Christians are united in Christ, not in sameness. The uniqueness of each person is part of God’s gift to the church as we all contribute to and benefit from the gift of Christian community.
One of the difficulties for Neurodivergent Christians at church (especially children and adolescents) is a lack of understanding by the remainder of the neurotypical congregation about who these people are and why some of their behaviours seem odd to them. I should know... I have AS (Asperger's Syndrome) and suffer comments and isolation from time to time... as I appear to them to be 'different'. Comments such as "He's a nice guy, very smart but a bit of an oddball". I see the same attitude about some adolescents in the youth group who have Autism. The answer of course is... EDUCATION. Whether that education is espoused from the pulpit, within ministries such as Growth Groups, or in parish newsletters; it needs to be expressed... so the whole congregation can embrace each other as a family with love, tolerance and understanding.
Yes, I completely agree. Education and advocacy is key. And just as you said, it needs to be coming from many places and in many forms, neurodivergent people and their families shouldn’t be the only ones advocating, this concerns the whole church, wouldn’t it be great to have lots of people speaking about it! Thank you for your comment 🙂
Wow, yes. You're so right. We stopped going to church when we couldn't sit for 5 minutes in a service without being called out to the nursery either or our ADD child or ASD child. This was before we knew either of them had a "problem".
Since then I have been thinking and writing about the problem of unity, and again, you're absolutely right about our unity being in Christ, but any metric that we measure by a neurotypical standard, neurodivergent Christians will struggle in. It's the same for setting our standard by a male pastor in his 40s, people just won't know how to be a "good" Christian and think that only neurotypical married men in their 40s are godly! The issue rests as much in the form in which Christian community takes place as much as the culture in which it takes place. As a result, too much effort is put into making our services "handicap accessible," so that us neurotypical Christians won't be disturbed in our worship like we were--had worship taken another form perhaps our children would have been beside us rather than being in the nursery--had it taken another more fluid form we likely would have felt loved and seen and stayed.
Thank you for your comments. Yes, many congregations sadly have a long way to go 😞 It can completely exclude so many people, thank you for sharing your experience. Sometimes churches can forget the beautiful biblical picture of community and get caught up in “how it’s always been done” - perhaps things will change!
Hi Kate, I’m really enjoying working my way through your Substack - thanks for all the work you’re putting into this, so beneficial to the whole body! I think this article is so practically helpful, and wondering if you’re planning on delving further into how we can care well for neurodiverse kids within our kids church programs? I think we have particular challenges in kids church - eg often run by volunteers with limited experience, may be a rotating roster of leaders, runs for only one hour a week once a week so hard to create routine/consistency, often wide range of ages, sub-optimal spaces etc. What are things we could do to help provide an environment where all our kids are effectively taught God’s word and develop a love for Him and His church? Probably a longer answer to this one - but would love to see an article on it if you don’t already have one in the works!
One of the difficulties for Neurodivergent Christians at church (especially children and adolescents) is a lack of understanding by the remainder of the neurotypical congregation about who these people are and why some of their behaviours seem odd to them. I should know... I have AS (Asperger's Syndrome) and suffer comments and isolation from time to time... as I appear to them to be 'different'. Comments such as "He's a nice guy, very smart but a bit of an oddball". I see the same attitude about some adolescents in the youth group who have Autism. The answer of course is... EDUCATION. Whether that education is espoused from the pulpit, within ministries such as Growth Groups, or in parish newsletters; it needs to be expressed... so the whole congregation can embrace each other as a family with love, tolerance and understanding.
Yes, I completely agree. Education and advocacy is key. And just as you said, it needs to be coming from many places and in many forms, neurodivergent people and their families shouldn’t be the only ones advocating, this concerns the whole church, wouldn’t it be great to have lots of people speaking about it! Thank you for your comment 🙂
Wow, yes. You're so right. We stopped going to church when we couldn't sit for 5 minutes in a service without being called out to the nursery either or our ADD child or ASD child. This was before we knew either of them had a "problem".
Since then I have been thinking and writing about the problem of unity, and again, you're absolutely right about our unity being in Christ, but any metric that we measure by a neurotypical standard, neurodivergent Christians will struggle in. It's the same for setting our standard by a male pastor in his 40s, people just won't know how to be a "good" Christian and think that only neurotypical married men in their 40s are godly! The issue rests as much in the form in which Christian community takes place as much as the culture in which it takes place. As a result, too much effort is put into making our services "handicap accessible," so that us neurotypical Christians won't be disturbed in our worship like we were--had worship taken another form perhaps our children would have been beside us rather than being in the nursery--had it taken another more fluid form we likely would have felt loved and seen and stayed.
Thank you for your comments. Yes, many congregations sadly have a long way to go 😞 It can completely exclude so many people, thank you for sharing your experience. Sometimes churches can forget the beautiful biblical picture of community and get caught up in “how it’s always been done” - perhaps things will change!
Hi Kate, I’m really enjoying working my way through your Substack - thanks for all the work you’re putting into this, so beneficial to the whole body! I think this article is so practically helpful, and wondering if you’re planning on delving further into how we can care well for neurodiverse kids within our kids church programs? I think we have particular challenges in kids church - eg often run by volunteers with limited experience, may be a rotating roster of leaders, runs for only one hour a week once a week so hard to create routine/consistency, often wide range of ages, sub-optimal spaces etc. What are things we could do to help provide an environment where all our kids are effectively taught God’s word and develop a love for Him and His church? Probably a longer answer to this one - but would love to see an article on it if you don’t already have one in the works!