295. Discipleship and Dyslexia

[00:00:08] Hi friends, welcome to another episode of Making Disciples. My name is Chris and I am your host. Well, welcome. It's really lovely to have you with me again for this podcast. I want to look at a topic today that we have looked at before, but I want to swing back round to. And I want us to look at discipleship and dyslexia. So many of you who listen to this

[00:00:35] podcast will know that I am dyslexic. And when I say I'm dyslexic, I really am dyslexic. And there's a lot I've done in life that will just help me navigate that. I use something called Grammarly a lot on my computer. I very often end up speaking into my phone when sending messages if I need to do it quickly because I just can't, you know, my fingers can't move the speed that my brain

[00:01:04] wants to move at. And that's one of the things for me where I can't communicate with my hand to write as fast as my head is going. So my form of dyslexia when it comes to written is actually I just can't, I cannot come up with a sentence and allow my hand to write it at a slow speed. So I end up moving on. I forget where the second half of the sentence is going because I just can't do that. It's the same with text messaging. So I end up speaking into my phone very often. Anyway,

[00:01:33] I'll tell you a bit more about my dyslexia in a minute. But just in the last few weeks, I've had a recurring conversation with different people around dyslexia, their needs and where they feel let down by the church and how discipleship becomes very difficult for them. I've had conversations with church leaders who have members of their congregation who are dyslexic and they just feel like they're letting them down. I'm saying, I'm not, you know, we don't know what to do here.

[00:02:01] So what I thought I would do is a episode that kind of explores dyslexia and discipleship, but also then give some tips to those who are dyslexic for their discipleship, but also some tips to church leaders, things that I've just found really helpful in terms of worship and how we might worship together. So we're going to explore this topic again of discipleship. I have done this before, as I've said, some of you might go, I've heard you Chris speak on this, but I think it's worth us

[00:02:31] swinging back around to it again. So that's definitely what we're going to do today. Just a reminder, if the podcast is a blessing to you, one of the ways that you can bless us is through buyers of coffee. The link is in the show notes that you can buy a coffee. I'm sat here right now with a cup of coffee. And as I record the podcast, do you know what? I just picked up the cup to show you, but of course you can't see it. So why did I do that? I don't know. I could drink from it so

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[00:03:26] very welcome to. Well, friends, let's dive in. We're going to spend a bit of time exploring dyslexia and discipleship, the interplay between the two and what we might do that might be helpful for others in their learning and transformation in the life of Jesus. So let's dive in.

[00:03:50] So let's talk about this then, dyslexia and discipleship. So the British Dyslexia Association says that one in 10 people are dyslexic. That's 3.7 million people would be dyslexic. Now, my experience has been that within the church, I think it's much higher than that. I think that within my staff teams over the years, it's been a higher percentage than that.

[00:04:18] And within our congregation, I would say it's more than that. So I don't know where they get the number from, but they say about 6.7 million people have dyslexia. And I constantly get the same comment from people when I say I'm dyslexic. Now, why do I say I'm dyslexic? Is it because I'm looking for people to feel sorry for me? The answer is not at all. I realised a number of years ago that if I

[00:04:47] didn't say that I'm dyslexic, it didn't give permission for others who are thinking about, am I dyslexic? Or you have children who are dyslexic to say, hang on, us too, like we're experiencing that. And the number of times I've talked about it, I would usually at some person or two or three people at the end of a talk, a man come to me and say, actually, I think I might be as well. What do I do? So I talk about it because I just think it's really helpful for others to go,

[00:05:15] well, maybe that's me. So 1.7 million people in the UK, the Dyslexia Association, are dyslexic. It might be more than that. So let me just explain to you about my dyslexia. So number one, I said it beforehand, if I'm trying to write something down, my brain can't keep up and by the end of the sentence,

[00:05:38] I don't know kind of where I'm heading. When I read text, so if you open a book, what I don't see is a page full of words. What I see is just a block of grey text, blurred. It's not clear. It's like a shape on the page rather than words. And then what I'm able to do is I can focus on a word. So I can focus

[00:06:05] on a word at the beginning of a sentence. And what I'm able to do is probably see the word after it and the word before it. But that's about it. And what I have to do when I read is I'm basically reading each word. And as I read the next word, the next, the word along from it is kind of starting to reveal itself. So I don't read a sentence. I read words, single words, single words, single words, single words. So what we found at school was people would often say my reading was quite stunted

