Trauma-Informed Gospel

Buzz words come and go, and we may love them or hate them. One significant buzz word we’ve heard in recent years is “trauma-informed”. Trauma-informed medical care. Trauma-informed education. Trauma-informed spiritual care. Indeed, as a board-certified chaplain I was asked in my certifying interview what trauma-informed spiritual care looked like. But do churches need to be trauma-informed? Trauma-informed ministry? Trauma-informed gospel? 

The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) is a tool used to assess the quantity of traumatic events an individual has been exposed to during childhood. Such events include:

• Experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect
• Witnessing violence in the home or community
• Having a family member attempt or die by suicide
• Substance use problems
• Mental health problems
• Instability due to parental separation
• Instability due to household members being in jail or prison

According to the CDC, three in four high school students report experiencing one or more ACEs, and one in five have experienced four or more. With today’s youth the most prevalent scores in the ACE are related to emotional and physical abuse, living in a household affected by poor mental health and/or substance abuse.

And this does not address the trauma and violence that is increasingly being reported within our own church communities. As a chaplain to 80-90 year-old men and women at the end of their lives, it is not uncommon to receive stories of experienced abuse at the hands of a church leader. Additionally, LGBTQ+ Christians have reported the intense hurt felt from the church’s response to their sexual identities. 

Our Western society is saturated with violent words, violent gestures, violent actions. It is no surprise that so many are affected by trauma. Overlay this reality with the synod’s recent approval of Resonate’s 10-year strategic plan for Church Planting, which has tossed around the goal of planting 1000 churches in 10 years. I commend this ambitious goal for our denomination. We need a shot in the arm, a wake-up call if you will. The first five years prioritize:

• Disciple multiplication
• Leadership development
• Church planting pathways
• Legacy pathway
• Funding and capacity development

The report laments how churches have failed to prioritize discipleship and leadership development. In reviewing the strategic plan, I see many words which are administrative in nature: codify, implement, resourcing, principles, and metrics. Before we administrate past practices into the present, it would be prudent to ask some trauma-informed questions such as, “How did we not authentically see the person in the past” “What in our former methods didn’t meet the innate needs of those being ministered to?” “Are we seeing the person and not just the lack of development?”

I commend the strategic plan’s belief in the priesthood of all believers, that we all share in the mission of the church together. However, our gaze must not be only on our priesthood.  If we are to be enfolding new believers into that priesthood, we should also consider how they will be donning the mantle of priesthood? Journeying with the Holy Spirit is never the same for each person. Largely this journey depends on a person’s mantle of life experiences, the hurt or shame, their traumas. There must be room to ask hard questions about God, not giving prescribed answers in the catechism, space to wrestle with one’s faith. The priestly vestments are not one-size-fits-all.

I also commend the strategic plan’s suggestion of Barnabas Advocates. These are local individuals in place to bridge the gap between a planting congregation and a new congregation of differing race or ethnicities. Due to differing thought patterns, rituals, and values, cultures play a large role in miscommunication between people. However, equally separating are the effects of trauma. Trauma changes how you think, how you view the world. Just as those of minority ethnicity need to feel that there is a safe place for them to express themselves, those who have experienced trauma need to know that church will be a safe place for them to heal and to grow. Where there is safety there is growth.

If the CRCNA feels that God is calling them to endeavor into a season of intense ministry to the world outside the walls of our churches, we will need to consider that the world is largely informed by trauma. We need to be trauma-informed.