Neurodivergent Faith

Send us Fan Mail What if one of the most important things you bring to your neurodivergent child (or your loved one)… isn’t your words, your strategies, or your plans—but your regulated presence? In this episode, we explore the sacred, often overlooked work of parents learning to regulate themselves—especially when raising neurodivergent kids. We’ll name the honest truth: parenting can be overstimulating. And being overwhelmed doesn’t mean you’re failing—it means you’re human. Through story, ...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, “Child Sacrifice for the Sake of the Community,” we explore what happens when belonging, harmony, and reputation are prioritized over a child’s nervous system. Through personal reflection, we name the ways many of us learned to override our bodies—whether in overwhelming environments, unspoken expectations to “push through,” or even being required to give affection we didn’t feel safe offering. We gently unpack the difference between tantrums and meltdowns, a...

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of my conversation with Alyssa Barringer, we explore what led to her AuDHD diagnosis and how that understanding began to bring clarity to years of lived experience. We talk about neurodivergence in the family, the connection between message and messenger, and some of the realities of high control religious spaces. Alyssa also shares glimpses of healing in her current church—what it looks like to be welcomed as you are, and simple, practical ways communities can cue ...

Send us Fan Mail In this opening episode of Season 4, we begin exploring the question: What do you wish your caregivers had known… or done differently? In this episode, Josh shares his answer to this question and together we explore: how invalidation shapes our relationship with our body and selfthe internalization of messages like “too sensitive” or “too much”and the slow, sacred work of learning to trust ourselves againJosh shares a personal poem, “A Forgotten Language All My Own,” and we t...

Send us Fan Mail In this final episode of the Masking and Spiritual Formation series, Josh is joined by Sunita Theiss for a thoughtful and deeply honest conversation about masking as performing belonging—especially within faith and community spaces. Together, they explore masking as a survival strategy shaped by culture, neurodivergence, and the longing to be safe and included. Sunita reflects on her own experience of masking as constant internal recalibration in environments not designed for...

Send us Fan Mail What if we don't have to pretend to be something we aren't in order to be loved? In this opening episode of a short series on Masking and Spiritual Formation, Josh explores the practice of masking—what it is, why neurodivergent people develop it, and how it quietly shapes our inner lives. Drawing from lived experience, research on autistic masking, original music, and poetry, this episode names masking as a survival strategy rooted in safety and belonging—while also acknowled...

Send us Fan Mail This is part three of a conversation on executive function with Neurodiverse Couples Coach, Robin Tate. We wade into the territory of organization—how systems help some of us stay grounded, and how easily life unravels when those systems are disrupted. Together we name the relational ache that surfaces when shared routines aren’t honored, and the grace that comes when we build in margin, contingency, and the courage to pause and reassess. We also turn toward time—how some of ...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the second part of a conversation on executive function with Neurodiverse Couples Coach, Robin Tate. In it, we explore the tensions many of us know so well—wanting to begin, yet feeling unable to start…attention pulled in different directions… wanting to discern what matters most, yet sensing every task weighted with equal urgency. Robin offers language and compassion for the invisible barriers: demand avoidance, inertia, overstimulation, the weight of expecta...

Send us Fan Mail In this conversation, Josh sits down with researcher and podcast host Jon Machnee (Christianity On The Spectrum) to explore how the autistic experience can widen our understanding of life with God and one another. Together, they reflect on Jon’s personal story and the origins of his work, the gifts autistic people bring to the Body of Christ, and the challenges that arise when church life is built around neurotypical expectations. Jon also begins to unpack the idea of “autist...

Send us Fan Mail In this opening episode of Season 3, Josh returns to a simple but powerful spiritual practice first explored in Season 1, Episode 9: naming what’s working and what’s not. Through listener reflections and his own honest check-in, Josh invites you to pause, breathe, and notice where life and connection are flowing—and where they’re not. This is not a productivity exercise, but a contemplative one: a way of paying attention to the shifting seasons of your own heart, body, and fa...

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of a series, we begin a sacred conversation at the intersection of Executive Function and Faith. Together with neurodiverse Christian couples coach Robin Tate, we gently explore three foundational executive function skills—Impulse Control, Working Memory, and Emotional Regulation—and how they might shape the ways we love God, others, and ourselves. What happens when you act impulsively before you've thought something through? When you forget something im...

Send us Fan Mail In this thought-provoking and grace-filled conversation, Josh speaks with theologian Léon Van Ommen about his book Autism and Worship. Together we explore what autistic ways of being offer the spiritual community, the value of embodiment, and the possibility of a Church where all can truly belong. We talk about: – dismantling the “tyranny of the normal” in worship spaces – autistic theology as a gift to the Church – real-life communities reimagining liturgy – hope for those w...

Send us Fan Mail What if “no” wasn’t seen as rebellion, but a nervous system seeking regulation? What if belonging in the church didn’t hinge on meeting expectations, but on being met with grace? In this rich and poetic conversation, I’m joined by Sunita Theiss—an autistic, ADHD, PDA’er and parent coach—who offers profound insight into demand avoidance and its impact on relationships, parenting, and spiritual formation. We explore the invisible weight of expectations in church spaces, how dem...