Building ramps and relationships

The Southern Baptist Convention recently adopted a resolution that encourages congregations to “joyfully welcome and fully include people with physical, intellectual, and developmental disabilities.” The need for that message is now more urgent than ever. 

Eugenics—via abortion, euthanasia, and selective fertility methods—is ever present in modern culture. The logical end of these unethical practices will mean the elimination of people with disabilities. They will still be conceived, of course, but they will be blotted out before we ever see them. It creates a Truman Show-like reality where everyone and everything is unblemished. 

As such, Christians must distinguish themselves clearly from this false framework, establishing our entities as communities of hope, help, dignity, and inclusion for people of all abilities at every stage of life. 

On the surface, the SBC resolution may seem somewhat unremarkable. Of course churches should welcome everyone. But the word “joyfully” matters—given the broader culture’s view of disabilities as problems to erase, rather than a people to embrace. 

In an era of prenatal screening sophisticated enough to detect Down syndrome, spina bifida, and a host of other conditions before a child is ever born, secular medical culture pats itself on the back for “saving” parents from the pain of raising an imperfect specimen of a child. 

In Iceland, Denmark, and parts of Western Europe, people with Down syndrome are rarely allowed to be born because of such widespread pregnancy termination based on prenatal testing. In the United States, some studies suggest that 75% of pregnancies with a Down syndrome diagnosis end in abortion. 

The logic, rarely stated outright, is that a life shaped by disability is a life not worth living. As the church, we proclaim an alternate view, a divine perspective shaped by a Creator who “sets us apart” before we’re even conceived. Human dignity, in the Christian framework, is not earned or measured, but belongs to every person simply because they bear the image of God. 

The disability resolution is important to highlight because theological conviction and congregational practice don’t always match. Most people don’t know that churches are exempt from the American Disabilities Act’s public accommodation requirements, which means older sanctuaries face no legal obligation to install ramps or accessible restrooms. This means we must take responsibility for it ourselves when at all possible. 

Research finds that families affected by disability are significantly less likely to attend church regularly, citing a lack of accessibility, programming, and genuine belonging. Another study showed that disabled Americans value religious participation as much as anyone else, but they show up at lower rates. 

Embodied church attendance is incredibly important. Being present as the Body of Christ gathers is more than just a good habit, it’s a deeply formative, psychologically powerful, and holistically healthy practice for believers in every stage. Being seen and known—in our suffering, our differences, and our varying abilities—allows our needs to be met and our hearts to be tended. Human beings don’t exist merely for utilitarian purposes but to move forward the plans and purposes of God in whatever way He chooses. 

A church’s efforts to overcome the cultural and organizational obstacles a family with disabilities could face is key. Have church leaders made disability ministry a priority? Are volunteers trained to help families with disabilities feel genuinely welcomed and accommodated? 

A family navigating a child’s sensory challenges, different behavioral needs, or communication differences doesn’t just need a ramp. They need a congregation that has thought about what it means to include someone who may be disruptive in ways that make other members uncomfortable. These are not easy situations to navigate, but a settled conviction about whose presence is valuable changes the approach.

Several organizations, like Key Ministry and the Baylor Center for Disability and Flourishing, exist to help foster more inclusive practices in churches and the Christian community at large. 

When a congregation builds a disability ministry or trains volunteers to support families with special needs, it is embodying a claim about human worth that runs directly counter to what the surrounding culture assumes. 

Families with disabled members also know when the welcome is genuine or put-upon. It can be hard and costly to incorporate all kinds of families, but there is no question that we are called to do it. 

A congregation that goes out of its way to include a nonverbal teenager, to support a family caring for a child with severe autism, to build programming for adults with intellectual disabilities—that speaks volumes. It says a person’s value doesn’t depend on their cognitive output or social ease or economic contribution, but that the image of God exists in all of us. 

Churches that take this resolution seriously will see the gospel flourish communally in a whole new way.