My early memories of church are punctuated by missed handshakes from greeters, shins bumped into pews, and communion spilled on the auditorium carpet. Yet, even with two blind younger brothers and a visually impaired mom, I never thought our church experience was much different from other families. It wasn’t until recently that I realized the Christian circles we were in didn’t know what to do for little boys with glasses and white canes.
My brothers received everything from unasked-for prayers from strangers to miraculous healing stories to an Uber driver asking if blindness was a result of parental sin. But as their sight continued its steady decline, their confidence in their faith was eroding as well.
“It didn’t turn me against the church; it turned me against God,” my brother told me over the phone this year. “I had to reconcile that God didn’t give me my disability.”
It seems like there’s a vast misunderstanding of disability in the church.
The Problem
There are many areas we could address when it comes to disabled believers: healing prayers, the problem of sin, miracles, identity, and more. These are hot topics and hard topics that have led people to write books, post articles, and create videos accusing the church of having the wrong approach.
I’m here to talk about one aspect of the Christian disability conversation: community.
One in four Americans are disabled,¹ and yet churches—unlike schools, businesses, libraries, and other public spaces—aren’t required to provide accommodations² like wheelchair ramps, elevators, unobstructed pathways, and other necessary implements that would allow people with disabilities to fully participate in a Sunday service.
A study by the National Institute of Health (NIH)³ found that people with disabilities were lonelier than people without. Although there are many factors that contribute to that statistic, it boils down to this:
When social spaces are inaccessible, relationships don’t develop.
For my family, dark rooms or activities after sunset made it difficult—nearly impossible—to participate. Because of my mom’s declining vision, she couldn’t keep track of me and my brothers in the dark. It meant we had to do things like leave our end-of-VBS celebration early and miss out on ice cream so Mom could get us home before twilight.
Stories like this are not uncommon. In fact, there are people who may not have the transportation to get them to church.
A major aspect of the Christian life is community—and we have the opportunity to make our churches accessible to those in need of community the most.
A Biblical Look
Christian community is vital when it comes to faith. Believers need other believers.
1 Corinthians 12:12 (NLT) sums it up well: “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.” Together, we become whole.
Galatians 6:2 (NLT) expands on this idea: “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”
As a community of believers, we make up one body which means one person’s burden becomes everyone’s burden. It means when one person has a need, it becomes a priority for that person’s surrounding relationships.
Not only does the Bible encourage community, but it is also brimming with stories of restoring outcasts to society. In the gospels, Jesus finds outcasts and brings them in, whether into the family of God or to their surrounding friends and family.
Jesus noticed the outcasts and paid mind to what prevented them from participating in society. Often, it was because they were considered unclean, like in the case of the leper in Mark 1.
“A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. ‘If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,’ he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be healed!’ Instantly the leprosy disappeared and the man was healed” (Mark 1:40-42, NLT).
The leper was desperate in his request to be made clean—and certainly, leprosy was causing him major pain—but his underlying request was not his physical healing for the sake of physical healing. He was asking to be clean so he could go home and be reunited with his community.
In today’s world, at least in the West, we don’t really shun “unclean” people in the same way they did in the Bible. But we still have outcasts.
While we might not be literally stopping disabled people from attending church, if our churches are inaccessible, it means we’ve essentially closed the door on 25% of the American population.
Growing up, my brothers had my parents to help pave the way for them in church, but not all disabled individuals have a strong support system.
It’s up to the church body to become the family for disabled believers and to welcome them into our places of worship.
Disability advocate Jen Taggart, who has cerebral palsy, described her church on a recent phone call. Her church in Ohio is a wonderful example of a church making community possible, and their disability-inclusive culture is one of the reasons Jen chose to become a member. Jen told me that they’re not perfect—no church is—but they’ve made an effort, and that’s what counts.
“My church has many groups for just about every kind of disability you can imagine,” she says, and it’s true. They have support groups for those with chronic pain, mental illness, ADHD, and physical disabilities. They also have a support group for parents of chronically ill children.
Not only do they have small groups for disabled people looking to connect with those who have a shared experience, they also have a Deaf church led by a Deaf pastor who is on staff, along with sign language interpreters during one of their main services.
Of course, part of this is due to the church’s larger size, but the willingness of church staff and volunteers to meet the needs of their church community is worth seriously considering.
