Indispensable People
Making the Gospel Accessible to people of ALL abilities so that they may know Christ, grow in Him, and serve Him with the gifts He has given them.
Indispensable People
FAQ: When Understanding Starts With Being Understood
We walk through practical ways to make the gospel accessible for people with disabilities by addressing sensory barriers, emotional regulation, learning styles, and the “simple, concrete, repeat” method. We assume competence, build trust, and highlight God’s work beyond our limits.
• disability prevalence and the church attendance gap
• difference between physical, social, and spiritual access
• sensory sensitivities and simple environmental fixes
• emotional regulation tools and check-ins
• learning styles and five-sense teaching
• assume competence in discipleship
• simple, concrete, repeat as a core method
• relationships and communication modes as keys to learning
• God’s role in understanding and transformation
If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the Indispensable-People blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People
Hey, hey, my name is Tracy Coral and welcome to Indispensable People. I'm a pastor, a teacher, a missionary, a mom, a wife, and I believe that every person should have access to the gospel so that they can know Christ, grow in him, and serve him with the gifts that he has given. Over 65 million Americans have a disability. That's 15 to 20% of every community. And over 85% of those individuals do not attend church. 90% of pastors believe that they are a disability-friendly church, but only 20% of parents and families agree. Let's dive deep into hard topics, big questions, perceptions, stereotypes, and so much more. Welcome to today's episode. Thank you for joining me. We are talking about frequently asked questions, and we are trying to answer questions that have been submitted by supporters, listeners, readers, and we figure that if if they asked it, then you might be thinking about it. So we're going to jump right into the question today. And today's question is how do you help individuals understand the word of God? Now, first I want to preface this question by helping us understand that, first of all, the realm of disability is vast, right? So no one person with a disability is the same as someone else. And so this won't be just a blanket answer. There is so much more to it than a simple here you go. And so we are going to be focused more on those with intellectual disabilities. So we have people with physical disabilities that have no intellectual barriers. And so the approach to sharing the gospel with them is more of a physical. Can they see it? Can they hear it? Can they participate in it? So that includes those with physical disabilities, those who might be deaf or experiencing hearing impairment, or someone who may be blind or have a visual impairment of some sort. So that is not more of an understanding. That is more of do I have an access to the information? Then when you consider those with intellectual disabilities, you can also add to that those who might have barriers to the intellectual understanding because of sensory sensitivities. So that's an easier tackle than the intellectual. So here's where you're gonna go with that. A sensory sensitivity. So for example, a child who is struggling because the lights are buzzing in the room that they're in that they're learning, whether it's the sanctuary, a Sunday school classroom. So it could be an adult in the sanctuary or child in a Sunday school room, you are going to, they're gonna be distracted by their sensory sensitivities, which in this case we'll say is the lights buzzing. So how do you eliminate or lessen that sensory sensitivity so that they can focus on what you're teaching? That's gonna be your concern, whether it's noise canceling headphones, whether it's teaching with the lights out, which maybe in a sanctuary setting sounds a little ridiculous, but in a Sunday school class, you might have windows in the room with the sun coming in, and that may not be an issue at all. Another, so coming up with opportunities and ways to eliminate those sensory sensitivities or alleviate those sensory sensitivities so that they can focus. Another example might be noise is easy, visual noise is easy because you can either offer some noise-cancelling headphones, headphones, or eliminate the noise or lessen the noise. But there are other things like the way maybe their clothes are feeling on them that particular day, or if the lights are bothering their eyes, fluorescent lights a lot of times will do that. Those kinds of things. And so you just have to do what works for your environment to try to, again, either remove or alleviate the sensory sensitivity that they might be experiencing at that point. And then that removes the barrier for learning. The other that I would say that impacts all of that would be some emotional regulation. And if they are struggling with their emotions in the moment, then that is going to be a distraction from the learning. And this goes through kids, teens, adults. Sometimes they can become overwhelmed with a situation or hyper focused on a situation. And so we have to work to help them overcome those moments. That might be as simple as redirection. That might be let's take a second and talk about it and see where you're at and help let me listen. It might be some strategies to deal with it, such as, you know, where are you at today? Are you feeling a one, uh, two, a three, a four, a five, five being, you know, the most extensive. So let me talk about