https://church4everychild.org/2016/02/09/what-are-the-stats-on-disability-and-church/
So, real talk here (as if I do any other kind). I go to church every Sunday. This is in part because I believe and want to learn, in part because I like the music, and in part because I am very much a creature of habit. Growing up, I went to church every Sunday with my family. Religiously, if you will.
This tendency seems to put me in the minority of autistic people, which I'm disappointed to hear, because the church can be an excellent place to make connections, learn how to be a better person, and feel more a part of a community. The caveat here, of course, is that the church has to be proactively inclusive for best results, and many churches... simply... aren't inclusive.
Maybe it's that the kids in children's church simply don't know what to do with a kid that won't stop talking, or doesn't speak at all. Maybe the pastor is hilariously tone-deaf to the reality of getting special needs kids to sit still at the dinner table. Or maybe it's just that people in the congregation just... don't approach you at the passing of the peace, or before and after the service.
This isn't necessarily targeted hostility, or even purposeful exclusion. It can be simply that these people don't know what to do with a special needs child or adult, and so, for fear of doing something wrong, simply stay away. Or relegate the person to the corner.
The thing is, parents with special needs kids, and in fact, special needs people, are pretty sensitive to being rejected and being avoided (which is a form of rejection, by the way). In many cases, we're literally so used to it that it's all we expect from anyone. (That does not make it hurt any less to have it confirmed, by the way...)
Reading this article makes me think about my own church, which I have attended for about a decade now. And, I'm sorry to say, of the five qualities given for a disability-inclusive faith community, I can only personally say my church has the last one, the strong orientation toward promoting social justice. Perhaps the parents in the congregation who're raising special needs kids could give a more positive analysis, because they've actually reached out for help, and I... haven't.
As far as I know, our leadership (as a whole) isn't specifically committed to inclusion, the church has no ties to disability organizations that I'm aware of, and while I did attend an educational workshop on making church a friendlier place for special needs people, it was literally years ago now, and I haven't heard any more on the subject. I'm not even sure they adopted some of the simpler recommendations the speaker gave.
For my personal experience with the church, I've only had to make a stink about my disability and reasonable accommodations once, and it was in extraordinary circumstances... but at this point, four months later, it still kind of makes me slightly angry to think about, so I'm probably going to remember it that it happened forever.
Mostly, the church has simply been non-inclusive by the vice of ignorance. Workshops have happened on equal rights for LGBTQ+ people, on race relations (anti-racism), on various cultural developments... but because the needs of people with disabilities are so wide and different, it's kind of difficult to make a neat little box of things to teach all your leaders, and then bring to the congregation proper.
This isn't just a lack at the church I currently attend, by the way. In my almost 30 years of life, I've attended at least 7 churches regularly, and visited at least 50 more while church-hunting. Pretty much all of them had this same problem. It's not that they didn't care, it's that they literally didn't know what to do with special needs people. And weren't proactive about deciding it was important to learn.
Another bullet point in the article I'd like to underline: "Parents indicated that special needs inclusion and participation in faith communities was easier when children were young and became more difficult as [the children aged]." This is probably a factor in why a lot of autistic adults don't care for church and organized religion. As we stop being little and cute and easy to manage with distraction, people stop having as much patience for our quirks and start getting nervous and anxious about us.
I spent... I want to say at least 7 years, at my church, regularly attending. I did not meet anyone at the church in that time. I did answer a call for volunteers, which is how I learned to run a sound board, and have continued to do that. But it's like peoples' eyes just... slid right past me. If they didn't already know me, they didn't approach me. Recently, I've been joining in one of the Bible studies at church, and that has netted me some acquaintances that genuinely care about my existence. Some of them will now say hello to me and ask after how I'm doing. That Bible study is in limbo right now, though, because the leader suffered some health complications and wasn't sure, last I checked, whether they were going to run the study this year.
The last bullet point I'd like to add to is, "Fatigue was a common parental characteristic cited as preventing inclusion of a child at church." It's very fair and understandable that parents of special needs kids are going to be chronically low energy and chronically tired. I'm not disputing that.
What it's missing is that the special needs kids and adults are also going to tend toward chronic low-energy and fatigue. It is very tiring to be among dozens to hundreds of people that don't understand you. Some instruments (looking at you, piccolo, and you, loudest freaking hand drum player in the whole state) are simply intolerable after a time. Sometimes the sermons are hilariously tone deaf from our perspective, and assume you can just... go out to a fancy restaurant to treat yourself. Because the one thing lots of disabled people (and families with special needs kids) have lots of is money (/sarcasm).
I think churches can do better. My own church definitely can, anyway. Whether they will, is another question entirely... so I guess maybe it's time to email the minister of congregational life again, to see if he's heard anything about the committee that was supposed to be forming for disability inclusion...
