John Anthony Dunne: Well, Mike and Naomi thanks so much for joining us.
Michael Bird: Well, thanks for having us. everyone! It's great to be with you, and i'm glad to be here with my wonderful wife. Naomi.
Michael Bird: Hi! Everybody! I don't get to do podcast with her very often. Apparently she's not really into the divine ontology in ancient religions.
John Anthony Dunne: No, that's not nothing.
John Anthony Dunne: Well, we're we're so great to have you both, Mike, welcome back and nail me. It's wonderful to have you with us. So we want to start this conversation by hearing a little bit about your family story and your family dynamic.
Michael Bird: Yeah. Well, n me and I got married in 1,999. I was in the army you were you were a Nanny for an army family.
Michael Bird: and I then resigned from the army, went to Theological College.
Michael Bird: and you know from that point we started a family, and then I did a Phd. I toured in Scotland, Brisbane, I've never been Melbourne, and we have
Michael Bird: mit ctl. And for children, and all of our children are very different. but early on we noticed that one child seemed to be particularly different. know you and take from him sure. So. When Marcus was born. He was a great little kid one.
Michael Bird: and he was a little bit quirky, but we just thought that it was a boy after we'd had 2 girls.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: there were lots of little different things that I can look back now and see.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: lots of rocking and lots of movement was a big thing for him, and
Michael Bird: I didn't
Michael Bird: really think anything of it. I just thought Well, he's a boy. He's different. He's not a girl, and boys are just weird boys. Yep, they're They're a different breed.
Michael Bird: And when he
Michael Bird: started kinder i'd noticed a few things that were maybe a little bit different.
Michael Bird: When Marcus was 17 months old.
Michael Bird: Theo, our youngest came along so and he was different again. So there's a lot of comparisons that I was able to make and go actually, there's things that Marcus would never do, that Theo could. So what
Michael Bird: what makes him different. What? What's going on? So when he started school he
Michael Bird: I had some questions for his teacher.
Michael Bird: and the long on the short of it was, I read an article on Sensory Processing.
Michael Bird: which felt like someone had sat in my living room and written an article about my son.
Michael Bird: And we engaged the help of an occupational therapist who was dealing with a lot of his sensory issues. He was this big, sensory seeker, sensory processing disorder is not really a huge diagnosis here in Australia.
Michael Bird: but he was an absolute seeker of anything, any movement and deep pressure
Michael Bird: stuff, but also overwhelmed by a lot of things as well, so
Michael Bird: he never watched a movie sitting upright. He would sit on his head to watch a movie
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: then we
Michael Bird: ended up seeing a pediatrician and got a diagnosis of Adhd are followed very closely by an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.
Michael Bird: That's the the short story.
Michael Bird: And then we've just simply gone on and walked along with Marcus about the best care for him, both for his learning needs, for his personal needs, and of course, as well you know. Think about his spiritual needs.
Okay.
Steph Judd: thanks so much for sharing guys. And how old is Marcus now?
Michael Bird: He's 13. He'll be 14 next week.
Michael Bird: and he's growing into it, and a really amazing kid. But those early years were really challenging. They were really hard.
Michael Bird: There was a lot of grief that went along with a diagnosis.
Michael Bird: There was a lot of why, us
Michael Bird: Why, him
Michael Bird: and but he
Michael Bird: has grown and has changed, and I wouldn't
Michael Bird: wouldn't change our journey.
Michael Bird: for anything
Michael Bird: I mean one of the more difficult things is that he is aware that he's different.
Michael Bird: and he can be a little bit conscious of that.
Michael Bird: You know that that.
Michael Bird: But what I've told him is that for him some things are easier.
Michael Bird: Some things are harder, but nothing is impossible, so he is very good at some things like you know you.
Michael Bird: He's
Michael Bird: anything that sort of outdoors. You're working with hands, I mean. I knew the kid. I knew the kid was special when he was about 3 and a half, and I saw him catch a fish with his bare hands.
Michael Bird: That's that's when I knew the kid was different, you know. Just kind of looking at a rock pool stairs at it. Thrust his hand in. You know the the average 3 and a half year old is not catching fish with their bare hands.
Michael Bird: and he does have a remarkable ability to look to to work with animals, anything outdoorsy. I can definitely see a career for him in agriculture. He's not going to it's not going to solve any mathematical
Michael Bird: problems of our theoretical calculus.
Michael Bird: But I, you know, I think you'll definitely do something. You know you
Michael Bird: with his life that will be outdoorsy. The
Michael Bird: yeah.
Michael Bird: he has the an inability to see the world
Michael Bird: very differently. He can see
Michael Bird: things that everybody else misses. I remember walking across a playground with him when he was about 6,
Michael Bird: and I was about to step on the pavement, and he's like no mom. Stop! I'm like what he's. He's like.
Michael Bird: There's Ladybug eggs on that leaf.
Michael Bird: I'm. Sure enough, there was Lady Bug eggs on that lake. He got this from your eyesight. It's he's got to eyesight like a hawk. It's it's really amazing. No one else would see that no one else would notice it.
Steph Judd: One of the things that
Steph Judd: Professor Brian Brock talks about in his book wondrously. When did I'm not sure if you've come across it when he's talking about his son Adam?
Steph Judd: He talks about the way in which people who are labeled with the term disability, often present a a a rupture to what we expect.
Steph Judd: but that's also an invitation into wonder, because we have to pay more attention
Steph Judd: and something i'd like to hear from you guys as you've
Steph Judd: parented your son is. How how has that? I mean with with any child as parents. You have to pay attention to them, and take them as they are, and as they as they present themselves to you.
Steph Judd: How has your experience of parenting differed with Marcus compared to your other 3 kids?
Michael Bird: Lots of pivoting.
Michael Bird: lots of things that didn't work.
Michael Bird: We found that his response to
Michael Bird: shame
Michael Bird: and disappointment was really hard.
