The Disabled and the Church

In the 1990's I attended a very interesting church, a well-known very evangelical church in my area. While there I saw an attitude toward the disabled - both developmentally and physically -that I've rarely seen in any other church I've attended. First, this one was to my knowledge, one of the first (and perhaps the first) in our nation (USA) to have an actual adult Sunday School class for the developmentally disabled. For those of you who don't know what that term means - it is the new politically correct term for the old "mentally retarded." This group includes Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy. But what I thought was really interesting was this church used a few Downs Syndrome people as well as the physically handicapped in the church as volunteers. A few Downs Syndrome guys, the higher functioning of course, were also taking the offering and even serving communion on communion Sunday. I admit it was a little jarring the first time I saw one of these young men at the church door handing me a buletin and then saw them taking the offering. But I thought it was neat and after a while it seemed to be quite normative.

Meanwhile, at the information tables, some of the volunteers were in wheelchairs or had crutches (higher functioning cerebral palsy and others). And why not? Why shouldn't our wheelchair people be at the info tables on the patio or in the foyer?
And why couldn't a high fucntioning developmentally disabled person hand out bulletins and even take the offering? They can if we allow them.

It's really dispicable for churches to "hide" disabled people in a dark corner in the church. I remember one church I went to where they would have a prayer meeting and this lady would bring her adult Down Syndrome daughter. This was a Word of Faith church and the daughter, I felt, had a very good grasp of Healing in the Atonement and the Scripture verses that were the foundation for it since the church emphasized this theology. How I wish most Christians grasped what she did. She wanted to pray those Scriptures over the sick but they wouldn't allow her to do that. A shame! I bet she would have had the faith to get the healing power of God to come because she wouldn't have over analyzed.

Well, I hope this post got you to think about this subject as I've rarely, if ever, heard anyone or any church handle their disabled in this positive manner.