How does the Church go beyond an attitude of inclusion, and ensure those with disabilities and special needs have a sense of belonging?
In an article published in the April 2024 issue of the Methodist Message, it was reported that:
The Church in Singapore has been key in supporting people with disabilities through social services. Social service agencies such as the Methodist Welfare Services, St Andrew’s Mission Hospital, Singapore Anglican Community Services and TOUCH Community Services have made a significant impact on the national disability landscape. While we may boast about our presence in the social service space, hardly the same can be said of the churches. Only 5 per cent, or 26 churches, have one or more disability ministries among the 600 Protestant churches in Singapore.1
Clearly more can and must be done to help churches here understand the importance of ministering to its members with disabilities. But even while that is being done, we must also reflect on what such a ministry entails.
If we were to consult the literature on the subject, including the articles published on various media platforms, we will find that the idea that dominates the discourse is that of inclusion. Society, we are told (and by extension, the Church), must be inclusive and welcome people with disabilities.
This is of course a laudable and much needed exhortation. We must indeed try to create an environment where people with disabilities do not feel excluded or pushed to the margins and alienated. Instead, we must welcome them and ensure that they truly feel welcomed.
However, while inclusion is certainly very important in our attitude towards and treatment of people with disabilities, it is only the starting point. For people with disabilities to really flourish in our churches, they must not only feel that they are included. They must also have a profound sense that they truly belong.
The Bible and Christian tradition offer abundant resources for developing a theology of belonging that should be explored and applied to the Church’s approach to people with disabilities.
At the most fundamental level, a Christian theology of belonging is established on the gospel message itself. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, has died for the sins of humanity. All who call upon his name and put their faith in him as their Saviour and Lord are reconciled to God and have become his sons and daughters.
This directly impacts how each member of Christ’s Body should be regarded. Paul powerfully emphasises this in his well-known chapter on the unity and diversity of the Church, where he writes: “For in one Spirit we were all baptised into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13).
The apostle spells out the significance of this further in his letter to the Christians in Galatia: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). To this list we can surely add “neither abled nor disabled”.
Thus, every believer is part of the Body of Christ. No one is lesser than the other. No one is dispensable. Through the work of the Spirit, every believer belongs to the one body, the Church.
But what is the difference between inclusion and belonging?
Belonging points to a deeper, more profound understanding of membership in the Body of Christ than inclusion. Inclusion generally suggests making room for someone at the table, while belonging involves an invitation to participate fully in the life of the church and contribute meaningfully to its ministry.
Belonging points to a deeper, more profound understanding of membership in the Body of Christ than inclusion. Inclusion generally suggests making room for someone at the table, while belonging involves an invitation to participate fully in the life of the church and contribute meaningfully to its ministry.
Inclusion often points to efforts to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the full range of the activities of the church. Inclusion places emphasis on what some writers have called structural accommodations: wheelchair ramps, large print bulletins, sign language interpretation etc.
While all these are of course important, belonging goes much deeper. It is less about the structures that are put in place to assist people of disabilities, but involves a mindset, an ethos and a culture which embraces all people fully for who they are. It involves the creation of a social space where people with disabilities are truly valued as an integral part of community and where they can use their God-given gifts to bless the Church.
Belonging emphasises genuine relationships established on our identity and unity in Christ. This means valuing members with disabilities as brothers and sisters in Christ, not merely “tolerated” or “accommodated”, but loved and treasured as indispensable members of the Church.
Belonging also stresses interdependence. This recalls Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). Belonging recognises the fact that our brothers and sisters with disabilities have much to contribute to the building up of the Church.
Moving from inclusion to belonging means going beyond merely making room for our brothers and sisters with disabilities to fully embracing them. In doing so, the Church becomes more fully what it is meant to be.
1 Joanna Ong, “Whither the Church and disability ministries in Singapore?,” Methodist Message, April 4, 2024, https://www.methodist.org.sg/methodist-message/whither-the-church-and-disability-ministries-in-singapore/).
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor of Christian Doctrine at Trinity Theological College and Theological and Research Advisor at the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.