Michael Bird: and what had previously worked with our girls. When it came to
Michael Bird: timeouts and things like that he he just had no grasp on.
Michael Bird: and that that's really challenging, because you're constantly having to change
Michael Bird: tact
Michael Bird: in how to do that.
Michael Bird: And he
Michael Bird: he just
Michael Bird: It's really hard to explain. Yeah, I think it's finding ways to both. Optimize this performance at school
Michael Bird: somewhat manage his behavior because you have to do everything ranging from the
Michael Bird: how you encourage him! You have to do different to everyone else. How you discipline him. You have to do different from everyone else. How you coach him, and it just through it like a bunch of trial. And here I mean a good example is we found that he's he's actually quite well behaved at school, so he he's a very good land at school. He doesn't get into trouble.
Michael Bird: but he uses all of his emotional energy kind of at school to behave, and when he kind of gets home
Michael Bird: he he kind of like let's go, and he's he's he's more likely to be a little bit more, you know. Volatile. He's kind of used all his obedient energy at school, and and now he he doesn't want to take any more orders from anyone, so he you can be a little bit more
Michael Bird: agitatable. when he gets home doesn't like being told to do stuff. But one thing I found that really helps him is I, you know I would drive him like 10 min down the road to a nature reserve, and having 20 min just to walk around an ancient reserve just kind of brought his mood down about an octave.
Michael Bird: and it it just enabled him to relax. And then he was, you know. After that he'd be much better at doing things like getting his home work done, helping out with any family chores and just going back into the routine. So there was, you know, several things we we found through trial and error are just just a better way of helping to.
Michael Bird: I like to to regulate his, his sort of mood and feeling and to optimize his performance. But you just got to find what it works, and it's, and it's different for for every, for every kid
Michael Bird: so distinguishing between disobedience and the disability is really tricky. So are you choosing
Michael Bird: to be defined in what you're you know whatever is happening, or is this outworking of
Michael Bird: your disability?
Michael Bird: and that's really tricky, that that constant back and forth, questioning
Michael Bird: his motive and being out of distinguished can be really tricky.
Michael Bird: And yeah, I mean other thing you've got to remember. And this is hard. And this is where you really need. The the empathy is that people on the autism spectrum literally experience the world differently.
Michael Bird: You know we can like, you know you can be in a in a room or a environment where you've got 6 different noises.
Michael Bird: and our minds are able to kind of filter them out by. You know degree of importance or relevance to what we're doing. some people are on the autism spectrum. Don't don't always have that ability. They don't have the ability to filter everything so they can. They can receive everything around them as a cacophony of noise. One
Michael Bird: whether that's a conversation that's a phone ringing a car driving past so that they literally experience the world differently, and it's different for every person on the spectrum. but that's what that's what you got to room, and you got to try. Remember that this person is is not who, as I am
Michael Bird: They they. They are literally wired up in their brain differently, and they are different things that stimulate them. there are different things that annoy them. And and it's you, you! You just have to accept that and and try to imagine what it's like to be a person in that position.
Michael Bird: and what that would that you done with your own children, or someone at college, or work or a custom, or where you are in life. I think that's one of the things you do have to be sensitive to people. Just experience the world differently.
Steph Judd: Yeah, absolutely. And I think,
Steph Judd: again.
Steph Judd: that
Steph Judd: that invitation to take this person as they are and as they present themselves.
Steph Judd: and I think that one of the difficult spaces. one of the particularly for spaces where that comes up is in our church communities, and you mentioned before
Steph Judd: that you know Marcus has presented
Steph Judd: this opportunity to you know how do you parent him spiritually and in his involvement in
Steph Judd: your church communities? Do you want to explain us to us a little bit about how that journey has been for you.
Michael Bird: Challenging.
Michael Bird: very challenging from very early on church was overwhelming for Marcus.
Michael Bird: He, the noise you think of the music and the band and the people and the
Michael Bird: the smells. It all was a lot when he was little
Michael Bird: Before we move to Melbourne.
Michael Bird: We were in a church and They were great with him. He hated going out to Sunday School or creche. Unless there was a man on
Michael Bird: the roster that week, and he seemed to to cope with that.
Michael Bird: finding those things that enable him to be at church has been really important for us.
Michael Bird: Before we came to Melbourne he didn't
Michael Bird: have a diagnosis.
Michael Bird: We had our challenges. We didn't understand what they were.
Michael Bird: but we had people around us who were willing to work with us and try and help him engage and settle.
Michael Bird: He had a diagnosis early in year, one at the very beginning of year, one
Michael Bird: so talking to our ministry teams
Michael Bird: in ways that they can support him.
Michael Bird: We did things like quiet stacks that came in later on. So our church
Michael Bird: instigated a a Sunday school called Quiet Stacks and
Michael Bird: Stacks program is our summer school program.
Michael Bird: the idea being a space for kids who just find being out with all the other kids too much.
Michael Bird: And that was a really great success leading up to covert. interestingly, we didn't just have kids
Michael Bird: on the autism spectrum. We had a lot of kids that had high anxiety, some of our much just quieter kids that just didn't engage in a normal program.
Michael Bird: We haven't been able to bring that back post covert yet, but it's been really good in having a space and encouragement.
Michael Bird: We've always made church a priority as well. So this is what we do on a Sunday.
Michael Bird: so!
Michael Bird: And and now he's also at the age where he attends a youth group as well, which which goes fairly well, and it's also good because he makes a good connection
Michael Bird: with friends. And there are other friends there who are also on the autism spectrum. So it means he's dealing with people who are both like him and unlike him, and he's socializing in a Christian space in a Christian context.
Michael Bird: And I mean, you know there are some days after school like on a Friday. He may not necessarily feel like going, but more often than not he's kind of in the mood for a bit more socialization in a somewhat semi-regulated fun context, so they can do sort of you know fun things together.
