The Institute originally published this post on March 26, 2015, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger Rev. Dr. David Holyan, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, Saint Louis, MO. What I share in this blog series, I share as a pastor whose whole sense of call and purpose was destroyed on February 7, 2008. The reflections I will share in this second part and in the postings to follow all grow out of living in the valley of the shadow of death long enough to find God's blessings once again. My focus in these posts is on vocational trauma – how a disaster disrupts or destroys a pastor's sense of call and the hard journey of reconstructing a new, wiser sense of call. The morning after the shooting during an emergency planning meeting with the Associate Pastor and the Director of Music Ministries, as we looked at adding a prayer service, having just one service on Sunday instead of three, scheduling a congregational debriefing, and hosting the first memorial service on Monday, someone uttered the phrase: this changes everything! Six months of planning for worship – gone! Scheduled fellowship events – gone! Regular committee meetings – gone! The ability to talk about what happened among the staff – gone! (Remember, one of the victims was the husband of a staff member.) The ability to sit peacefully and listen deeply – gone! In an instant the three of us realized that everything we had planned, hoped for, and looked forward to in the seasons of Lent and Eastertide were gone! It was as if the shooting and its immediate on-going impact upon ourselves, our staff, our congregation, and our community shredded not just our hearts and souls but also our vocational waypoints. We were navigating uncharted waters without a map, compass, or GPS. What we realized collectively but were not yet able to articulate was that 'normal' was also a casualty of the shooting. Years later, as I write this post, I realize it was the Holy Spirit who whispered “this changes everything” as it was this phrase that allowed me to respond as faithfully as possible to the overwhelming needs I encountered as pastor. What follows is some practical advice clergy can use in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. Shred the Sermon Whatever you planned to preach, no matter how eloquent or coordinated with the music and/or slide presentation or the fact that it is sermon number 4 in a series of six – no matter what you had prepared to preach – the first piece of practical advice I will give to us is: shred the sermon. Allow yourself to be human, to be devastated by what happened and model, for the congregation, what it might look like for a person of faith to struggle with the realities of a mass shooting event or an arson fire or a rape or the suicide of a staff member: be real! Do not forge ahead, sticking to what you wrote out the day before the horrible event occurred. Shred that sermon! Even if the situation occurred on Saturday night or early Sunday morning and you have to go into the pulpit with nothing but your confusion, anger, outrage, brokenheartedness, and you stumble through 10 to 12 minutes of almost inarticulate rambling about how hope comes in the morning – SHRED THE SERMON! I give you permission to allow the magnitude of the situation to affect your preaching and I emplore you to face the sitaution head on from the pulpit and be real in your response. Clear the Schedule On the morning after the event, we cancelled every scheduled event for the next two weeks. We wiped the calendar clean and asked: what do we need to do in order to be faithful to what God is inviting us to be and do given that 'this changes everything'? We knew instinctively that to 'carry on as usual' was not just impossible but unfaithful as well. We could not hide our devastation, our brokenheartedness, our anger at God, our questions, etc. so in order to tend to the emerging needs of everyone, we simply cleared the schedule. By clearing the schedule you create space for you and your leaders to discern how to faithfully respond to the ever changing and overwhelming immediate needs of the congregation and the community. Focus on the Basics As the community rallies in response to a traumatic event, the invitations and expectations pour in for you, as a 'leading pastor in our community', to be involved in all the events which immediately spring up – the prayer vigil, the candlelight service, the civic/political gathering, the ministerial meetings, the community gatherings, etc. I encourage you to focus on the basics – yourself, your family, your staff, your church, and then (maybe, if absolutely necessary) things in the community. My encouragement is for you to focus 'from the center out' and to tend to your own well-being before you tend to the well-being of others. If you do nothing in the month following a traumatic event except for worship well on Sundays you have done enough. Focus on the basics of leading worship and caring for one another (yourself first). Get Out of Town My final encouragement is that at about 4 to 6 weeks out from a traumatic event, have the church send you and your family on an all expenses paid retreat to someplace beautiful, peaceful, and relaxing. I found it so important to get out of town, to leave the trauma-altered patterns of daily life in ministry, and to simply be with my family. Since the demands of ministry rise exponentially in the aftermath of trauma, having the opportunity to lay aside those demands for a while in order to tend to yourself and be with those who love you and whom you love can be an experience of God's restorative grace.
