Nurturing Care’s Sensory Room Laboratory welcomed its first group of children this week for a hands-on visit where kids and adults tested tools designed to support a wide range of sensory needs. Pastors, church leaders, and curious kids moved through stations around the room, trying items and learning how each resource might work in their own setting.
Nurturing Care developed the room to support neurodiverse visitors—including adults—during NTS-related events. The same space also serves as a test lab for churches exploring child-friendly sensory tools. Many congregations build their own sensory spaces through trial and error, without access to an adaptive environment where they can try equipment before purchasing it.
During the visit, leaders compared options such as white-noise and brown-noise machines and tested how sound changed under the room’s sound-dampening canopy. They also tried different noise-reducing headphones, weighing comfort against audio clarity. Leaders said many parents want headphones that lower volume without blocking hearing so much that children miss instructions from adults.
Adults also evaluated sensory tools by weight, size, and texture—hands-on insight that online shopping can’t provide. The lab includes supplies to sanitize shared items between uses, and includes several multifunction devices that combine features such as vibration and sound to reduce the number of tools needed.
Children gravitated toward furniture designed for calming breaks, including age-appropriate weighted blankets, varied seating options, and visual aids. As they moved from station to station, they traded seats—especially around a PeaPod-style chair that doubles as a compression-style rest space.
Nurturing Care director Dean Blevins said most tools were intentionally purchased through widely available online retailers so participants can easily find the same items. The organization also keeps a catalog of each resource, including images of how the products appear online.
Leaders from the visiting church said the experience helped them identify tools they may adopt locally, and children left with positive experiences in the room. Nurturing Care credits Camp Encourage, a Kansas City ministry, with helping design the space and providing a video-based introduction for future visiting churches. The room functions both as a sensory space and as a practical lab—helping congregations learn how to support neurodivergent children through guided exploration.
On the West Coast wing of the Nurturing Care initiative, the stories coming in from congregations don’t read like a single program rollout. They read like a movement learning, week by week, what it takes to make worship and prayer accessible for children—and what happens when adults trust kids with real spiritual agency.
Singing As Belonging
In Bend Church of the Nazarene, that trust is sounding a lot like music. Pastor Jason Visser reported the release of the church’s first children’s worship album—Kids Worship, Vol. 1—with a Spanish version and a bilingual release close behind. For Bend, the project isn’t just a production milestone; it’s an intentional picture of belonging. Visser wrote that worshiping in a bilingual setting regularly places children side-by-side with peers who “look different” and speak different languages, training them to see that diversity as normal rather than threatening.
That same conviction—that children can shape a congregation’s worship life rather than merely observe it—surfaced again in Palmer Church of the Nazarene show in this picture rehearsing the song “There is a River of Life.” In a note from Palmer Family Church of the Nazarene, Monica Gaige described a worship moment that carried extra weight: a student facing difficult circumstances at home, previously reluctant to participate up front, decided he wanted to join the church’s worship leadership and play trumpet during It Is Well. The child’s decision came after sustained encouragement and a worship pastor’s affirmation that singing with the kids had become his favorite part of church. Gaige noted that the congregation’s support has been steady—and that children’s joy has a way of catching.
Kids making a Difference
Across the West Coast reports, this theme of kids as contributors shows up in more than music. As noted in a previous story, in Southern California, the GratiGrow project at the Church of the Nazarene in Hesperia leaned heavily into service—building spiritual formation through hands-on outreach. Coordinator Lucia Y. Babb-Rodriguez reported volunteer training that included youth from the community, many of whom had never attended church before. In January, the group’s first outreach brought families together to clean and assist a pastor with physical limitations; the work drew a neighbor’s gratitude and prompted parents to say their kids returned home proud—some having helped for the first time. The experience, the report said, was marked by prayer, order, and what they described as the presence of the Holy Spirit, with momentum growing as more children signed up for the next month.
