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Zoe and Krysia speak with Church of Scotland minister, Steven Owens, about his vision for St Thorlak's community, an online space for autistic christians to connect and be supported.
The transcript of the episode is available here: https://share.transistor.fm/s/57fa4b80/transcript.txt
Contact Steven at st.thorlaks@gmail.com
If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on twitter @autismtheology.
This podcast is brought to you by The University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology.
The artwork for this podcast uses the Centre for Autism and Theology Logo, created by Holly Russel.
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What is Autism and Theology Podcast?
The Autism and Theology Podcast is a space where we engage with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways in which both faith and non-faith communities can enable autistic people to flourish.
Our episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month. We have a variety of guests who are related in some way to the field of autism and theology. Some are academics, others are people with life stories to share, and some are both!
We also release CATChat every third Wednesday of the month. These are shorter and more informal episodes where your hosts will share news and give you as listeners an opportunity to ask questions and share your stories.
Krysia: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology podcast. I'm Krysia, I'm also here with Zoe, and I'm so excited you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we will be engaging with the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, share relevant resources, and promote ways that help faith and non faith communities enable autistic people to flourish.
Our podcast episodes are released on the first Wednesday of every month, with Cat Chat on every third Wednesday, where your hosts will share news and answer your questions. The podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Autism and Theology, which we shortened to Cat, and today I am joined by Steve Owens.
Hello, Steve.
Steve: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Krysia: I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, for listeners who perhaps don't know you or the kind of work that you do?
Steve: Yeah, so, um, I'm a probationary minister at the minute in the Church of Scotland, uh, which means that I'm in the final year, uh, of training for ministry, uh, actually just passed my final assessment.
So, uh, soon, hopefully, uh, uh, be, I'll be an ordained minister in the Church of Scotland. Uh, but before coming to ministry, uh, my background was, uh, in the autism, uh, sector, uh, I worked for the National Autistic Society for the majority of my career. I worked in a residential school in Ayrshire in Scotland, uh, which was for, um, all autistic children.
Uh, but with, um, uh, complex needs. So those who, uh, it was difficult to find a place that was suitable for them. So there were children from all four UK nations. Uh, beyond that, I was a manager in adult residential services for similar group group of people, but just adults listing on then latterly in my time with the National Autistic Society.
I was head of autism training and consultancy. So that meant that I traveled about the UK, worked with international partners and worked with university partners to develop masters level modules and autism. Beyond that, I also run my own consultancy business for a few years, working with local authorities, private care providers and charities to improve the quality of what they were providing to autistic people.
So that was across a wide range of sectors including health and social care, education, uh, and, uh, employment. Support.
Zoe: Thanks so much, Steven. It's so interesting to hear about all the different things you've done, and especially nice to hear another Scottish voice on the podcast. Um, and a mention of Ayrshire, which is where I'm from.
So I'm always happy with that. Um, but yeah, thank you so much for sharing all of that. Um, And part of your ministry, um, we've brought you on here today to talk about the St Thorlak's community that you're, you've got a role in. Can you tell us a little bit about, um, how you started this, this idea for the community and your role in it and what its aim is?
Steve: Yeah, so, um, one of the, the roles I had, uh, after doing the autism stuff was with the Church of Scotland in Irvine and Kilmarnock Presbytery, and my role was to, um, uh, basically do presbytery planning, which means looking at what churches there were, uh, what ministry resources there were, uh, and, uh, trying to bring people together to work together.
Uh, um, and, and it was at a time when, and, and, It still is a time when it's difficult for the Church of Scotland, uh, um, but, uh, All the talk was about cuts. It's all negative. It was all talk about declining membership, declining ministry, numbers of ministers, and I wanted to have a different outlook to this because yes, there's decline, but there's also areas of growth.
So one of the pieces of work we did was with Forge Scotland to try and look at pioneer ministry. was the term they were using. Um, lots of people use different, different terms, but essentially, it was ministry in a way that, that was different. It wasn't bricks and mortar, uh, walk, walk through a church door on a Sunday morning and, and have a hymn sermon sandwich.