Michael Bird: creating a community of
Michael Bird: kids around him that friendship group. It's important for any kid
Michael Bird: more. So we're trying to create that around Marcus now, and he there is a group
Michael Bird: of about
Michael Bird: 6 or 7
Michael Bird: kids his age
Michael Bird: that are at a church in varying degrees at varying times. But that's the big thing. I I think that if you can keep them coming to church.
Michael Bird: that's helpful. He doesn't always engage in the content.
Michael Bird: But what's really interesting. He doesn't always engage, but he's always listening. He always knows what's going on.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: even if he's not
Michael Bird: appearing to be engaged, and I I see this with a lot of the kids, because I now help run Our senior school program is that
Michael Bird: they may not be involved like be engaged and appearing to be listening. But they're taking in everything, and every little bit of spiritual content is
Michael Bird: important. Those little tiny seeds that you plant.
Michael Bird: you know, gonna flourish at some point, and you need to just make it a safe space and make it an easy place for them to be.
Michael Bird: I think, is the most important thing.
Steph Judd: Can you
Steph Judd: explain to us what what goes on in quiet stacks like what? What actually.
Steph Judd: what, how is it different?
Michael Bird: So the way that we made it different was the program was a little bit more loose, but stringent at the same time, if that makes sense, so the structure within it.
Michael Bird: But
Michael Bird: Imagine walking into a room full of people, and not quite knowing what you need to do.
Michael Bird: So One of the first things we did is we had activities that they could go to.
Michael Bird: So whether that's a so some kinetics. And we had out that they found that they could regulate by coming in and doing. That coloring in is always a good thing for girls, not necessarily for boys. so we had a group of different activities that they would come in.
Michael Bird: They could see something that interests them, and they could go to that, and we gave a time of regulation. So the idea was they could come in.
Michael Bird: find something that they can do without feeling like you're coming in and sitting on a mat. engaging with a whole group of people which is really overwhelming.
Michael Bird: Then our story tended to be more interactive. So, for example, we might do the story of no one
Michael Bird: Noah and the animals, and there was a lot more engagement. So getting the kids involved in the story, so, instead of having just one person
Michael Bird: sitting there on a chair or standing there.
Michael Bird: Let's let's do the story together. Let's make it interactive and engaging.
Michael Bird: This gives them more movement within
Michael Bird: the story time, so They're not just expected to sit and listen. They're engaged a little bit more. If
Michael Bird: a child was struggling, we had a tent that they could go and hide in.
Michael Bird: but often you find they're still listening. They're still engaging
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: then we would have craft time. But then we'd also still have this other sensory things that they could be doing. So Kinetics, and was one that we had.
Michael Bird: We'd often have blocks or some other building
Michael Bird: something, so it's not. You're everybody's expected to do the one thing
Michael Bird: we're all different. We're all wired differently. So let's give you an option.
Michael Bird: tried to make it creative prayer, so something that was either tangible you could hold, or something that it wasn't just sitting and praying so it's all about engaging our not just our
Michael Bird: sitting and listening, our ears but engaging our the senses, our our sense of smell, our sense of taste, sense of touch just to
Michael Bird: help
Michael Bird: them understand the Gospel more, help them to own it and understand it without them Feeling
Michael Bird: like it's just so much.
Michael Bird: And because every child is different, you can't just have one way. So there's lots of different, and then we don't expect kids to. If they have an aversion to sand, we're not going to make them touch the sand. You know it's
Michael Bird: it's understanding.
Michael Bird: Have it. Engage the kids
Michael Bird: that way, and we would give parents a profile to be able to fill in and say, hey, how is it that we can
Michael Bird: help your child? What's what are the things that
Michael Bird: do? They avoid? How to engage them? What are their special interests
Michael Bird: that give us conversation.
Michael Bird: So those play times might seem a waste. But you get down and you talk with these kids and you ask them about? What is their interest? What is it that they were doing this week, or those connections, and making a child feel valued, Were part of that quiet stacks community.
Michael Bird: But it is a challenge to run 2 separate Sunday schools, or kind of you know, sort of children's ministries
Michael Bird: the same time, because You've got to have the volunteers and the people. Yeah, you're gonna make sure the volunteers are, you know.
Michael Bird: you know, not pediatricians. But you know at least sensitive to. You know that these these children, you know, are not the ones that like to sit around play duck, goose, and
Michael Bird: and you know, listen to a. You know, a kind of a a story about, you know the parable of the so I acted out by, you know the scientistical team. So so you've got to have the resources to be able to run these things in in parallel.
Michael Bird: and and and then you also get some parents to say, Well, why can't they just go to the Normal Sunday School like a normal person does? And you you can get some of those, I might say cranky people, but people just just don't understand.
Michael Bird: you know why we put it, you know. Run these things these way. So yeah, that there are some challenges to doing that, but with a little bit of research, a little bit of creativity, a little bit of consultation with the parents. you know it. It. It can be done.
Hmm.
Steph Judd: That even in a hyper cognitive subculture, that that the tradition that I come from comes, you know, has. I think that having a more integrated holistic spirituality is not a bad thing.
Steph Judd: but I think that you you've just touched on one of those live conversations in in this space which is around. Where do you sequester off and Taylor programs in our
Steph Judd: spiritual communities, even in not not just in Sunday schools, but in
Steph Judd: church services generally
Steph Judd: Or
Steph Judd: make our existing services more accommodating to
Steph Judd: to people
Steph Judd: that see and experience the world differently. i'd be interested to know how your experience with your son has
Steph Judd: challenged and shaped and informed
Steph Judd: the way that you see church community.
Michael Bird: I think our our response has been generally positive, I mean because it's, I mean in the case of autism. This is this is not a unique condition. It's not like our son's got some one in a 1 million
Michael Bird: disability something I mean, you know there's a significant number of people
Michael Bird: in the wider autism community, and with invariant degrees or various expressions of autism. So I think we have the advantage in that sense that there are. There are, you know, several other people in the boat with us. Which means this is an issue that does come on people's radar. at at least some time in the course of their church ministry.