Jen is a leader at her church who runs a small group for those with physical disabilities, and she encourages her church to partner with disabled individuals. To get to know them for who they are and their place in the church.
My brother explained, “My disability doesn’t impede my ability to worship.” But when barriers make it impossible to attend church, participate in a service, or build relationships, the quality of fellowship and worship declines.
Some might wonder why churches should go through so much effort—particularly in an era when services can be watched online, and many members of the general church population still haven’t returned to a physical building post-COVID. Although a streamed church service is a great option for someone unable to attend church, it will never replace the fellowship and community found in a gathered group of believers.
The purpose of church isn’t just to sing or to hear a good sermon—both things you could arguably do alone. Rather, it’s to commune as a body of believers. In-person gatherings allow individuals to be part of something bigger than themselves—to be a part of the tangible body of Christ. In the same way, it allows a person-to-person intimacy impossible with a streamed church service.
Even the simplicity of a handshake, hug, or high-five can begin to dismantle the loneliness epidemic among disabled individuals.
Being together physically allows us to encourage one another in concrete, felt ways. It combats isolation, promotes depth of relationships, and allows natural conversation. There’s something to be said about a body of believers coming together for the same purpose in the same place.
In Matthew 18:20 (NLT), Jesus says, “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”
Similarly, Hebrews 10:24-25 (NLT) says, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”
Community requires accessibility. And accessibility is possible when a need is voiced and then met with curiosity and care. It doesn’t end with providing accommodation; it’s about getting to know someone and meeting their needs.
Salvation is available to all—wheelchair users, blind, deaf, cognitively impaired—let’s make our churches available too.
For your church, it may be as simple as updating a wheelchair ramp, adding brighter lighting in the lobby, or adapting the sound system—but it won’t always be an obvious change in the physical building. Rather, it’s a change in the mindset of both the church leadership and members.
The church has always been a vessel to provide for others: bringing meals to the sick, comforting the grieving, creating small groups for different life stages, and more. And yet, those with disabilities frequently go unnoticed, or they are intentionally ignored, often because we don’t know what they need or because we are uncomfortable with their presence and unsure how to address their needs without offending or assuming. It feels like a fragile situation, only too easy to get wrong.
But that uncomfortable feeling stems from unfamiliarity, and once you get to know someone, their disability is no longer an object of attention. For them, it’s normal—and it can be for you, too.
For example, I grew up with a blind grandpa. To me, he was just like any other grandpa—he just couldn’t see. There was ease in being a little kid, leading him around by the hand (and occasionally bonking him into trees or street signs) because it was normal.
Familiarity leads to normalcy.
Developing familiarity with someone new can be accomplished through a simple, “Tell me about yourself.” And then listening openly.
Everyone is different. Everyone views themselves, and their disabilities, in different ways. Relationships aren’t black and white, so what might offend or upset one person may be taken as humor by someone else. This is why it’s necessary to learn about someone.
If you’re interacting with someone new and feeling unsure, always ask before you assume. It’s easy to think, “Oh, that person can’t see, so I need to lead them.” Or “That person is in a wheelchair; I’ll push them to be nice.” In Jen Taggart’s case, she’d occasionally have people come up to help her take her jacket off or put it on without asking because they assumed she needed the help.
Asking would eliminate the awkwardness for both parties in the situation.
“Would you like any help with that?” goes a lot further in building relationships than jumping in unasked.
If only we could see one another as Jesus does—intricately created by the hand of God. We can fulfill a need in our churches and reach a people group desperately in need of the love of Christ.
Welcome disabled people as you would anyone—welcome them as a child of God. But recognize that they may have needs that you’ve never even considered. Ask them questions. Be curious about who they are beyond their disability. Love them as your neighbor.
It’s like inviting someone to your home. You don’t just open the door when they knock, then turn around and leave them standing there. Welcome them inside, ask if they need anything, and point out where they can put their coat and shoes.
We can’t heal lepers like Jesus did, but we can be intentional about crafting an accessible community to reach an overlooked demographic and introduce them to the body of Christ.
¹Center for Disease Control. (2024). “Disability and Health Promotion.” cdc.org.
²Americans with Disabilities Act. (2024). “Religious Entities Under the Americans with Disabilities Act.” adata.org.
³National Institute of Health. (2024). “Loneliness, social support, social isolation and wellbeing among working age adults with and without disability: Cross-sectional study.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7403030/