[00:06:34] because I was reading a word, then a word. So I wasn't allowing a sentence to flow. I was, because I was doing this kind of individual words. I've learned how to navigate that by reading ahead. So I will often start by reading ahead. But it means that I'm really only seeing one word at a time. What I do that really helps me to suddenly see a whole sentence is highlighter pens. So what I found

[00:07:00] is if I get a highlighter pen and I highlight a sentence, it's like something happens to that page of text. And now suddenly I see that the paragraph or the sentence as a sentence, it's like now attached together and it kind of jumps out at me. So by simply highlighting a sentence, it starts to kind of settle down. I'm no longer seeing a block of gray. I'm now seeing a sentence jumps out at me.

[00:07:28] So I love highlighter pens. In fact, in my pocket right here, I have a highlighter pen that's got spring harvest on it. And I carry these around in my pocket all the time. I've got a whole bunch of highlighter pens. In fact, it's very rare I don't have a highlighter in my pocket that's just helpful for me in meetings just to highlight stuff. So I find that all really helpful.

[00:07:54] There's something about audio as well for me. So if I said to you, how do you spell the word introduce? If you just start throwing letters at me, I-N-T-R-O-D-U-C-E, I'm just reading off a sheet by the way, I will get a few letters in and I cannot catch those letters and write them down. It's like I hear the first few and I just cannot go any further. It's the same with numbers. If I said

[00:08:19] to you, give me a six-digit code and you said it to me, I would probably get the first two and that's it. I just cannot process the audio of those letters. Whereas if you slow down, I'm perfectly fine. If you wrote it down for me, I would then be able to kind of read the whole and I get the spelling.

[00:08:43] So with numbers on, you know, often now with two thingy authentication, you'll get a six-digit code if you're going to an email to find, you know, going in and I'll read it and I can cast that to memory by repeating it a few times. So I'm much better reading it than I am audio. So for a dyslexic, we often say, well, actually dyslexic is better with audio. That's not true at all. And my son,

[00:09:08] who is also dyslexic, you know, struggles processing audible descriptions. So if you said, here's four things I want you to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'd hear the first two. I just wouldn't get the second two. I can't process like that. So there's an implication or a problem there when it comes to discipleship. And so it's really worth us exploring this. So a couple of more things just

[00:09:35] about my experience. So I get a lot of people who say, you can't be dyslexic as if I'm lying. And a few years ago at Spring Harvest, a good friend of mine from Spring Harvest, I'd said in the Bible teaching that I was dyslexic. And a lady walks up to my friend and she said, he can't be dyslexic. And it was almost like she was accusing me of lying or as if I was trying to get sympathy

[00:10:06] where, yeah, I was hoping people would be sympathetic. No, I'm just saying I'm dyslexic so it helps. But this response, you can't be. You know, people look at what I've done, they look at the fact I've written books, I teach theology, that I preach, that I lead, that I can process complex ideas. I'm very strategic. And even though I've, you know,

[00:10:31] done my doctorate, I've written books, I preach, teach, teach theology, this does not mean that my dyslexia has disappeared. It just means that I've developed some strategies that really will help me function in the world. Strategies such as note taking, write my own notes, strategies like

[00:10:56] Grammarly, find that really helpful. It's a program you download, it's just a super good spell checker. Speaking into my phone. So Practicing Resurrection, that was a book that wrote years ago. Most of that book was written by me speaking into my phone. And whole paragraphs of that book, chapters of that book were me just speaking into my phone and then going back and editing. So I've worked out really how to come up with my own coping mechanisms. So I have friends who put

[00:11:24] coloured text, coloured sheets, like lighting sheets. Gosh, I'm butchering it now, aren't I? You know, these see-through coloured, I can't even remember what they're called, but you put them on the text over your page and you can see stuff. I have a friend who wears green glasses and is looking at a computer screen where the colours flip from black to white, so the text is white on a black screen.

