If you are rowing a boat, you need to know your destination. Otherwise, you can row with all your might and you will still not get to the right place. You will only get exhausted.

“In the same way, for the journey of disability inclusion, we need to have a destination,” said Rev Leow Wen Pin.

“The destination is this: Our definition of a disability inclusive church.”

At the inaugural Special Needs Ministry Conference, Rev Leow Wen Pin shared insights into making the Church inclusive for all worshippers.

Rev Leow was speaking at the Special Needs Ministry Conference 2025. The one-day event was jointly organised by the Board of Family Life under the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC) of The Methodist Church in Singapore (MCS), Koinonia Inclusion Network (KIN) and the Methodist School of Music to inspire and equip church leaders, lay people and those interested in exploring disability inclusion in the church.

Rev Leow, a pastor-theologian who is the Associate Pastor of Bethany Evangelical Free Church, is the founder and board chairman of KIN, a mission organisation that enables churches to include and disciple people with special needs.

Some 420 attended the inaugural conference.

Rev Leow describes The ABCs of Inclusion as: A for Accessibility, B for Belonging and C for Contribution.

What is a disability inclusive church?

“A disability inclusive church is one where Christians with and without special needs enable each other to flourish as disciples and disciple-makers,” said Rev Leow.

The first part of the definition states that everyone must be disciple and disciple-maker.

The focus then is inclusion. In the first part of Rev Leow’s keynote address, he talked about disability inclusion as “part of the Great Commission to make disciples of all peoples”, including those with disabilities.

The second part is about “Christians with special needs giving to Christians without special needs, and Christians without special needs giving to Christians with special needs”.

“Inclusion is about mutuality. It goes both ways – giving and receiving.”

Roadmap to inclusion: A for accessibility

Rev Leow shared the framework for disability inclusion developed by KIN to help churches, which they call The ABCs of Inclusion: A for Accessibility, B for Belonging and C for Contribution.

1. Accessible infrastructure

First, churches must create access for people with special needs so that they have equal access to physical areas, ministry programmes and communities within the churches.

“If people with special needs cannot even be physically present with us, then there’s very little they can do to participate in our churches,” said Rev Leow.

Churches who want to make their venues more accessible can refer to Enabling Hearts by KIN which includes a chapter on “Building Churches that are Accessible for All” written by lawyer, former Nominated Member of Parliament and disability advocate Chia Yong Yong. 

2. Accessible information

Apart from infrastructure, accessibility should also be cognitive. 

“Many churches present spirituality in a way that can sometimes be very cognitively heavy. Sometimes we do this unconsciously and this manifests itself in the little things that we do,” said Rev Leow.

He raised the example of many churches using the English Standard Version of the Bible as their default version. The ESV requires a Secondary Four level of English, he said, which may present an obstacle to those with intellectual disability. He suggested using the Easy English Bible instead as it is designed for those in Primary Three.  

How information is presented on the slides projected can create yet another barrier. A more visual, easy-to-read format will be more cognitively accessible to those with intellectual disabilities.

3. Accessible processes

“Consider the process of ushering people into the sanctuary,” said Rev Leow.

“Where should ushers invite wheelchair users to go? If they would like to sit with their friends and family in the rest of the sanctuary, can they do so?

Special Needs Ministry Conference 2025 drew leaders, lay people and those interested in disability inclusion in the church.

“Should we set aside spaces for them at the back of the sanctuary, like many churches do? What happens when the whole congregation is asked to stand? Can the wheelchair user still see the lyrics of the worship songs?

“Remember, access is about giving equal access relative to other members of the church. We don’t want to tell people with special needs that they are second-class citizens in the church.”

In Rev Leow’s church, when a wheelchair user joins the service, which happens weekly, ushers invite the person to decide where they would like to sit, taking the time to explain the pros and cons of the different positions.

Over time, if they come often enough, the space they choose becomes theirs.

“This is what I mean by process accessibility. It takes careful thought. It takes careful understanding.”

Sharing a conversation he had with a lead pastor of a church, Rev Leow recounted that the pastor promised that he would arrange for sign language interpreters for his church services once there are deaf people in the service because it would be “very strange” to do so when there are no deaf people.

“Immediately after saying this, he suddenly stopped and thought about what he had just said. Then he laughed and said, ‘Wait a minute, why would deaf people come to my church if I didn’t interpret the message in the first place?’

“That was the start of a very productive discussion with him that led his church to become much more disability inclusive. Accessibility is a choice that churches have to proactively make. If you don’t, you have already implicitly decided to exclude people with special needs.”

Roadmap to inclusion: B for belonging

Having access without creating a sense of belonging in the community is like being invited to a party where you know very few people, said Rev Leow.

He went on to talk about Dr Eric Carter’s research on 10 Dimensions of Belonging. Dr Carter is the Luther Swee Endowed Chair in Disabilities at Baylor University and the Executive Director of the Baylor Center on Developmental Disabilities.

“The 10 dimensions are to be present, to be invited, welcomed, known, accepted, supported, cared for, befriended, needed and loved.

“I want to use my experience working with churches in Singapore to highlight those dimensions that our churches in Singapore find more challenging.”

Most churches that try to be disability inclusive are good at ensuring that people with special needs are present, invited and welcomed. Those with pastoral care ministries are also good at supporting and caring for people with special needs.

The struggle is with helping them feel known, accepted, befriended and loved, which is essentially helping them develop spiritual friendships.

“When I ask parents of children with special needs, ‘What is your biggest hope for your child when you have passed?’, what they tell me is, ‘I want someone to love my child as much as I do.’

“We can only properly love people with special needs when we know them, accept them and befriend them,” said Rev Leow.

Instead of focusing solely on programmes, ministries need to facilitate deeper spiritual friendships. One church assigned a fixed trained volunteer to persons with special needs to be their befriender, who then visits and goes out with his or her partner to form a lasting friendship.

Roadmap to inclusion: C for contribution

The dimension of being needed is critical. It helps those with special needs develop a greater sense of belonging. That is why churches need to give those with special needs the opportunity to contribute.

“This ensures that we do not fall back into a charity mindset. It enables them to flourish as disciples and disciple-makers because service is part and parcel of discipleship.”

Churches must then get out of “rigid ministry boxes” that define service only in terms of teaching, worship or leading a Bible study class.

Rev Leow shared how KIN organised a session for disability ministry leaders and volunteers where the panel discussion was led by people on the autism spectrum to “give a very visible reminder” that people with special needs can contribute.

But it is only through spiritual friendship that they can be known and helped to contribute, serve and flourish.

“Unlike typical individuals, their gifts are often unconventional and hard to spot. You need to know them well to be able to look past their disability, to see into their heart.

“For example, I have a friend with special needs who is a superb prayer warrior. He prays for me and my ministry daily. I don’t even pray for him daily!

“I have two other friends with special needs who have the gift of encouragement. There were two very low points in my life when I was struggling with the dark night of the soul. In both instances, it was the two of them who knew exactly what to say, exactly what to do to pull me out of it.”

All this takes time and perseverance.

“There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all model of ministry. It depends on your context, your convictions and your combination.

“Whatever kind of church we have, what we must do regardless is to keep our eyes on our destination of what a disability inclusive church is about, and focus on our God-given mission to make disciples of all peoples, including people with special needs.

“When we do, each step that we take, no matter how small, will bring us closer to God’s vision for His people.”

RELATED STORIES:

How do we enable differently abled persons to be full participants in the community of faith?

Helping children with special needs find their place in the world

Reflecting our disability-inclusive God: How can the body of Christ love those with special needs?