Community can only come when we see the disabled person as equal to anyone else. It can only come, too, when the church does ministry with the community and not for the community. Ministries that are based only on the perspectives of parents or providers too often lead to a model of ministry that harms the authentic voice of the disabled person. This perspective does not allow for authentic voices to be heard, because we do not believe they can create something that reaches them and their needs. Again, this is ableism.
We are not doing kingdom work with the disability community in the church. In fact, instead of building bridges of love, we are creating walls of separation between the church and the disability community.
We don’t want to admit we have failed to accept or create authentic communities because it would mean recognizing where we have fallen short. If we truly want to be the church with the disability community, then, the church must seek to turn away from ableist practices and seek authentic community.
The disability community cannot wait for this. We are tired of the church not being the church. We are not content with slow wins and small victories. We deserve equal access to the church’. We have waited too long for the church to see us as an authentic representation of God’s creative love. We need the church to be the church now, not tomorrow.
It is why I speak the way I do about the church. You say I should be happy with what we have. I say we would never say that to any other community that has been harmed by the church. You say it will happen in time. I say, there is no time like the present to live in love for all, especially the disability community. Small wins are not real victories of the heart. They make others feel good, but they do little to bring forth an authentic community and embrace of the disabled community.
We need the church, but we need to hear the church hear our cries for welcome and embrace.
We deserve a place at the table to discuss ministries intended for the disability community. To ignore our voice is to ignore the work of disability ministry in its authentic form. We deserve a place to talk about our experience of the church and how God calls us to love and serve. If a place is provided for us, we will make one for us, because even if the church does not recognize our place, we know God does.
The disability community is a witness of love and grace. I have learned more about acceptance by being part of the disability community than I have, sadly, from the church.
I desire full inclusion and embrace, not ministries of separation and exclusion. I will not sleep until it happens. But, it can only happen when the church recognizes authentic embrace is not happening.
We have a long work ahead. I know we will see it happen, but it is time for the church to have ears willing to hear, and hearts willing to listen. We are tired of begging for crumbs at the table of inclusion. Our place at the table is just as holy as your place at the table.
I love the church. I love the church even when it has harmed me and my family.
I pray the church loves the mission and God enough to see the disability community has a place in the church.
Shannon Blosser 