For the Rev. Dr. Michelle Junkin, a recent guest on the “Around the Table” podcast, welcoming neurodiverse children to worship and helping families to feel like they belong in church “is learning how your church can walk alongside and unlock a world of sensory-friendly support within your own ministry.”
Junkin, pastor of spiritual formation at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Oklahoma City and the co-director of Big Faith Resources, was hosted on “Around the Table” by the Rev. Michelle Thomas-Bush, associate pastor for youth and their families at Myers Park Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Rev. Cliff Haddox, pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio. Listen to their 44-minute conversation here.
Big Faith Resources began in the fall of 2024 after receiving a $1.2 million grant to empower churches to support neurodiverse children and their families with innovative resources for worship and Christian education. It’s based at Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Ordained in 2001, Junkin said she recalls language around families having “a child who is different,” whom we would now say fits under the umbrella of neurodiversity. She also noted diagnostic tools are now more refined: In 2001, 1 in 150 children were diagnosed with autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By 2024, it was one child in 36.
Along with better diagnostic tools, “what changed is the awareness,” she told Haddox and Thomas-Bush. Neurodiversity is not a medical term but “a term used to describe the natural variation in brain function and development. Think about the biodiversity that’s all around us in the world,” she said. “We don’t often think about it, but that same variation exists within our brains. Neurodiversity is a term that came out of advocacy that’s used to describe all those natural variations in brain function development. It’s a way we now understand that people learn differently that they think differently and they process information differently.”
The input and data coming in is filtered and processed differently, and it’s “a unique perspective” for each neurodivergent person. “Part of understanding neurodiversity is knowing not that the way a child or congregation member is processing sensory cues is wrong; it’s not wrong,” she said. “They just process differently. Part of the awareness of neurodiversity is helping to understand these are not deficits, but that someone’s body is part of God’s wide variety. They’re still in God’s image. There’s not just one normal way for a brain to function.”
Junkin advises congregations take baby steps to become more inclusive. “One of the first things is awareness,” she said. “That starts to shift the way we look at our Sunday school classes and the way we offer worship.” Churches can offer people headphones that reduce noise overload, which “make sounds in a noisy environment feel more comfortable to children,” she said.
At Westminster Presbyterian Church, “anything that we offer that is sensory friendly is open to all. All children can decide to be in our sensory room or not; it’s not punitive,” she said. “Some neurotypical children might start off there, and we say, ‘OK, it’s time to start our lesson.’ Some kids just stay behind” to take in that lesson in the sensory space.
“Instead of saying ‘you have to comply,’ what sensory-friendly can do is offer a lot of grace, to let parents and children, your Christian educator and pastor, have conversations to move in faith formation and say, ‘here are the resources we have,’” Junkin said.
That also allows teachers to tell parents, “‘today your child really loved the sensory room. They really came to life. Did you see that?’” she said. “We ask parents, ‘is that what you need now? If that changes, let’s be in conversation about when you want your son not to be spending so much time in the sensory-friendly room or how can we bring a teacher into that room so they’re still getting the Bible lessons and stories.’”
That’s not child care, Junkin explained.
“There is a time and place for child care and nursery care in churches,” she said. “But when it’s Christian faith formation time, we’re really trying to find ways to have those tools at church and at home.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
V. George Waters, Ministry Relations Officer, Development Office, The Presbyterian Foundation
Donyale White, Accounting Clerk, Accounts Payable Office, Administrative Services Group
Let us pray:
God, we look to you this day and ask that the Holy Spirit would move in our lives, our neighborhoods, our churches and our cities to make us one. Amen.
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