Michael Bird: You know it. It it it it it can be challenging. Many people don't want to sit through a 45 min sermon, and
Michael Bird: you know, kids on the autism spectrum definitely do not want to sit on a 45 min sermon talking about the vessels in the Temple, and the difference between profane and holiness and Levitical purity laws.
Michael Bird: Thank you me long. I love my lyrical purity laws, I mean they really they're really my
Michael Bird: from 3 16. but you know some some things are going to be harder, and they're going to be some elements of a church service that will be more difficult. And yeah, I mean, i'm not the only one who sat next to a kid, and the Kid has said, please tell me this is the last song you know. I think many of us have had that experience.
Michael Bird: but you but you get. I think you get that more. So with kids on the spectrum, because they're either
Michael Bird: they're either overwhelmed by the by the stimulation or they're craving a certain type of stimulation. So they are either hypersensitive or they can be hypersensitive.
Michael Bird: Okay, and and and so I think showed services can be a little bit like that.
Michael Bird: you know. Maybe having the mega loud drum kit, You know I got our problems with drums, but I think the mega loud drum kit, which sounds like the the thunder of the Lord is approaching. it's got going to pretty annoy a lot of people, but especially those who are hypersensitive. So I mean the little things you can.
Michael Bird: You can. You can do like that, I think, can help a lot. I mean, what would you add?
Michael Bird: We've been blessed in our community in our church that it is very inclusive. when it comes to, not just Marcus, but other people with disabilities. we've got several people who have physical disabilities in wheelchairs. we've got. We've had downs, kids
Michael Bird: and so in our church community we're incredibly blessed in people's understanding and inclusion.
Michael Bird: and I know that that's not everybody's experience, and that's really hard.
Michael Bird: It makes me really sad when churches aren't inclusive and aren't trying to find ways
Michael Bird: to include families that have kids with autism.
Michael Bird: I spoke with our ndis
Michael Bird: coordinator recently is the national disability Insurance, which is an Australian program that provides support financing for families with a with a dis with a disabled person in. Just
Michael Bird: sorry about that, anyway. I spoke with our ndis case worker, and I was talking to her about. Church, she's not a Christian. I was talking to her about church, and she was saying how many of her
Michael Bird: clients
Michael Bird: they just that are Christians. Just don't go to church anymore, because churches don't try and make make it inclusive or make it. They don't make it easy for families to be involved.
Michael Bird: And
Michael Bird: it Church is is a foreign kind of idea to some people. What is it to go and see in a church and sing these songs and listen to a sermon. So for some people it's this foreign idea, and
Michael Bird: when your brain is wired differently, they're like, Why do we do this? Why do we?
Michael Bird: What what does this mean for me? what's the importance? and
Michael Bird: I think that
Michael Bird: the Marcus we continue to encourage him to be part of the church community.
Michael Bird: we give him ownership of being involved. For example, this weekend he didn't want to be didn't want to come to church in the morning.
Michael Bird: so I said, Well, you got a choice. You come in the morning, or you come at night. And he came. He sat in the back corner.
Michael Bird: didn't sit next to anybody. But that's okay. He was there.
Michael Bird: He was still engaging with people
Michael Bird: people who care for him, and also he was still hearing stuff.
Michael Bird: and probably more than we realize.
Michael Bird: And the other. And I think this really emphasizes that all churches and anyone training for ministry is
Michael Bird: does have to think about, you know, disabledness, and you know what we would call able Ism, because
Michael Bird: roughly, one in 5 people in in the world and in your churches will have a disability. You'll be be born with a disability, acquire a disability through injury or illness, or you will age into disability. So you know one in 5 people, our churches are going to have some some degree of impairment.
Michael Bird: the most likely at some point in their lines. So you know it's something we have to think about, and when when it comes to inclusivism this is where i'll, i'll channel a little bit of John Swinton. I know someone you're already. You're connected to on on the podcast one.
Michael Bird: but we we don't want an an inclusive church in the sense. These people are tolerated, you know. you know not to be tolerated. You want them to be valued, which means, you notice, and you miss them when they're not there.
Michael Bird: Okay, and I think that is probably the number one change we've got it. We have to make in in the way. We think about people with disability and church. They're not not to be just tolerated. We are to value them, value what they contribute value what they they bring.
Michael Bird: You know, recognize that their absence lessens our fellowship.
Michael Bird: Now I, that I would say, is one of the number one thing churches, and certainly anyone in ministry or training for ministry has got to keep in mind.
Steph Judd: Yeah, absolutely. And I think so, Chris. I'll I'll just ask you to ask the follow up question around
Steph Judd: that I do of
Steph Judd: just gifts that are on offer to the church community. I'm not sure what you're gonna
Chris Porter: Yeah. So I wanted to say, because to normativity.
Chris Porter: so we can come back to that.
Chris Porter: so I was gonna say
Chris Porter: thanks, Mike. So as thinking about then the the context of church and and often kids, and and even indeed adults. on on autumn spectrum, and with other forms of disability, they're seen as breaking the
Chris Porter: The normativity of the Church is that everyone should come to church looking in a certain way, and and and experience things in a certain way, and and and understand things in a certain way. The experience of disability within this church
Chris Porter: often challenges that
Chris Porter: Have you seen that? Then filtering back into the the the church, the the church engagement for those who, you know our culture would broadly consider to be normative. it has. Have you seen that as a 2 way street.
Chris Porter: that in you mentioned before the the challenges of running to You know kids programs. Ha!
Chris Porter: Perhaps how how has the experience of running the
Chris Porter: and what many people consider a non-normative program in
Chris Porter: impacted on the the normative I mean in scarecrow. It's normative program.
Michael Bird: Yeah, i'll say? Well, I mean, I think homogeneous churches are always a bad idea if everyone is a clone of each other.
Michael Bird: that I mean, that's not the Church of the New Testament. It's, you know we are meant to be. you know diverse people. We are there, you know, Jew and Greek, male and female. You know we are meant to be diverse at every level, and diversity is messy.