If Hesperia’s story highlights formation through service, a report titled “Gratitude is the new attitude” underscores formation through emotional regulation and relational repair—the kind of discipleship that happens establishing trust before the first song even begins. At Sandia Valley Church pastor Patti Rivas reported that a child arrived dysregulated and struck at his grandmother/guardian, a scene that previously might have escalated the room’s anxiety. Instead, a leader guided him to a “God’s time” space, explaining that it was his place to pray, write, read, sing—or simply color. The child chose coloring, and the moment de-escalated in a way leaders hoped could become repeatable: giving children a structured, spiritually framed choice before worship so they can settle and connect with God in the way that works best for them.
In Arizona, the SWLA Church of the Nazarene in Chandler offered a quieter update—but one that still reveals how grassroots this initiative can be. Scheduling conflicts kept leaders from meeting monthly or starting regular time with the children, yet the report emphasized that both kids and parents remain eager to launch the prototype. At the insistence of one child, pastor Vanessa Hernandez reports an early start to the effort. In Nurturing Care work, momentum sometimes looks like weekly programming; other times it looks like sustained enthusiasm that outlasts a complicated calendar.
Further north, Sonoma Valley Church of the Nazarene showed another side of the same reality: behind every “successful” children’s moment is a less visible workload of planning, writing, and revising. Rev. Elaine Briefman reported curriculum development so extensive that the initial printout came to 89 pages—an amusing moment that led the team to shift plans and print professionally so volunteers would have durable copies. The church is also developing motions for a new song and exploring quarterly performances that would bring parents and children into worship together more regularly—especially meaningful after a former drop-in daycare program ended.
Worship as a Training Ground for Trust
And running beneath many of these updates is a regional emphasis on worship as a training ground for trust. A separate report from the Southwest Native American District—centered at New Life Church of the Nazarene in Sanders, Arizona—described district-wide training where leaders introduced “trust” alongside worship, creating space for children to sing and recite scripture in front of congregations. In one service, children stepped into an unscheduled gap in programming and still flourished; in another, two children volunteered as offering ushers and prayed publicly, drawing amazement from adults across multiple districts.
Pittsburg Church of the Nazarene noted they have made progress with intergenerational worship and their “prayground” is set to open next Sunday. The church hosted a “set up party” after service last week where adults, teens, and even little ones jumped in to help. One 4 year old exclaimed in the middle of all the excitement and seeing the new items, “this is the best day of my life!!” Leadership celebrated that even in this preparation the participants demonstrated their commitment to worship as an inter-generational church that values everyone and their contributions.
Taken together, the West Coast Nurturing Care reports suggest three broad developments happening at once:
Worship is becoming more multilingual, more child-led, and more formative, from Bend’s bilingual albums to Palmer’s student musicians.
Spiritual formation is expanding beyond the classroom, turning “worship time” into everything from outreach work in Hesperia to pre-service regulation practices that prevent shame and escalation.
The infrastructure is catching up to the vision—whether that’s Sonoma’s 89-page curriculum or Chandler’s patient work of aligning schedules so the prototype can begin.
In other words, the initiative’s West Coast story is not a single headline about a new program. It’s a mosaic: children learning they can belong in worship in more than one language, volunteers learning to respond with calm structure instead of escalation, and churches learning that when kids are trusted—with songs, scripture, service, and space—congregations often follow their lead.
Just a note that Registration for May Maker’s Space in San Diego (Point Loma Campus) is officially open: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nurturing-care-plnu-makers-space-retreat-tickets-1982828733117?aff=erelexpmlt. Churches may apply through the registration process that ends May 15, 2026. Churches are then invited to attend the May 28-30 event on campus where Nurturing Care covers expenses during the event. West coast churches can email info@nurturingcare.org for more informations but please review the FAQs on the Eventbrite page as well.