Uh, we were looking at something a bit different. Uh, and I saw my role in that as supporting other people to do it. Uh, continually said, I am not a pioneer. Uh, um, I I'm training for parish ministry and That's where I'm headed. But over time, uh, things started to change, uh, and I started to become interested in pioneering ministry more.
Uh, and I kept thinking, what could I do? What, what is it that I could offer the church that's different from the norm? Uh, and, uh, um, I'll, I'll, I'll probably talk more about this, uh, as we go on, but, um, uh, God started to place people in front of me. Everywhere I went, there was either an autistic person introduced to me, not because they knew my background, or a family whose child had just been diagnosed, and I saw opportunity there, because it was an opportunity for me to minister to those people, and that's where the idea started to grow.
So, uh, I attended the FORGE pioneer course, which was a year long course. I did it while I was still at university, full time as well, and the idea for St Thorlak's Community started to form. Now your last episode was with Autism Consecrated, and interestingly, I had contact, particularly with Amy, and that's where the idea for the name came from.
How do you set up something like that? In the Church of Scotland that doesn't sound like a Church of Scotland church. Well, one of the ways was to take a saint that nobody's ever named a church after. And as you will know already, St Thorlak is the patron saint of Iceland, but being claimed by a group of autistic people as the patron saint of autism.
So it was a perfect name. Community came from the idea that, uh, um, this wasn't just going to be a church. Uh, it, it needed to be a faith community for people. Uh, it may coexist with their, their, their existing faith community. So, uh, I started to talk to a few people about it and we, uh, set up a small group, uh, and started to look at what, what that might look like.
Uh, and my role is really to lead the community. Um, and I should say it's a developing community. It doesn't, it doesn't exist as a legal entity yet, uh, but, uh, my, my role is to, to develop that. So a lot of that work has been quite organic, uh, in the sense that, uh, I've responded to need, uh, so when people call for help, uh, I've been able to provide that help, uh, The difficult thing for me is that I've been, as I've said already, training for ministry.
I'm a probationer at the minute. The church did grant me time to spend on this project. However, the difficulty I've got is not knowing where my settled ministry will be. So, really, that's why it's still a developing community and not really well established.
Zoe: Yeah, it's so interesting and definitely recommend to our listeners, if you haven't listened to our episode with Autumn Consecrated, it's a good place to hear about St. Thorlak and why he's been claimed as the patron saint of autism, because it's a really interesting background and it's definitely helpful to think about in the context of why you've chosen to name the community this.
But yeah, thank you for sharing all of that, Steven.
Krysia: And I wonder, I think we've touched a little bit on this in this question, but it might be useful to hear a bit more about your story and your background. But actually, what led you to combine ministry and autism in your work?
Steve: Yeah, I think that's a great question.
Um, because, uh, I experienced a call to ministry, uh, at least five years before I left the National Autistic Society. Uh, and, uh, many people, if, if listeners are ministers already or are training for ministry, they, they will recognize this. Uh, but some people just hear the call and answer it straight away.
The majority of people hear a call and then ignore it for as long as they possibly can. And that's what I did. Uh, I had a good job. I really really enjoyed the work I did. Uh, um, so I really didn't feel that ministry was for me, but there was this niggle and it kept coming back. Um, even after taking redundancy from the National Autistic Society and I didn't answer that call, I set up my own, my own business.
Uh, and then a few years of that led me to start looking for, for other work that was a bit more secure. And, uh, uh, the, the job came up with, uh, the Presbytery of Irvine Kilmarnock. And I thought, that's, well, I need to go and try this and see what this, this, this thing is that, that's happening around ministry.
Um, uh, I wanted to see the church, potentially at its lowest point, before I made a decision to commit to answering this call. So it was difficult for me because of the investment I had given in my understanding of autism, the work I'd done with autistic people. Uh, and I just loved it. So it, it was really, really difficult to give up.
Uh, and when I finally took the decision to apply for ministry, quite a few people said to me, and I don't know if it's my literal interpretation of what they said or whether they actually meant this, but they said, you need to put the autism stuff away, uh, and you need to focus on ministry. So in the end, that's what I did.