Michael Bird: diversity can be conflictual. Diversity means people view things differently. People have different needs, different expectations. And yet that diversity is
Michael Bird: as paused Metaphor of the body is completely necessary.
Michael Bird: because, you know, if we if we're all just from the same social class, same education, same same interests in in music. We all like the exact same theology, You know that type of thing.
Michael Bird: that's going to lead to an an impoverished church. So I I think diversity is is good because we we need. We need the introverts, the extroverts. We need the enigram ones and the enigram nines. Have you? You want to? You want to put it? we do need this diverse body to have all the strengths, and to make up for each other's.
Michael Bird: weaknesses, and people on the autism spectrum. yeah, they they. They can't have their own weaknesses. They can sometimes appear to lack empathy or lack interest in in certain things, but that but they also have a very good, a often have a good ability to to have laser like focus on some particular problem that needs
Michael Bird: mit ctl and fixing They can easily relate to others who who also, feel a little bit of different and and out of place. They can show you some of the blind spots in your own church and ministry 150.
Michael Bird: So I I think we we the idea that everyone in church should be normal. Scores a 12 point, 6 on the heresyometer, because there is No, no, there is only in the image of God and in Christ
Michael Bird: what you add to that, I mean.
Michael Bird: Yeah. So i'm a big fan of inclusion, and being able to do things together. Since the pandemic we haven't run our quiet stacks
Michael Bird: because of numbers because of volunteers, but because of that
Michael Bird: you kind of learn to be a little bit more creative in how you do things to make it fit better so
Michael Bird: for me. My big trick is a box of pipe cleaners.
Michael Bird: very cheap, very easy, and giving kids something to fidget with.
Michael Bird: passing them off. You know. A pipe cleaner or 2 for them to to to fidget with, engages them in other ways. It it helps to
Michael Bird: engage those listening skills instead of just trying to sit comfortably or sit still.
Michael Bird: The
Michael Bird: the 2 Sunday school programs that we were running.
Michael Bird: we're great for a time, and sometimes that's what you need. Sometimes a ministry is there for a moment to help out. To engage for a moment.
Michael Bird: then you might move to something that becomes more inclusive. An example of that is. We also run a a really big school holiday program at our church. It's been running for 25 years one
Michael Bird: and I
Michael Bird: imagine a church
Michael Bird: with 150 kids.
Michael Bird: and about 50 to 70 leaders in there as well. the noise level is quite incredible. and it's an amazing outreach that our church does.
Michael Bird: Marcus hated it from the very first time he went.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: it's it's overwhelming it's loud. It's noisy. There's people that touch me
Michael Bird: about 5 years ago I went. There's got to be a way of trying to
Michael Bird: enable kids to be part of this program
Michael Bird: without feeling overwhelmed. And that's when we started what we call our
Michael Bird: what do we call it? A sensory space.
Michael Bird: and it was just we converted our prayer room into a place where they could.
Michael Bird: It wasn't a separate program, but it was a place that they could go to reset
Michael Bird: so they could go, and I do some coloring in. There was a weighted blanket that they could sit under. There was, I had a basket, my biggest trick for Sunday school and church. Imuffs basket of earmuffs at the door that kids could put on.
Michael Bird: that filtered out some of that overwhelmingly loud noise
Michael Bird: and it. The idea was that they could come out of the program and reset
Michael Bird: gave them a moment, and then they could come back in and participate.
Michael Bird: and that, I think, is that
Michael Bird: inclusion. It's the
Michael Bird: we understand
Michael Bird: we're not going to stigmatize it. We're just going to say, Here is a space. This is what it's for.
Michael Bird: and you can come and be in that space. and we're open to anybody coming to our program that might have a a higher needs, child as well. This is why we have our ndis funding is to enable our kids to participate in these kind of programs. 150.
Michael Bird: We've had. People kids come along with their carers.
Michael Bird: And not only is that an an opportunity to minister to those kids, it's an opportunity to minister to those
Michael Bird: those carers that may have never stepped inside a church.
Sydney Tooth: I have a question that might move us in a different direction. So if anyone else wants to follow up on that before I do.
you
Sydney Tooth: Yeah, I think my question is
Sydney Tooth: pivoting away from
Sydney Tooth: experience in church and thinking about parenting again. And as you guys have journey through this
Sydney Tooth: I I have a few friends with little kids who are starting to think. Oh, maybe we need to
Sydney Tooth: look at it.
Sydney Tooth: diagnosis, and and there's some things like you had with Marcus, and thinking
Sydney Tooth: This is different on from your journey from your experiences. I think it'd be helpful to hear
Sydney Tooth: what you've learned in that journey
Sydney Tooth: what's been most helpful that other people have
Sydney Tooth: done
Sydney Tooth: coming alongside you or professionals helping and what's been unhelpful?
Michael Bird: so many unhelpful things! But we won't start there.
Michael Bird: I think
Michael Bird: that it's one of my joys, and my passions is to walk alongside families as they seek a diagnosis.
Michael Bird: I've worked quite a bit with mops. Australia there, and mums of preschoolers. So it's an international organization, and I've gone and shared in a lot of groups, and with that has come a lot of people.
Michael Bird: lot of moms who have come to me and said.
Michael Bird: I think that this is
Michael Bird: where we're headed with
Michael Bird: one of my children, and it's it's been a privilege
Michael Bird: for me, because when I, when we had a diagnosis for Marcus.
Michael Bird: I didn't know anybody
Michael Bird: who had a child with a die. I had. I think I knew maybe 2 people
Michael Bird: that had children with a diagnosis.
Michael Bird: but it was a really lonely time.
Michael Bird: There were lots of
Michael Bird: questions as to what had I done? Something wrong? What? Why, Why was it that we
Michael Bird: we're dealing with this lots of questioning God.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: the
Michael Bird: outcome of that was the desire to have nobody else feel that way.