A growing network of midwest congregations are redesigning children’s ministry and worship spaces to better welcome children with autism, ADHD and other sensory needs. A recent meeting, coupled with several written updates, revealed churches pairing practical tools like flexible seating and sensory rooms with volunteer training and shared learning across churches. In addition Nurturing Care announced its next Day of Learning with Melody Escobar on April 13 (see below)
At Second Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, leaders say the most visible change isn’t a single tool—it’s how the congregation is learning to make room for children as full participants. In worship, older adults are growing more comfortable with babies crawling and kids moving in the sanctuary, while teens join preschoolers in a “pray-ground” space using a visual children’s bulletin and shared sensory bins. The report notes that even without a specific autism-focused story in this month’s update, the goal is to normalize welcome so families who arrive later “can belong exactly as they are.”
Other congregations are seeing how small accommodations can reshape a child’s experience of worship. At New Hope Church of the Nazarene, leaders described supporting an autistic child with a rubber seat topper, simple directions, and a consistent buddy—changes they said helped the child remain calm and participate more fully, including staying through songs and clapping at the end rather than leaving mid-service. The congregation has also built a sensory-friendly “Blue Room,” allowing children to explore wall-based sensory features and a buddy-system approach in action.
At Raymore New Vision Church of the Nazarene, a balance board became a turning point—not only for a student who previously struggled to answer discussion questions, but for an adult volunteer who had been hesitant about the prototype. After seeing the student engage more effectively while using the board, the volunteer told leaders they were “more on board,” the report says. Leaders also noted that as they identify which fidgets are too loud or used in unintended ways, congregants are responding positively to the adaptive process—and some adults have even expressed curiosity about trying the tools themselves.
Several churches emphasized that introducing sensory supports also requires teaching boundaries and expectations—especially when kids love the tools for reasons beyond their intended purpose. At Christ Community Church of the Nazarene, leaders launched an “Engaging Movement” initiative by purchasing sensory items, flexible seating, and fidgets, then created a visual, emoji-based survey so pre-readers could still give feedback during children’s worship prayer stations. Early trials were promising, but the report flagged a familiar challenge: children gravitating toward donut chairs as if they were riding toys—prompting leaders to prioritize training so the supports lead to deeper connection rather than simple distraction.
At Westside Church of the Nazarene in Olathe, leaders said they have “dramatically adjusted” the worship space by limiting overstimulating activities—such as ball games—and replacing them with quieter, more interactive options, along with expanded seating choices that give children more agency while still maintaining expectations for participation. Volunteers have noticed the difference, including one Sunday school teacher who reported kids arrived more ready to engage after children’s worship in the updated environment.
Across the cohort, leaders are also turning toward more formal training. An 8th Street grant report described a shift “from observation to conversation,” as kids-ministry volunteers asked for skills-based support to better serve neurodivergent children and those carrying trauma. The team is now planning a congregational training with a neurodiversity professional, aiming for March, and discussing opening it to the wider church to strengthen a shared culture of care.
That learning mindset is showing up in hands-on preparation, too. At Living Hope Church, children of multiple ages are helping pack “backpacks” of supports for Sunday worship—an effort leaders hope will form long-term expectations of inclusivity among the next generation of volunteers. The report also describes upcoming classroom walk-throughs, a new teacher’s manual for volunteers, and a moment when a long-time volunteer shifted a struggling student’s behavior by assigning “leadership tasks,” underscoring how relational strategies can work alongside sensory tools.
In similar fashion Norman Community Church also unveiled their mobile sensory bag station. Pastor Nathan Jenkins and lay leader Wesley Grippen noted that they have had nothing but compliments about this bold display, but the favorite reaction has been that of the kids. While possessing the mobile sensory bags for some time, but they had been somewhat of an afterthought with no prominent placement. Jenkins observed: “The first Sunday we had the shelves up, the kids surrounded them as they had the chance to ‘customize’ and ‘personalize’ their bags. One kid even said, ‘This is the best day ever!’”