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The Institute originally published this post on March 23, 2015, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger, Rev. Dr. David Holyan, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, Saint Louis, MO. What I share in this blog series, I share as a pastor whose whole sense of call and purpose was destroyed on February 7, 2008. The reflections I will share in the postings to follow all grow out of living in the valley of the shadow of death long enough to find God's blessings once again. My focus in these posts is on vocational trauma – how a disaster disrupts or destroys a pastor's sense of call and the hard journey of reconstructing a new, wiser sense of call. On February 7, 2008, having just come home from a family dinner out, my son received a call on his cellphone. “Turn on the news,” was all he said. I turned on the television and saw a picture of City Hall surrounded by police cars with flashing lights and cops walking around with big guns. The ticker on the bottom of the screen said, “Shooting, Kirkwood City Hall,...” My immediate thought was: I need to get to church. On my way to the church, which stands directly across the street from City Hall, the music director called, “Where are you?” “I'm on my way. I'll be there in three minutes.” “I have the choir locked in, there may be a gunman on the loose.” “Meet me at the front door in three minutes and let me in.” When I arrived at church, there was an odd number of staff present (all but one) for a Thursday night. In our large urban campus, they were all gathered near the front entry. Walking toward the Welcome Center, I asked if anyone had heard from Cathy, whose husband Ken was the Director of Public Works, always at City Coucil meetings, and the target of one citizen's wrath for a number of years. I had my assistant Jane start calling all the hospitals trying to determine where wounded people were being taken. I called Cathy's cellphone repeatedly. I finally reached her and she said all the survivors were being taken to St. John's Hospital and she was on her way. I told her I'd meet her there. On the way to the hospital, I talked with Karen, the Associate Pastor, and told her about St. John's. She said she would meet me there, too. When I got to the hospital, I met a nurse at the entrance who said, “You can't come in. We are on lockdown due to a mass-shooting.” I identified myself as a local pastor and the reason I was there; she personally escorted me to the Emergency Room waiting area where I met up with Cathy. Karen arrived shortly thereafter, and having learned the mayor of our community, a member of our church, was in emergency surgery because of the shooting, she went to be with his family. I decided to stay with Cathy. There were also members of a councilman's family milling about the ER waiting room. I noticed all the people sitting, waiting to be seen in the ER, just watching Cathy and the councilman’s family. I went to the desk and asked if there was a room we could all wait in in private. There was. It seems like we sat in that small room for an eternity. Finally, I decided to go see if I could find out where Ken was or when they expected him to finally show up. I walked out of the room, turned toward the desk, took about three steps and then stopped. It was eerily still. And in that instant I knew: they weren't expecting any more survivors to show up in the ER. I went to the man with the clipboard and said, “You aren't expecting anyone else from the shooting to arrive are you?” He simply said, “No sir.” I felt the color drain out of me. I asked, “Whose going to tell the people waiting in the room?” “The police chaplain is on his way.” I returned to the room just as the other family received a phone call from home stating a police officer had stopped by to give them the gruesome news: their husband, father, friend was dead. Cathy turned to me and said: “Ken is dead. Isn't he?” At that moment, the door opened, the chaplain walked in, and Cathy and I fell apart. Seven years ago and it still feels like last night. I realize I did not have a loved one killed that night. I was not in the council chamber while the shooting took place. Yet, as with many bystanders and witnesses that night, I too was traumatized. What I understood my sense of call and purpose to be in the morning of February 7, 2008, radically changed that night as I learned personally and professionally how to pastor a grieving congregation and community, even as I was grieving. I learned that a new and wiser vocational call and purpose can emerge in the aftermath of trauma, and I will share about my discoveries in the following six-post series. You can learn more about personal care and developing trauma-informed ministry through our resource guides and services.
