The Neighborhood Podcast
This is a podcast of Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina featuring guests from both inside the church and the surrounding community. Hosted by Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing, Head of Staff.
The Neighborhood Podcast
Embracing Neurodiversity in Worship
Panelists: Bill Hickling, Kim Murphy, and Ellen Bryant
Declining church attendance isn't just a statistic—it's a wake-up call. When Pastor Stephen challenged the Guilford Park Presbyterian congregation to address their shrinking, aging membership, they turned to research that revealed something remarkable: churches that thrive aren't just surviving, they're deliberately creating communities where all generations feel valued and empowered.
The Fuller Institute's "Growing Young" study identified congregations that defy nationwide trends by distributing leadership broadly, practicing genuine empathy toward young people, taking Jesus's message seriously in neighborhood outreach, and fostering authentic intergenerational relationships. But creating such communities requires rethinking who belongs in worship and how they experience it.
Enter neurodiversity—the recognition that human brains process and experience the world in wonderfully varied ways. For neurodivergent worshippers (those with autism, ADHD, or other neurological differences), traditional church services can feel overwhelming. Imagine your personal "bubble" shrinking as you enter crowded spaces with echoing acoustics, bright lights, and unspoken social expectations. What looks like fidgeting, wandering, or avoidance isn't disruptive behavior—it's an attempt to self-regulate in an overwhelming environment.
The panel shares powerful personal stories about navigating church as neurodivergent individuals or parents, offering practical suggestions for creating truly inclusive worship: designating quiet spaces, providing fidget tools, using visual cues for transitions, and most importantly, shifting our expectations. Growing churches don't ask neurodivergent members to conform to traditional worship styles—they adapt to welcome different ways of connecting with God.
As one panelist poignantly notes: "Neurodivergent children weren't missing from churches in previous generations—their entire families simply stayed home because worship was too difficult." By embracing neurodiversity, Guilford Park isn't just accommodating differences; they're recovering the full, vibrant body of Christ and creating worship where everyone can authentically encounter God's love.
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So we appreciate your interest and presence today. In 2023, pastor Stephen challenged Session to explore a topic that resonates throughout the world and affects most churches. As a congregation, guilford Park is shrinking in size and getting older. The logical outcome of this trend is a church that dwindles. In Matthew 5.13, jesus describes his followers as the salt of the earth, but continues that salt that's lost its taste, is no longer good for anything. So we read a book called Growing Young that was a culmination of a study done by the Fuller Institute. The surveys in the US show that, for youth who are active in church, 50% of them drift away from the church after high school. Percent of them drift away from the church after high school and two-thirds of that group leave church between ages 18 and 23. Self-described, religiously unaffiliated, that is none of the above rose from 14 percent to 31 percent in the early 2010s and that's continued. That's a nationwide and worldwide trend.
Speaker 1:Buller surveyed 363 congregations and identified 12 that personified growth in spirit and in numbers that countered nationwide trends. And these congregations were all were quite representative urban and rural, small and large, ethnically diverse and uniform, representing multiple denominations, and scattered throughout the country. The number of attitudes and behaviors that these congregations had in common were identified, and these are as follows Authority for leading the church was spread throughout the congregation, including young children by the young I mean children and emerging adults and empowering them. They exhibited empathy towards young people, stepping into their shoes, getting to know them as people, developing relationships, visualizing the world from their perspective. They took Jesus' message seriously in reaching out to the neighborhood to serve and learn. They fostered a warm community with authentic peer and intergenerational relationships. They developed creative ways to tangibly support, resource and involve the young in all facets of congregational life and they enabled the whole congregation to serve the neighborhood, local and beyond.
Speaker 1:Pastor Stevens' ministry is not focused on the need to grow numbers as much as to grow the congregation in spirit, vitality and faith. And if we are successful in these areas, it will be evident to those who visit. Growth will occur not only among young but among all ages and, more importantly, we will grow spiritually as a community. This leads to the question of how do we as a congregation respond to the information of this challenge? One area to explore is to determine how to make worship services more welcome to children and their families those of us who had children grow up in this church and other churches have many stories to tell concerning the response of our children to worship services. In general, we were stressed and anxious when they were young, in part because of our concern that our children's behavior might adversely affect adults surrounding them. As they aged, this became less problematic. As a congregation, we've evolved over the years to include children in leadership in all worship services, not just those where they had primary leadership roles. Our church is slowly becoming more diverse, as our children are.