[00:11:53] Suddenly they have absolutely no bother reading at all green text on a black background, so that can help them. For me, yellow highlighter just works really well as something happens. But I have a friend who, if things are printed on yellow paper, certainly can read the text much better. So there's a lot of coping mechanisms that people have. In fact, I would love to, if you've got a coping mechanism for your

[00:12:18] dyslexia, I'd love to hear that. Please do share that with me because I think I'd probably like to start gathering different people's coping mechanisms just because I get to speak about this so often, discipleship and dyslexia. So I'd love to hear what's your coping mechanism. So the question that I really want to explore is this, what happens when the way we do discipleship

[00:12:42] assumes everybody learns in the same way? And I would say many of us in our churches, we assume everybody learns through the same way, which is the sermon at the front of church that is suddenly stood in a pulpit and they're delivering a sermon. And I worked out years ago, didn't work for me, so why was it going to work for anybody else? One of the things that I've been doing over recent years is developing this preaching style that uses my iPad. I have the text on my iPad and I attach my

[00:13:09] iPad to a screen and I can then process the text with people by highlighting it, underlining it and engaging with the text very visually. Yes, I use pictures. Yes, I use stories, illustrations, but actually making the sermon visual as you read the text, not just kind of audio. So this isn't an episode about making excuses for dyslexic people in church. And that's not what this episode is about.

[00:13:37] It's about saying that dyslexia is actually a superpower. So for most of us with dyslexia, we would say we navigate the world differently. And I would say it's a better way of navigating the world. I think I'm a better preacher because of my dyslexia, because it means that I engage in teaching and preaching very differently to how the church is often done. I really think it's a superpower. I'm super creative. I can think in a slightly different way. I can problem solve in a different

[00:14:05] way. I see solutions. I'll wade around to a solution where very often people would just see there's a problem. I do love reading. I struggle reading, but I do love reading. I've worked out how to engage with the text on the page so that it becomes something I really enjoy. And I do think it becomes this superpower. Most youth workers I know that are any good are dyslexic. And most vicars that I know

[00:14:33] that are great are very often dyslexic. So they think outside of the box. So this is about asking whether the church sometimes creates unnecessary barriers for discipleship. And I would say, yes, we do. In Romans 12, 1 to 8, I'm not going to read all of this to you. You'll get the point as I read it. Romans 12, 1 to 8. Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, and view God's mercy to offer your bodies as living

[00:15:00] sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is true and proper worship. Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good and perfect will. It carries on. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has

[00:15:25] distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, these members do not all have the same function. It kind of goes on to talk about this kind of unity in the body, one body in Christ. And what does the passage say? Well, the passage says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Your mind is a part of your discipleship. It's a part of

[00:15:52] your discipleship. Discipleship does involve the mind, but it isn't only the mind. So what does Paul say in the text? Paul says to us we're to be renewed in our mind, but also says it's about the body, it's about community, it's about different gifts, different ways of serving. In other words, we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. And Christianity doesn't create disciples

[00:16:20] who all look, think, learn and contribute to the same. We're all different. The body needs difference. So for me, this is why I talk about discipleship in terms of the head, the heart, and the hands. The head, the heart, and the hands. Because these are not three separate types of

[00:16:44] discipleship. I would argue, friends, that there are three dimensions to the whole person formation. When you are equipping the saints in their head, their heart, and their hands, what you're doing is you're forming the whole person, not just their academic side. If you turn up to church and you have a really good sermon every week, really good teaching sermon that never transforms the heart

[00:17:10] and never moves to the hands, you are not making whole people, disciples, whole life disciples. It's all of us being formed. Our whole bodies, our head, our hands, and our hearts. So discipleship goes beyond the mind. And it is about all of these things like bodies, communities, gifts, different ways of serving. So I want to just explore discipleship a little bit for a moment around

[00:17:37] head, hands, and heart. So head really is about how do we learn? And this is really where dyslexia becomes particularly obvious, doesn't it? Because a huge amount of Christian discipleship really is built around reading, writing, remembering, filling in workbooks, studying texts, making notes. You know, when you go to do any theology, you're writing written answers. And friends, these

[00:18:05] things are not bad. These definitely are not bad things. But they aren't the only ways that we as human beings learn. We learn very differently. And my whole doctrine was about apprenticeship and how Jesus apprenticed his disciples in the way of the kingdom of God. We're apprentices of the kingdom of God. And we've made it all about learning from the text, the book, reading. Now, that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't teach them the text. He does. I've not come to abandon

[00:18:34] the law. He says, I've come to fulfill it. It's all about the law, the Torah. But Jesus showed them how the Torah transformed them and all about how the Torah transformed their hands and the way that they lived. So my experience, you know, how do you actually take something in? You know, I do take things in by listening. But actually, there are times when I can just