Michael Bird: The desire to know that there was somebody else that's been ahead of you. I walked this journey, and can direct you in
Michael Bird: different ways to different resources or understanding, to have somebody to to have a shoulder, to cry on.
Michael Bird: So
Michael Bird: if you got a child with a disability walking alongside people who are before you, I think, is really important, and being able to say you're not alone, you.
Michael Bird: We can do this together. I totally get it.
Michael Bird: I think, until you have a child
Michael Bird: who have been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. You don't really get it. I remember.
Michael Bird: before my boys were born having friends that had kids that were diagnosed, and
Michael Bird: not really understanding what that meant
Michael Bird: So
Michael Bird: yeah, walking alongside people is, I think, really important, not being judgmental of the process.
Michael Bird: I think, is incredibly important. It's
Michael Bird: so individual because every child is different. Every family unit is different.
Michael Bird: You then have. You might have grandparents Culturally, that may not accept a diagnosis. There's so many different factors that go in
Michael Bird: it. Yeah, I can remember a generation where everything we knew about autism. We'd learn from Dustin, Hoffman and Rain Man.
Michael Bird: That was, you know, that was basically where we want everyone, and they just assumed if you were, if you had autism, you were kind of like Dustin Hoffman.
Michael Bird: which meant you were socially awkward and very good at counting cards and casinos which is absolutely not the case, since it's a it's a spectrum. You know from people who are all you know, or some of you know. nonverbal nonverbal autism is, you know.
Michael Bird: is one. Let end of the spectrum all the way through to people who just appear slightly quirky. in in some ways. And so I learned Learning about autism is, is it's kind of like a spectrum, and it manifests in different ways. I mean that that that was a big journey, and that was certainly something, I think, was not known
Michael Bird: in the wider community.
Michael Bird: I think our acceptance and understanding of autism has come a long way in the last 10 years.
Michael Bird: and even more so in the last probably 5 years.
Michael Bird: So the unhelpful things are is judgment.
Michael Bird: judgment of parenting. yeah, that that's the hardest thing I think I've struggled with is when You've got
Michael Bird: parallel children and people who make harsh comments to your child's behavior, and it's
Michael Bird: a lot of the time. Those meltdowns.
Michael Bird: their meltdowns, and children. They they don't have the ability
Michael Bird: to understand what they're doing.
Michael Bird: and it's looked on
Michael Bird: with
Michael Bird: disgust.
Michael Bird: You're a bad parent, and and that's really hard.
Michael Bird: and it's hard not to see it, you know. You see the people.
Michael Bird: that a sniggering in the corner, or you know, making snide comments behind you at the supermarket or family members who just say you know he he's not autistic, or it's just You're just a bad parent. You know what you need is the firm hand of discipline or something like that. And when you get, you know, extended family saying things like that.
Michael Bird: you know that that I mean that really does cut pretty deep because they they don't know the whole story that I know the journey. They don't have to deal with these things on a daily basis. they just have, like a you know, a 1 10 min clip into something that may not be the best the best time of the of the of the best day.
Michael Bird: And yeah, I mean that's that's the hardest thing, and that's why I think you really do need the empathy thing but
Michael Bird: and the ability to to think. Okay, I mean this: this is this is just one thing that's happening at one moment. This is not the be all an end, or of the parenting, or the or the child's behavior. And I think that that's that's one thing, and that's often kind of say one of the number one things that drive families away from churches.
Michael Bird: It can be the lack of empathy, the inability to understand and the inability to make even minor changes
Michael Bird: just to help families. You know who you.
Michael Bird: for for various reasons, may struggle with some aspects of corporate worship or community life.
Michael Bird: other unhelpful things that we've had.
Michael Bird: The whole immunization causes autism.
Michael Bird: It it's being disproven. But the damage is done.
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: we have enough guilt as parents without adding those kinds of things to it.
Michael Bird: and in all honesty
Michael Bird: it doesn't change the outcome of who my child is.
Michael Bird: but it still it still hurts, and it's it's really hard to
Michael Bird: to really grasp
Michael Bird: that that whole thing.
Michael Bird: And
Michael Bird: There was another thing that I had that was unhelpful. We had family members on Facebook with weird opinions. Yeah, we all have them. We have them. We all have them
Michael Bird: one of the actually.
Michael Bird: I think when you have a child with any kind of disability.
Michael Bird: It's really important getting alongside the siblings
Michael Bird: of those those families because they miss out
Michael Bird: they
Michael Bird: you might not go to a certain event, because it is just too hard to take that child into that environment.
Michael Bird: But being able to take
Michael Bird: those siblings and and them not to miss out. There are a lot of points that I feel like
Michael Bird: My girls particularly have missed out on being able to do and participate in things because
Michael Bird: it was just.
Michael Bird: It was a matter of setting markers up for fail.
Michael Bird: when you put them in a situation that you know that they're not going to do well in, and you know that it's it's going to result in meltdown, or it's going to result in challenges.
Michael Bird: I think that.
Michael Bird: Well, you just choose not to. But then it does mean that your other children miss out. I think I think in the early days the only restaurant we went to was a Scottish one called Mcdonald's.
Michael Bird: yeah. I mean restaurants where things like restaurants, I mean, even with small. The best of small children. Restaurants are hard, but when you got kids who are very fidgly and craving some kind of stimulation, things like restaurants can be even harder. So you know.
Michael Bird: So yeah, I mean there. So that little minor things you could. You've got to You've got to change like that. Yeah.
yeah.
Michael Bird: there are some things that you can't avoid, but you can choose to not put your child in places that
Michael Bird: are going to be difficult for them to try and avoid the major triggers. Yeah. So but yeah, I think, yeah, ultimately walking along alongside people non-judgmentally, I think is one of the the best things that you can do and having a great support team of one
Michael Bird: occupational therapists, psychologists, speech therapists that can help you in those areas, I think, is really important.
Michael Bird: And engaging a psychologist for yourself to work through. all the stuff that comes with a a diagnosis is really important as well.
