To have an inclusive ministry with people living with disability is an important milestone towards the achievement of an ideal Christian community. An ideal community is one that closest to the example set by Jesus during his time and explained in his teaching. “And above all else love one another as I have loved you” was what Jesus taught his disciples concerning their relationships with one another. This ideal is achieved if all sections of the members and potential members of a Christian community are reached-out-to and made to feel accepted in the congregation.
Additionally inclusive ministry with disabled members of the society and the congregation must involve giving those people living with disability access to the same privileges as the able bodied members of the community. Churches and ministries therefore must transform their structure and make positions both in pastoral care and lay leadership accessible to disabled members of the church. Disability limits access to opportunities and amending this situation requires a church to transform it and put into place both affirmative actions and accessibility measures for the disabled. For instance staircases are a very impressive way to enter into a church and offer good photo shoot setting during weddings but for someone confined to wheel chair stairs are simply a barrier to accessing the church if alternatives are not offered.
Secondly, the pastoral leadership of any church or Christian community needs to embrace ways of improving the number of people living with disability in leadership and ministry positions within the congregation in their charge. Once the church has to deal with disabled members in its leadership, the entire community becomes more receptive to the other disabled members in their ranks. Physical barriers that limit access for the disabled to worship, recreational, pastoral, counseling and sanitary facilities of the church will be eliminated more readily when they confront one leader in the congregation than when they affect several lay members.
There is absence of disabled people in the congregational lives of most Christian communities. In cases where physically and mentally challenged individuals are present in the ministry they are mainly objects of ministry not as ministers and partners. There is a tendency in evangelical churches particularly, to associate disability with sin and curses. This belief is strengthened by superficial reading of the passages like Deuteronomy 28 in which disabling conditions are linked to disobedience. Such as passages however should be interpreted with understanding that the bible contains some cultural and social prejudices accidentally introduced into the bible by the authors who came from varied backgrounds.
Furthermore the bible contains more than adequate admonitions to the contrary. In book of Corinthians St. Paul responds to the congregation’s tendency to praise the strong, the capable and the strong. He admonishes them to that the brunt of Christ’s work was towards the redemption of those members of the society that had low status, unintelligent, downtrodden and weak. He taught that the heart of the Christian community should consist of those who are weak in the lord. St. Paul by preaching thus sets precedence for affirmative action in Christian communities.