Speaker 1:One group of the children are what we call neurodivergent children. What does this term mean? Children and adults who are neurodivergent have brains that process and experience the world in a different way from those who are neurotypical. This is not process and experience the world in a different way from those who are neurotypical. This is not a diagnosis, but it's more of a descriptive term that encompasses children and adults with a variety of neurologic conditions, including autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder with and without hyperactivity, tourette's syndrome and intellectual disability, to name a few. Neurodivergent people have unique strengths and challenges, such as different cognitive perception, sensory processing and social integration, and I'm hopeful later that we'll be able to define these terms, because for many of you, they may not be familiar. It's important for us to recognize and celebrate diversity of our brains and to include in all in our worship of our creator. It is important to shift our perspective away from defining this diversity as a deficit or a disability. Folks on this panel will have personal experience with children and adults who are neurodiverse.
Speaker 1:For 37 years I served this community as a child and adult neurologist and many of my patients had challenges such as those I have described. My goal was to help them and their parents cope and assimilate into school, social and home settings. But over time I learned from my parents and patients and their families that it was more important to figure out how these neuro, the neurotypical people who surrounded them, should change and should adapt to those people to help them assimilate. So turning it totally on its head. Not that they had to assimilate, but we had to assimilate to them if we were going to make it a successful thing.
Speaker 1:So I hope you understand that distinction. That's really important. In other words, we have a role to play in adapting to make all who worship here experience God's love. I was impacted personally when my grandson Jack was born nearly 15 years ago, which for some of you will just absolutely shake your head. How did time pass? I think it's safe to say that Jack taught me and my family the importance of adapting to him and his needs to facilitate his assimilation in our world, and my life is richer, more loving and more empathetic because of him. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Hello. So I will be speaking on my own neurodivergent experiences and that of those in my everyday life, so that we can kind of see how it looks like. What does neurodivergence look like in the? In the church we want all of the children to be included, though neurotypical and neurodivergent together, and we want to make sure that we are accommodating all of the adult members in the church as well. We want everybody included. So that's why we're saying we want to support the children, because I believe that the young children, the very little children, have the same sensory difficulties and needs as the neurodivergent children do.
Speaker 2:And here at Guilford Park we are very fortunate to have a lot of kids at our church and several of them are neurodivergent and several of them are neurotypical. So we all know what the word typical means. Right, it's the norm, it's the average, it's what the majority is. So we think. But what does neurodiversity mean? So we think. But what does neurodiversity mean? Well, as Bill said, neurodiversity is the different variations in which their brains work, whereas neurotypical is more of a typical functioning, the way that most people's brains work. So it's just a different variation. Being neurodivergent does not mean lower intelligence, especially for those who do not speak, believe it or not, they have very high intelligence, they understand and they hear you, and they hear you when you speak to the parents instead of them. So I think that's important to know, because a lot of people think they just they don't know, you know, we think that they can't talk. They're not, you know, but they, they are very intelligent.
Speaker 2:So, let's see, there are not all of our neurodivergence traits are in this church, but some of the common ones that you'll see is ADHD, which is attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder. You'll see ASD, known as autism spectrum disorder. Dyslexia is one that you might not see, but it's here, it's here, and Tourette's syndrome as well. So these are all types of neurodiversity that we have in the church. And then there are other little parts of neurodiversity, that kind of tag along with some of those people as well. But what do you think that neurodiversity looks? Kind of tag along with some of those people as well. But what do you think that neurodiversity looks like in the church? Well, I would say that it looks like anxiety, communication difficulties, it looks like processing delays, socializing can be very hard and, let's remember, neurodiversity is the way that people process and experience the world. This is the way that our children are processing and experiencing church. So let's dive into anxiety, because I realize these things may be silent or invisible until they build up. So let's see.
Speaker 2:So anxiety, anxiety could be completely invisible as it builds up you're going to start to see some symptoms or traits that go along with anxiety. You might see fidgeting, pacing, you'll see I'll use my son as an example. You've all probably seen him coming through the halls with helicopter arms. That's what we call this. You might see him walking around like this. These are all ways for him to self-regulate, and anxiety could be excitement. It could be happy anxiety, or it could be, you know, pressure. I'm not yeah. It could be, yeah, hiding. It could be Poppy hiding in her sweater, exactly, which, if you all know Poppy, she definitely fits into this category and I am the adult version of Poppy, no we are not exactly alike, but as I watch her grow and see her struggles, I realize this is what I went through as a child.
Speaker 2:So we like two peas in a pot. But yes, all of these things are the result of anxiety. They are trying so hard to self-regulate so that they can participate in the activities that everyone else does. And so let me explain what this might feel like, because I realize neurotypical people. First off, you don't come with the narrator, which is very strange to me. Do you know what the narrator is? It's that voice in your head that never turns off, and there's ten conversations going on at one time, all the time, and so there's a narrator. So that adds to anxiety. Right, we come in and let's say you know, we all have a bubble and for the neurotypical, your bubble stays pretty comfortable, no matter where you are. I would assume I'm not neurotypical, but in my home setting or in my comfortable spaces in my car, wherever, my bubble might be very big and relaxed.