it. Maybe it's a color code emotion chart. Maybe it is that they just need to talk about it and they need to let it out. And they need you to understand where they're at before they can move on. Sometimes you will need to just you need to validate the feelings that they're experiencing so you can move on. And those kinds of things. So just understanding the individual, the struggle that they're at, we're not diminishing that struggle. And we are trying to find strategies to help them through it. Again, it depends on the person and their needs. And the best way to do that is by getting to know them. Now, we're gonna go into the intellectual portion, speaking about um, how do you help people with intellectual disabilities learn? Now, I will tell you that regardless of the disability, all people learn in different ways. I am a visual learner and I'm a hands-on learner. I have my husband who could benefit from never picking up a book, and I need to touch the book. Like I need to touch it, I need to highlight it, I want to, I want to write in it, all of I want to take notes, all of that kind of stuff. He is a doer. I have three kids, and my three kids are visual learners. Some individuals are auditory learners, and so one of your safe strategies across the board, doesn't matter who you're teaching, what their needs are, are using the five senses. The five senses are going to help benefit and they're going to help you utilize those different learning styles. The other thing we want to do, especially with those with an intellectual disability, is we want to assume competence. We don't want to approach with the idea that they don't understand, they won't understand. So why even try? That's not where we're at. First of all, we need to know that we're no matter our abilities to teach and their abilities to receive, we serve a God who is not stopped by any boundaries or barriers, and he can get through any of them and he can help people to understand above and beyond anything that they could think of or dream. I saw it was a posting on social media about a week or two ago that I saw, and it was a little guy whose dad was in a car accident. The little guy was diagnosed with autism and he couldn't understand why daddy couldn't come home. But he had gone to like a birthday party or something during the day, and then he got to come and visit dad. And when he crawled up into the hospital bed with dad, he may not understand why he couldn't go home. He didn't understand all the medical problems, but he did tell him that Jesus was the reason that he was still alive. So an understanding beyond what we understand can come to an individual with a disability, no matter their intellectual capacity. And so we always want to assume competence. We want to assume that they can learn. And that's why we talk about making the gospel not only physically accessible, but socially and spiritually accessible. Because oftentimes people will just assume that they can't learn. And so then they don't disciple, which means we're not making the gospel spiritually accessible. This is a simple, I have lived on this, I have utilized this, I have spoken on it in other podcasts. Simple, concrete, repeat. The there is so much study of the brain and how it learns and building blocks of simplifying things and then building upon them has been proven. Repeating, hearing the same thing multiple times in different ways. That's where the five senses come into play with this as well, because you're learning the same thing with different senses or learning the same thing in different learning styles that repeat is really, really important. And the last one is the same thing that I just went over is presenting in many ways, different learning styles, five senses, all that kind of thing. The other thing is there will be nothing more valuable than building a relationship with that person and helping and understanding. Because when I feel safe with you, I can receive from you. And so building that relationship, knowing that you're loved, that you're cared, that you're valued, that opens up doors as well. Knowing their language, the way that they communicate, whether they're using a communication board, sign language, gestures, being verbal, any of those kinds of things. So knowing how to their primary communication and the way that they like to interact is going to be helpful in that way too. And again, I will just say because it is so incredibly important, understanding the person leads to connection. Connection leads to learning. So I would say understanding learning styles, utilizing five senses, being open to repetitive learning and building, again, building those relationships. Those are going to be your key components in helping people to understand the word of God. However, the most important is the God component because he can speak to and through his people, and that is going to be the most beneficial. Making the gospel accessible comes from understanding the people that you're serving, using strategies that help them to learn in the way that they learn best, and allowing God to work in them and through us. That's how we make the gospel accessible. We're going to make the accessible gospel available to individuals with disabilities in our churches and in our communities so that every person has the opportunity to know Christ, to grow in him, and to serve him with the gifts that he is given. If you want to dive deeper on your own, you can check out the Indispensable People blog or my books on Amazon called The Indispensable Kid or Gospel Accessibility and the Indispensable People.