Norman Community church also includes a hybrid sensory space. Leaders in the Nurturing Care cohort reported that the work has moved beyond purchasing supplies to building a culture of belonging: creating calmer environments, training adults to respond differently to overstimulation, and swapping ideas—from weighted stuffed animals and sensory boards to safety lessons about how tools are used.
Organizers are also planning collaborative next steps, including a possible sensory-room open house and an “Day of Learning” on April 13 titled Revelations of Divine Care: Welcoming and Caring for Autistic Members in the Life of the Church. The event will take place at Nazarene Theological Seminary and offered online, featuring Dr. Melody Escobarfrom Baylor’s Center for Disability and Flourishing. Dr. Escobar, author of Revelations of Divine Care: Disability, Spirituality, and Mutual Flourishing, will draw from Julian of Norwich’s theology of God’s tender, adaptable care and contemporary autism ministry research, Melody will share her family’s journey—from years behind the cry room glass to their autistic son’s First Communion—and invite participants to explore practices, postures, and possibilities that can nurture deeper belonging within their own communities present
Taken together, the January updates show a cohort learning in real time: celebrating progress, naming safety and training needs, and building a shared calendar of ways to keep widening the circle of belonging—one seating option, sensory space, and volunteer conversation at a time.
A news story from the Central Oregon Daily News on one of our Nurturing Care Prototypes at Bend Church of the Nazarene where leaders build trust through multilingual worship. Reporter Jakob Salao writes:
BEND, Ore. — Church services can be isolating for people who don’t speak English as their first language.
“It’s been said that 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings is the most segregated hour in America,” Bend Nazarene Church Kids & Family Pastor Jason Visser said. “Our heart as a church is that we would be the opposite of that.”
Nurturing Care is pleased to report new Gratitude and Trust Makers Space prototypes giving children across Nazarene congregations room to lead—reciting scripture, praying publicly, and serving their communities alongside adult volunteers—according to recent ministry reports from the Southwest Native American District and Southern California.
Leaders say the approach blends worship with lessons on trust, compassion, gratitude and trauma-informed care, creating structured moments where children can participate meaningfully during church meetings and service projects.
In September and October, teams working across the Southwest Native American District reported that after Friday-night trainings for leaders, Saturday services and meetings intentionally made space for children to share what they learned—through songs and scripture recitations—before congregations that included parents and grandparents. At one service, 22 children attended with family members even though no separate activity had been planned for them, the report said.
A children’s worker who had attended the training stepped in, using the unplanned moment to guide the children in sharing scripture and explaining what it meant to them, creating what the report described as a positive and supervised environment for kids who otherwise had no structured programming during the meeting.
The district report also highlighted a missions service where visiting churches from New Mexico and Colorado joined Southwest Native congregations. When Rev. Yazzie asked for offering ushers, two children volunteered immediately—then prayed over the offering—an act that adults from multiple districts described as striking for its confidence and willingness to serve.
A similar emphasis on scripture, gratitude, and children speaking in front of adults was reported in Sandia Valley during a January gathering themed “Gratitude is the new Attitude.” Children recited Psalm 107:1, discussed what the verse meant to them, and wrote down what they were thankful for. Leaders also provided notecards for encouragement; one child wrote a card for every family member, including a two-year-old sister, according to the report.
The session ended with a group activity using different-colored Skittles to prompt children to share specific moments of thankfulness—an interactive closing that organizers said helped kids practice gratitude while working side by side in the “maker space.”
In Hesperia, California, the GratiGrow ministry at the Hesperia Church of the Nazarene reported growth in both volunteers and community impact during December and January, including training new volunteers—about half of them local youth who had never attended church before. Through community-service hours, those youth served alongside the ministry and heard the Gospel, the coordinator wrote.
After continuing volunteer readings and devotion time in December, the group launched its first community outreach in January, working despite cold weather. Families participated “with great enthusiasm,” and children were described as respectful, unified and kind as they cleaned a pastor’s yard, learned to clean an old car, moved wood, and helped inside the home. Parents later reported their children returned home joyful and proud—many having helped in that way for the first time.