Speaker 2:Let's think about when we walk into church. It's in the mornings, it's getting ready to start, everybody's in the entryway talking. It's a great atmosphere. The bubble's going to shrink a little bit more, it's going to get tighter. And then let's think about going into the fellowship hall to have a gathering. Maybe we're going to crack eggs over our head for Easter. There's going to be a ton of people in here In the sanctuary. The same situation. We we're going to crack eggs over our head for Easter. There's going to be a ton of people in here in the sanctuary. The same situation we're all going up for communion. Let's stop for a second and think about these rooms. Look at how high the ceilings are, how big these rooms are. They're going to sound different, they're going to smell different and there's going to be a lot of people. So that bubble is going to keep getting smaller and smaller.
Speaker 2:So you see that child like this and we see our teens looking down. They don't want to communicate. Their bubble is getting small, even with the teens. They might be neurotypical and they're still kind of shying away. It's okay to talk to them, it's okay to ask them how their day is, what's going on in school, it's okay if they're not able to answer and it's okay to repeat the question if you think that they didn't hear you or didn't comprehend.
Speaker 2:But here's another little part of neurodiversity diversity. My son, charlie, again has something called PDA, which is pathological demand avoidance. This means if you ask him a direct question, he is going to boycott and he is going to immediately I don't know, I can't, I don't know, I don't know. Or he might say, eh, I'm on the fence because he's learning about those kinds of things, but he may not answer your questions. So these are things that neurodiverse people might go through. They might not be able to answer direct questions, and that's okay. That's okay.
Speaker 2:Our goal is not to take offense to that. They may not be able to make eye contact. Our goal is not to take offense to that. They may not be able to make eye contact. Please don't let this bother you. Some people cannot make eye contact. Some people cannot make facial contact.
Speaker 2:I am one that does not make eye contact. If we are this far away, I can look at your eyes, but the closer you are to me, I promise I'm only focused on what color lipstick you're wearing and how gorgeous it looks on you. I am not hearing a thing you are saying. But yeah, and this is what it's like to be neurodivergent, and this is what it's like for our children and for our children who have not yet learned coping skills and masking skills to fit in with our world and I say our world because, even though I'm neurodivergent, I've learned those skills in my lifetime. Now it's time for me to help nurture our children, and they are part of our church family, so you can imagine how it might feel to feel like your world is getting very tight, your bubble is getting very tight, and so we want to make them feel welcome and comfortable and we want to accommodate them. But we also want to make sure that you know everyone is comfortable and accommodated, not just the children.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about executive functioning difficulties. A lot of people probably don't even know what that is, so it could cause problems planning, and I think this is where we would see our older children, our teens and youth, our high school youth, maybe even even our adults. These traits don't ever go away. We might learn to adapt and overcome, to mask and to cope, but trust me, when there is a group of people and we're being given a job and directions um and I'm over here thinking there's so many people in here I wonder if I know all these people, what am I going to get from the grocery store later? This is ADHD at its finest and they're giving directions and I'm doing my best to block those things out and to hear the directions. I promise you I might not get it. I might be the first one to screw up. That's our kids.
Speaker 2:So if you know someone's neurodivergent, it's okay to go back to them after the directions. Do you guys know what we're doing? I just want to make sure everybody has the right directions and that we know what we're doing, because I kind of confused myself. Whatever you make it into. I for one and someone who appreciates knowing, for someone coming to me and saying where my directions clear, that's an opening for me to say you know, I didn't understand this part. There was a little noise and I didn't catch it. Our kids are not going to say that, so it's okay to go back and confirm that we know what we're doing and that they know as well. So I just wanted to real quick because I know we're running out of time.
Speaker 2:The children in our village are going to need to learn coping skills as they experience church in their own way. This means it's okay if they make noise in church because we can teach them to whisper. It's okay if they are walking up and down the aisles. They want to see the slides, they may want to sit closer or just be able to see. They might be curious about anything up there. It's okay. It is okay because we want them to have their connection with God as well. And I don't know who wrote this I think it was written by AI but I love it, so I put it here and it's wonderful. While the Bible doesn't explicitly use the term neurotypical or neurodiversity, it emphasizes the inherent worth of unique gifts of all individuals, suggesting that God values diversity and sees value in those who may think and function differently. Thank you.
Speaker 3:My mind is racing like hers because I have so many things on my side. I want to say where'd all these neurodivergent kids come from? We didn't have those when I was growing up, did you no? Well, guess what? They were there, they just stayed home with their mom and dad or their grandma, and that whole family didn't come to church. They may have been members, but they didn't come anymore because it's too hard. And we are identifying more children with neurodiversity now than we ever have before because we're more aware and I used to work a lot with children with autism spectrum disorder and we had a lot of debates.
