Thinking of Starting a Neurodiversity Church
This sounds like a great idea, as long as the teachings are going to be completely true to the Bible.
As a child, I think that I would have benefited from something like this. I knew that God loves me, and I saw this through my mother who inspired me to ask Jesus into my heart. However, I understood very little about God's word, and I have recently had an awakening that made me realize how clueless I still am.
The parables were something that I took literally as a child. If there was a way that we could make them more understandable to autistic people, that would be great. Perhaps one-on-one; however, it is important for the parables to still be used. (English Standard Version) "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." (Matthew 13:13)
I also struggled with finding verses in the Bible for many years, and I still do. There are some more examples, but this would be a long post if I gave all of them.
I think that this is something to definitely pray about and work towards. I pray that God will work though you in this, and bless you.
_________________
There is a purpose for everything.
One of the ideas I spoke to my pastor about was to go back to the original Hebrew that the bible was written in (Greek or other languages where the original Hebrew is no longer available) for the truest meaning there is. Keep in mind that the Latin language was the closest there was to English when the new testament was written, so translation is a tricky business. Saying "use john wisely" in English could mean anything from "take advantage of a guy named John with caution" to "don't overflow the toilet", which is a large part of the problem. As English evolves, so must the translations. I was in a bible study (on the book of Genesis) that went back to the original Hebrew, and it was by far one of the best bible studies I have ever attended. I learned a ton from it, more than any other class combined. Finding out what the root meaning of a specific phrase was really helped, and was absolutely fascinating.
The parables were something that I took literally as a child. If there was a way that we could make them more understandable to autistic people, that would be great. Perhaps one-on-one; however, it is important for the parables to still be used. (English Standard Version) "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." (Matthew 13:13)
I also struggled with finding verses in the Bible for many years, and I still do. There are some more examples, but this would be a long post if I gave all of them.
Just wanted to post an update on this: after a long time in progress, I finally finished up the website design. No more ugly red sidebar! Now it's a work of pure HTML5 beauty! CSS and Javascript are all that's used -- no image files are used at all. It also dynamically adjusts to different resolutions, so what looks nice on your smartphone in Portrait mode also looks nice on your iPad in landscape mode. Check it out!
NeurodiversityChurch.com
I've also decided to finish up the logo work at a later date, which I'm slowly figuring out. Next priority: creating a blog!
Hey Shep,
I find this project very interesting. I think this is a great idea. Unfortunately, I live quite far away. I'm not sure I would attend just based on anxiety reasons at the moment, I have too much change in my life at the moment.
I have some ideas too.
The Early Church started with more of a housechurch scenario. Many of their ideas would be very applicable to this project (and the modern church could probably do better if they used some of these ideas too. I'm also going to add some personal concerns.
- allow the sermons to be open for any member. As in, allow members to make sermons. This will help take the burden off you. Secondly, a lot of us aspies like to monologue about things that interest us... and I personally find a public speech less anxiety inducing than having to talk to someone directly, like in a conversation...
- I would prefer wine over colored water. Red food dye, especially Red 40... messes me up. Maybe a selection of red coloured drinks.
- a heavily ritualized liturgy. I currently attend a baptist church that doesn't have a consistent liturgy, and I think it's hell. I don't even agree with their theology, my parents just drag me there every week. I actually prefer the Church of Antioch, which is Eastern Orthodox and the oldest denomination. Church is a lot easier if there is a liturgy in my opinion.
- Ambient music would put me to sleep, but anything is better than contemporary christian music(CCM) or praise music. CCM makes me physical nauseated and is the least melodic or skillful music(if it can be called music) in existent. I'm not as sensitive to sound as others on here though. The one thing to really avoid is high pitched sounds, lower sounds are better. Very old hymns would be nice, or good old liturgical chanting (as long as the chanting is encompassing.)
- Keep the light dim. Very dim. Additionally, maybe make the service in the evening as it is getting dark. I can't stand bright lights regardless of whether it is flickering or not. I can't stand sunlight, and I find it more comfortable at night (both in the form of light and temperature.) I keep my blinds closed and all my gadgets at minimal brightness and often wear sunglasses outside my home as it tends to be too bright in other buildings, especially school and church.
- have good AC, better it be too cold than too hot. Jackets can be put on to be warm, and I prefer to wear a jacket.
Also, I was thinking about how I could help with this church.
I could set up a 2D online explorable church that could let people use avatars to meet up and play games. I could probably set it up to automatically link to the website for the sermon. I could program some NPC's to follow some liturgies of some of different denominations.
Thank you for the feedback! I'll split your post into pieces to address the individual points easier
I find this project very interesting. I think this is a great idea. Unfortunately, I live quite far away. I'm not sure I would attend just based on anxiety reasons at the moment, I have too much change in my life at the moment.
The Early Church started with more of a housechurch scenario. Many of their ideas would be very applicable to this project (and the modern church could probably do better if they used some of these ideas too. I'm also going to add some personal concerns.
