The pastor led church leaders through a tour of the historic building, hoping to demonstrate how Disabling Leadership can shape truly inclusive worship spaces for people with disabilities. While the group admired the early twentieth-century architecture and shared stories of God’s guidance, one woman remained silent. The pastor had assured her the building was wheelchair accessible, but those hopes were dashed the moment she realized she could not operate the wheelchair lift on her own. As the tour progressed, a sense of despair crept in; narrow doorways, steep downstairs hallways, and a lack of accessible restrooms made her feel entirely unseen.
She wondered how the pastor could have believed this environment would be welcoming to people with disabilities. Hurt and anger welled up within her, and though she prayed to remain composed, her guard crumbled when the tour reached the sanctuary. As she steered toward the back, the pastor asked for her opinion on the designated wheelchair seating—a section where several pews had been removed. Overwhelmed by the sight, she could no longer bury her frustration. Unable to engage in a fruitful conversation at that moment, she explained that they would have to discuss the matter another time.
A few days later, the two siblings in Christ met to discuss the importance of working as a unified team. She invited the pastor back into the sanctuary to illustrate her concerns regarding segregated seating. She explained that being relegated to a specific disability section felt like being forced to sit at the back of the bus. While the pastor acknowledged her concerns, he argued that there were distinct differences between Jim Crow segregation and a lack of accessibility, citing the significant financial outlay required for full renovations. She countered firmly, noting that financial excuses had also been used historically to justify and maintain racial segregation.
She had his attention. She explained that the hurt she was experiencing was because she knew he cared about disability issues and yet still didn’t get it. She had been a part of the young congregation for several years and yet she had not been consulted about accessibility before the church had settled on a permanent building. In the space they had previously rented, the congregation had used movable chairs for worship, which had allowed her to choose where and with whom she sat. She explained that removing a few pews was insufficient because it took options away from people with disabilities. It meant that if people with disabilities desired to sit beside able-bodied family or friends, they could not. Additionally, it forced all people with certain mobility limitations into a separate area. She moved to the front of the sanctuary and demonstrated that if she wanted to be closer to the pulpit, there was nowhere for her to sit.
This interchange happened between Jody and Andrew, two of the authors of this book. Along with Andrea, we worship together in a local congregation committed to a ministry of reconciliation.
The leadership of our church is passionate about justice. Yet some of us had missed the ways in which our physical space was enacting an ecclesial disruption—the ways in which the priorities we communicated in our building layout also communicated the limitations of our beliefs about inclusion. We had made sure that the old building that was new to us had a wheelchair lift. But we had not thought much further. Nor had we considered whether the wheelchair lift was user friendly. This inability to fully consider disability stemmed from the reality that, at that time, people with physical disabilities were not in leadership. Leaders caring about people with disabilities is not the same as people with disabilities leading.
We open this book on disability and leadership with this brief story to demonstrate that, while church leaders will not always get it right, being the church means being committed to listening, learning, and working to better embody the diversity of Christ’s body. We will utilize stories throughout the book, including revisiting this one, to show that reconciliation is a work in progress. “Getting it right” means sometimes first “getting it wrong” while learning and growing from our mistakes. Confession of sin and spiritual disciplines aimed at growth have always been core components of Christian faithfulness. As we experiment with how to live more fully in the diversity of Christ’s body, we confess when we fall short and we engage in practices to help us grow.
This book is a practical theology of leading for the body of Christ. It is “practical” in that it is meant to be lived. It is “theological” in that it is rooted in Christian doctrine, Scripture, and ethics. As a discipline, practical theology “is dedicated to enabling the faithful performance of the gospel and to exploring and taking seriously the complex dynamics of the human encounter with God (John Swinton and Harriet Mowat, Practical Theology and Qualitative Research).” Practical theology recognizes that faith is always necessarily performed and enacted. Practical theology is not best understood as putting belief into practice, but as the mutually articulating relationship of divine life and human life. As John Swinton and Harriet Mowat explain: “Human experience is a ‘place’ where the gospel is grounded, embodied, interpreted, and lived out.”
Practical theology reflects on the practices of the church as they interact with the practices of the world. This interaction is oriented toward “ensuring and enabling faithful participation in God’s redemptive practices in, to and for the world (Practical Theology).” A practical theology of disability and leading will articulate faithful Christian practice that is open to, and receptive of, God’s manifold wisdom revealed in the world, in human bodies and minds, and in communities of people, especially congregations. This book is a practical theology born out of the relationships, joys, and struggles of working toward reconciliation between people of diverse abilities. Its lessons are grounded in a particular worshiping community, but it is written for the broader body of Christ, including local churches in many different contexts. It is also written in a posture of reception to the many positive aspects of the work of inclusion in society, thereby describing this work in a theological register.
People with disabilities are often excluded from full participation in church communities in both explicit and implicit ways. Similarly, people with disabilities are often excluded from full access to many places and many systems in society. Increasing accessibility is a key component of the ministry of reconciliation, both for the sake of the church and the sake of the world. And yet, as we will see, increasing accessibility is only the beginning of considering the implications of disability for the body of Christ. Reconciliation is costly work that requires concrete action. Yet action without a deep understanding of what it means to be human and what Christian leading entails is both insufficient and harmful. This is where practical theology is a helpful guide.
In this book, we will contend that local churches must be communities in which people with disabilities lead. If people with disabilities and their advocates are not at the leadership table, then the decisions that are made will exclude and hurt people, whether intentionally or not. Disability perspectives will not be heard, the gifts and experiences of people with disabilities will not benefit the church, the implications of church practices on people with disabilities will not be considered, and ministries aimed at inclusion will be paternalistic. This will result in a truncated vision of what it means to be the church for the world (Jennifer M. McBride, The Church for the World).
People with disabilities leading in the church is a matter of experiencing the whole body of Christ. It is not a matter of including a few folks with disabilities as tokens. We are taking the radical step of claiming, with the apostle Paul, that if all the body parts are not present and honored, then the body of Christ is not present (1 Corinthians 12:14‑25). The church is the one group in society that is necessarily constituted by the diversity of its members, especially those deemed by society as weaker, less productive, or more disposable. More than any other community, the church is recognized by the ways people who are marginalized, especially people with disabilities, are included and honored in her midst. In a homily on Matthew 25, early church father John Chrysostom noted that the way Christ desires to be honored is through the adorning of the marginalized members of his body before the adorning of the sanctuary (Saint John Chrysostom, Homily on the Gospel of Matthew).
The authors of this book worship and lead together in a local church. We are writing from the center of our shared experiences, from our life together. We will include stories and examples where appropriate. Each of us has engaged in study, education, and vocation driven by our experiences with disability and inclusion. In other words, our personal experiences along with our academic study and vocations inform one another and in turn inform and are informed by our shared life together. We are not claiming to have all the answers but that the interchange of our work, studies, and experiences positions us to speak a word to the church regarding disability and leadership. If this book motivates faith communities to dream together about how they can increase access and inclusion on the path toward reconciliation and justice, we will have met our mark.
Taken from Disabling Leadership by Andrew T. Draper, Jody Michele, and Andrea Mae. Copyright (c) 2023 by Andrew Thomas Draper, Jody Michele Courtney, and Andrea Mae. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com