You can sustain free online education with a financial contribution today. Thank you for your generosity! The Institute originally published this post on July 17, 2014, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger Ryan S K Timpte, Director of Children's Ministries at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church. “Teach a child to choose the right path, and when he is older, he will remain upon it.” - Proverbs 22:6 (TLB) What is children’s ministry? When I was growing up in Colorado, my family briefly attended a church that, to me, looked like a spaceship. It was modern, in the way that new buildings in the late 1980s were modern: gleaming white, curved on top, multiple glass walls behind sloping pillars. During service, the kids went to Sunday school while the adults went to worship. We learned about the rainbow and sang songs about colors, and an adult came to summon us toward the end of every class so that we could go stand in the congregation, hold hands, and sing the traditional “Let There Be Peace on Earth” closing. I remember thinking it was weird. (To be fair, a lot of the things in the 1980s were weird.) Why did we have to leave our room and go see the adults? Why weren’t they ever learning the same things we were learning? Why did we have to sing “Let There Be Peace on Earth” instead of any of the songs we got to learn in our room? These are the same questions I’m asking now, 25 years later, in my current role as a Director of Children’s Ministry. I enjoy kids, and I enjoy figuring out how kids fit in with the rest of the community. Congregations love children, but often, they don’t know what to do with them. Some congregations prefer kids to be quiet during worship; others privilege the worship of children above all else. Some children’s ministers have more education and experience than anyone else on staff; others are volunteers who were in the right - or wrong - place at the right time. Given the clear mandate Jesus gives us in Mark 10 to let the little children come to him without hindrance, it is fascinating to see the myriad ways in which congregations encounter kids. So I ask again, what is children’s ministry? Is it an incubator, keeping kids safe until they’re old enough to participate fully in the congregation? Is it a school, instructing kids in how to have faith like adults? Or, as the writer says in Proverbs, is it a path for kids to follow, a starting point on a longer journey of discovery? The way a congregation answers this question has enormous implications, particularly in a time of trauma. Congregational trauma has a way of blurring lines, obscuring paths that once seemed clear. Old systems are shaken, new needs arise, and often, the picture of the future is changed dramatically. It is during this time that the paths on which we set our children become incredibly important. Over the next months, I’ll be writing about the role of children’s ministry before, during, and after trauma in a congregation. There’s a lot to think about, like appropriate curricula after a traumatic event, or how to respond to the fears and concerns of parents, or what the place of children within the larger ministry of the church should look like. As children’s ministers, we are advocates, teachers, guides, and students of the kids in our care, and we want only to point them toward Jesus, no matter the surrounding circumstances. I look forward to your comments, your questions, and to the conversation that starts from this simple question: What is children’s ministry? You can learn more about trauma-informed children and youth ministry through our resource guides and services.
You can support free online education by making a financial contribution today. Thank you for your generosity! The Institute originally published this post on June 7, 2014, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger Melissa Marley-Bonnichsen, Director of Social Concerns Seminars at the University of Notre Dame. The email I was expecting came 9 days after the incident. Due to the recent university campus shooting that occurred only two hours away from my institution, in which one classmate intentionally took the life of another classmate, my institution sent out a reminder email to faculty and staff recalling how to respond if shots are fired on campus. As I slowly read the email sadness took over my countenance. These were things I never thought I would need to be prepared for. My heart ached for the students, unsuspecting young adults that sought higher education for a number of reasons – experiencing violence or paralyzing fear, not one of them. Yet, these are some of the stories of our time. In the last 30 days there have been 8 deaths, most of these deaths of college students, and 19 seriously wounded due to university and college campus shootings, including yesterday’s shooting at Seattle Pacific University. How we got here will be determined by our historians, social scientists, ethical theologians, and psychological researchers, however today, in the moments of shock and grief, we are still left to pick up the pieces and come together as shaken communities to grieve, lament, and some how move on. Working with college and university students who have gone through the experience of a campus shooting can be difficult as there are no easy answers