Silent No More

In a previous post, I explained what autism is and isn’t, as well as listing some helpful ways the to think about it biblically. In this post, I’m going a bit more practical. My desire is to see the church not just welcome autistic people, but fully embrace and serve them — and serve with them. Many people don’t know what to do when it comes to people who are different than they are. In fact, we don’t even know how to act around autistic people. My experience has been that ignorance and fear can often lead to inaction.  I’ve found that many people find help in understanding, so bear with me while I explain three ways you can better understand autistic people. 

What Do Autistic People Have in Common?

 First, ASD causes sensory issues. This is often presented as being either sensory-seeking or sensory-avoidant. Both of my kids fall into both categories – one is sensory-seeking, one is sensory avoidant. 

Sensory seekers crave sensory input, often resulting in overstimulation and emotional meltdowns. Their brains crave sensations such as pressure, spinning, pain, and scratching. For example, my younger son Gideon loves touch. You can often find him crawling into my lap and touching my hands, arms, and face, and asking for big hugs. He frequently leans against people’s legs with his body, even involving strangers in public. He has a swing in his room that spins around in circles, giving him the sensory input he craves, and he enjoys rolling around on the ground. If he doesn’t receive this type of sensory input every couple of hours, it inevitably leads to frustration, which takes the form of tantrums and banging his head on hard surfaces. My challenge is to not only remember to give sensory input to him multiple times a day, but to also teach him how to seek these things in appropriate ways. For a sensory seeking autistic individual in the church, this won’t be as much of a problem as someone who is sensory avoidant. In the church culture, hugging and shaking hands, and even friendly pats on the back are part of normal church culture – so these types of autistic people often “fit in” better in the church. 

But what about the sensory-avoidant person who can’t tolerate sensory input? They avoid touching, hugging, shaking hands, loud noises, and bright lights. Even sensory seekers can get too much sensory input and it can lead to similar reactions to input as avoiders: feelings of being overwhelmed, which leads to flapping hands, clapping their hands over their ears, turning in circles, and a host of other “socially odd” behaviors. (This is commonly called Sensory Processing Disorder, which doesn’t just affect ASD people but is common among the autistic.) The trick is knowing which specific triggers there are for each specific autistic individual. But more on that later. A church whose culture is affectionate and warm will understandably find it challenging to embrace and integrate someone who is sensory-avoidant.  

If you’re still with me, thank you.  This is the hard work of learning to understand and love autistic people. Your willingness to keep reading is a sign of God’s heart in you!

A second common thread is repetitive behavior or speech, or both. Repetitive behavior is called stimming. A lot of times it presents as hand-flapping – the most common – but isn’t limited to that. I know someone whose repetitive behavior includes patting a toothbrush against his fingers and twirling it around in his hands. My son Gideon makes a tunnel with his hands and pats his fingers against each other at the tips, or sometimes interlocking his fingers again and again. He also bounces on his toes. My son Silas has double jointed knuckles in his fingers and constantly moves them back in forth in a jerking manner. 

Stimming isn’t only limited to repetition of the body, however. Speech is also included. Gideon repeats the same phrases over and over. “I saw a yellow car.” And he will repeat this fifty times or more. I told you in the last post about Silas’s fixation on sports statistics.  (Thankfully, sports is a shared passion in our family so he impresses his aunts, uncles and grandparents with this obsession.)  He will quote the figures and numbers multiple times, often the same ones over and over. ASD adults may talk to you about a topic, walk away, then approach you five minutes later about the same topic. 

The third common pattern with autistic people is speech and language issues or delays. There is a social and neurological component to this. However, it presents in ways I’ve already mentioned, as well as in difficulty answering w-h questions (why, where, what, who), difficulty telling stories, or difficulty comprehending sarcasm, illustrations, or really any type of speech that isn’t literal.  

Sensory input, stimming, and speech repetition are ways ASD people are commonly alike (verses different) and lastly, they experience social awkwardness and anxiety. This of course has broad implications in church settings. For example, autistic people tend to experience large-group anxiety, have trouble with eye contact, lack the ability to start or end conversations, and have fears related to maintaining conversation topics they aren’t familiar with.  Imagine how “different” they feel when they’re surrounded by people who do all these things (either naturally or through mentoring or discipleship)?

Why am I belaboring all this? I think some implications are clear: church can be a scary place for someone on the spectrum. However, some self-confident autistic people may simply not understand or know that they are breaking social cues. Either way, the impetus is on the neurotypical person to help the autistic person with patience and understanding. After all, it is neurotypical people who have created the societal norm. Perhaps we could think of it as a “weaker brother” situation (see Romans 14). Whatever the case, here are some examples of situations within a church setting that can be difficult for autistic individuals.