[00:18:59] get overloaded and I just cannot take any more in that way. How do you hear something? How do you talk about it? But also, how do you see it is a really important thing when it comes to the head. And one of the things I love doing is seeing good theology visually. Now, this is where Spring Harvest comes in. If you've never been to Spring Harvest, I'd love to encourage you to come and join us every Easter. One of the things that I get to do as a part of the

[00:19:26] planning group is look at how do we deliver great theology, but we do it not just through Bible teaching. We do it through the means of visualizing that theology. I bang on about visual theology all the time. How do we help people see good theology rather than just hearing good theology? Now, what do I mean by that? I think it is about how you visualize. How do you

[00:19:55] actually see it in a design, in the way that you might produce a visual image that helps you see what we're talking about? Now, sometimes that's a great photograph, but sometimes you have to go beyond that and come up with a great way of visually communicating that theological idea. So, I think there's a big important distinction here. So, struggling with the mechanism

[00:20:24] of learning isn't necessarily struggling with the content being learned. So, a lot of people do not struggle with what the church preaches. It's just they struggle to engage with it in terms of the mechanism. How are we going to get there? And that's why visual theology for me is just I love showing people what something looks like rather than just telling them what it is. So, this is what I think Jesus does this. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that gets planted in a garden.

[00:20:52] And it takes roots and it grows. And the birds, these little, little birds come and rest in its branches. Not the big eagles, but the tiny little birds come and rest in its branches. That's visual theology. He's teaching something about the kingdom of God and the last, the least, and the lost. He's teaching us about how small something might look at first. But when the kingdom is at work, it grows into something amazing that lots of birds can come and rest in its branches.

[00:21:17] So, many of our congregation will not struggle with what is being taught. It's the mechanism of how it's being taught. And a dyslexic person might understand something profound while finding the written expression of that understanding really difficult, really clumsy. And I have some great

[00:21:38] friends who are very poetic preachers. They've got a very wide collection of words. I'm even struggling now. They've got, you know, these very poetic words that they use, very flowery language. Yet, when they preach, they go, that sounds amazing, but I have no idea what you've just said. And we can overcomplicate things with our words. So, it's the mechanism sometimes that people really get stuck with.

[00:22:08] Just some practical observations. If you are dyslexic and you do struggle with discipleship, engaging with what often the church puts on, here's some tips, just some things. Think about using more audio, listening to the Bible, rather than reading it. And it doesn't always work because I've been doing the Bible in one year. And what I find is those passages are very,

[00:22:37] very, very long. And when David Suchet reads them, I can zone out from it and zone back because he's got this beautiful voice. But I get off with it and go, I have just lost half of what has just been said. So, for some of us, audio listening works really well. It doesn't work so well for me, but it might

[00:23:01] work really well for you. But I think what most of us need is less being talked to and more discussion. The problem with discussion is when we're discussing, sometimes poor theology that's around the table can get spouted by somebody in a discussion. And sometimes you do need somebody to go, actually, that's just not right. What you've just said is actually heresy. And so there's something about

[00:23:28] discussion that is really important for those of us with dyslexia. At the same time, we do need to hear from the right voices because it's very possible to have the wrong voice around the table. Visual material is really important. Looking for visual theology. I wrote a book a number of years ago called Immeasurably More. You can find it on Amazon. I wanted to produce a book about the work of the Holy Spirit that was really visual. Every page you turn over and go, wow, this is beautiful.

[00:23:57] This is, so it would communicate visually something. So sometimes we'd have only one word on the page and that word was depicted in such a way you understood what the word was about. So actually getting material that really is visual. I would say Immeasurably More is one of my most beautiful, theologically rich books that I have written. But it's been produced in such a way it is colourful and it's beautiful. You open it up and you get to see what we're talking about really

[00:24:26] visually. I think there's something about storytelling. You know, be able to tell a good story. Those of us as a dyslexic, we do love a good story. We do love repetition. So for me, laws, prayer, communion, liturgy, repetition is really important. Therefore, I learn it off Pat and I can recite it. I love the

[00:24:51] Nicene Creed because it's one of those things that I just learned. I've learned it off by Pat. And whenever we do the Nicene Creed, I'm not reading the words because it's just there. It's in me. And as a dyslexic, I find that much easier just to repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And so I go, actually, I've now memorised this completely. I think we need to recognise that it's not necessary to have to write everything down.

