Please take time to read and ponder the Scripture thoughts from Linda Larson*, contract staff with the Committee on Disabilities, the National Council of Churches to help American Baptist Churches be more inviting and hospitable.
*Linda Larson is contract staff for the Committee on Disabilities of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (http://www.ncccusa.org/nmu/mce/dis/). 

II Corinthians 12:7
“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

Each of us is created in the image of God. We are inextricably bound in the body of Christ one to another, each using our gifts for the building up of the body. I have learned that the stories of healing and cures in the New Testament are Jesus’ example of bringing individuals back into community, transforming not just the individual but the entire community and recognizing the gifts that the individual brings to the body. Christ intentionally sought out and invited the blind, the lame, the poor — those who are placed outside of community. This is the ministry he taught us to do by his example.

God intentionally sought out Jacob because Jacob was given gifts that would lead and nurture his people. He had the gift of being a servant, serving his flock. He had the gift of openness and vulnerability. Jacob walked at a slower pace. This gave him opportunity to listen, have conversation. I too now walk at a slower pace using a cane. I am able to be open to a stranger in my midst. I have had many meaningful conversations with people at the bus stop. It has given me the time to pray and converse with God. God transforms my disability into a source of  blessing. I have learned many lessons because of sitting outside of community and having had the opportunity to view life from a different point of view. I love my name, because Linda means “Full of Grace,” and I love who God has called me to be. Jacob didn’t let go until he knew he had been blessed. He was transformed into Israel, the father of the twelve tribes.

Nancy Eiesland says in The Disabled God,  “God appears in the most unexpected bodies. ... The resurrected Jesus Christ in presenting impaired hands and feet and side to be touched by frightened friends alters the taboo of physical avoidance of disability and calls for followers to recognize their connection and equality at the point of Jesus’ physical impairment. Christ’s disfigured side bears witness to the existence of ‘hidden’ disabilities as well.” (pp. 100,101)

Our churches are called to invite and be hospitable to all who choose to enter. Authentic Christian hospitality recognizes the diversity of human life. Inclusion is not just a matter of having universal access in our building where we gather; it also means that we include in our worship, faith formation and all aspects of our being together, opportunities that allow each person to experience audio, visual and kinesthetic learning. It means experiencing and expressing our faith through verbal, spatial/artistic, musical, physical, mathematical, interpersonal and intrapersonal learning. We must also advocate and take responsibility for the prejudices and barriers that our society has created for persons with disabilities. We can begin by unconditionally accepting and loving every individual just as they are, recognizing the gifts they offer us even in the most unexpected bodies.

I Corinthians 12:12-13, 17
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit, we are all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we are all made to drink of the one Spirit. … Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

We begin by recognizing the person first, a person with a disability, a person who is blind, a person without speech, a person who uses a wheelchair. We take a critical look from parking lot, to entrance (accessible doors) to accessible bathrooms, drinking fountains that are wheelchair accessible, phones with large buttons and adjustable volume, printed/audio materials, worship space and all other gathering spaces in our building, as well as signage in Braille and large print at wheelchair height. Check yourselves on these aspects of inclusion:

• Do you have an accessible van, large print hymnals/worship books, sermons on audio tape and CD-ROM?
• When you offer food and drink, do you consider food allergies, people with diabetes?
• Does your worship space have wheelchair space throughout?
• During worship, do you say, “You are invited to stand, kneel or sit”?
• Is your sound system compatible with the needs of those with hearing loss?
• Have you begun a ministry with a local group home?
• Do you offer your church space for group meetings for disability groups?
• Do you have information readily available about advocacy resources for persons with disabilities?
• Is your community an active advocate for the needs and rights of persons with disabilities?
• Do you have representation of persons with disabilities on your church council?
• Can a person with a disability participate in choir, teach Sunday school, serve on a committee or do any other activity your church offers?
• How do you surround in love families with a member with a disability? Think of how you might offer respite, provide meals, run errands, help them with medical and other appointments; help them keep together a file of medical payments and other paperwork; and offer to help around the house.
• Are you intentional about befriending the person with a disability?
• Do you help take care of siblings who may feel that their needs are not met?

These are things we must be about if we are to truly be the body of Christ. The Bible also offers examples of persons with disabilities. Consider ways such as these to bring encouragement through presenting that aspect of people’s lives:

• When teaching Old Testament stories, do you lift up the fact that Moses, Noah, Jacob, Mephibosheth, Saul, Job all had disabilities, yet God used these most unexpected bodies to shepherd his people?
• Do you share the stories of healing and cures in the New Testament that reflect not only the person with the disability was transformed, but the entire community in which they lived?

I have come to understand that I am whole yet disabled, and that God delights in my presence. I know this because my church has been intentional about recognizing and nurturing the God-given gifts within me and within each member of our community of faith.

Isaiah 54:2
“Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out.”

D. is a woman about age 40, who has autism. She converses only when asked to repeat. She is a delight to have in adult Bible study. She is the one who is insistent about praying the Lord’s Prayer. In fact her whole body needs to say it every time we meet. She readies her body and says it loudly with pride. She may not intellectually understand all that she is saying, but she knows without a doubt that it is important. Praying the Lord’s Prayer with her has transformed the way I talk to God.

N. is without speech. The only way I know that he wishes to be in church is his wonderful smile. Every time I am greeted by this wonderful smile, I am reminded that God delights in our presence. P. is also nonverbal. His body is stiff. He is a member of the choir. He quickly goes up to join them when it is time to sing. He stands there stiffly, not uttering a word. Then you notice that he is moving his index finger in time to the music. What a glorious way to sing praise to God!

My greatest joy was to see M., a four-year-old, as she participated in class for the first time. M. is nonverbal and uses a talk board to communicate. Her talk board has pictures of the Bible, hands praying, the baptismal font, music notes, a cross, “I love you,” and so on. It is her Sunday School and Church talk board. She is able to use it to express her faith. All the children in the class sign the Lord’s Prayer so that all can pray together. M. is totally accepted and loved just as she is in her class. The children in this classroom will always have a wide understanding of the love of God.

There is also G. in confirmation class. G has a developmental disability and does not write or memorize well. His pastor has chosen to allow him to draw pictures of his faith when he does the same lessons as all the other students in his class.

Proverbs 29:18
“Without voice, the people perish.”
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

There are 54 million people with disabilities in the United States. We are the largest minority in this country: 65% percent do not have work, not because they are not capable; 50% are unchurched; the school dropout rate is 50% higher than any other minority group; persons with disabilities are twice as likely to be the victims of abuse. In emerging countries, 90% of children with disabilities will not see their 18th birthday. One-third of people living on the street, without a home, live with a mental illness. Without their voice, without a vision that embraces all of human diversity, the body of Christ is not whole.

Micah 6:8
God calls to us. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”

We are the church and we must be about the work that God intends us to do and that is embodying disability in the body of Christ. We are to extend an authentic, personal invitation to come to the table and be among us. Accommodation for persons with disabilities costs nothing 50 percent of the time. When we confront our own fears and prejudices about what it means to live with a disability, when we begin ministering with persons with disabilities, only then will we be able authentically to bring God’s hope, love, joy and peace into the world. Thanks be to God.