The outreach drew gratitude from neighbors and from the pastor who received help, according to the progress report, and the ministry said photos and videos shared with the congregation led three more children to sign up to serve in February.
In a separate thank-you letter dated Jan. 10, 2026, Pastor David Penn and Ruth Penn wrote to coordinator Lucia Y. Babb-Rodriguez to express appreciation for “capable willing workers” from the children and youth ministry. The letter singled out two youths—Levi and Jeremiah—for moving wood that needed extra effort, and noted the Penns included a check as a token of appreciation for summer camp ministry for young people.
A brief excerpt from our recent Day of Learning with Dr. Ross A. Oakes Mueller. In this session Dr. Oakes Mueller separates the virtue of Compassion from specific challenges of being emotionally overwhelmed or having pity for a person. Oakes Mueller also distinguishes compassion from everyday empathy providing a clearer definition of the virtue.
You can watch additional videos from the Day of Learning through NTS Praxis our partner who provides extensive video resources for ministry.
In addition, the conversation around Moral Integration continues through the resources of the Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) Center for Pastoral Leadership (CPL).
Dr. Oakes Mueller will continue presentations on the virtues of trust and forgiveness on February 18 and March 11. The growing interest in virtue formation represents an ongoing partnership with PLNU/CPL. To learn more about these presentations contact Program Coordinator Kelley Klassen, kklassen@pointloma.edu or visit https://www.pointloma.edu/centers-institutes/center-pastoral-leadership to sign up for additional information.
In a recent webinar session of the West Coast initiative on virtue formation, Dr. Ross A. Oakes Mueller provided a profound exploration of compassion. Dr. Oakes Mueller serves as psychology professor at Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) and as a Nurturing Care consultant in partnership with the PLNU Center for Pastoral Leadership. Dr. Oakes Mueller’s goal was to move participants from a simplistic understanding of compassion through its scientific and psychological complexity to reach a deeper, more practical simplicity on the other side.
The Motivational System: Values vs. Virtues
One of the most salient insights for ministry is the distinction between a value and a virtue. Dr. Oakes Mueller defines values as “cold cognitions”—rational, trans-situational goals that serve as our “directional system.” For many ministers, it is easy to teach the value of neighbor love, yet we often witness a “values-action gap” where well-meaning individuals fail to act in moments of crisis. A virtue, by contrast, is a habit of attention, desire, emotion, and behavior acquired through intentional practice.
Dr. Oakes Mueller also offered an analogy for understanding the difference between values and virtues: Think of a sailing vessel embarking on a voyage. Your values are the compass and the charts that mark the destination; they tell you where you ought to go. However, a ship without wind remains stationary. Virtues are the wind filling the sails; they are the habituated, emotional drives that provide the actual power to move the ship toward the goal of neighbor love.
The Four Facets of the Virtuous Life
To move from valuing compassion to embodying it, Dr. Oakes Mueller identifies four key facets:
See: Developing a moral lens to perceive suffering.
Desire: A “hot intuition” or gut feeling that something must be done.
Feel: A specific emotional state of warmth and sadness that provides motivational intensity.
Do: Possessing the procedural skills or “behavioral scripts” to act effectively.
Using the parable of the Good Samaritan, Dr. Oakes Mueller illustrated how the Samaritan—unlike the priest or Levite—possessed the habituated skills to see the man, move toward the injured person, feel moved by compassion, and execute medical and financial aid.
The Power of Self-Other Differentiation
A second vital insight for those in caregiving roles appears in the necessity of self-other differentiation. True compassion must be distinguished from “distress at another’s distress” (DAAD), where care givers fuse emotionally with a victim and become overwhelmed. When carers “feel exactly what they feel,” their self-involved motivation compels them to reduce their own arousal, which often leads caring people to flee or numb out to protect themselves.