[00:25:19] In a sermon, you might like to draw a picture. I'm much better. I did a doodle recently where Cindy was preaching. I actually drew a tree and off the tree I had different branches, different branches had their different points. So it was a really helpful way for me to kind of process what this person was saying. So there's lots of things that I think, if you've got dyslexia, that you could do that would really help you.

[00:25:44] So it's worth exploring what does work? What does help me? What I would say is we can't lower the theological bar. We just need to change the route to that bar. So we don't lower the teaching bar in our churches. We just, we need to change the route towards it. Next area is around the heart. So you've done head, heart. What does this mean for you? Now, when it comes to dyslexia,

[00:26:11] I think dyslexia isn't an education issue. I think for many of us, it's actually an identity issue. So if you've had people say to you, things like get repeated, you know, I'm not clever. I'm rubbish at reading. I don't do theology. I'm not academic. Other Christians know more than me.

[00:26:36] I can never read my Bible. I'll leave that to the clever people. What ends up happening is, it starts telling you something about yourself. You start thinking that you are not something rather than you being something. And I would say that discipleship isn't simply about the formation and knowledge. It's actually fundamentally about our identity, about our belonging, our confidence,

[00:27:04] our character, love, desire, vocation, or you might say calling, becoming like Christ. Discipleship is the formation of the life of Jesus in us. And unfortunately, what ends up happening for those of us that are dyslexic, we get told, you know, you're not very quick at your reading. You're not very good at your reading. You're not very academic. You're not academically inclined. And unfortunately,

[00:27:32] what that does is it's like a curse on us, isn't it? It curses us. Go, I can't do that rather than actually, I might be able to do this. So what happens when our discipleship structures repeatedly reinforce the very shame that somebody has been carrying since school? The way we do discipleship, if it's coming to a classroom and learn, then actually what that does is it repeats

[00:27:54] and reinforces the shame that this is not for you. You cannot do this. And I think this is where the church can enter this reinforced shame rather than creating freedom. And I want to say this, friends, the good news is this. Your dyslexia doesn't determine your discipleship potential. God isn't

[00:28:18] waiting for you to become less dyslexic before he can use you. So that little thing inside of you that shaped you around your identity and belonging, because you can't do this because you're dyslexic. I want to say, actually, don't let that voice shape you. You are son and daughter of the most high who God is calling and will use you. Think about Moses. He had a stutter and he says to God, God, you can't use me to set your people free. I've got a stutter. And God's like, I don't care.

[00:28:46] I will work away around that. And that's been my experience. God, you can't use me. I'm dyslexic. And suddenly the thing that you struggle with the most when it's offered to God, somehow God uses it. In a way, you go, flipping heck, I've now written 14 books. Get to preach, teach. So we cannot let our

[00:29:06] dyslexia determine our discipleship potential. The third area is around hands. What do I actually do? You know, Jesus says, follow me. He doesn't say, understand everything I teach. He says, follow me. And I think there's a difference between knowing about Jesus, knowing Jesus and following Jesus.

[00:29:31] Let me say that again. There's a difference between knowing about Jesus, knowing Jesus and following Jesus. It's a difference. So our hands in terms of discipleship are asking a particular question to us, aren't they? What is actually changing in my life? Our hands, what am I doing differently? How do I pray? How do I treat people? How do I serve? How do I do evangelism? How do I forgive? How do I handle money?

[00:30:00] How do I respond to suffering? Who am I discipling? What am I doing differently because I follow Jesus? So your hands is about where you put this stuff into practice. And for some of us, we are really gifted with our hands. And we somehow think our hands are less important than our heads. And if you're an apprentice, if you're a craftsman, craftswoman, sewer, a baker, a builder, you know,

[00:30:27] an electrician, roles that use your hands, sometimes we are highly skilled with our hands. But we think that's less important than the head, not in discipleship. In discipleship, it's all three, your head, your heart and your hands. And actually your hands might end up being your superpower. Last couple of things I want to try and tease out before we run out of time. We need to just think about unity in the body of Christ. We are not all the same. We had this in

[00:30:53] the previous reading. Dyslexia can make some of us feel like there's no space for us in the church because I just don't get this the way that they get this and the way that they teach this. I want to say, what kind of community do we need to become so that different people can flourish as disciples? And I think sometimes we make people think, you know, I'm dyslexic. I don't fit. This