Michael Bird: I think I mean in terms of individual parenting. I think this also applies to in the classroom or even Sunday school. Often these kids need a very delicate mix of both compassion.
Michael Bird: but not, but not giving them the license to run a mark because they're different. I mean, you know there is. There is some bad behavior they can do. I mean, they can be disruptive.
Michael Bird: But it's getting that right balance between. Okay, Cut the kids some slack.
Michael Bird: and you know, on the other hand, okay, that's enough. You know you. You know you shouldn't be doing that, and you there's no need for you to do that. So and that that's the other thing. That's because some people want to give a little bit too much slack. Others.
Michael Bird: you know, maybe a lack on the compassion. But I think you you really do you? You really do need that little bit of both? A little bit of that that ability to know. When When do we give them some slack? And when do we kind of you know? Rain them in? Because, you know you don't, you don't want to make the disability or the diagnosis
Michael Bird: an excuse to let you know everything you know. Run a mark, as it were. you still have to have boundaries. You still have to have limits. but with with kids on the spectrum, I think you've just got to be a little bit more sensitive to how you do the shall we say the carrot and stick of of parenting? Well, it should be left up to the parent.
Michael Bird: Yeah, Well, yeah, it is. But teachers have to do it, too. Teachers? Yes. But yeah, there's
Michael Bird: engaging parents in those conversations.
Steph Judd: Yeah, I think that one of the things that Professor Swinton said in our conversation with him was that you know people with disability on a problem to be solved, the people to be
Steph Judd: to be loved and have friendship with. And I think that that's that from from people that I've spoken to. And I think that
Steph Judd: that
Steph Judd: 180 you need to do mentally around. Yeah, there may be a pastoral component to how we
Steph Judd: Well, we all need to belong in our communities, in all our differences, and we can't be the full body of Christ for that all the all the body or the members in the body of Christ.
Steph Judd: But I think that yeah, that that
Steph Judd: so often we we conceptually think of. Oh, this is a problem to be so. This is a person to be partially managed rather than you know, if we take the Scripture seriously, and we're all in the image of God. We all have gifts
Steph Judd: on offer that we can't. We can't thrive as the full body, without
Steph Judd: the gift that
Steph Judd: you know that Mike has to offer that Naomi has to offer that Marcus has to offer. And what are the ways that we can
Steph Judd: shift our community so that we can all bring those gifts to there rather than all this is just.
Steph Judd: you know.
Steph Judd: we will. We'll make concessions to the normative framework, as Chris was saying before and I think that that that takes a lot of work because you you're working upstream from.
Steph Judd: you know, whatever
Steph Judd: whatever tradition you in what feels comfortable? so thanks for sharing that i'm i'm sorry that those experiences have been obviously painful. but thank you for sharing
Michael Bird: so it's good. We're just very happy. We can share our story.
Michael Bird: I just want to be that dog in here. I'm doing here just 1 s, just 1 s Sorry, baby
John Anthony Dunne: just as a logistical aside, while while we're getting the dogs out, let the dogs out in the right. We let the dogs in so we at the top of the hour. I know, Chris, you just unmuted, so i'm guessing you have a question. is it a final question? And then it is, and then the question.
Chris Porter: So there, there, there's probably a final question, though there's a question on theology for the church which I was gonna ask for. Mike. Steph, Your what you just said then you could probably go at the end it could be just separated and put forward. the the thanks for sharing so Sydney, did you have another question
Chris Porter: following?
Sydney Tooth: I just turned on you. I I
Sydney Tooth: it it depends what your question is. Mine's sort of
Sydney Tooth: Mike can know his own
John Anthony Dunne: theology and and experience of how that's been shaped by yeah. Great? Yeah, You want to get yours, and then i'll do mine. And then are we good on time just checking with everybody. Are we good on time?
John Anthony Dunne: Are we good on time? Mike and Naomi?
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, All right, All right. Go ahead
Sydney Tooth: and
Sydney Tooth: thanks so much. Mike and I me. I
Sydney Tooth: I wonder if I can ask about how your experience
Sydney Tooth: with Marcus and parenting and learning about
Sydney Tooth: autism, and how it be, as you mentioned earlier, just thinking through how we all experience and see and think differently, how that's impacted your own theology. and experience of God.
Michael Bird: I think that God is way bigger.
Michael Bird: Then we realize
Michael Bird: and
Michael Bird: that comprehension of that God doesn't make a mistake
Michael Bird: has been huge for me that he's given us Marcus, for a reason
Michael Bird: that.
Michael Bird: he's all loving.
Michael Bird: but at times it's really hard to grasp that when I see my son struggle.
Michael Bird: When
Michael Bird: life feels really hard
Michael Bird: with what he has to go through and what his challenges are really impacts
Michael Bird: at times. My own
Michael Bird: my own faith in a in an aspect that it's shaky and
Michael Bird: questioning. But I also know that God
Michael Bird: will.
Michael Bird: He wants us to question. He wants us to come to him
Michael Bird: until I meant those times that are really hard.
Michael Bird: But it does make it challenging when
Michael Bird: you know that your son is going to struggle.
Michael Bird: You know that he's going to have
Michael Bird: people around him, that Aren't always going to accept him, and
Michael Bird: I understand who he is, and that
Michael Bird: God did an amazing thing when he made Marcus.
Michael Bird: but ultimately
Michael Bird: I'm. I am thankful for the journey that God has taken us on.
Michael Bird: and that
Michael Bird: he he's with me in that in that space, and I think that that's
Michael Bird: hard at points, because you feel like that you can be a left alone, and that it feels like the journey can be lonely, and that
Michael Bird: you you don't quite grasp what's going on, and you don't understand why God has done this.
Michael Bird: But he is with us, and he he is journeying along there, and he is that comfort.
Michael Bird: it's it's lots of ups and downs is how my faith and my formation has happened through this.
Michael Bird: There are good days, and there are bad days.
