William Rogers is the vicar at St Matthew’s in Fulham and is an ambassador for Neurodiversity in Sport. In this article William reflects on the journey he and St Matthew’s have been on towards creating a neuro-inclusive community of faith.
Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’
My wife and I have just celebrated 25 years of marriage and to celebrate we spent a few days away. As we reflected on 25 years of marriage, there was much to give thanks for. By God’s grace we had navigated the joys and challenges of so much. We have (nearly) worked out what makes each other tick, what we enjoy doing together (eating) and what we enjoy doing apart (shopping and watching sport!). And just as we were congratulating ourselves, we remembered our attempts at parenting and we were immediately humbled! If there is a gap in the market on how to consistently get things wrong, we will fill it!
We have three children, two of whom have nearly flown the nest, and I am so grateful to my grandpa who once told me that our children grow up despite our best efforts! All three have blessed us and challenged us (not always equally!) and that blessing and challenge has been particularly seen in our youngest daughter who is neurodivergent (she has ADHD, is autistic and dyslexic). In ways that we could not have imagined God has used her to help transform us into the image of his Son and that has been mirrored in our Church as he has blessed us with an ever-growing neurodivergent Church family.
As parents we have spent many years helping our daughter’s schools to make reasonable adjustments ….and yet, if I’m honest, we had done very little to allow the neurodivergent children in our Church family to come to Jesus without hindrance. And then one Sunday, a wise and generous Junior Church leader asked whether I could help with some training because although the leaders wanted to find ways to help our amazing neurodivergent children, they were struggling to do so. One or two conversations later and 12 of our adults involved in teaching our children were sitting in front of Mark Arnold from Urban Saints. And although those words from Jesus in Matthew 19 have been instrumental in helping us start to work out how we help those who are neurodivergent, we have been blessed with so much more because for the first time we are really beginning to understand what it means to celebrate each one of us made in his image.
We have some amazing volunteers and during one particularly ‘energetic’ Sunday, one volunteer (who was leaving to train for ordination) whilst simultaneously breaking up a fight, picking up a toy that had been thrown (at the vicar!) and leading the actions for an all-age song, was asked ‘I bet you won’t miss this, will you?’ He replied, ‘You’re joking!? This is the thing that I will miss the most!’
We are not perfect and there is much still to be done but we have made small advances. we rarely use or hear deficit language when thinking about our wonderfully neurodivergent Church family; we continually check each aspect of the service to make sure that we have considered the needs of the whole Church family (who knew that moving images behind words on the screen would be a distraction!); we seek to involve everyone; we use permission-giving language and we seek to lean in rather than step back.
Like lots of Churches in London we have a regular flow of visitors and first-timers and one of the things that is nearly always said is how much they enjoyed the presence of energetic children (that’s code for neurodivergent children by the way!).
I’m so grateful to the many Christian experts in this field and am especially grateful to Urban Saints. If I could recommend one resource, please read the Grove Booklet by Mark Arnold – How to Include Autistic Children and Young People in Church.
I guess our prayer is that neuro-inclusive practice will be the norm in our Church because when it is, we will be more like the Church that Jesus wants us to be so that (and to misquote my grandpa) WE will grow despite our best efforts!