Virtuous compassion requires presence and mindfulness—the ability to see suffering as valid and real while remaining differentiated from it. By maintaining this boundary, caring people avoid “empathy fatigue” and remain capable of an approach-oriented response that seeks the other’s relief rather than their own escape.
Identifying the Barriers: Why Compassion Fails in Our Pews
While most congregants hold the value of compassion in high regard, there remains a persistent “values-action gap” where the actual enactment of neighbor love fails. In his second session on virtue formation, Dr. Ross Oakes Mueller explored the complex psychological and environmental obstacles that prevent us from moving from “seeing” to “doing.” For ministers, identifying these barriers remains a first step in helping a congregation transition from holding well-meaning intentions to living out habituated virtue.
1. The Boundary of the “Neighbor”
Among several obstacles that Dr. Oakes Mueller discussed four key concerns that limits compassion to our “neighbors.” The first obstacle to compassion surfaces through the concept of the circle of moral regard. Research suggests that the further an individual is from their own “in-group,” the less likely he or she possesses the ability to even observe the outsider’s signals of distress. People remain biologically and psychologically primed to meet the needs of those most similar to themselves, such as family or close friends.
To the extent that people categorize others as “them” or “out-group members,” they effectively move them into a “non-neighbor” category, which diminishes caring people’s sense of obligation. Furthermore, if people harbor moral judgments—believing someone’s suffering is deserved or the result of their own sin—the carer’s intuition to relieve that suffering is significantly dampened.
2. The Siege of Inattention and “Hurry”
In modern ministry, perhaps the most pervasive obstacle occurs through distraction and inattention. Dr. Oakes Mueller highlights that electronic media and the sheer pace of life have compromised ministers’ and congregants’ ability to maintain the focused attention necessary to see suffering in the moment.
When people live under high cognitive load—managing too many tasks or thoughts—they lack the mental energy to engage in cognitive empathy or perspective-taking. Drawing on the insights of Dallas Willard, Mueller suggests that a primary barrier to virtue occurs when people fail to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from their environment, as hurry prevents people from being present enough to recognize a neighbor in need.
3. The Fear of being Emotionally Overwhelmed
Another salient obstacle occurs through the lack of self-regulation, which leads to “distress at another’s distress” (DAAD). When a congregant sees someone suffering, but lacks the skills to differentiate their own feelings from the victim’s, they may “fuse” emotionally with the experience.
This fusion creates an egoistic or self-involved motivation to reduce one’s own internal arousal, often leading the person to flee, numb out, or cross to the other side of the street to protect themselves. Additionally, some may avoid compassion because they hold cultural narratives that frame care as a sign of weakness or vulnerability, making the emotional cost of connection feel too high.
4. The Mastery Gap: Lack of Behavioral Scripts
Finally, compassion often fails at the “doing” stage because congregants simply lack the procedural skills or “behavioral scripts” to intervene. A person may feel genuine sorrow but stay stationary because they do not know what a “first good step” looks like in a specific crisis. Without mentorship or role-modeling to provide these scripts, the perceived cost of helping remains high, and the potential for action is lost to uncertainty.
Participants might understand Dr. Oakes Mueller’s presentation of the obstacles to compassion as debris on a racetrack. The driver (the congregant) sees a clear destination (the value of neighbor love), but if the track is littered with the debris of distraction, the barriers of prejudice, or the fog of being emotionally overwhelmed, the car cannot reach the finish line. Clearing the track requires the habituated maintenance of virtue, which allows the driver to navigate these hazards smoothly.
Dr. Oakes Mueller’s presentations incorporated a number of additional key insights during the three hour webinar. The range of questions and responses revealed both a desire to cultivate compassionate practices among children and to help alleviate obstacles among adults who often work with children. The virtue of Compassion will appear during the coming Maker’s Space at Point Loma Nazarene University May 28-30. Many of the participants from the Day of Learning remain actively engaged fostering gratitude and trust with children. Hopefully the insights, which will be available through NTS Praxis, will inspire fresh strategies among children.
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