I have a real problem, not sure whether advice is possible!!

[JimEarthworm]

Hello my people and I have decided to post this anonymously so that the person of who I am does not intefere with the issue itself.   In November of last year,   my parents started going to a church , and on Saturday mornings this church runs a club for kids with Autistic Spectrum Disorders age 7 - 11.  The club is run by volunteers from the church,  but the kids themselves, none of them or their parents go to the church.  They make a small donation of 1 or 2 pounds, which goes into the church.    The pastor of the church told me that he was praying, and had a strong feeling that God was telling him to help the ASD kids in our hometown, and so he set the group up.

Now, when I found out about this, I was curious, and i wanted to help, thinking that my own asperger status might give me some special skill in looking after kids like this (the job is basically overlooking them as they play and encouraging social interaction.   And, I got CRB checked and started doing it, and it was great!  I really got on with the kids and felt that I did have a special understanding with them that the NT collegues did not.  In fact, it was so much fun it became the highlight of my week.

Now I will get to it - before all this, I was not a Christian.  When the club started, I thought it was a message from God, telling me he cared enough about me to give me the chance to do this.  I thought "right - God is definitley real, because this is just what I wanted to do, and Christianity gave me the chance to do it."  I resolved to start attending the church meetings and to become a Christian.  (the church is a Borat-style pentecostal "speaking in tongues" type nuthouse.)

Anyway, for many reasons, which would take a whole other thread to list, I have completely failed at fitting in or making friends there, so even getting to a stage where I can find it bearable to sit through a meeting.  And the truth is I don't believe in it, and I don't want to become a Christian.  And even if I did, I find it unbearable to spend the meetings sitting on my own, because I can't break into their clique-y groups (and this isnt just me - many people in the church have left complaining of clique-ness, as my parents told me, and they are also upset about how cliquey it is).

So anyway I love the Saturday Club but don't want the religion, and I am wondering what other people would do in my situation.  I mean, I don't have to go to that particular church to do them, as long as I am a Christian, but I don't even want that right now.  I have my own beliefs, and Jesus doesn't figure there.  Anyway The thread is here...react how you will, if at all, thank you!   (i am stressed about this).

[McGiver]

just view this situation with tunnel vision; you are there for the kids with aspergers, not for social or religious reasons.
you said yourself that because of your own dx that you feel that you could do a better job with the kiddo's than the NT volunteers.  do it for the kids.
also do it for yourself and your own well-being.  you also said that it has become the highlight of your week so enjoy it.

[Callaway]

Is it a requirement that you attend church meetings in some church to help with the Saturday Kid's Club, Jim?

If not, then continue to help with the Saturday Kid's Club and just keep your beliefs private from them. 

If so, then you have to decide how important helping with the Saturday Kid's Club is to you because you will have to invest the time to attend church meetings either there or somewhere else as well as the time to actually help the kids.  Whatever you decide, I think you are wonderful for helping with the Saturday Kid's Club and I wish there was one near here for my daughter to attend and someone like you helping with it. 

It can be very difficult for children with special needs to attend church because they can become disruptive during services, so that may be why none of the children or their parents attend the church services.  Even when my daughter was younger and we visited my family and attended their church with them, I often had to take her out of the services because she couldn't handle sitting quietly for so long.

[Leto729]

You can do it for the kids. It sounds that You did not attend the meeting before hand, in the Saturday morning club but did it afterwards instead.

[purposefulinsanity]

Do they actually require that their volunteers going to church on a regular basis or that they are christians? Plenty of people call themselves christians without ever setting foot in a church.  If you stop going to their services will anyone ask you if you're still going to another church or could you just carry on helping out at the saturday club?  If your parents go to their church they may not even ask you.

[Nomaken]

Stop going to anything but the saturday meetings and have a friend come along with you to give you strength and conviction that you are entitled to it, you deserve it, and you are doing nothing wrong by doing it.  And anyone who would disagree needs to reassort their priorities.  Because it would require a truely petty creature to be somehow offended by your choice.

[Jim]

I can keep going whether I'm at church or not.   It's just my own mental state that is upsetting me.   I used to think God must be real if his church had given me this chance.  Should this kind of help be taken as proof that Christianity is the true faith? or just good coincidence?


I think that there is a God, or at least some spiritual force who is leading me away from Christianity.   I read an article the other day which tried to disprove the Dawkins book.  I went to the library and opened the book on a random page, and it was a chapter proving wrong the exact point of the article I read.  That does it,  something spooky is going on.  My own personal beliefs involves aliens, Buddhism and people's atoms floating around in the sky.

[purposefulinsanity]

If that's the case I don't really know what advice anyone can give you. But I don't see how exsistance of this group proves that the christian god is real- it simply proves there are people out there who are willing to give up their time to help others. No-one can tell you what to believe in though, unfortunately you'll have to figure that one out for yourself.

[Callaway]

I think that it proves that there are some very good people who happen to be Christians; however, there are also some very good people who are not.

I personally believe in God, but I know a lot of very good people who don't.  Who am I to judge them for their beliefs?  If the God in whom I believe really exists, then He gave them minds to think for themselves and they have to choose their own paths.

[El]

If God is both real and, as Christianity teaches (when people aren't screwing the message), loving and compassionate, I don't think he'd want you to put yourself through something as upsetting as hanging out with that clique-y group.  if you really want to pursue Christianity, I'd suggest shopping around for a church, and talking to pastors and/or priests about your questions and doubts.  If a pastor or a priest isn't "into" talking to someone who wants a convert, by the way, that would be a sign you probably don't want to be in that particular congregation.