So, real talk here (as if I do any other kind). I go to church every Sunday. This is in part because I believe and want to learn, in part because I like the music, and in part because I am very much a creature of habit. Growing up, I went to church every Sunday with my family. Religiously, if you will.
This tendency seems to put me in the minority of autistic people, which I'm disappointed to hear, because the church can be an excellent place to make connections, learn how to be a better person, and feel more a part of a community. The caveat here, of course, is that the church has to be proactively inclusive for best results, and many churches... simply... aren't inclusive.
Maybe it's that the kids in children's church simply don't know what to do with a kid that won't stop talking, or doesn't speak at all. Maybe the pastor is hilariously tone-deaf to the reality of getting special needs kids to sit still at the dinner table. Or maybe it's just that people in the congregation just... don't approach you at the passing of the peace, or before and after the service.
This isn't necessarily targeted hostility, or even purposeful exclusion. It can be simply that these people don't know what to do with a special needs child or adult, and so, for fear of doing something wrong, simply stay away. Or relegate the person to the corner.
The thing is, parents with special needs kids, and in fact, special needs people, are pretty sensitive to being rejected and being avoided (which is a form of rejection, by the way). In many cases, we're literally so used to it that it's all we expect from anyone. (That does not make it hurt any less to have it confirmed, by the way...)
Reading this article makes me think about my own church, which I have attended for about a decade now. And, I'm sorry to say, of the five qualities given for a disability-inclusive faith community, I can only personally say my church has the last one, the strong orientation toward promoting social justice. Perhaps the parents in the congregation who're raising special needs kids could give a more positive analysis, because they've actually reached out for help, and I... haven't.
As far as I know, our leadership (as a whole) isn't specifically committed to inclusion, the church has no ties to disability organizations that I'm aware of, and while I did attend an educational workshop on making church a friendlier place for special needs people, it was literally years ago now, and I haven't heard any more on the subject. I'm not even sure they adopted some of the simpler recommendations the speaker gave.
For my personal experience with the church, I've only had to make a stink about my disability and reasonable accommodations once, and it was in extraordinary circumstances... but at this point, four months later, it still kind of makes me slightly angry to think about, so I'm probably going to remember it that it happened forever.
Mostly, the church has simply been non-inclusive by the vice of ignorance. Workshops have happened on equal rights for LGBTQ+ people, on race relations (anti-racism), on various cultural developments... but because the needs of people with disabilities are so wide and different, it's kind of difficult to make a neat little box of things to teach all your leaders, and then bring to the congregation proper.
This isn't just a lack at the church I currently attend, by the way. In my almost 30 years of life, I've attended at least 7 churches regularly, and visited at least 50 more while church-hunting. Pretty much all of them had this same problem. It's not that they didn't care, it's that they literally didn't know what to do with special needs people. And weren't proactive about deciding it was important to learn.
Another bullet point in the article I'd like to underline: "Parents indicated that special needs inclusion and participation in faith communities was easier when children were young and became more difficult as [the children aged]." This is probably a factor in why a lot of autistic adults don't care for church and organized religion. As we stop being little and cute and easy to manage with distraction, people stop having as much patience for our quirks and start getting nervous and anxious about us.
I spent... I want to say at least 7 years, at my church, regularly attending. I did not meet anyone at the church in that time. I did answer a call for volunteers, which is how I learned to run a sound board, and have continued to do that. But it's like peoples' eyes just... slid right past me. If they didn't already know me, they didn't approach me. Recently, I've been joining in one of the Bible studies at church, and that has netted me some acquaintances that genuinely care about my existence. Some of them will now say hello to me and ask after how I'm doing. That Bible study is in limbo right now, though, because the leader suffered some health complications and wasn't sure, last I checked, whether they were going to run the study this year.
The last bullet point I'd like to add to is, "Fatigue was a common parental characteristic cited as preventing inclusion of a child at church." It's very fair and understandable that parents of special needs kids are going to be chronically low energy and chronically tired. I'm not disputing that.
What it's missing is that the special needs kids and adults are also going to tend toward chronic low-energy and fatigue. It is very tiring to be among dozens to hundreds of people that don't understand you. Some instruments (looking at you, piccolo, and you, loudest freaking hand drum player in the whole state) are simply intolerable after a time. Sometimes the sermons are hilariously tone deaf from our perspective, and assume you can just... go out to a fancy restaurant to treat yourself. Because the one thing lots of disabled people (and families with special needs kids) have lots of is money (/sarcasm).
I think churches can do better. My own church definitely can, anyway. Whether they will, is another question entirely... so I guess maybe it's time to email the minister of congregational life again, to see if he's heard anything about the committee that was supposed to be forming for disability inclusion...
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