[00:31:18] is something I need to overcome so I can participate in church. I think we need to shift the responsibility from those with dyslexia and say, you need to fit. We need to shift the responsibility to the community of God so that we say, how can we do what we do so that everybody can flourish as disciples in this place? So the biggest challenge I think for us is this. Dyslexia might expose something about

[00:31:47] everyone's discipleship. I'm not simply saying that churches need to accommodate dyslexic people. I'm not simply saying that. What I am saying is this. When we make discipleship work better for dyslexic folk, we might discover that we're making discipleship better for everybody. And I think that's really important. Everybody benefits with good storytelling. Everybody benefits with conversation,

[00:32:13] visual learning, repetition, practice, learning in community, embodying our faith, reflecting and learning how to do that reflective exercise, learning with experience. All of that benefits all of us, doesn't it? We all do better when we're learning in that kind of environment. So I would say that it'd be really good for many of our churches to do a simple head, hands, heart kind of audit. You know,

[00:32:42] what's your learning style of this church? Could we expand that in some shape or form? You know, are we learning in ways that we're all going to benefit from the heart? Are we addressing this identity to belonging stuff? Or are we kind of making people feel like they don't fit? You know, I think good theology transforms our identity. Are we helping people become more confident

[00:33:11] in God's love? Are we growing them in their character? Are they growing in their desires and all of that stuff? Then there's a question for us around the hands. What are we doing as a church that's helping people learn the practical skills of the work of the kingdom of God? And I find it really interesting that many churches will spend a lot of time on preaching, but we'll never actually

[00:33:35] do some practicing of actually praying for the sick, practicing of sharing the gospel, serving others, sharing faith, disciples who make disciples. We just don't practice this stuff. The hands kind of represents a kind of the activity of doing. So if the head is the kind of the learning, academic learning, the hand is the doing activity. So I would say doing a bit of an audit that says,

[00:34:04] you know, where are we training people practically, as well as where are we training people in terms of teaching? And are we developing a way of learning here that is more than just sitting and listening? So let's just kind of come to a bit of a close. I want to give you five tips for churches.

[00:34:27] Churches, if you want to be dyslexia friendly, here's five things. Number one, you could offer different ways of engaging with the Bible. You could offer ways of audio, visual, discussion, practical, definitely, you know, I believe having scripture read is really important, but then watching scripture and something like the chosen or I don't know, the passion of Christ, eclipse,

[00:34:53] that kind of thing can be really helpful for people where they get to see it or an animated version of the Bible, you know, where they get to see the story played out and then they get to read it. Now, it doesn't work with an epistle or something like that, but actually it does if you're doing Joseph or it does if you do Moses. There's some great media out there around this stuff. So offering different ways of engaging with the Bible would be number one. Number two, make written material

[00:35:18] easier to read. Let me just talk about song words for a second. I get really frustrated when I go to churches and the song words are on the screen and they're only showing you one line at a time of a song rather than two lines. Now, having said earlier, I don't see words. I just kind of, I find it really frustrating if you only play me, you show me on the screen one line and then you're

[00:35:44] turning it over late and you're already singing the next line before the previous line has been turned over. If I don't know the song, I can get halfway through that second line before I've caught up and then we're back onto the next line. So show a couple of sentences on the screen and make sure whoever's doing the song was turns the slide over to the next line as you start to sing the final word,

[00:36:10] unless it's really fast and you might want to turn it over a little earlier. But for me, if you turn it over as we start to sing the last word, then I'm already able to see the first word of the next verse and I can, I can kind of sing along. Having clear text. These wacky backgrounds are wonderful, but for a dyslexic, it can be an absolute nightmare. I was at a church very recently and the background image of the song

[00:36:39] words was a field of corn with white text. I couldn't read it. The background image was so messy. It meant I couldn't read. I was really, really struggling. So think about your written material, song words, make sure they turn over easily. Use clear fonts. Use generous spacing between words.

[00:37:02] If possible, you know, white on black does, does work pretty well. I do know some churches used to do green on black. I know visually it can look weird, but actually for a dyslexic could, can be at times much easier. It's softer on the eyes. If you're using white backgrounds, definitely don't do black on white. That does not work for a dyslexic. You do cream with black text. That will be much

[00:37:28] more helpful. So think about your written materials. Three, avoid putting people on the spot to read. There's nothing worse than say, oh, George, why don't you come and read? If you said to me, Chris, come and read, I will do it, but you are going to stress me out something chronic. I've got coping mechanisms so I can do it, but for someone else, you could be doing the worst thing.

