Serving Families With Disabilities Gets Easier When Churches Collaborate

We name a surprising challenge in disability ministry that has less to do with behaviors or volunteer shortages and more to do with how churches relate to each other. We share a practical, gospel-centered way to collaborate, refer families well, and keep accessibility tied to discipleship rather than competition. 
• the reality gap between “disability-friendly” claims and family experiences 
• why church-to-church tension can become a hidden barrier to inclusion 
• how to communicate with nearby churches about supports and resources 
• ways to collaborate through trainings, respite nights, and Night to Shine 
• why referring a family to another church can be care, not failure 
• keeping the goal clear: welcoming people, accommodations, relationships, Jesus 
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. 

Transcript

Why Disability Inclusion Matters

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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. Hey, hey, and welcome to this episode of Indispensable People. Today I wanted to share with you the hard of serving people with disabilities uh in our

The Unexpected Hard Between Churches

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churches. And the hard always leads to the best things, but the hard in disability ministry can range from lots of things. But one of the things that really is kind of strange in a sense because it's not the different needs that we serve, it's not the behavioral things that we come up with, it's not the volunteers that we are looking for or trying to train. And all of those things can be hard because volunteers can sometimes be sparse. The needs and behaviors that the individuals we serve can be intense. But here's a weird, strange hard that I really hadn't come across much, if at all, in all of the time that I have served. But this is church-to-church hard. So in the area that I serve, there's not a ton of people. There's actually very few churches that specifically do disability ministry. And that's okay. Some churches just aren't there yet. Some churches are building to it, some churches are doing things on a smaller scale. So they don't have like a fully formed disability ministry. Um, there's all types of things and reasons and why. But also, if you walked into my church, we don't have a celebrate recovery group for those experiencing alcohol or drug abuse or those kinds of things. And I say that to say, not because I'm comparing the types of ministry, but every church can't do every single thing, right? So what does that require if one church isn't gonna offer this? It requires us as churches working together, right? Not against each other. So there might be a church that's a better fit for a family because of what it has to offer. And if I have experienced issues with drugs my whole life, I'm gonna find a church that has a program and a support within that, like celebrate recovery. Or if I, you know, have just gotten married or maybe experiencing marriage troubles or something like that, uh, having a church with a really strong couples or marriage group would be incredibly beneficial. And I say that to say that disability ministry really isn't any any different, right? If I am a family who has a child with disability, and I am, I'm going to, if possible, find a church that will best fit my family and serve. Why? Because that's where we can be successful, that's where my child can really grow into the person that God has intended them to be, because people will understand, they will help cultivate that kind of stuff. Now, a lot of people go to churches that don't have those specific things that serve them. That's fine too. But just recently, I had a an individual bring their family to our church because we have a special needs ministry. The benefit to what happened when that family came to our church, and the dad very much said he really felt like God told them to come here. And we are happy that they feel like we could potentially help and serve them. But the what happened is the other church called it just so happens that our children's pastor and their children's pastor are mom and daughter. And so that children's pastor called our children's pastor and said, Hey, just want you to know this family might stop in. So they gave us a heads up. And I feel like that's a fantastic effort and fantastic joint and joint effort that work together, churches working together to help families. But that could have been a bad thing, right? I know it sounds really weird because churches, we are not into serving people for competition. As long as they are loving and following Jesus in a church, that's where we want them to be, right? So it's not a competition. But some churches would be offended. And that can be a hard, hard,

Sharing Resources Without Making Excuses

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hard thing to do. So my encouragement, if you are a leader in a church or a volunteer in a church and you are attempting to serve people with disabilities, with special needs in whatever capacity that you're choosing, help the other churches around you in your area know what you're doing. First of all, invite them to join in on what you're doing, learn together, grow together, and help find ways to serve Jesus together, whether it be through respite nights or a night to shine event, and then be able to do trainings or whatever together, right? And maybe you can walk this out together and you're not the only church in the area doing this. But if you are the only church in the area doing this, opening up the avenues of communications so that other churches know and understand that, like, listen, if you are struggling to serve a family, you don't have to struggle. And you can all also ultimately give them that other church as a resource if that would work better for you and more better for the family. Now, granted, we would love for every every church to be open, welcoming, and accessible for people with disabilities, right? We want all of our churches to have that open door. And for specific individuals who maybe their needs are not super severe, maybe that works. But if it doesn't, we don't want to send them off to never return to church again. So understanding and knowing that there are other resources in your area could be a benefit. You don't have to look at that. First of all, let me say this that is not a caveat to be there for a church to make an excuse that, well, we don't have to do disability ministry because the church down the street does, we'll just send those families there. No, that's not what we want to do. If you can serve that individual in your church, please do. But if it gets to the point that you aren't equipped, you don't have a program, and you want to, you feel that you might end up doing more detriment than help to the family, know your resources. Then utilize that as the potential of what could be. How could you look at this in the future and growing and expanding what you're already doing and how you're serving? But also know that if you do have to help a family find resources, that's not a failure on your part. It's an open door to look at what God has for the future. And we do that so that everyone has access to the gospel. And access comes from welcoming people in, making accommodations, getting to know people, building relationships, loving people where they're at, but also loving people enough to point them to Jesus and help them grow in their path to him. That's those are the ultimate goals. The avenues that we get there might look different. How we need to resource them might look different, but the goal is still the same. Jesus. And we make him accessible and we find ways to do that, and we are all on a path to growing and doing better at that in all kinds of ways. I can't claim to have all the answers. I can't

Accessible Gospel And Next Steps

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claim to know all the things, but here's what we are gonna do. We're gonna keep this conversation going. We're gonna 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.