In almost every church service I have been in (apart from the ones I have led), the congregation have been invariably asked to stand to sing, affirm their faith or say the liturgy. As someone for whom standing can be difficult, I think we need to explore why we do these things in our services, and how we can better enable people to worship God, whatever their physical abilities and limitations.
Firstly, I think that whatever words service leaders use to introduce the next part of a service, the focus should be on God and our relationship with Him. So, what are we doing when we sing, say a liturgy, hear the gospel, say the creed, listen to the intercessions or take communion? Name that as part of your introduction. Secondly, all of these things take place when “two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name” – i.e. they are all communal acts that we do together. Yes, we can sing to God or speak out a liturgy or prayers on our own, but in a service we are doing it as a community, we are doing it together. These two things are the most important things to emphasise as a service leader.
When we invite people to sing a hymn or song, we are inviting people to “worship God together in song”. When we say or sign the liturgy, we are worshipping God together through the words we say or listen to, the thoughts we sign or see. When churches ask people to stand to hear the gospel, this is to do with reverence and worship of Jesus Christ in our hearts as we hear the words written about his life, death and resurrection. When we say the creed we are affirming or declaring publicly the faith that we believe. When we listen to the intercessions (for which many now sit and some may kneel) we are bringing our requests to God, with thanksgiving, about the issues and things that concern us in our world and the lives of those we know and love, and are trusting that He has the power to intervene in those situations to change them in accordance with His will. None of these things, in usual circumstances, necessitate us changing our physical posture in order for our spiritual posture to be right before God.
At this point I want to affirm that we are all physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We are created as holistic beings. Therefore, our spiritual worship is physical, mental and emotional to a greater or lesser extent. By that I mean that our spiritual worship – praise or lament, reading and receiving Scripture, the celebration of the Eucharist, our prayers for ourselves and for others – all involve our physical bodies, our minds (whatever our assessed level of understanding) and our emotions. For each of us, whether we have a disability or not, the interaction of our physicality, our thoughts and emotions will vary, because whilst we are all created in the image of God, we are all created unique. This uniqueness also means that the way we engage with our physicality in worship will be different – depending on our level of movement, pain and function. But we will all engage in some way with the physical reality of our human bodies as we worship.
For someone who uses a wheelchair, this may well be that at the point of receiving communion it is important to them that they move/are moved from where they have been for most of the service to the table to receive – do not presume that if someone cannot walk they must want to receive communion in the place where they have been sitting.
Personally, I can stand for short periods of time and given very specific arrangements, I can kneel for very short periods too. Both of these are often important to me, and help me to draw close to God. The physical movement, for me, enables or signifies something spiritual, just as, for some people, tears enable or signify something spiritual, and, for many people it is essential that they understand in their minds as well as their hearts what they are doing spiritually. (All of these are true for me).
However, if I am in pain, am physically very tired or am struggling with my balance, or the time of sung worship is a long one and/or there is nothing in front of me to hold on to, standing to sing, and kneeling, can be a distraction or barrier for me in worship, and is also potentially a barrier for others around me. (If the person next to you, in front of you or leading the service looks like they are in agony or are about to topple over, that will be distracting for any compassionate person). This is why I sit to preach and sometimes to lead – it helps me and others to focus on what I am there to do. In those instances therefore, I use my physicality in other ways.
If I am in a lot of pain or very tired, I may just sit with those current circumstances, conscious of them and bring them before God, and then sit and listen to the songs being sung and words being spoken, joining in as I feel able. If I have just found myself in a seat where I can’t hold onto the pew/seat in front, I will sing wholeheartedly, raising my hands and possibly clapping, and for the gospel and the creed I will sit up straight, without leaning against the back of the chair. I prefer to kneel to receive communion- but if I can’t because there is no rail, the kneeler is too hard or too low etc., I will stand, so that I can focus on receiving the bread and wine.
For the same reasons, when I lead, I encourage people to take the posture that most enables them to engage in worship and meet with God at that moment. There doesn’t have to be a permanent reason why someone takes a particular posture, and the reasons don’t have to be physical either. Many with learning difficulties process messages from their senses in different ways – so some need to move around a lot, some need to stay still in a quiet space. People struggling with their mental health may find the task of a particular physical movement being required to be too overwhelming at the time. Someone with PoTS may have low blood pressure or sudden drops in blood pressure and need to remain lying down to be physically safe to worship.
Taking all these things together then, how might we lead a service in a way that enables them to meet with God? I will now address a few issues which people have raised with me when I have spoken about this in the past.
1. Some have said that if they don’t ask people to stand, people may wonder what they are meant to do. My suggestion would be to introduce the service by saying you won’t (generally) be asking people to assume a particular posture at particular moments and that they should stand, sit, kneel or lie down as is most enabling for them to meet with God, for that is what we gather to do. Saying this at the beginning will mean most people feel confident to do whatever is best for their worship, and hopefully any latecomers will pick that up too!
2. What about specific situations where the Spirit leads us to (e.g.) kneel or stand communally? People will of course differ in opinion on this, but for me, I think that in specific circumstances, where the above is the norm, if the service leader was to share with the congregation that they felt God asking the congregation (e.g.) to kneel in repentance or stand to declare or affirm something, i wouldn’t have an issue with it, and as the purpose of it had been explained, I would do the same if I was able and if not, I would do the next closest thing I could, trusting in God’s love and faithfulness that He knows my heart.
3. Some of the congregation may object… This is a difficult one to admit, especially for people who prefer to avoid conflict, but it is something that needs to be recognised, acknowledged/named and addressed. These kinds of attitudes do exist, and will mean that people, particularly those living with disabilities, will feel rejected and unwelcome. These attitudes need to be challenged. Whilst we are worshipping communally, we are unique and what we do with our bodies as we worship should not matter if it is not harming anyone or putting anyone at risk, it is as basic as that.
4. Our building is not accessible, we want it to be but we can’t raise the money to change it, and/or we don’t know where to start. This is a challenge for many church buildings, particularly listed ones or ones built on a hill, for example. The best place to start is to conduct a disability audit of your church building(s) – if you are part of a denomination, they will hopefully have resources and expertise available to help you. If you are an independent church, there are resources available online. Finances are another big challenge, especially as disability access is a statutory requirement and so grant providers rarely give grants for this work. However, if you can combine this work with other work to improve its heating system, layout for community purposes, facilities or flexibility, and accessibility is built into the design, you may well be able to get funding towards the wider project that can be used to improve accessibility as you go along.
Let us, as the body of Christ, commit to enabling everyone to engage in worship and encounter God, whatever their situation or circumstances.
Finally, we are all learning, please do not beat yourself up for a) not thinking about this before b) making mistakes or forgetting in the moment when you’re leading the service. What is important is the intention and the desire to keep learning and becoming more welcoming and enabling people to meet with God. I’ll let you into a secret… in my second service as a Reader I had to introduce the creed, and panicked- demanding that people “STAND to affirm their faith in the words of the creed”… yes, I have done it too!
repairerofwalls 