As I noted briefly a few weeks ago, the church has a neurodiversity problem which it needs to address.  Those of us who are neurodivergent in one way or another face challenges both in corporate worship and in the discipleship programs of the church, but the typical congregation is unaware or dismissive of these challenges.   If you or your children have ADD, or are on the autism spectrum, or deal with dyslexia, or have other neurological/neurochemical processing issues that make you different from neurotypical folks, you’re most likely on your own.  What works for “everyone else” ought to work for you, and it’s up to you to make it work.

Part of the issue is that neurotypical people do not understand what it is to be neurodiverse—and usually don’t see any need to.  Neurodivergent conditions are defined from the outside by neurotypical people, and they are defined symptomatically.  Put another way, these conditions (and thus, by extension, those who have them) are defined as collections of behaviors which neurotypical people see as problems that need to be fixed.  In some cases, they are defined morally and condemned as willful misbehavior by people who refuse to believe the condition actually exists.Read more→