[00:37:51] So flashback to my youth when I was at school, we were reading The Iron Man and I was told to come and read a chapter from the book at the front of my class. It was horrible. I thought it was horrible. The class thought it was horrible. It was painful. And I never, ever wanted to read out loud ever again.

[00:38:16] Never. If you asked me, I would never have done it. And it wasn't until after I'd left university when I started to get a little bit of confidence to say, well, I can read, but I need to have read it beforehand. Show it to me and then I'll read it. But don't just give me the reading. I need to be able to see it, pre-read it. Even today, I much prefer if you give me it to pre-read because I find it really

[00:38:39] difficult. So avoid putting people on the spot. Four, teach through head, heart and hands. I just find this really helpful as a preaching mechanism. First bit of sermon is the head stuff. Second part, the heart is about the heart stuff and what's the impact on my identity. And then the last bit is what do I do differently because we've read this passage. I love preaching like that. It helps people to explore faith in a way that's really structured, really makes sense. But it means you can also speak

[00:39:10] identity stuff week in, week out. So I love using the head, heart and hands as a preaching mechanism. I also use it as a discipleship mechanism in small groups. And if you go to the Making Disciples website, if you go to the resource section, you'll see the discipleship Bible study method. There we go. And it uses the head, the heart and the hands to do it. And I just think that's how I've learned

[00:39:36] Bible studies for years. Really helpful. Number five, recognize that people learn and express faith differently. Creating a church culture where conversation, creativity, listening and experience are valued alongside reading and writing. My big tip is look to be multi-sensory. Look to be

[00:39:57] teaching in ways that are dynamic and broad and can be different each week. Trying different things. I'd love to encourage you to do that. So let me just finish with an encouragement. Look, I'm dyslexic and dyslexia has created many challenges for me. Huge amount of challenges in life. But I've learned how to develop mechanisms that kind of help me navigate this stuff.

[00:40:28] I don't want anybody listening to think I'm saying I'm dyslexic, therefore you will get over it. I'm definitely not saying that. It's been hard work. I can't tell you how difficult school was. I cannot tell you. If your child is dyslexic, don't send them to somebody to learn to read. The problem isn't that they can't read. If they're dyslexic, it's not that they can't read.

[00:40:58] It's that there's a barrier between where they are and the text that they can't get past. So this whole thing about me highlighting things in yellow, oh my lord, suddenly the whole thing comes together. The dyslexia friendly font. Oh my gosh, suddenly it gets easier. Don't send your kids to for reading lessons. It's just not going to happen. You need to work out what is the barrier that's actually causing the problem here. Children can learn to read if the barriers are overcome.

[00:41:26] That means they can't engage with the book. I don't want church leaders to think we need to make everything easier for dyslexic. It's not about making everything easier. It is about creating an environment where all of us can engage with and connect with. We need to make discipleship deeper, richer and more accessible. That is my message.

[00:41:54] So maybe the question isn't whether dyslexic people can become deeply formed disciples. The question is whether our churches have created a discipleship environment which they can flourish. All of us can flourish as disciples, but is the environment right? Are we creating the right environment of learning for everybody? So I would say this. My dyslexia has taught me

[00:42:21] that people don't all learn in the same way. And perhaps discipleship needs to remember that Jesus never asked us to make identical disciples. He asks us to make disciples. We don't all need to be identical. We don't all need to have the same giftings. We don't all need to be able to do the same thing. We just need to be able to learn and grow and be in an environment that is appropriate for each of us.

[00:42:49] And that's the challenge for the church, the body of Christ. Can we be a church that allows all of us to grow, learn and flourish? Friends, that is a long episode today. I do apologize, but I just wanted to cover some of that stuff as we think about discipleship and how dyslexia is influenced. And I think that identity stuff, I need to understand how dyslexia can slowly whisper to somebody, you know, you're stupid, you can't do this, who do you think you are?

[00:43:21] It's an identity thing and it can leave people really thinking like they've got nothing to offer the church. And it is so not true. So friends, I hope that's helpful. Love to hear from you with regard to your dyslexia or how you've overcome dyslexia. I would absolutely love to hear that. I'm going to write a few articles on dyslexia and discipleship for the Making Disciples website as well. So they'll be going up over the next coming weeks.

[00:43:49] But friends, grace and peace. I'm going to disappear now because it's been a long episode. Have a fab week and we shall speak soon.