What can we do?
So what can we do about helping and serving disabled people and putting an end to the injustice of poverty and exclusion suffered by them? There are lots of things that will make a difference, and one column will not answer all the questions, but here are five things that are simple straightforward and work.
1. Ask God to forgive you of any wrong attitudes you might have had to disabled people and to give you His heart for them in the same way as He gives you His heart for others.
2. Contact disabled groups in your community and ask them how you can help them and work with them.
3. Talk to your congregation about the importance of serving and working with disabled people in your community.
4. Contact an agency that works in disability from a Christian perspective such as Church Action on Poverty or Through the Roof and ask them to help you.
5. Think about the words that you use and the attitudes that you display in meetings to disabled people and make appropriate changes
Look at Luke
Little things make a difference. The words that we use, the way we approach people, the decisions that we make in our hearts – all of these shape the messages that we send. Luke 14 tells of the wedding banquet where the poor, the lame, the ill and the disabled are welcome. This is a picture of what our communities of faith should look like. We are called to be places where all are welcome, irrespective of their social, physical, mental or cultural background. The Church is a community that works together to overcome barriers to God’s wholeness and commit to serving one another and learning from one another. We are called to be local places where figures like those published by the Rowntree Foundation do not apply because we are communities of hope, love and acceptance. Disabled people are welcome in the Kingdom of God, and they should be welcome with us. They have a place in God’s heart – do they have a place in ours?
The task might be a daunting one, our budgets might need to reflect different priorities and our words, services and buildings might need to change, but these changes would be good ones. To send a message to a whole community that has been forgotten and who are being forced into even deeper poverty would be am amazing witness. To say that we are with disabled people, not against them, that we support them and want to stand with them and that we seek to be their advocates not their enemies would recognise that we as people stand together on issues of disability and poverty. 95 % of the population will live with a disability at one point or another in their lives. So perhaps we need to get to the place where we finally accept that the issue of disability is not a question of ‘them and us’ – it is a question that affects all of us.
Let’s break the scandal of marginalisation for disabled people once and for all. It’s about time.
Malcolm Duncan
[Reverend Malcolm Duncan is the Leader of the Faithworks Movement, and previously worked as Head of Mission at the Evangelical Alliance UK.]
You can find more information about Faithworks by clicking HERE.