Speaker 1:Are there more kids with autism?
Speaker 3:Are we just identifying earlier? And it's both and the same with neurodiversity. We're finding adults that are finding. Oh yeah, I've had that my whole life and no one ever knew. It was just so hard for me everywhere I went. So it's not new, it's just something that we are more aware of. The other thing I wanted to mention is that Ash Wednesday, stephen talked about our intentions and our actions and the in-between place. If our intentions and our actions match up, we have integrity, and if our intentions and our actions don't match up, we have the valley of cognitive dissonance. I'm listening, I'm listening. I love phrases. We have the valley of cognitive dissonance. I'm listening, I'm listening.
Speaker 3:I love phrases like that Valley of cognitive dissonance. Well, guys, we have an intention of welcoming everyone. We want to match it up with our actions because we want to have integrity in our worship of God. I googled, search everything. Jimmy can attest to this. So I googled what are churches doing to welcome neurodivergent folks? You can google it too, and churches are doing a lot of things. We're not the only church that's discussed this. Google it too, and churches are doing a lot of things. We're not the only church that's discussed this. They are providing a quiet place to be available as needed. They are providing fidget toys or other items that might be helpful to some children or adults. They are avoiding singling out or calling attention to individuals who demonstrate different behaviors, Whether they are identified as neurodivergent or autistic, or whether they're just a four-year-old who hadn't figured it out yet. We don't need to be pointing or giving the evil eye to that parent or that child. Churches are educating their congregations duh about neurodiversity and acceptance.
Speaker 3:Churches are offering a variety of ways to participate in worship and flexibility in that participation. Churches are clarifying expectations and unspoken rules. Some churches are using visual or picture cues or prompts at different times of the service to remind folks of the sequence of activities or the expectations. To remind folks of the sequence of activities or the expectations. Sometimes it's just as simple as a rug and when you're on that rug you don't talk, you know. But if you're over here in this area it's okay to talk a little bit or during a particular time in the worship service we're very quiet. But at other times we can be a little noisier. But visual cues to help children remember that might be easier than this is a quiet time. Churches are welcoming the use of personal items that families have found that help, such as fidget toys or sensory blankets or noise-canceling headphones. Churches are becoming more aware that lighting, noise levels, smells, vibration, hums which you or I might not even notice, might be overwhelming to some.
Speaker 3:So churches are doing a lot, not just this church, but Guilford Park Presbyterian Church. We will learn, we will educate ourselves, we will ask questions, we will try to understand something that we can't truly understand. We will accept and we will welcome and we will be open and flexible and we'll be mindful of our intentions and our plans. We have a few plans in place, just a jumping off place, just a start. At this time we are providing and looking for ways to provide quiet places for self-regulation. For example, the library is going to be a quiet place during worship hour. It's a quiet place to go to and we will plan for the exit and re-entry of a person who may need a break by leaving the doors open at the back of the sanctuary, on the AV side, so that door is just going to stay open, so that if people need to leave, they don't have to worry about how creaky and loud I am opening and closing the door and then, when they're ready to come back or just stand in that opening, it's okay. We're also considering having a quiet space up near the front of the sanctuary, a place that would be closer to what's going on. We haven't got it all worked out, but we're thinking about it.
Speaker 3:We're looking to you for input. So that's what we've done. We've given you all some information, some ideas to ponder, and we want to hear from you. What are your questions, what are your concerns and ideas? What do you think might work? What do you see as barriers to accommodating the needs of neurodiverse children and adults? What does worship look like? What is worship supposed to look like?
Speaker 3:I grew up in the sit and be quiet and if you don't, your grandparents walk you. I mean, my grandpa had a bush where we could get switches if we needed to and we sat and we were quiet. That was all you did during church. But if you go to worship, in some places there's people with their arms up yelling and singing hallelujah. So worship for you might look different than worship for me or what is normal for worship. I spent a week at a conference one time where everybody said amen in the middle of the worship time Worship, you know, all through the services everybody was amen. Tell it to a sister like that. Got back to my regular church in Renner-Crapidge you know we are the frozen chosen. Preacher said something I liked and I said Amen and I said, oh sorry, I was at a Joyce Meyer conference.
Speaker 2:We don't say that a lot in our church.
Speaker 3:But it's not wrong. It's just what we're used to, so we want you to think about what? Should worship look like? What does inclusive worship look like, where every child and every adult feels comfortable? Because we ought want to? We don't want to exclude anyone from God's family, so that's all I've got, thank you.