and expected questioning, grief, and loss are a long process. What follows, however, are possible ways we can support our college students and their communities through these moments whether we are on or off campus, near or far from those effected, friend, faculty, staff, parent, pastor or laity. Grief and Lament: With any loss grief and lament will be present. These actions are caused not only by the physical loss of loved ones or friends, but by the perceived loss of order, security, peace and the way things once were -the old Camelot, even if it wasn’t your campus. It is the experience of a community that has been violated and questions of ‘what could happen next’ or ‘could this happen at my school’ are still very real -trust has been lost and tensions of suspicion and pain are high. Help students find space and meaning to their grief and lamentation. This could happen through conversations, prayer meetings, lamenting circles, co-creative spaces where students can lament through varying art mediums and forums, a memorial or remembrance service, or candlelight vigil. Help college students think about these things, their role in understanding both worlds – pre and post event, but also encourage them to think about their role in helping their college or university community move on from this experience. How will they be a part of remembering the loss but also building on the new tomorrow? Let the Questions Come: Such traumatic events like campus shootings prompt many questions and discussions. Why X community? Why X students? Why not me? Why not them? How could this even happen? How could a good God allow such evil? There will be no limit to the questions or what types of questions that will arise, our students however, need a space to process their questioning and a safe space where they can ask and or talk about these questions. While some questions will be theological and ethical, many will be political and sociological. What does it mean for a student to intentionally murder female college students because of his experience with women? What does it mean for campus’ to have their own policies about carrying guns on campus despite state laws and federal laws? What is the role of mental illness in campus shootings? These questions are so hard and for many of these questions we do not and cannot claim to have the ultimate answer. We can, however, help students have forums for conversation and questioning. We can ask for respected and trusted authorities in our communities to spend time with our students and parents who might have some of these questions or create Skyping opportunities for conversation at the local, state, and national level. By doing this we acknowledge the questioning our students want to bring to the processing of their experience which hopefully will bring us closer to healing as communities. Be A Part of the Solution: Finally, by encouraging the conversation, when applicable, to go beyond grief, lament, questioning, and perhaps even beyond healing, we should help students and communities consider how they can participate in pragmatic solutions and viable problem solving when it comes to gun violence on our college campus’. We cannot set up false expectations that our students will change an entire system in one fell swoop, but we can encourage them to think about their role in creating change. Too often we are hearing the question, “What else will it take until the violence stops?” This is in no way an easy question to answer, but perhaps the desire to bring about change will inspire us to be creative, innovative, and daring enough to create viable solutions and one day end the gun violence we are experiencing on our college and university campus’ and in our communities. Students want to be a part of this work even if they are invited in only to hear the conversation or have their feedback heard. When the moment is right, let’s encourage our students to be a part of the solutions. These are simple ideas and yet by engaging our students in these ways I believe we will help them make sense of the senseless. May God’s love and deep grace go with us in this work. Sustain free online education with a financial contribution today. Thank you for your generosity!
The Institute originally published this post on June 19, 2014, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest bloggers, Rabbis Arthur Gross-Schaefer and Suzy Stone, addressing the topic of faith-based response to campus violence. Below you will find their voices and perspectives as they sought to lead a local congregation gathering in the immediate aftermath of violence, including preparing for and conducting a service, and what informed their discernment. Following also are two examples of statements each Rabbi made during their service. As individuals entered the sanctuary, each came with their own private needs, agenda, and a personal sense of G-d’s presence in a seemingly senseless tragedy. After a young student had stabbed his roommates to death followed by a shooting spree on May 23, 2014 we decided to hold a healing service for the Jewish community in Santa Barbra four days after this heartbreaking series of events. In the planning of the service, several questions were considered: Should this be a healing service, a memorial service or a service at all? Were there