I spent much of last weekend helping with the Zoom hosting for Loving Our Own Minds, a conference exploring neurodiversity, disability, theology and belonging. Helping to make sure that those joining online could participate in what was happening in the room. Given the storms, power cuts and the usual complications of hybrid events, there were times when that was a little more interesting than we had anticipated!

I expected to get to the end of Sunday feeling a bit knackered. What I hadn’t expected was to finish the weekend feeling quite so energised. I came away buzzing with ideas, new connections and conversations I would have liked to continue. Although I was also fairly peopled out.

I imagine quite a few people will be reflecting on the conference over the coming days and weeks. Some will be considerably more tired than I am, while others will have work, family and other commitments that need their attention. I’ve found myself in the slightly unusual position of having a bit of free time. My essays are all submitted, my stationing profile is finished, and I haven’t anything urgent that needs doing. So I’ve spent some time today trying to get a few thoughts down before they disappear into the ether.

Right off the bat one of the things I really valued was finding other people asking many of the same questions I’ve been exploring, especially around neurodiversity, disability and theology. It can be quite isolating at times, particularly when you’re in environments where it feels easier, and sometimes safer, to mask rather than explain why you might need to do something differently.

I don’t think I really appreciated just how much difference that made until I started reflecting on the weekend. Had I spent the conference masking, as I’ve done in the past, I would probably have been considerably more exhausted, and certainly less able to participate in the conversations. Instead, I came away with more energy than I’d expected, even after spending two days interacting with people.

During the opening session, we explored what it means to belong. It’s a word we use a lot in churches, usually alongside welcome and inclusion, but what does it actually feel like? One idea that emerged was that belonging might mean not needing to ask for adjustments because they’re already in place. Equally, it might mean knowing that if you do need to ask for something, you can do so without feeling embarrassed or worrying that you’ll simply be told no.

Too often, disabled people describe rather different experiences in churches. Asking for an adjustment can feel like asking for a special favour, or creating an inconvenience for everyone else. Sometimes the people who seem most uncomfortable with adjustments are those who don’t need any themselves. Even when something might be quite straightforward, the response can be that it simply isn’t possible. I don’t think this is always because churches are deliberately trying to exclude people. I’m sure there are situations where people genuinely want to help but don’t know where to start, or are worried about agreeing to something they don’t know how to provide. But I do wonder how often something is described as impossible without anyone really exploring what might be involved.

What I found striking about the conference was how different the conversations around accessibility felt. Even when people had quite different, and sometimes contradictory, access needs, there seemed to be a willingness to negotiate and find ways of accommodating one another. One person might need quiet while another finds silence difficult. Someone might need to move around while another person finds movement distracting. Neither person is being unreasonable, and although there won’t always be a solution that works perfectly for everyone, people were generally willing to listen and explore what might be possible. (at least that seemed to be the case online – and from what I can tell was the same on-site.) I think that willingness to take one another’s needs seriously, without treating them as an inconvenience, was one of the things that made the weekend feel different.

One thing I would particularly like to see is disabled people being more directly involved in conversations about accessibility within churches. If someone requests an adjustment, surely they should be offered the opportunity to participate in the discussion about how it might work? Too often these decisions seem to be made by church leadership teams without including the person who needs the adjustment. That can mean missing possible solutions, or deciding that something won’t work based on assumptions which may not be correct.

The keynote introduced the distinction between espoused theology and operant theology. Essentially, the difference between what we say we believe and what we actually do. I find that to be a helpful framework for thinking about some of these questions. A church might genuinely believe that everyone is welcome while also having expectations about behaviour, communication or participation which make it very difficult for some people to belong.

It also raised the idea of the ‘ideal worshipper’, something I’ve been thinking about in relation to ministerial formation. We have all sorts of assumptions about what listening looks like, how people should behave during worship, and what makes someone a good preacher or worship leader. I’m not convinced we always recognise how much these expectations are shaped by what we’re used to, rather than anything particularly theological or scriptural.

Of course, the conference itself wasn’t a perfect example of accessibility. We had difficulties with BSL interpretation, visual descriptions and some of the practical aspects of involving people online. As someone helping with the technology, I was quite conscious of those difficulties. But something I noticed through the informal conversations was how comfortable people seemed to feel about raising their needs. When something wasn’t working, people asked for it to be changed, and there was a willingness to try to find a solution. My impression was that people generally didn’t feel they were being deliberately excluded, even when we weren’t able to get everything right.

That doesn’t mean the difficulties didn’t matter, and there are certainly things to learn for the future, but I think the attitude towards requests for adjustments made a difference.