1. Forced greetings. Often, the pastor will instruct the congregation to stand and turn to greet the person next to them, or even “go find someone you don’t know and introduce yourself.” This can be confusing and scary for a person on the spectrum. Not only does it involve talking to strangers, it can often involve physical touch, such as a hug or handshake. 
2. Worship. This one is self-explanatory – loud music, flashing lights, clapping, or fog machines (depending on the church you go to), sitting or standing multiple times – this can all be confusing and overstimulating. 
3. Lighting. Flicking on and off the lights for the sermon or worship, bright overheads, and projector screens can all lead to overwhelming stimuli. 
4. Sermon illustrations. Autistic individuals take speech literally, so euphemisms, stories, and sarcasm or humor can be confusing. 
5. Children’s ministry/Sunday School factors.  (I will address this in the next post.) 

The fact of the matter is churches cater to the neurotypical. This isn’t necessarily a problem. However, if autistic individuals are not thought about at all, they and their parents can feel isolated, anxious, and unwanted. Not because anyone wants them (us!) to feel this way, but because simple sensitivities haven’t been considered. Because adaption is already so difficult, most autism families end up avoiding church all-together. 

How Can the Church Help?

So, what are some solutions? These are just ideas, and are easily incorporated into the church setting. 

1. Provide noise cancelling headphones and sunglasses. This helps to dull some of the overwhelming stimuli such as loud worship and bright lights.  Even if autism families have these items and bring them, having a few available sends a loud message to ASD families:  We thought of you.
2. Have a sensory room available. This could include a separate room that has a live feed of the sermon and worship; a room where lights can be dimmed and volume can be controlled. This also allows for social anxiety to be lessened, and provides refuge and rest when social interactions become too overwhelming. This means the autistic person has the choice of when and how they re-enter into the social environment. It communicates love and understanding, but at the same time communicates that we want them here with us, to interact at their comfort level. 
3. Don’t force greetings or handshakes/hugs. If I had my way, forced greetings during the service would just stop. Perhaps instead of the pastor having everyone greet each other or find someone new to meet, it could be a suggestion instead of a directive. “After the service, find someone you’ve never met and say hi!” This leaves it open-ended, and allows the autistic individual to be sought out instead of being the one directed to do the seeking. 
4. Train and educate the staff and greeters of the church about autism. This could include teaching the greeters how to spot and identify people who are on the spectrum and training on how to approach them: not making ignored handshakes awkward, not making sarcastic comments about someone’s lack of affection or eye contact (yes, this happens, trust me). Most of it is ignorance, and even having one professional come in and do an hour training session can clear up a lot of these issues. 
5. Organize a buddy system. I’ll go into more about this in the next post, but having trained people in your church to buddy with someone on the spectrum to help them through the service is incredibly helpful. This would be for ASD children and adults. For adults, it could be someone who guides them through worship (helping them find a good spot that is comfortable sensory-wise), introducing them to new people and coaching them through conversations to make it less awkward, befriending them, and helping them with difficult sermon illustrations or comments. 
6. Reach out to the experienced.  There are churches, perhaps one in your area, that have intentionally developed Special Needs Ministries. Most often, these ministries are initiated by parents of special needs children.  Fortunately, my pastor is also my dad and while he has a genuine heart for ministry to the weak and disenfranchised, he needed my help to educate him about Special Needs Ministry, and that’s a way I can serve my church and begin to see our church become a safe and welcoming place for other families. Call them and ask to speak with whoever is in charge to learn from their experience and research.  (If you’re interested, here is a quick read on why churches aren’t the safest place for special needs families:  https://churchleaders.com/children/childrens-ministry-articles/157214-sam_luce_7_reasons_why_churches_fail_special_needs_kids.html

So far, I’ve only touched on the various ways your church can serve those with autism. I haven’t mentioned the countless ways that having autistic people in your midst is not only helpful, but necessary. Maybe I’ll add a part 4 to this series! However, one thing to always keep in mind is that every autistic person is different. Their needs will be different, their personalities will be different, their desires will be different. This type of intentionality takes a desire and ability to get to know them and their needs that goes beyond just patience or understanding. It takes friendship, relationship, commitment. Isn’t that what we want? A church that is authentic and real? Jesus came for the lowly, the weak, the disenfranchised. If we isolate a certain segment of the population and make an already difficult situation – church – even more difficult for someone with ASD, we are neglecting an important part of the gospel. 

I think you will be surprised. We have just as much, if not more, of an opportunity to learn from an autistic person than we have to teach them. That’s the backwards nature of the gospel message, and the part that brings freedom. It’s the unfiltered, raw beauty of looking at the world differently, and seeing the amazing diversity that those with ASD can bring.