existing service models that could be easily adapted? In addition to the service, what other program or activity could be used to help those present express their feelings, perceptions, hopes and fears? And how should those who died, those who were injured, and the perpetrator be remembered? When we could not find a pre-existing model to copy, we turned to the Psalms and readings each of us had selected to cover a variety of emotions and beliefs. We wanted to create a safe place where everyone would feel comfortable during and after the service. We decided to honor only the victims and not mention the shooter, as it was too early in the grief process to expect those present to deal with the pain and anguish leading him to take the lives of others before taking his own life. Six candles for the six victims were laid out in front of the congregation and lit during the service. When the service was over, four discussion groups were created and led by a member of the clergy and a facilitator—many of whom were therapists and social workers who had a great deal of experience leading people through difficult conversations. The break-out groups included discussions on grief and loss, gun legislation, concerns over the mental health system, as well as, a conversation about gender norms and the price of privilege. The goal was to encourage and maintain a safe space for participation and a sharing. The facilitators were not asked to control the direction of the conversation; but rather, to help make sure that no one voice or opinion dominated the conversation and that multiple viewpoints could be expressed without fear or intimidation. For the final few minutes, the facilitators asked the group to offer suggestions for follow up actions or conversations that they felt needed to happen in light of the recent events. Following the break-out groups, the community gathered for a final prayer and song. The service and discussion session were intentionally kept short – the service was forty-five minutes while the individual discussion sessions lasted around thirty minutes. After the final prayer, the clergy and facilitators met in private to discuss how their groups functioned and what ideas came forward for further. Below are some of the insights shared and follow-up ideas that were suggested: Grief and Loss · Rather than giving answers, even religious based concepts, it is often better to just listen carefully in silence and give a caring hug. Often people don’t want or won’t believe in simplistic answers. What they do want are people who are present and deeply care. · Create workshops for talking to children and adults about death – do’s and don’ts. · Don’t try to move to healing or foreignness too fast until there has been time for grief, loss and sorrow · For those directly affected, grief is not a simple progression from one stage to another. Grief and loss is messy, uneven, irrational, and powerful. As stated before, the best we can often do is just to be present. Gun Legislation
The Mental Health System
Gender and Privilege
Looking back and forward after our service, it is clear how important religious communities are to create safe places for people to share diverse and even contradictory opinions, beliefs, feelings, emotions and frustrations. People experience a lot of sadness, fear and anger, which needs a safe container that religious leaders can provide. It is also critical for religious professionals to be humble about their skills and the helpfulness of their theological answers. As stated above, not every question or comment needs to require a response. And, professional therapists have training and insightful perspectives. Moreover, often the best we can do is nurture the community by helping the individual members realize the important role played by concepts of compassion, non-judgmental listening and developing a welcoming environment. Finally, it may be important to keep in mind that we, the trained clergy, are also feeling sadness, anger, loss and even powerlessness. We may not feel that we have the right words, can create a powerful ritual or even know how to begin to respond when such an overwhelming tragedy occurs. It is at these times that prayer, finding a good partner, and knowing that no one has all the answers becomes very helpful. So, just be you, be present, and be authentic. And that will be enough. Examples of Service Remarks: In answer to the questions, what is it that we, as a Jewish community can do to help one another grieve and comprehend what happened in our own backyard, and, what is our responsibility to the larger community when tragedy strikes so close to home, Rabbi Stone shared the following remarks during their service: Hold them tight. Hold your children, your friends, your parents, your loved ones, your neighbors and even the strangers you encounter on your way—Hold them tight.Hold on tight to the memories of those we mourn. Let not this mass tragedy obscure the fact that these students were individuals who have individual lives and stories to tell. Hold on tight to your dreams and aspirations. Hold on tight to a vision of a world redeemed—a world in which our children no longer live in fear and isolation, anxiety and heartache. Last but not least, our tradition teaches us to hold on tight to our tzitzit, the fringes of our