Uh, and, and. Uh, I kind of touched on this about, um, everywhere I went, there were new situations placed in front of me that, that were related to autism. Uh, and, and a bit like the call to ministry. Well, I didn't ignore it. I helped people, but I didn't recognize that that might be God's way of saying to me, uh, Steven, you actually have a gift here, uh, and you should be using it.
Uh, it took me a while. Uh, I dunno what that says about me, uh, but, um, uh, it took me a while. Uh, and uh, finally. That's when I came to think that there's a way to combine the two. Now, I still feel called to parish ministry, and that's still a really strong call to parish ministry. But as the church does start to develop and change, I feel that there should be other ways to do this.
So, um, That's really the kind of key thing that led me to do this, but a piece of work I did a few years ago with a group of autistic adults in Scotland, when the Scottish government were looking at the potential of an autism act, as the same as in England, which then became the strategy, but the MSPs involved in that had some training from myself, uh, and I worked with the autistic adults to provide some evidence, uh, uh, and as I was working with a couple of people there, one, one person in particular talked to me about, uh, her use of, um, the platform Second Life, which you create an avatar and you can communicate with people online and you can do that by speaking or, or typing.
Uh, and I'd never experienced Second Life, but she said, When she became anxious and she withdrew from social interaction after about a time, her way back to social interaction in person would be using Second Life. So she, she referred to it as, um, flexing her social muscles, uh, um, and, and it just, I instantly got it.
Because here's a space online that you can practice some of the social stuff. You can see the avatars move and position themselves. You can speak in a way that's appropriate for you. And it builds that confidence and skill to go back into a real life situation. And that's, that's what I started to see for St Thorlak's community was not an exclusive place for autistic people to be, because I don't believe that's the right, right approach, but a place where people could belong.
They could practice some of this stuff in a safe space and then use it in a typical church. Whether that, and I mean, I've said already, I'm training for the Church of Scotland ministry, but St Thorlak's is not just about the Church of Scotland, uh, it would be for people of any Christian denomination. Um, so all of those things together really started to, to help me see how, uh, this could be a pioneering ministry project, uh, a growing ministry, uh, a place for people to, to belong, uh, and to, to, um, uh, then hopefully feed into, uh, the local church.
Krysia: That's just so interesting, what you talk about. But firstly, the kind of second life space reminds me of during the pandemic, which offered so many conferences on Zoom, it got a bit wearing. But in 2022, I went to the British Academy. The British, the BS, so the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Study Group, and they used something that was a bit like Second Life.
It also reminded me a bit of a Habbo Hotel they used to have when I was quite a bit younger, you could have little icons that run around and talk to all the other teenagers. But it sounds really similar to that. And what I really liked about that kind of way of connecting with other people who were at the conference was I could, I could do things in a me way, which was really nice.
Yeah.
Steve: Yeah,
Krysia: I actually hear you, say about Second life really made me think of that again. And also what you were saying about the putting autism away when you're going into ministry, something that's
although I'm from a research background rather than a background. This break between what we talk about in regards to autistic people's lives and ministry, religion, faith, belief, it's just so separate and people don't necessarily see how they can coexist together. I found that really, when we were obviously having a chat before the episode, it was something that really struck, that was actually quite similar across both of our stories.
And I think it's useful to kind of let our listeners know that actually, The work that CAT and other people are doing are helping to bridge this gap and there's obviously fantastic work going on with yourself as well and other people on the ground which is really important.
Steve: Yeah, yeah, I mean one of the things that that I found, I talked about some of the work being organic, uh, in the sense that just when things come up I get involved and um, one of the areas that I've actually supported is either people Currently in ministry or people training for ministry because they're finding the same thing that people are separating the two things out and.
It's really difficult for them to get a handle on that on. That's the other thing that I think, uh, um, St Thorlak's needs to look at, uh, is how we're supporting people into, uh, autistic people into leadership roles, uh, within the church so we can, we can change that narrative.
