fbpx

Matt Glover – The Nature Seeker Part 1

|

Sam

Beyond the Surface - Matt Glover

Who is Matt?

Matt is the Director of MGA Counselling Services and provides individual, couple, family, and group counselling. He is also the founder of Forest Therapy Victoria. Matt has a special interest in relationship counselling, grief, trauma, abuse recovery, high sensitivity, and spirituality. Matt provides professional and personal development courses on a range of topics and speaks regularly at conferences and in the media on sexuality and mental health.

Aside from his counselling work, Matt also freelances as a cartoonist and illustrator. He is the author and illustrator of the Shapes, Lines and Dots: Creativity and Wellbeing for Kids series of books, plus regularly does commissions for corporate and community clients.

My Thoughts

I know Matt quite well; he was the first person to give me the language of religious trauma and deconstruction. It is always a privilege to hear his story; and boy is it quite the story. So much so that I ended up deciding to do a Part 2 with him that will be out next week.

Episode Summary

  • Matt shares about his upbringing and about his innate sense of connection to nature, spirituality. Including how he landed himself attending the Baptist church.
  • Matt talks about his first experience of Sunday school and hearing the language and stories of God.
  • We discuss Matt’s introduction to church. How he began to take Christianity seriously and he shares his first experience of coming against someone at aged 16 when he preached his first sermon.
  • Matt shares about his university experience doing a science degree, further expanding his breadth of knowledge and diverse friendship groups.
  • Matt openly shares about a powerful and beautiful friendship that opened his eyes to the LGBTQIA+ community. How it began to shape his understanding.
  • We discuss how Matt landed himself as a youth pastor and how finding a purpose was an important part of this.
  • Matt shares about why it was important for him to create openness around sex and sexuality in the church. We discuss what his experience was trying to create safety for Queer people in the church through a rainbow sticker.
  • We discuss Matt’s progression through to being an Associate Pastor onto the Senior Pastor; all while supporting the LGBTQIA+ community.
  • Matt shares about the disunity that was happening among the Elders among his church; at the time of the Marriage Equality Plebiscite when he chose to endorse Same-Sex Marriage.
  • We discuss how Matt had to defend his stance around homosexuality, resulting in his resignation and walking away from church.
  • Matt shares about a very dark period of having accusations, hate mail and death threats towards him.
  • Matt explained how coupled with the trauma of the church, was an abusive homelife for him and his children and a lack of support.
  • We discuss the impact of triggers during the time of healing and spiritual deconstruction, exploring the big questions around God and spirituality. Matt also shares how he learnt that spirituality needs to be experienced not just learnt.
  • And finally Matt answered the question “What would you say to someone fresh into the process of deconstruction?”