by Angela Tilby, Church Times
Many are helped positively by repetitive and predictable patterns of worship, with a minimum of unexpected sensory input’
THE General Synod’s agenda this month includes a motion from the Neurodiversity Working Group recommending how the Church should better cater for the needs of neurodiverse people. It points out that neurodivergent people are already “serving, leading, worshipping and shaping” the life of the Church. There is encouragement to undertake neurodivergent-led training, and for dioceses to appoint neurodiversity “champions”.
This is all very appropriate, I’m sure, and responsive to the various ways in which neurodiverse clergy and laity report themselves as being judged and misunderstood. Takeaways, for me, from the report include the judgement that some types of extraverted, over-confident male leadership are not helpful to neurodiverse people, and that many are helped positively by repetitive and predictable patterns of worship, with a minimum of unexpected sensory input.
All this goes against the trend towards informality and spontaneity which has come to characterise much C of E worship in recent years, reflecting various streams of contemporary culture. I have no idea whether I am neurodiverse, because I am not sure what neurotypical might mean; but I cannot be the only one who feels a frisson of anxiety at the way in which a hand-held microphone conveys authority, and sound-systems blast away often unpredictably and at the wrong volume.
Bodily posture in church has moved away from the sit/stand/kneel mandated in, say, the Book of Common Prayer, to the hands-in-the-air style, which I find it hard not to be distracted by. Worst of all, for me, is trying to worship via a screen and without hand-held books, which leaves worshippers with no idea of when the service might end. My anxious self trembles at the dreadful thought that I could be stuck in here FOR EVER.
From the 16th to the mid-20th century, the C of E prized liturgical conformity and predictability, at the expense of free and diverse self-expression. But, today, even in traditional worship settings, those who lead strive for a friendly and informal approach. Congregational applause and laughter has become a frequent response to any good news that is conveyed in church.