According to Erik Carter in his
book “Including People with Disabilities
in Faith Communities” : “Numerous faith groups have acknowledge their
failure to respond to people with disabilities in ways that reflect their
calling to be caring, loving, and responsive communities.” Although it is
difficult to quantify the precise degree of involvement of people with
disabilities in churches, various statistics reveal a need for churches to
become more active in ministering to families affected by disability. Below are
some U.S. statistics :
- According to one study which queried parents of children and youth with disabilities, fewer than one-half of children and youth with autism, deaf-blindness, intellectual disabilities, or multiple disabilities had participated in religious activities at any point during the previous year.
- When 200 parents of adolescents and young adults with autism were asked about their child’s attendance at religious services, less than one-third reported their child attended on a weekly basis; only 11% attended religious social activities.
- One-third of children and adults with intellectual disabilities who live in foster care or small group homes rarely attended religious services; only one-fourth “sometimes” attended religious services.
- In a survey of 91 Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations, 71% said they had a general awareness of the barriers to inclusion for the disability community; 69% said they had not yet started or were just beginning to transform their church family into a place of inclusion; 53% said they were in the process and only 28% had explored partnership with community agencies or organizations serving the disabled.
Even
with the abundance of biblical teaching on the image and function of the
church, we still fall into the trap of wanting our churches to appear “successful”
and “to have it all together”. We prefer members who wear the right clothes, drive the right cars, and know
the right vernacular. But this is an illusion and a misunderstanding of what
God truly desires – our brokenness.
(Part of an article from "Major Challenges of Church to Path of Maturity - Joni and Friends)
To think about it, this might be parallel to an illustration of developing and developed countries. Developing countries are still focusing on the staple necessities that the people need, while the developed countries are focusing on the additional necessities because they have almost no problem in staple necessities in their daily lives.
But still, every countries, every churches have a purpose on being a mature country or church. For the church, it is one of the purposes as a community, to mature and to be sanctifies according to His will. So....this is a real wake-up call for all of us. Have we prepared ourselves and the church to the maturity and serve those in needs?