Another thing that struck me was the number of people with lived experience of disability who had never really been introduced to disability theology. I’ve become increasingly interested in this over the last few years, particularly through my own experiences and during ministerial formation. Disability theology raises some important questions about how we understand God, humanity, healing, suffering and what it means to be made in God’s image. It also challenges some of the assumptions we make about what is normal, what needs fixing, and the kind of people we imagine when we talk about Christian discipleship.

As such I find it quite frustrating that disability theology doesn’t seem to feature more prominently in ministerial formation. In my experience, there is often a focus on Black Theology and Queer Theology, both of which are important. But disability theology seems to receive considerably less attention, even though disability is something that can affect anyone, and every minister is going to encounter questions around disability, illness and access.

The thing is these theological approaches share strong connections growing out of liberation theology. They have different histories and emphases, but they all challenge assumptions that have shaped our understanding of God and humanity, particularly where the experience of certain groups has been treated as the norm. In much of Western theology, that assumed norm has essentially been the straight, white, able-bodied, neurotypical male. We might not describe it quite so explicitly, but it’s often there in the background, influencing our expectations about how people should think, behave, communicate and participate.

There is a considerable overlap between Black Theology, Queer Theology and Disability Theology, especially when we recognise that people’s experiences of disability, ethnicity, gender and sexuality don’t exist independently of one another. I think there is a real opportunity to explore these connections more fully, particularly within ministerial formation. I’ve found myself repeatedly challenging assumptions about what listening looks like for someone with ADHD or autism, or what we expect from people leading worship. One example I’ve encountered is feedback about whether someone fidgets while preaching, with the implication that this is something negative. Yet for some of us, movement can actually help with concentration and communication.

It makes me wonder how many other things we treat as essential to ministry are really just expectations about how a minister ought to behave.

There were also some fascinating theological conversations during the weekend. We explored the possibility of reading biblical characters through a neurodivergent lens, different understandings of healing, and how our experiences of disability influence the way we think about God. One discussion touched on whether pain and suffering could be understood as gifts. I’ve always struggled with that sort of language. There is a massive difference, at least for me, between believing that God can work through our experiences and believing that God deliberately causes those experiences.

I also found the conversations around creativity particularly interesting. We often associate creativity with art, music or writing, but it can be expressed in all sorts of ways, including scientific research, problem-solving and bringing different ideas or people together.

The discussions here remind me why I enjoy a more conversational approach to theology and worship. I’m firmly convinced that everyone is a theologian, regardless of whether they’ve studied the subject formally. We all have experiences and questions that shape how we understand God, and sometimes those conversations take us in directions we hadn’t anticipated.

I particularly enjoyed the discussions about different ways of praying and experiencing God. Silence was one example that came up. During one of our residential weeks at college, we had a session of silent reflection. I ended up listening to loud music through my headphones because the silence seemed to allow every thought in my head to start shouting at once. Other people described silence as something that helped them focus, or gave them space to encounter God.

I find it odd that we often assume that everyone can or should prayer or in the same way especially given the dreadth of spiritual practices we encounter in churches. We seem to asseume that something which helps us to pray or worship will have a similar effect on everyone else, when their experience will likely be completely different.

Sunday’s sermon explored Jesus’ commandment to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds. It seemed a fitting way to end a weekend spent exploring the different ways people think, communicate and experience God. There was also a challenge to be willing to question our assumptions and recognise that other people’s experiences might help us understand something differently.

One of the things that came through in the conversations was just how differently people experience neurodivergence and disability. For some, learning to appreciate how their mind works can be an important part of accepting themselves, particularly if they’ve spent years being told that they need to think or behave differently.

I can relate to that through my own experience of ADHD, which I see as part of how my brain works, even if it can make life rather complicated at times. I view my Type 1 diabetes quite differently. I’d be delighted if my pancreas suddenly decided to start producing insulin again! But I also recognise that other people experience ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence quite differently from me.

Some of the most interesting conversations happened in the Zoom chat, often alongside whatever was being discussed in the room. I’ve already found myself adding more books and articles to my reading list, which probably wasn’t what I needed after finally getting all my essays submitted! But I did get my book grant though last month so …

Looking back, I think the experience of being part of a community where people felt able to be themselves was probably as important as any of the individual sessions.

There was a sense that people could contribute in different ways, ask for adjustments, disagree and explore questions together. It didn’t mean everything worked perfectly, or that everyone had the same needs or opinions. But there seemed to be a willingness to take one another seriously and find ways of making things work, which I feel is often missing in church on a Sunday morning.

It’s something I’ll be thinking about more as I continue my ministerial formation, and particularly as I prepare for the next stage of ministry. For now though, I’m coming away with a lot to think about a few new friends and a massive list of book, blogs and podcasts to dive into.