garments. As it says in Numbers 15:38 and Deuteronomy 22:12, these fringes are to be placed specifically on the k’nafot-- the corner of our garments. In fact, the Shulchan Aruch (Orech Chaim 11) teaches us that a tallit that does not have tzitzit placed exactly in the corner of the garment is not fit for use. While one may argue that this decision was simply a product of legal minutiae, I would suggest that this halakhah is deeply symbolic. Just as we are commanded to hold on tight to the fringes of our garment, we must hold on tight to the fringes of our society. While we are often quick to run away from that which we don’t understand, or that which appears too sharp or jagged, we are challenged to grab onto those narrow places, to examine the fringes before our eyes, and hold them close to our hearts. In other words, we are commanded to gaze upon that which lies just out of sight by bringing the fringes of our garment (and society) to the front and center of our lives. As we recite this passage from the Shemah twice a day, we are reminded that what seems peripheral is actually central to our lives and the healing of our society. With this in mind I will end with two diametrically opposed thoughts. As individual citizens, operating as independent advocates, it will be nearly impossible for us to have an impact on the public sphere. But if we join together in conversations and forums, and through real honest-to-goodness debate, we may have an opportunity to act as a unified Jewish community to influence the public policy in our county. As Rabbi Tarfon once taught: “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it” (Pirkei Avot 2:16). On the other hand, it is far easier to make a spiritual impact than a political one in in the immediate days and weeks following such a tragedy. So I urge all of you to hold onto the fringes a bit tighter so that less people in our society fall prey to irreversible grief, isolation or alienation. With heavy hearts and inconsolable grief, our tradition asks us to err on the side of hope and transformation. We yearn for a day when all of our children will be free from fear, isolation, loss, tragedy, and senseless acts of hatred. In doing so, we recommit ourselves to our ancient people’s call for ever-lasting peace. Rabbi Gross-Schaefer shared the following remarks during the service: Ever made a call or received a call beginning with the words, “First, mom or dad, I’m ok.” We hear such a call with both relief mixed with dread. What will the next words entail knowing it can’t be good. And sometimes, we receive a call from a doctor or a police officer about a loved one, such as the calls the families of the victims of last Friday night’s tragedy received, and lives of those families as well as their friends are altered forever. We choose from a whole list of possible responses. There is the ‘what if.’ What if my loved one decided to take a different direction or was just one minute earlier or later. What if my son or daughter decided to attend another university or get a different roommate? We may even pray for what happened to be magically undone. Our rabbis teach this is a meaningless prayer. There is the reality of what happened and we must deal with reality, no matter how painful. Then there is the ‘if only’, often tied to blame. If only we had a better mental health system, if only there was stronger gun control, if only the police had done a better job, if only. There may be some truths in the ‘if only’ focus, however, not now. We don’t really know what could have been done and if it would have made a different. More importantly, the ‘if only’ focus is really about the future and possible future responses we will share after our service. At this moment though, it is the present demanding our attention. How am I feeling, what am I grieving. While Rabbi Stone drew out attention to the fringes, think now of the tallit itself. When we are wrapped in our tallitot there is often a feeling of safety and connection. It is the very fabric of a sense of security that has been torn and we feel more vulnerable and unable to persist in the belief we can control all events. As we often joke, we plan and G-d laughs. So what do we do then at this time.... we embrace the sheltering presence of community, we remember to act with kindness and compassion to all those we encounter, and we seek the light of blessings present even in darkness. There are always blessing of friends and family, the angels that surround us. The angels like Raphael, who simply hug and carry us during these times. There are angels such as Michael whom, in spite of all else, help us move forward one step at a time in this corporeal reality. There are angels like Gabriel, who will sit with us as we risk grappling with the spiritual questions of G-d’s presence or absence. And then there are the angels of Ariel, who remind us we indeed are a unique creation with distinctive gifts to contribute to the healing of others, our community and ourselves. So again I ask, what do we do at this time? For now we put aside the what if and the if only as we hold on to the angels around us, we act with greater kindness, appreciation and caring towards each other as we pray for healing. Learn more about leading congregational healing after violence with our training manuals or services.