Zoe: Yeah, it's so interesting, like, looking at this space as something that's equipping people almost and creating safe environments for people to, like, as you said, like, discuss these things in a way that's comfortable and, um, works. Yes. I'm. But yeah, it's really fascinating. It also reminds me of, um, one of our researchers, Harry, um, speaks about Dungeons and Dragons and how, again, these sort of like, even though it seems like a separate space, these spaces can be so helpful in just equipping people to then go into other situations and feel more confident in themselves and, um, who they are.
Um, so yeah, it's really interesting to hear all about this. And thinking about that and what you said about the, second live space that the person mentioned to you. How might St Thorlak's community space look like?
Steve: Yeah, so obviously building this kind of virtual world platform will be expensive.
So we've got a bit of work to do to secure funding, which we're confident about. Uh, and I should say that the there is a group, um, that I've worked with before, uh, who employ only autistic people to build virtual worlds. So, our intention would be to try and engage with them to build this space. Uh, but essentially, they built, um, uh, what would you call it?
So, stuff for Remploy. Uh, so it was like employment support, um, and it was for mainly autistic people who couldn't, um, make it to those physical spaces for, for whatever reason. Uh, and, uh, they, they built it to look like. You were walking into the Remploy office. So essentially that's, that's what we would aim for is, uh, although we're looking at a non traditional church, uh, having a space that looks like a church would actually be really, I think would be really helpful.
Now I say this, I think it would be really helpful, I think we've got a lot of consultation to do with people to make sure that is the right thing, it's not just my idea, and then we do whatever I say, so there's a lot of consultation to take place, but I think having it look like a church would be a good first step.
But then I think there needs to be other spaces as well, because if you walk into a church, it's not just the sanctuary that you've got access to. Often churches have a suite of halls or rooms that can be used and they would be used for a whole variety of things, not just church based things. So you mentioned the Dungeons and Dragons things.
That could still be done in one of the St. Thorlak's online rooms, uh, because that's no different than what would happen in our local church. Uh, but there are spaces there for Bible study, uh, for, um, uh, helping disciple people, uh, um, and, and, and helping develop their faith. Uh, and I've said it already, it's as a safe space.
Uh, and as, as you will know, lots of autistic people say that they view God in a different way than Then most people sit in a pew in a Sunday morning. Um, so if they're constantly being told this is how you need to view God, but they can't align themselves with that, then having that safe space to explore, uh, um, scripture, uh, uh, in a way that's meaningful, um, and, and helps, uh, use that narrative in, in, in other church spaces.
Uh, I think that that's the type of environment we would be looking for.
Zoe: Yeah, and I just want to pick up on something you said about, um, obviously that's your idea for it, but it will require a lot of consultation with people, um, and I just think that's such an interesting thing, because something we speak about on the podcast a lot is like, um, often changes are simple to make, to include, and enable thriving for autistic people, but a lot of the time it does take work and it takes people to actually say like, what, what is needed?
Let's not just like assume that we've got the answer, but like, let's ask people what's needed. Um, so yeah, and I'm just wondering if you could share a little bit more about how that consultation process will look and, um, yeah, why, why Why you feel it's important to do that, I guess.
Steve: So what it will look like, I'm not entirely sure, if I'm honest, but I'll focus in on the why I think it's important.
When I started my career, it was late 1990s, and although there were people, autistic people, already writing about um, Uh, being involved in, in, in research and, and, um, shaping practice, uh, mostly autistic people were ignored. Uh, there were few people being heard by the non autistic community, uh, and, uh, uh, That didn't sit right for me because my own experience was that, uh, the, the, the young people that I supported taught me more than any of the textbooks ever did, uh, so that, so that was always there for me, uh, and then laterally I've worked with people, uh, like, uh, the late Dr.
Dinah Murray, uh, um, uh, Damien Milton, uh, people who are out there Uh, trying to, to shape practice, shape research and make sure that autistic voice is heard. Um, and, and I'd say they had a huge influence on me to make sure that that is how I approach any work I do. Uh, so, uh, for me, having autistic people involved is really key.