I will add that awakening spirituality is often uncomfortable, ant not just in Christianity.  Even in Buddhism, someone who's just starting to get a bit of a grasp on all this "nothing really exists" stuff can be pretty upset by it all before it properly gels.

[Randy]

They could not require you to attend church, because the priest thinks he got a message from god.  If he wanted you to go church then we would not bug you.
If he does just walk away, he is being a hypocrite.  I doubt that will happen though.  Have some patiences because special needs are tough, believe me I live with them. lol..  If they piss you off don't engage.  Let them hurt themselves for you, because they are acting up for a reason if they do.  This reason is sorta like your revenge, and so just leave them be.  Ignore it until they get your attention in a positive way.

I agree with you on the church issue, why bother wasting time with sunday church?  Do good for others, instead  of wasting time listening the a priest who basically repeats things over and over.  Good things happen to good people, is all you need to think about.

[Peter]

I can keep going whether I'm at church or not.   It's just my own mental state that is upsetting me.   I used to think God must be real if his church had given me this chance.  Should this kind of help be taken as proof that Christianity is the true faith? or just good coincidence?


I think that there is a God, or at least some spiritual force who is leading me away from Christianity.   I read an article the other day which tried to disprove the Dawkins book.  I went to the library and opened the book on a random page, and it was a chapter proving wrong the exact point of the article I read.  That does it,  something spooky is going on.  My own personal beliefs involves aliens, Buddhism and people's atoms floating around in the sky.

The human brain is extremely good at finding patterns in things, but it's also extremely poor at recognising when those patterns are based on random, meaningless processes, so many people have a tendency to attribute purpose to occurrences that have none.  You need to take a long, hard look at your assumptions, and determine if you're really seeing purposeful acts, or if it's just life being as vague and complex as life tends to be.

For example, if AS runs at say, 3% of the population, how likely is it that there would be at least one person with AS in the congregation to 'be given this opportunity'?  The group could just as easily have been for blind, deaf, retarded or downs syndrome kids, homeless people, a prayer group for the Somali flood victims, or whatever, so would you still have seen it as a divinely influenced opportunity then?    You seem to be seeking spiritual satisfaction, and are having trouble finding it, so perhaps you're reading too much into things that are very ordinary occurrences. 

As for the Dawkins book; why did you open it at a random page?  I normally start at the contents page and look for the relevant information.  Is it possible that you were looking for confirmation of divine guidance?  Divine guidance is one of these things that's easy to find if you look for it; rolling a few 6's at a game of dice, a tree next to you being struck by lightning, a book opening at a particular chapter... anything can be taken as a sign if a sign is what you're looking for. 

If you read the article trying to disprove the book, and then went to the library to find the book, it's far more a sign that you, personally, are leading yourself away from Christianity, or at the least the local speaking-in-tongues version, because you, personally, are having issues with it.  God didn't command you in a booming voice to seek that book, or drop it from the sky so that it fell open at the page in question; it's a decision that you made yourself.  If you had been completely content with your current spiritual position, you probably wouldn't have felt a need to read that book, and would never have opened it at that page, and even if you had, you wouldn't have been expecting to find signs of diving guidance telling you that Christianity was the wrong path, and thus would have been far more likely to interpret the fact of it opening at that page in a different light.  There's no need to resort to god or aliens controlling your life by means of obscure signs when there are so many other ways of explaining things.

Sorry to be so cynical here, but it sounds like your thought habits are causing problems for you.  Right now, your thoughts seem to revolve around 'What divine purpose can I assign to this occurrence that I've just observed?'.  Does this sound like how you usually think?

[Jim]

To be honest, its the way I was bought up.  I have grown up around people who see signs in everything "Satan made it hard to start the car...but then God helped start it and we got there safely" etc.   I was not bought up with science and logic.  I can see myself as Christian,  if I can seperate Christ himself from the followers that I take a dislike to.

[Peter]

Would you like to change the way you think about things?  Being brought up that way doesn't mean you're doomed to it for your entire life.  Right now I'm seeing a psychologist for cognitive behavior therapy, which is all about challenging current ways of thinking and replacing them with more useful and less detrimental ways of thinking.  Perhaps you could benefit from it too.

Are there any other churches in your area?  And is going to your current church essential for being able to help with the AS group?  Perhaps you would do better if you made religion a personal thing, and didn't bother with churches, if you find that other followers detract from your religious experience.

[Desecration]

I am of the opinion that all religions are purely man made and based on ancient laws and tales. I think people who follow a set religion aren't independant enough, we need to form our own ideas and opinions. I'm not ruling out the possibility of a God or some kind of higher power though, if you want to believe in that then great, I myself am unsure.
Whether you're sure God exists or not though, I would implore you not to get too involved in any kind of religion as they only serve to limit a person with (often foolish) restrictions and encourage herd conformity. Two of the worst things imaginable.
Studying religion however is another thing, this I would encourage greatly. There are some very good ideas and beliefs in many different religions, if you study them all you can take from each something that is valid to you and start to build your own belief system, your own religion if you will.
I'd also suggest reading up on various philosophies, there have been so many great minds with so many great ideas, plenty of which I'm sure would be relevant to you and would help you grow as a person.

So to summarise: don't limit yourself to one religion or philosophy, study many and take from each something you can truly believe in. Be an individual and build your own belief system.