Inaccessible to the People They're Trying to Reach

There are two Christian ministries I know of for people with chronic illness. One is called Diamonds. The other is Broken and Mended. Both exist to serve people whose bodies don’t cooperate on schedule. Both have built their offerings around the assumption that bodies cooperate on schedule.

I want to be clear: I believe the people behind these ministries mean well. I believe they genuinely want to help. But meaning well and doing well are not the same thing, and the gap between them is measured in the people who can’t participate.

Diamonds #

Diamonds is a ministry for women with chronic illness. They run conferences, produce content, and recently launched a content library — a site where members can access courses, groups, and resources.

The main Diamonds website is well-built. Proper heading levels, easy to navigate, clean WordPress structure. Someone clearly put thought into making it accessible. But the content library — the platform where the actual community happens — is a different story. It’s a third-party platform, and it’s nearly unusable with a screen reader.

The content library is almost entirely video-based. When you open a lesson, a video starts playing automatically. The course thumbnails are all labeled “Product Poster Image” — no descriptions, no alt text. There are no headings anywhere on the page, which means a screen reader user can’t navigate by section. The navigation is a horizontal carousel with “Scroll categories left” and “Scroll categories right” buttons, which is terrible for keyboard navigation. Raw code leaks into the interface: “widget.noSharedFiles” appears where a list of shared files should be.

I’m blind. I use a screen reader. This site is nearly unusable for me.

The conferences are also video-based, often live. If you want a recording, you either have to pay for it or use a site that isn’t fully accessible. To their credit, Diamonds does offer scholarships so the cost isn’t a barrier for everyone. But a scholarship doesn’t make an inaccessible platform accessible. It doesn’t add alt text to images or headings to pages. It doesn’t make a video-based library usable for someone who can’t see.

So the content created for women with chronic illness — women who may be in bed, in pain, on medications that affect cognition, using assistive technology — is delivered through a platform that assumes you can see, you can sit through video, you can attend live, and you can navigate a site that wasn’t tested with a screen reader. The main website proves they know how to build something accessible. The content library proves they didn’t check whether the platform they chose for their community was accessible before they committed to it.

Broken and Mended #

Broken and Mended runs an annual conference. It’s free and virtual, which is genuinely better than what a lot of ministries offer. But it’s still an eight-hour live YouTube broadcast from 10 AM to 6 PM Central.

They also run support groups — online groups for people with chronic pain and illness. These are video meetings, held at a specific time each week. There’s no asynchronous option. No text-based alternative. No way to participate if you can’t be on camera at the scheduled hour.

For someone with Non-24 sleep-wake disorder, chronic fatigue, or unpredictable symptoms, a fixed weekly time slot isn’t accessibility. Neither is an eight-hour live window. They’re both lotteries. If your body cooperates that day, you get to participate. If it doesn’t — if you’re in a flare, if you slept through the morning, if you can’t sit up for eight hours, if you can’t be on video — you don’t.

There’s no recording posted afterward. No transcript. No way to engage with the content on your own time, at your own pace, in the way your body allows. The conference is free, and the support groups are free, but only if you can show up.

The Pattern #

This isn’t about two specific ministries. It’s about a pattern that runs through Christian disability ministry as a whole.

The pattern is this: a ministry identifies a group of people who are suffering. They build something to serve them. And then they deliver it through a format that assumes the suffering won’t interfere with participation.

Live events assume you can be somewhere at a specific time. Video content assumes you can see. Paywalls assume you have disposable income. Inaccessible websites assume you don’t use assistive technology. Eight-hour broadcasts assume you have eight hours of functional body in a row.

Every one of those assumptions excludes someone. And the people being excluded are the exact people the ministry exists to serve.

It’s Not Hard to Fix #

This is the part that frustrates me most. None of this is technically difficult to solve.

Record the sessions. Post them somewhere accessible. Make them available asynchronously. Don’t charge for the recording — or if you must, offer a free text transcript. Use a platform that supports proper heading structure and alt text. Test your site with a screen reader. Ask disabled people what they need before you build.

These are not expensive fixes. They’re not technically complex. They’re choices. And right now, both Diamonds and Broken and Mended are choosing formats that exclude the people they say they want to reach.

Why It Matters #

I’m a Christian with multiple chronic illnesses. I’m blind. I have Non-24 sleep-wake disorder, which means my sleep cycle doesn’t align with the clock. I have executive dysfunction, chronic fatigue, and a body that doesn’t cooperate on schedule. I am exactly the kind of person these ministries say they’re for.

And I can’t use them.

That’s not just disappointing. It’s a theological problem. If the body of Christ can’t make its ministries accessible to the members of the body who need them most, what are we saying about who belongs? What are we saying about whose participation matters?

The church already has a complicated relationship with disability. Too often, disabled people are treated as objects of ministry rather than participants in it. We’re prayed over, not listened to. We’re served, not consulted. And when ministries for disabled people are built without disabled people in the room, the result is exactly what you’d expect: something that looks like help from the outside and feels like exclusion from the inside.

What I Want #

I want these ministries to exist. I want them to thrive. The need is real, and the people behind them clearly care.

But I want them to do the work. Ask disabled people what they need. Test your platforms with screen readers. Offer asynchronous options. Make your content accessible to the people you’re trying to reach. Don’t just mean well. Do well.

Because right now, there are Christians with chronic illness who are isolated, suffering, and looking for community. And the ministries built to serve them are locked behind doors they can’t open.