Belonging Over Pity: Love That Dignifies
Pity is easy. Belonging is costly.
Around the world, people with disabilities are too often pitied. They are seen as burdens to be carried or problems to be solved. Pity may soothe our conscience, but it does not restore dignity. It does not create a family.
The Gospel calls us to something far deeper: belonging.
Jesus made this clear in Luke 14, when He told the parable of the great banquet: “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind… and you will be blessed” (vv. 13–14). Belonging means not simply opening the doors of the Church, but recognizing that the Body of Christ is incomplete without people with disabilities at the table.
What True Belonging Looks Like
Belonging is more than being present. It means being seen, valued, and needed.
Research describes belonging as the convergence of being accepted, having meaningful roles, and contributing to community life. For Christians, this is not only a social good, it is discipleship, a way of becoming more like Jesus. Every person is created in God’s image, called to follow Jesus, and gifted for His mission.
Belonging also looks different in different contexts. For example, members of the Deaf community often experience the deepest belonging when they can worship in their own language, led by Deaf preachers, rather than sitting silently in a hearing service (DOOR International, 2025). True belonging does not always mean blending in, it means being known, valued, and included in ways that honor identity and dignity.
At Accessible Hope International, we recognize that belonging is not “one-size-fits-all.” It requires humility, listening, and relationship-building. We are committed to continual learning, seeking wisdom from those with lived experience, and growing in how we understand and practice belonging in each unique context.
Equipping the Church for Belonging
One of the ways we invest in belonging is through our training, including our Training of Trainers (TOTs) on our Theology of Disability. These trainings equip church leaders from around the world to cultivate communities where people with disabilities are not just served, but belong.
Leaders are introduced to a theology of disability, learn practical steps to make their congregations more accessible, and most importantly, they begin to see disability not as a ministry “issue,” but as a lens for understanding the Gospel itself. They leave equipped not just with knowledge, but with a call: to go back to their churches and declare, “We cannot be the Body of Christ without you.”
The 5 Stages: Moving From Pity to Belonging
Through our work, we’ve seen that attitudes toward disability often move in stages:
Ignorance – not knowing people with disabilities, or believing harmful myths.
Compassion – feeling sorry, but still keeping people at a distance.
Friendship – building genuine relationships and learning from each other.
Engage – integrating people with disabilities into the life of the church and community.
Co-Laborers – recognizing people with disabilities as equal partners in God’s mission.
Belonging is not a moment, it’s a journey. The Church must keep moving forward, repenting of pity, and pursuing the fullness of Christ’s vision for His Body.
The Church’s Call
Too often, churches mirror the world in treating people with disabilities as objects of charity rather than members of the family. But in Christ, “you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of his household” (Ephesians 2:19).
Belonging means pulling up a chair and saying, “We are not whole without you.” It means moving beyond ramps and programs to genuine friendship and shared discipleship. It means learning to receive, not just give, from people with disabilities, who bring irreplaceable gifts of faith, wisdom, and resilience.
What We Can Do
To move from pity to belonging, the Church must:
Listen first to people with disabilities about what belonging means to them.
Create space for leadership, teaching, and ministry led by people with disabilities.
Celebrate gifts instead of focusing on deficits.
Practice mutuality, recognizing that we all need each other to be whole.
Invest in equipping, ensuring pastors and leaders are trained to cultivate belonging.
Belonging as Witness
Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
Love that dignifies is not sentimental. It is not charity. It is the kind of love that sees, honors, and calls forth belonging.
When the Church embodies belonging, we give the world a glimpse of God’s Kingdom. One day, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, will stand before the throne” (Revelation 7:9). That vision includes people with disabilities, not as guests of pity but as beloved worshippers, leaders, and co-heirs in Christ.
This is the love that dignifies.
This is belonging.
Akiva, T., Li, J., & Cortina, K. S. (2023). School belonging: A review of correlates and interventions. Psychology in the Schools, 61(1), 64–80. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.22864
Carter, E. W. (2021). Incomplete without you: Research on disability, inclusion, and the church. Christian Scholar’s Review: A Journal for the Theology of Culture, 16(2), 21–38. https://bcdd.soe.baylor.edu/sites/g/files/ecbvkj1796/files/2024-11/incomplete_without_you.pdf
DOOR International. (2025). DOOR International. Retrieved August 25, 2025, from https://doorinternational.org/
McAnelly, S., Jones, L., & White, R. (2023). Fostering belonging for people with disabilities: Community and inclusion strategies. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Science, 4, 10606306. https://doi.org/10.3389/frhs.2023.10606306