Sustain free online education with a financial contribution today. Thank you for your generosity! The Institute originally published this post on April 24, 2013, on the ICTG blog. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger, Rev. Dr. Storm Swain, Associate Professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, to address the topic of how congregational leaders or chaplains lead and build organizational or community resilience. Yesterday, I sat down to eat at our Community lunch with a colleague and we were soon joined by the President of our Seminary, the Dean, and the program director of Arab and Middle Eastern Ministries from the ELCA . Kholoud Khoury is from Palestine., and had been speaking to a class of students that morning. Within minutes our Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations joined us with two former colleagues of his from Cairo, the President and the Professor of Theology from the Evangelical Theological Seminary there. As we were speaking about our seminary communities, Dr. Darren Kennedy said, “What they didn’t prepare me for in seminary was how to supervise field education students that have their field ed. churches burn down.” I went on to comment about how we teach a course on ‘Disaster Spiritual Care’ at our seminary which goes against the popular theories about preparation for such a ministry. When I became a disaster spiritual care chaplain as part of the 9/11 response, we were asked whether we had a seminary degree, at least one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, and had been in ministry for over five years. Such a preparation seems like a good foundation for such an intense ministry. I believed that then and still do today. However, there is one problem with that theory. Disasters do not wait until we are fully prepared. A disaster may happen five days, not five years, after a new pastor begins in a congregation. Or, as my colleague from Egypt reminded me, five days after a field education student begins in a parish. Seminarians in the United States may feel a long way away from the violence faced by congregations in Egypt, however, it was only twenty years ago that African American churches were facing that threat at numbers that far outweighed either the usual number of church burnings and those arsons in largely Anglo- or Euro-American congregations. I wonder how long the pastors had been incumbent, whether there were any field education students there, and whether they felt anything in their seminary training had prepared them. Disasters do not wait until we are fully prepared. A disaster may happen five days, not five years, after a new pastor begins in a congregation. More and more seminaries are adding training around disaster and trauma to their curriculums. More and more seminarians are asking for such. Whether it is a weekend workshop or a full semester course, for a start the consciousness raising about the complexities of such a ministry is a gift to a seminary student. Our course explores disasters that range from virus pandemics, to school shootings, to church burnings, to natural disasters, and terrorism. Nothing can prepare a student for the kind of disaster they will face, however learning about other disasters, how a disaster affects that brain which may lead to trauma, and what some useful strategies are to maintain a sense of agency and activity to mitigate against the sense of helplessness a disaster can create, goes a long way to the kind of resilience in the face of disaster that our clergy need. Yet, we need to go beyond that, as we know disasters do not simply happen to congregants and those in the wider community. A question that has continued to play in my mind since 9/11 is: how to we minister to the traumatized when we are somewhat traumatized ourselves. One of the things that mitigates against trauma is community. It is not just a clergy person that will care for a community (a sure recipe for burnout) but a community of care that will face into a disaster together. Preparing clergy is only one component, preparing congregations is another. As part of their work for the course on Disaster Spiritual Care, our students compile a Congregational disaster plan which goes from practical issues like mapping the exits and fire extinguishers in the church and parish hall, to assessing the likely disasters, such as flooding, that a congregation might face. Such an exercise takes both agency and imagination, and it takes a congregation to buy into the possibility that the best might not always happen. It is not just a clergy person that will care for a community (a sure recipe for burnout) but a community of care that will face into a disaster together. For those of us who are Christian, we are moving through the Easter season. In many ways this is a post-disaster story for a community. In this story, things don’t go back to normal but the community learns to live with a ‘new normal.’ In this new normal we need to take account of the scars of the trauma, the patterns that change, the absences of those who are or will be ‘lost,’ and the need for the community to gather in a new way. The story of the trauma gets woven into the new narrative, not in a ‘everything’s alright now way,’ but a reframing that includes both Good Friday and Easter Sunday. This indeed would be a good time for a community to turn, as our students do, to the fabric, both personal and practical of our congregations: to map resources, to assess risks, and to build resilience. Engaging in a congregational disaster plan is indeed preparing for the unpreparable, but to do so, is to be an Easter people, knowing that even in the face of disaster, we can rise again. 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The Institute originally published this post on April 23, 2014, on our previous website. Here, we are honored to welcome guest blogger Dr. Jaco Hamman, Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, to address the critical topic of discerning congregational vision and mission in the months and years that follow after collective loss. When a traumatic event occurs in the life in a congregation, the impact of the event also touches the community’s vision and mission statements. Whether a leader leaves under a cloud of conflict, whether a natural disaster hits the church, whether a beloved member unexpectedly dies, or whether a congregation struggles to survive financially—all possible traumatic events—the end result is often that existing statements are discarded and new ones are drafted.