Uh, The unfortunate thing is our, our steering group kind of drifted apart, uh, and, and there's a whole lot of reasons for that, uh, one, one of them being that I, I had to move for probation, uh, uh, uh, so I've been in touch with lots of people as individuals, but we've not got a core group, uh, steering this, so that's why I'm, I'm a bit hesitant to say what, uh, Exactly.
what it would look like, um, I certainly think most of our engagement will be online. That's what it's been for me so far by email. Uh, I think we'll make use of social media. Uh, well, we will make use of social media eventually, uh, to engage with people. Uh, and I'm under no illusion that, that we're going to be in a situation where we're going to please everybody.
I just don't think it's possible. However, if we strive to please everybody as best we can and make sure that it is driven by, by the autistic community, then I think we will end up with a reasonably good and safe space for people to, people to be.
Krysia: That's really good. And I think the flexibility is really, as you said, is very much needed. And I guess it also links into this question as well that we had around how St Thorlak's would potentially work with other churches and communities in Scotland and in the UK and broader more generally.
Steve: Yeah, um, so, uh, my colleague who, uh, has been helping so far.
I keep saying, uh, this is a national ministry. It's for the whole of Scotland. Um, and he lives in Partick in Glasgow. Uh, and he says he always sees these decorator vans going past that says, um, painter and decorator, uh, London, Paris, New York. But mainly Partick, uh, and he says my vision isn't grand enough.
Uh, we, we should be thinking that that painter and decorator. So, um, being online, uh, of course we can reach, uh, a large community. It doesn't have to be specific to Scotland. Uh, however, I think that's predominantly where our work will be. Uh, so the idea of having something that autistic people can, can be belong to, uh, really that, that's where it started with us.
And I really started to get worried about people seeing this as let's take all autistic people and exclude them from church and put them somewhere else. So how do you then engage the rest of the church? And the idea we've got at the moment is to have, essentially have churches of any Christian denomination become partners of St Thorlak's.
Uh, Now the, the, the, I've already set some, some, some, uh, broad values, but we would consult, that's one of the things we would consult on is, is what, what are the values of St Thorlak's uh, community. And then those partner churches could sign up to those values. If they don't agree with the values, then they can't sign up, but if they agree, they'll sign up to the community and then they receive some form of training and support so that in their local area, they can start to make their spaces and their activity more accessible.
So whether that's Sunday morning services, whether that's Bible study, whether that's Boys Brigade or Girls Brigade or Scouts or whatever, supporting all those organisations within the church to make the space and activity more accessible. Accessible. Um, uh, someone said to me that it's, it almost sounds a bit like TripAdvisor, um, you know, for autistic people to see who, who out there is signing up to these values and training.
Um, I, I would probably, um, steer away from allowing people to leave reviews, uh, but simply see that if, if they're a partner enlisted on the website, uh, then, uh, you at least know, uh, they are committed to trying to make change. Uh, There's another really good reason for that, uh, for taking that model, uh, and that's because if we are a national ministry, I don't know each of the contexts.
Anyone else that becomes involved in the community that could support won't know the local context. Only the people on the ground will know that. Uh, so having, uh, partners out there, uh, means that, that, Uh, we're trying to make the church more accessible generally, so people could belong to the community and still be a member of their local, local church.
Uh, people could belong to the community only if that's the only thing they want. That's absolutely fine. Uh, but, but it just gives that flexibility, uh, of where, uh, where people can be. Uh, the, the other thing I would say about it is we, we talked about, partnering with churches. I never ever thought about partnering with other organisations really.
And one of the organic pieces of work that's happened is through a university, where the university approached us and asked if we could support them pastorally for students who were coming to university in first year and were going to be living in halls. They recognised that might be a difficult. It's a really difficult thing for many autistic people.
They put a programme in place and I did a piece of work, a pastoral piece of work with the group. That's now led us to a point where we're going to partner with that university and the local church to provide pastoral support to autistic students. So the partnership work is actually wider than just churches.
Krysia: That's fantastic. And when you were talking about all the different In a ways that might work with other churches and communities when you're talking about the kind of the way churches and communities can sign up to their values. That's really interesting because as you may or may not know, I'm just finishing off a PhD.
