why I care about disability ministry
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This week's weekly round-up of links related disability ministry, which usually posts on Mondays, will run tomorrow instead. This post was begging to be written and posted first.
I began engaging in special needs ministry because I realized that the church was not rushing to or showing love to people with disabilities and their families. Not only are many churches ignoring the needs of this community, some churches are often outright rejecting individuals with special needs. Every new family with a disability arriving at our church has shared the story of at least one church that turned them away; one parent at our respite care event a couple weeks ago told me, "Our last church told us we weren't welcome there anymore." When my friend Mike, his wife, and his triplet sons - each with autism spectrum disorders - moved to St. Louis in 2002, he called 37 churches; all 37, upon hearing about his children's needs, told him that his family wouldn't be able to come to their church.
Praise God that Mike's family did find a church in St. Louis and that many churches are indeed stepping up to embrace these children, teens, and adults and their families. For those that aren't yet there, here are the facts that require a response from us as the body of Christ:
God made me passionate about this before my body developed a mild degree of physical disability due to rheumatoid arthritis, but I am thankful that my present circumstances help me focus on the eternal glory of our God rather than the fleeting comforts of this world. I'm not paid by my church or anyone else to coordinate special needs ministry for pre-birth through high school and collaborate with the woman who coordinates the adult side of what we do. I’m just a stay-at-home mom to two preschoolers who cherishes the opportunity to spend herself on behalf of God for his people, to loosely paraphrase Isaiah 58:10.
Won't you join me?
I began engaging in special needs ministry because I realized that the church was not rushing to or showing love to people with disabilities and their families. Not only are many churches ignoring the needs of this community, some churches are often outright rejecting individuals with special needs. Every new family with a disability arriving at our church has shared the story of at least one church that turned them away; one parent at our respite care event a couple weeks ago told me, "Our last church told us we weren't welcome there anymore." When my friend Mike, his wife, and his triplet sons - each with autism spectrum disorders - moved to St. Louis in 2002, he called 37 churches; all 37, upon hearing about his children's needs, told him that his family wouldn't be able to come to their church.
Praise God that Mike's family did find a church in St. Louis and that many churches are indeed stepping up to embrace these children, teens, and adults and their families. For those that aren't yet there, here are the facts that require a response from us as the body of Christ:
- When parents learn of their unborn babies' diagnosis of Down syndrome prenatally, 92% choose to abort rather than welcome a son or daughter with Down syndrome into their families.[i]
- When a couple has a child with autism or ADHD some research indicates the the rate of divorce is nearly twice as high as for parents whose children don’t have disabilities.[ii]
- While the risk of divorce decreases after children turn eight for most couples, marriages with a child with autism have a continued higher rate of divorce in adolescence and early adulthood.[iii]
- Some disability ministry leaders have estimated that 80-95% of people with disabilities are unchurched.[iv] While I can’t find any documented research to back that up, my experience in the disability community as an educator and researcher confirms that adults with disabilities are less likely to attend church than other adults (supported also by this study), as are families that include a child with a disability.
- People with disabilities are less likely to attend religious services than nondisabled Americans.[v]
- Recent research from Boston University indicates that people with autism are more likely to be atheists and more likely to reject organized religion in general.[vi] The parameters of that study didn’t explore why this trend exists, but it could be related to the church’s failure to show hospitality to and share the gospel with them.
- As organizations like The Barna Group have studied other aspects of the intersection between the church and unreached people groups, little to no research is available about the welcome – or lack thereof – for people with disabilities within the body of Christ.
- Furthermore, while it would be unacceptable to close the doors to the church to any group of people, this is no small group: About 54 million people in America (19% of the population) live with some level of disability, according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2008, a group approximately the same size as the combined populations of Florida and California; 35 million Americans (12% of the population) have a severe disability.[vii] Nearly one in six children has a developmental disability.[viii]
God made me passionate about this before my body developed a mild degree of physical disability due to rheumatoid arthritis, but I am thankful that my present circumstances help me focus on the eternal glory of our God rather than the fleeting comforts of this world. I'm not paid by my church or anyone else to coordinate special needs ministry for pre-birth through high school and collaborate with the woman who coordinates the adult side of what we do. I’m just a stay-at-home mom to two preschoolers who cherishes the opportunity to spend herself on behalf of God for his people, to loosely paraphrase Isaiah 58:10.
Won't you join me?
[i] Mansfield, C., Hopfer, S., & Marteau, T. (1999). Termination rates after prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly, and Turner and Klinefelter syndromes: A systematic literature review. Prenatal Diagnosis. 19; 808-812.
[ii] Wymbs, B. T., Pelham, W. E., Molina, B. S. G., Gnagy, E. M., Wilson, T, & Greenhouse, J. B. (2008). Rate and predictors of divorce among parents of youth with ADHD. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 76(5); 735–744.
Hartley, S.L., Barker, E.T., Seltzer, M.M., Floyd, F., Greenberg, J., Orsmond, G., & Bolt, D. (2010). The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Psychology. 24(4); 449-57.
Hartley, S.L., Barker, E.T., Seltzer, M.M., Floyd, F., Greenberg, J., Orsmond, G., & Bolt, D. (2010). The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Psychology. 24(4); 449-57.
[iii] Hartley, S.L., Barker, E.T., Seltzer, M.M., Floyd, F., Greenberg, J., Orsmond, G., & Bolt, D. (2010). The relative risk and timing of divorce in families of children with an autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Family Psychology. 24(4); 449-57.
[iv] McNair, Jeff: http://jeffmcnair.com/
The Christian Institute on Disability, quoted by Hsu, Al. (2008). Surprised by disability. Christianity Today. 52(10). Accessed at http://www.christianitytoday.
The Christian Institute on Disability, quoted by Hsu, Al. (2008). Surprised by disability. Christianity Today. 52(10). Accessed at http://www.christianitytoday.
[v] The National Organization on Disability. Religious Participation: Facts and Statistics. http://www.nod.org/religion/
[vi] Caldwell-Harris, C., Murphy, C.F., Velasquez, T., & McNamara, P. (Unpublished). Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism. Research paper from the Departments of Psychology and Neurology at Boston University. Available at http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.
[vii] U.S. Census Bureau, 2008: http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb08-185.html
[viii] Boyle, C.A., Boulet, S. Schieve, L.A., Cohen, R.A., Blumberg, S.J., YEargin-Allsopp, M., Visser, S., & Kogan, M.D. (2011) Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children, 1997–2008. Pediatrics. Accessed at http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/05/19/peds.2010-2989.abstract?sid=ab290d14-2d60-411d-bf0c-00bb150716aa