Don’t Disable Your Youth Ministry

Jul 1, 2023

Man smiling with glasses in a suit in front of books.

About Dr. Benjamin Connor

Dr. Benjamin T. Conner had been involved in youth ministry in some capacity for over twenty years before coming to Western.  He has served the Church in congregations and through Young Life staff.  

Dr. Conner has earned his Master of Divinity from Union Presbyterian Seminary (Virginia) and his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary in Mission, Ecumenics and History of Religions.  His teaching and research interests include practical theology, youth ministry, discipleship and Christian practices, mission studies, evangelism, disability studies and Christian history.  

His wife, Melissa, works in therapeutic horsemanship and together they have four children.  When he is not on campus Ben can be found playing with his family, in the weight room, or working with his wife at the barn.

By Dr. Benjamin Connor

Professor of Practical Theology & Director of the Center for Disability and Ministry

Marginalization in Youth Ministry

While issues of class, race, ethnicity, and economic marginalization are beginning to be addressed by theologies of youth ministry, youth ministers have largely been led by de-contextualized, universalizing, ableist, white, male-dominated, middle-class theology.

Consequently, it is not surprising that the lived experience of marginalization related to disability rarely enters the theological imagination of the youth minister. What makes the absence of disability concerns in youth ministry so odd is the prevalence of disability among young people in the United States. People with disabilities can be considered the largest minority group and, if abstracted as a group, includes a collection of people who can be found in every class, race, ethnicity, and economic circumstance. The fact that eighteen to twenty percent of the population has a disability and thirteen percent of U.S. children and youth in public schools receive special education suggests that a disability touches nearly every young person in the U.S.

The most common way that theologians and youth ministers have engaged people with disabilities has been by addressing the disability as a perceived individual deficiency and including the disabled person in an existing program. In youth ministry, people with disabilities have been made targets of mission and evangelism rather than considered co-participants in the Missio Dei. Or, they have been managed as objects in the form of “inclusion” rather than being understood as members of the body of Christ who fundamentally belong and whose contributions are essential for the flourishing of community.

Consequently, youth ministers and the theologians who support them have unwittingly perpetuated the ableist biases that are inherent in our youth ministry architecture (which includes theological frameworks and programming).

Their theology is never challenged; their programs are never reimagined from the perspective of disability. “I believe that the discipline of missiology could help youth ministers to engage disability in terms of gains to theology, mission, community, and ecclesiology rather than in terms of simple inclusion.” That is to say, through missiological categories, concepts, and practices, disability could be reconceived positively in the church in a way that renews and enriches youth ministry and the church.

Beyond the conceptual challenges, the presence of adolescents with disabilities in our youth groups can stimulate us to engage in a kind of contextual theologizing that has the potential to change the theological questions we ask together, open up new ways of interacting with each other, and expand our capacity to know and be known as adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

A Hopeless Dependence on Intellect

This challenges what practical theologian John Swinton calls our “hopeless dependence” on our intellect. Young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can help the congregation be more attuned to non-linear, intuitive, non-symbolic, or even non-agential ways of responding to proclamation and evangelism. They remind us that human personhood is a dynamic concept and that the individual call to discipleship requires participating in the ongoing redemptive mission of God in Christ as part of a community—we all have gifts and needs.

“Viewed this way, young people with disabilities are both an essential part of the diversity of the human experience, and their contribution, gifts, perspectives, and weaknesses are necessary if the church is to have a relevant witnessnm.”

Let me be more specific: What intellectual capacities, social skills, or physical abilities are required to bear witness to the Spirit? The power of our witness does not originate from within ourselves; we are what Lesslie Newbigin describes as a community that serves as sign, instrument, and foretaste of the reign of God.

In that community, the Holy Spirit is the guarantor of the pluriformity of Christian witness as the Spirit gifts the community with what it needs for upbuilding of the church and for announcing (in word and deed) the kingdom of God. That is to say, as Pentecostal theologian and disability scholar Amos Yong suggests, the many tongues of Pentecost issue in many forms of testimony—not simply in terms of language, but also in terms of ability. Against an inclusion model where an “us” has to include “them” in the ministry and witness of the church, Yong imagines that, “the outpouring of the Spirit unleashes many tongues and many senses—many different communicative modalities—to bear witness to and receive the witness of the wondrous works of God. All forms and all types of dis/abilities, then, would be possible conduits for the Spirit’s revelatory work.

As I have written elsewhere, the absence of adolescents with disabilities, the loss of their presence, concerns, and perspectives, diminishes the fitness of our witness. No one is so impaired that they can’t bear the witness of the Spirit, and no single person should be disabled from participating in the church’s witness. 

Center for Disability and Ministry

The Center for Disability and Ministry at Western Theological Seminary supports ministry leaders of all abilities in nurturing and receiving the gifts and contributions of persons with disabilities through formational opportunities, including theological education, consultation, forums, and publications.

Discover more resources and educational opportunities on the CDM website.

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