NTS Nurturing Care: Dr. Léon van Ommen on Autism and Worship
NTS Nurturing Care with Children in Worship and Prayer hosted a special in-person day of learning on the campus of Nazarene Theological Seminary. It was led by Dr. Léon van Ommen, Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen, and Co-Director of the Centre for Autism and Theology. Dr. Van Ommen’s research focuses on liturgy/worship and autism, including his recently published Autism and Worship: A Liturgical Theology (Baylor University Press, 2023). His presentations addressed both the social and theological considerations, particularly liturgical concerns, of engaging autistic people in worship in our congregations. See https://nurturingcare.org for more information.
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Session 1: The Absence and Ignoring of Autistic People in Church
In this first session, Dr. van Ommen oriented the audience to the major themes of his most recent book Autism and Worship: A Liturgical Theology.
Dr. van Ommen noted that autistic children are 50-70% less likely to attend religious services than others in their age groups. This statistic merely ...
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Session 2: Non- And Minimally-Speaking Autistic People in Church
The second session of our NTS Nurturing Care/KC initiative included a presentation by Dr. Léon van Omme: Non- and Minimally-Speaking Autistic People in Church.
Beginning with a method of having minimally speaking autistic participants indicate via photos what they thought was important in the ch...
