One of the things growing up as an individual with a disability (including in the church) is every one of our interactions with the world is seen as an incursion.  Where we are seen but often marked as invisible.  What we need people to do is take their discomfort and embrace it as a catalyst for change instead of trying to repress it.  In a world (and church) that lionizes comfort we need some contrarians who lean into the discomfort engaging people with disabilities engenders.

Loving people with disabilities is something that usually requires huge heart (which engenders sacrificial behavior).  Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”.  Remodeling a church bathroom so it’s accessible to people in wheelchairs takes time and money and someone with a heart for doing it.  Babysitting a parishioner’s autistic son (so they can have a date night) might be taxing but it’s eons more of a ministry than retweeting a Christian celebrity’s pithy remark.  Engaging people with disabilities is uncomfortable and we can often tell when you’re uncomfortable with us.  As long as you worship the idol of comfort sold you by the church you’ll never stretch past the pain points involved in engaging us.  It isn’t easy to do but very little worth doing is easy.

You may have to make some theological sacrifices to accommodate us.  These sacrifices will inevitably make the gospel a harder sell because you won’t be able to promise as much.  The Romans 8:28 view of good suddenly becomes sanctification instead of prosperity.  When you stop seeing the disabled as people instead of objects to project your triumphalistic narrative on or showpieces for original sin, you’ll start having to ask hard questions like, “what does God really promise?”.  There are good books on disability theology such as Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality but they often don’t make it to the pastor’s desk.

Engaging us will cause you to have to ask some very uncomfortable questions about experiential aspects of the faith.  For example, for someone with schizo-effective disorder an experience of God might be akin to being strangled by a giant black squid—catastrophically destructive.  One has to take this test case into account when determining how and when one should take their experience of God seriously.  Is it really fair to push the imperative to hope on people who are in the throes of despair?  Will you (and your spouse who generally has veto power over relationships) be welcoming and including to a person with a disability that will more than likely never marry?

You’ll have to love those who will never be loved by the world.  Other minorities face real disadvantage but have an escape vessel not available to us.  Disability almost by definition causes there to be an absence of things secular and Christian culture value highly such as youth, vitality, and prosperity.  Other minorities might not possess these things out the gate but they can attain them and ride them to a place of respect.

You’ll have to embrace the countercultural notion that the aged aren’t just there to be cast off.  Proverbs 16:31 says “a grey head is a crown of glory”.  Accommodating those with disabilities will net you a nice positive spillover effect in that the elderly (who often have a lot of wisdom or at least good stories to offer) will be welcomed as well.  Inter-generational interaction helps the church in ways that often can’t be measured but can be felt.