In my two cents: it seems like half of the songs we sing at our church quote or reword bible verses as the part that's sung. Even some of the ones our pastors have written are like that. To me, it's not about reiterating the bible, it's about understanding its content. While there's some powerful verses (even parables) in the bible, the songs don't help with the comprehension of that. Most of the songs we sing about in the church services are about how great he is, or how he reigns over all, etc., but we already know this because the Bible lays it out for us. So, what's there to help us understand it all? This is where I'm looking to change things up a bit.
I could set up a 2D online explorable church that could let people use avatars to meet up and play games. I could probably set it up to automatically link to the website for the sermon. I could program some NPC's to follow some liturgies of some of different denominations.
Ick, I've been stalling this for far too long. But I do have a couple major updates!
1) I've changed the URL (now that it's available) to Neurodiversity.Church. No more .com for me!
2) I'm also working on something better than a blog -- a Wiki! I'm aiming to have this up in the next week or so, but what this will do is cover common topics of discussion (marriage, divorce, abortion, evolution, etc.) from my perspective using nothing but the Bible as sources for it all. I'm not aiming to "debunk science" like it seems mainstream churches have been trying so valiantly to do for millennia, but rather seek to prove that Science and Religion integrate quite well! Think "Wikipedia", but instead of being about anything and everything, it'll be purely about this church and what its beliefs are. I'm debating on whether or not to include a few "thought experiments" as well, which are things that aren't fully researched, but simplify things tremendously (case in point: I've often thought the "trinity" thing yet God being one being was wildly confusing, but now I think I understand it, and have yet to find anyone simplify it down in the way that I have -- I'm sure once my 14-month-old nephew manages to grasp the English Language before long, I can even explain it to him in a way that he would understand completely).
And just one reminder: this is a Lutheran-based church, not a Catholic-based church. Recent events by the pope certainly do ruffle some feathers, but the good news in all of this is that my church is unaffected since we don't really care what the pope says, he's irrelevant to what we stand for. He can mandate the Catholic church all he wants, but ever since Martin Luther posted his 95 Thesis on the door of the Catholic church, we no longer associate with him. Nothing personal against him or any other Catholic -- we just don't agree on the arbitrary beliefs that completely contradict the Bible that the pope has mandated as part of the curriculum. (Purgatory? Whaaaaaaaat? )
More news to come in the near future!
[sarcasm]
Great. Just what we need. Another institution devoted to imposing a minority point of view upon those who have no points of view of their own. What next, a Church of White Supremacy?
[/sarcasm]
_________________
Great. Just what we need. Another institution devoted to imposing a minority point of view upon those who have no points of view of their own. What next, a Church of White Supremacy?
[/sarcasm]
Neurodiversity is akin to white supremacy? I thought it was more of a subset of the disability rights movement. I'm an atheist, so I personally don't really have a need for a "neurodiversity church" but I also don't see anything wrong with a church that caters specifically to ASD folk.
Great. Just what we need. Another institution devoted to imposing a minority point of view upon those who have no points of view of their own. What next, a Church of White Supremacy?
[/sarcasm]
It's been far too long since I posted an update on this... Lots of things have happened in the past few months, both in my personal life and in this church's development. I've met with my pastors to discuss the next course of action, and here's what we decided:
1) Hold off on creating the Wiki in favor of planning a Bible study group.
2) Create an occasional newsletter for those interested in this.
My thought process with this was that I could create my own email server and my own email address (which took about two days), then use it for sending/receiving emails (which took ages!) For a long, long while I was struggling with my ISP to allow outbound email from my own email server (they were blocking port 25). After much frustration and getting really nowhere with it, I found an alternative (MailJet) that has actually been bugging me TO send emails with it, for free. Funny how the world works at times
Finally got the email side of things resolved, which is excellent news as it means I can finally get the ball rolling on spreading the word out there. Even better, I have been working on the newsletter side of things as well, so that subscribing and unsubscribing are 100% automated (I can still manually intervene if it comes down to it however). The neat part is that unsubscribing is instantaneous. No built-in delays or anything of the sort. If I send an email out five minutes after you unsubscribe, you won't get it. It literally deletes your email from my database, no strings attached. I'm limited on database size, so I have every reason to conserve every byte I can afford
And if you're already subscribed but aren't sure, subscribing again will simply confirm you're already on the list, and won't add you twice. And possibly the best part of all, the only thing you need to subscribe is an email address. That's it. No names, no personal info, and most importantly, no nonsense. If your email address is something along the lines of "hotstuff37", I won't have any idea who you are unless you told me.
Now for some not-as-good news with a positive twist: my pastors recommended giving a few months of advance notice to participants on the bible study itself. Which means it'll take us into April at the least. The not-as-good part is that my wedding is in late April, but the positive twist is that because we're starting the bible study, we can easily push it back until after the wedding is over so we avoid the wedding "crunch time". Works out well actually. So it looks like the bible study will be in May, and the newsletter will pre-date the bible study.
Interested in the newsletter? Check out the sign-up page here:
Newsletter Sign-Up Page
Can't wait to see how this turns out!
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