Enabling the Disabled

The 2010 World Census indicated that over 650 million people with disabilities account for close to ten percent of the world population. This means that people with disabilities are the largest minority in the world. This number will continue to grow as the population ages.

To better understand these statistics, here is what the U.S. Census Bureau defines as a disability: “a long-lasting sensory, physical, mental, or emotional condition or conditions, that make it difficult for a person to do functional or participatory activities such as seeing, hearing, walking, climbing stairs, learning, remembering, concentrating, dressing, bathing, going outside the home, or working at a job.” Those are pretty wide parameters. Think of all the people you know who might fit into this definition.

Eighty percent of the disabled live in a developing country and the majority of these countries treat the disabled as their most disadvantaged members. This means that disabled people have some of the worst access to resources and health care in countries that are already struggling to provide those things. It means that the disabled have the smallest and weakest public voice, making them the least able to change their situations for the better.

To give you a glimpse of how widely disability affects just Americans, think about this: thirty six million people with known disabilities reside in the United States. This equates to twelve percent of the U.S. population. This statistic does not include people who reside in an institution, are under the age of five or over the age of sixty-two. Six and a half million U.S. citizens are blind. Americans with hearing disabilities account for two and a half million of the population. There are approximately nineteen million people in America with mobility issues. Some of these people undoubtedly live near you, in some sort of group home, with their families, or semi-independently. In fact, the number of disabled individuals living in every neighborhood around the globe is growing. Clearly, disability has a broad impact.

Now look at this situation through the eyes of a Christian worldview. The 2013 Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism indicated that ninety percent of disabled individuals never attend a church service. Another way to look at this is that only five to ten percent of the disabled have been reached with the Gospel, or are effectively evangelized. Ninety percent of 650 million is 585 million unreached people. “If we were to place these … people together, they would comprise the world’s third largest nation.” That would be like having a nation larger than the United States with no Gospel presence or influence. Worse yet, according to the Lausanne Conference, this nation would have “the highest rates of homelessness, joblessness, divorce, abuse, and suicide.”

Anyone at any time may become disabled. This threat affects all people without discrimination. Disabilities are not limited to a particular ethnicity, gender or class of persons. What does all this mean about who makes up our church congregations? Where should our evangelism efforts go? Who ought we really be trying to impact with the Gospel?