I'm hoping hopefully by the time this comes out, it will be submitted, but actually one of PhD is to be able to see what values different Churches and communities have a bit more transparency, a bit like your TripAdvisor suggested without the reviews. I haven't suggested the reviews either. I thought that could be a bit dangerous so that people can actually find the community that's the best for them.
Um, and I think the fact that there's other work on the ground, that's almost supporting what might be seen as perhaps locked away in an institution, like an academic institution, is just fantastic. So I'm just saying that the idea of almost a ratings, not rating system, but almost where you can see what it's like before you buy, it's just so useful and important when we think about access, and also just making it, work for everybody generally.
Zoe: Yeah absolutely and yeah just as well I assume that probably would reduce some further hurt because hurt is so often caused in church communities with autistic people or neurodivergent people feeling like they're not understood or um that they're rejected and yeah it's again like it's so interesting hearing about part of this safe space is showing them other safe spaces and um making sure people know where to go to um.
Yeah, to find communities that will be welcoming. Um, yeah, it's a really interesting model that you've got there. Um, and I'm really excited to see how this develops, and especially at, like, the Centre for Autism Theology. This is something that's really of interest to a lot of our researchers. Um, And yeah, I'm really interested to know what is next for the St.
Thorlak's community. What are your plans going forward?
Steve: Yeah, so, uh, all of this, um, has been part of, was part of my undergraduate dissertation. So essentially that is my blueprint for St. Thorlak's, uh, uh, On the basis as I've already said that it is flexible and adaptable and we can change it to meet meet people's needs Um, so I think that's our starting point and most of that i've kind of pulled out Here in terms of, um, uh, the online space, the partnering with other churches, uh, et cetera.
Uh, I think the, the, the key thing for me is, uh, I need to go over this next few months of looking for, uh, um, a settled ministry in a church, uh, uh, and then, uh, that's when the work can really start in terms of, um, pulling together, uh, uh, a steering group, um, um, uh, making sure that, that, uh, we, um, that that's representative.
So, um, I don't anticipate that it's going to be all autistic people. There may be other people involved in that, but it needs to be widely representative. Uh, and, uh, we would then be able to, to, to, to, To take the community forward. Um, I say that as if it doesn't really exist. So it doesn't exist as a legal entity at the minute, but, but there's still work going on.
Um, and we'll continue to do that work. Uh, but I think establishing, um, uh, that steering group, uh, and looking at where we go next is really key. Uh, The as part of my wider work with the church, I am involved in pioneer ministry on a slightly wider basis, including with, um, uh, committee in the church that is looking at funding, um, pioneer ministry.
So I can see potential for funding, and as I've already said, it will need funding because it will not be cheap to build a virtual world. We're looking at training possibly being online as well, because it makes it more accessible for people. So there's a wide range of things we need to look at. to think about, uh, going forward.
Krysia: That is fantastic. And to wrap up the podcast, we, um, if people are interested in getting in touch with you or following what you do in any way, shape or form, how's best that they can get in touch or keep up to date with what's going on at St within the St Thorlak's community.
Steve: Okay. The at the minute, uh, so we, we will eventually have a, a Facebook page, uh, um, uh, but at the minute, uh, the best way is through email.
So we've set up a temporary email address, uh, which is, uh, st for Saint st.thorlaks@gmail.com
Zoe: fantastic and yeah, we'll put that in the show notes as well if you didn't get it down quite quick enough. So just have a look at that and it'll also be in the transcript obviously so you can get in touch and hear more about it and keep up to date. But yeah, we're very excited to see where this community goes and I'm sure Yeah, we can keep up to date with the center and share potential updates with our podcast listeners and the center's followers who would be interested in engaging with this space.
Steve: I'm really excited to see where it goes and would welcome any contact from anyone that has an interest.
Zoe: Perfect. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Steven. It's been so interesting to hear about this. And yeah, thank you to our listeners for engaging with us. Um, our Cat Chat episode will be released on the third Wednesday of the month where we'll be having more informal chat. Um, but yeah, thank you all for listening.