Michael Bird: but I do know that I hold on to the fact that God doesn't make a mistake, and that he
Michael Bird: He has given us this amazing gift
Michael Bird: for a really good reason.
Michael Bird: you know, For me it's it's it's a reminder that God does not choose the best, the brightest.
Michael Bird: the greatest. He chooses, the lowly, the weak, the powerless to shame.
Michael Bird: the great, the wise, and the mighty. And God does His best work on the margins. God is God is the one who is perpetually on the side of the underdog.
Michael Bird: you know, and I and I think it's. It's. You see, the way God uses people like that
Michael Bird: in the in their various in the various ways. whether that's to expose our prejudices. Our ignorance or our apathy is is one level. But the fact that God brings these people into our lives who are also able to contribute things to our our community
Michael Bird: which we would not be able to do without them.
Michael Bird: So you know, and that's that's for me that is the biggest takeaway.
Michael Bird: You know, we we shouldn't talk about church as fill with people who are normal and nice. Okay? church is meant to be churches meant is meant for people who are sinners who are broken every different way.
Michael Bird: It is the place where we gather together to balm each other's, wounds to encourage one another against the forces of darkness that are in this world, that it constantly assail our minds, our bodies, our health, and well-being that want to tear us apart, relationally.
Michael Bird: physically, politically, and emotionally, and it forces us to come together and to care for one another.
Michael Bird: There, I still think, is God's. The Church's gift to the world.
Michael Bird: we're not. We're not there to promote our own interest. We're there to promote the interests of those who bind themselves to Christ.
Michael Bird: and that is what I and you know the the whole body of Christ has its own wounds, from various battles, from from its own struggles with sin, from the from the fights we've had from the places we've grown up from the struggles we've been part of.
Michael Bird: and yet the the hospital, the hope and the healing that we all need comes from that body of Christ that comes together.
Michael Bird: That's what I think the you know. We're reminded to be that type of community a healing community.
Chris Porter: Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much, Mike and Naomi on the struggle that that often exists there. and I I think it it says a lot about the
Chris Porter: the
Chris Porter: presumption of of victoriousness, or the presumption of positivity in in our churches. let alone in our society.
Chris Porter: One final question, I guess, is then
Chris Porter: given many people who on the office of spectrum or
Chris Porter: have disabilities in general.
Chris Porter: and often so marginalized by the church so marginalized by our society that they, when they do write about, or they do seek to educate on their
Chris Porter: on on their in experience. it is very commonly ignored, because it is. It is too too far outside of the bounds of of understanding for most people.
Chris Porter: Mike, you're a writer of You've got an occasional book. How have you?
Chris Porter: how's how's this? Sorry? Let me rephrase that? Mike, you! You've written the occasional book.
Chris Porter: How has the experience of of parenting with Marcus Impacted upon your pastoral reflections? in those books? And or perhaps I should say, as name it goes right. Some for you.
Michael Bird: Chris Don't. Let the secret out. All the books are written by Naomi. I'm just doing it because it's a patriarchal context.
Michael Bird: Yeah.
Michael Bird: Well, I mean a number of things. It was certainly when I wrote my volume Evangelical Theology. When we got to the topic of the discussion of the image of God.
Michael Bird: One thing, I argued is that we need to understand the image of God through the lens of disability.
Michael Bird: And so I would say things like this. If you define the image of God as our capacity for rationality
Michael Bird: mit ctl, and that would imply that people who have some, you know, cognitive disability. you know, ranging from, you know, dementia to dementia, to all sorts of things that would imply that they are less in the image of God 150,
Michael Bird: or even if you define the image of God as the capacity to, you know, have relationships, you know, between men and women.
Michael Bird: that type of thing, if you define it, even in a relational sense, that would suggest that people with a you know, a low, emotional IQ, or people who are perhaps on the autism spectrum to some degree that that would mean that kind of less in the image of God. It means, if you're less good at relationships that would mean you're less in the image of God. So one thing I I I in in in the book I I challenge people is to think about the image of God through the lens of disability. If your definition
Michael Bird: of the image of God lessens the the nature or degree of the image in people with disability. Maybe that's a bad idea.
Michael Bird: and maybe we need to think of the image of God. not as an ableleness in terms of rationality or relationships, or however, you want to pass it out. But maybe we need to think of it as a status that is given, and that a person who is non-verbal, autistic, or a person who is in the late stages of Alzheimer's
Michael Bird: is still as much in the image of God as anyone else in the world. It it doesn't have degrees of variability. It is absolute, it is given, it is bestowed so I mean, that was one thing that obviously changed a big theological topic, and I frequently set that as an essay topic.
Michael Bird: and probably out of out of all the essay topics I've said, and and Paul Christopher has suffered through many of them. that's probably that the the essay that students tell me that they appreciate the most thinking about the image of God and disability that that's the one I get the consistent with the best feedback going like. Oh, my gosh! I had never thought about this
Michael Bird: this way. This has changed everything, and it's it's also good, because, you know, I've got a brother or sister with this disability. And now I can bring these things together and think about theology, humanity, and the Church in a far more integrated and a holistic way. So I mean, that's that's you know one of the ways it's thought about it's. I've thought about it as well
Michael Bird: mit ctl. And and also it comes to the nature of the Church, the Church's mission Witness. Not just having compassion for people with various disabilities, but how you utilize their gives talents and abilities, make them feel welcomed and value, and treat them 150.
Michael Bird: As as as a type of Of a gift to the Church, of a gift even to the world, who have their own, their own love, their own compassion, and their own beauty, which they add to a world that can often to them, at least especially be called brutal and dark.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah, that's that's wonderful. Right. After that we'll get Steph's comment which flows really nicely, actually, because she was talking about gifts and stuff which flows directly out of what you were just saying. There might, so i'll just close out, then.
John Anthony Dunne: Well, Mike and Naomi thank you both. So much for joining us, and and opening up and and sharing about your experience parenting Marcus with us.
Michael Bird: Pleasure! It's been a great talking to all of you are all the best with the series on disability.