By Rebecca Wall
Without including people with disabilities in our churches, we will never be all God is welcoming us to be. — Dr. Erik Carter
Dr. Erik Carter’s words offer an invitation, and a challenge. They name a truth we often overlook in church life: people with disabilities are still too often left out of the Body.
They may be seen, but not fully known. Served, but not fully included. Too often, worship is designed with everyone in mind, except everyone.
This isn’t just painful, it’s measurable.
Nearly one in three families in the U.S. is impacted by disability. Yet 48% of parents of children with disabilities say they’ve left a church because their child wasn’t welcomed or included.
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In the Dallas–Fort Worth area, with more than 6,000 churches, it’s estimated that fewer than 100 have an intentional ministry focused on people with disabilities.
Dr. Carter’s research also shows that many of these families don’t give up after one church. One in three tries multiple churches, still holding out hope that somewhere, they’ll be welcomed and wanted.
If the Church is the Body of Christ, does it feel phantom pain when part of the body is missing?
Or does it simply carry on, unaware?
The call to love our neighbors, all of them, is not optional. The image of the body in 1 Corinthians 12 is not metaphorical. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you.’”
Yet this is the message many churches send, however unintentionally, when they fail to make room for people with different needs or ways of engaging.
Psalm 67 says, “Let all the peoples praise you.” The absence of an asterisk is powerful. But many churches make space for some — those who can follow the unspoken rules of how to behave, speak, or show up. Not all.
We believe every church can become a place of true belonging, where people with disabilities are celebrated as image-bearers with wisdom and purpose in God’s Kingdom.
This begins with better questions:
Who’s not here, and why?
What barriers have we unknowingly built?
What would it take to tear them down?
This reflection is for the pastor who wants to lead with conviction,
For the church ready to move from awareness to action,
For the body that longs to be whole.
Because worship can’t be what it’s meant to be, unless we worship as one.
Rebecca Wall is a writer and advocate for accessible faith communities. She serves as the executive director of With Ministries, a nonprofit equipping churches to build cultures of belonging for people with disabilities. Learn more at withministries.org.
