Melanie Hodges gets us to think about those who can’t get to services
When your church gathers for worship each Sunday, are you aware of your invisible members?
Meet Sue: a vibrant Christian Yorkshire lass living in London, a prayer warrior. Sue suffers from a rare form of spina bifida, which causes severe pain. Although able to walk, she can’t sit, stand or walk for any length of time without exacerbating her pain, so she spends most of her time lying down.
I met Sue 19 years ago and she has been a marvellous, supportive friend ever since. Back then, she attended several Christian meetings per week, bringing a portable sun bed to lie on. Over the years, her condition deteriorated to the extent that she was only able to attend a fortnightly morning life group. Eventually that too became unfeasible. Without regular access to fellowship, teaching, communion and corporate prayer, Sue soon felt isolated and no longer part of the church.
Who’s missing
As you walk in to church and look around to see who’s there, do you ever pause to think about who’s missing? Roughly 15 million people in the UK live with chronic illness – 14% of the under-40s and 58% of the over-60s*. So in a congregation of 100, there are likely to be at least 25 living with long-term health conditions. Of these, a handful may be prevented from accessing ‘church’ at all. These are the invisible Christians, slipping through the net of church programmes tailored for the healthy and able. Are there invisible Christians in your congregation? How is your church ministering to them?
Our life group now meets in Sue’s home. She receives recordings of the Sunday teaching on CD and also the weekly notice sheet. She in turn supports others by prayer and often sends notes or texts of encouragement. If we had done nothing to address the challenge when Sue became unable to attend church, not only would she have suffered, but also the whole church would have missed out on her ministry to us.
There are still challenges – how do we help Sue to feel that she’s an integral and valued member of the church family when she hasn’t been able to attend a service for several years? How do we keep her up to date, not only with events but with people, especially newcomers? How do we support her when she’s going through a particularly low patch?
Busy just surviving
People with chronic illness or pain may not be proactive themselves about solving these problems as they don’t want to ‘make a fuss’ and they are too busy just surviving.
They need an advocate – someone to come alongside and find out their needs; someone to look at the church’s ministries from their point of view and speak up for them; someone to think creatively about how to integrate them into the church family – not only to nurture them, but also to enable them to discover and exercise their gifts, thus blessing others.
How to include them
Solutions will vary from church to church. Last year we ran a mini-series in the morning service highlighting members of the church who aren’t currently able to attend, showing their photos and relaying interviews with them. With modern technology, it’s more possible than ever to involve those who can’t actually attend meetings due to health issues.
Take a moment to think about how you would feel if you were unable to attend any Christian meetings? How would you maintain and deepen your walk with God? How would you have fellowship? How would you utilise your talents?
Useful resource
Thankfully, online help is at hand – ‘Rest Ministries’ (restministries.com) is an American online forum providing articles, a chat room, daily devotionals, a Facebook Bible study, a shop and even a YouTube channel – all for the encouragement and support of Christians living with invisible illness or pain.
Are there invisible members of your church? Does someone on the pastoral team have responsibility to act as advocate for them? If not, could you speak for them or pray for someone to fill this role? And could you publicise Rest Ministries so that the word gets out to those who need it?
*kingsfund.org.uk