A mission statement usually identifies a congregation’s primary purpose and the objectives guiding especially the leadership (“This is what we’re all about” or “This is why we are here”). In turn, a vision statement typically describes the guiding values of a congregation or the human value that is within the mission statement (“This is who we want to become” or “This is how we want to be the Body of Christ.”). For some congregations the terms vision and mission statement are used interchangeably and refers to one statement, naming both the purpose and the values of the community. Mission statements hold accountability and often ties one to the Triune God’s call on a community of believers, whereas vision statements encourage hopeful living into the future and often shows ways the reign of God manifests in a community. Mission and vision statements, one can argue, offer different views on a congregations’ identity. It is this very relationship to identity that helps us understand why mission and vision statements often change after traumatic events. Trauma implies loss and mourning, human experiences that change a community’s identity. In When Steeples Cry: Leading Congregations Through Loss and Change (The Pilgrim Press, 2005), I argued that mourning is the intentional process of letting go of relationships, dreams, and visions as your congregation lives into a new identity after the experience of loss and change. Mourning implies living through grief; to live with loss and change. As a congregation engages the work of mourning after a traumatic even, they discover a new identity. This new identity, in part, shows the inadequate nature of existing mission and vision statements and fuels the drafting of new ones. If your congregation has experienced a trauma, keep the following in mind: · A community cannot be the same community after trauma. All congregational (and personal) trauma implies loss, which implies a loss of identity. · Loss is best understood in a variety of ways, each requiring its own work of mourning: loss of material belongings/buildings/money, loss of lives and relationships, loss of dreams and visions, loss of roles and functions, the loss of no longer being part of a wider society. · Loss can only be grieved and mourned. Philosopher Jacques Derrida reminds us in his The Work of Mourning that to mourn is “to reckon, to recount, relate, or narrate, to consider, judge, or evaluate, even to estimate, enumerate, and calculate [the loss that occurred].” When we resist mourning, we remain stuck “in grief.” · Conflict and nostalgia are often unwanted responses to trauma, so too the desire for a quick fix. · The work of personal and communal mourning lead to the formation of a new identity. · A congregation’s new identity will seek new vision and mission statements. Sometimes the new identity seeks new leadership. · Drafting a new vision and mission statement requires much conversation by the whole community. Also, converse with God in prayer, meditation and in worship, and through studying Scripture together. · Drafting a vision or mission statement without clearly naming the shifts in identity that occurred through the traumatic event will lead to new statements with little or no transformative and guiding power. May the God of Grace be with you as you engage your congregation’s work of mourning. JJHamman Nashville The Institute originally published this post on November 14, 2013, on our previous website. Traumatologists regularly study vagus nerve phenomena to discern its role in countering "fight or flight" responses to trauma. Many researchers argue that there are three keys to healing after trauma: relaxation, relationships, and having personal trauma perspectives acknowledged either verbally or in other forms of relationship. You can learn more about how to incorporate these three keys to healing in congregational ministries through our resource guides. When persons practice these skills they avoid PTSD and other forms of dis-ease after trauma. Recently, scholars studied vagus nerve behavior during choral singing. "Choir singing is known to promote well-being," the study conducted by a Swedish research team from the University of Gothenburg led by Bjorn Vickhoff begins. This study sought to flesh out what many congregational leaders have come to take for granted, or, in other cases, perhaps could use some reminding especially after incidents of trauma. You can view a film of the researchers discussing the implications of their study here. The study explores why singing appears to be a universal phenomenon. "Unlike most other universal human behaviors there is no self-evident Darwinian explanation." Instead, the universal nature of singing may be due to its group bonding results and its inherent collective calming abilities. Singing achieves relaxed and corporate communicative states, partly because "external and visible joint action corresponds to an internal and biological joint action." The study acknowledges that the vagal effect of breathing is a calming reaction. They explain "how the length of the song phrases guides respiration, resulting in compliances of frequency and phrases of respiration cycles and [heart rate variability] HRV cycles between singers." In other words, when a congregation sings together, their heart rates and breathing come in sync, and, collectively, they relax. The study concludes, singing "produces slow, regular and deep respiration . . . [that] causes a pulsating vagal activity," which is collectively calming. This is good news for congregational leaders seeking to lead congregations after trauma. Gathering, for worship, after incidents of trauma – especially when worship involves singing – can produce all three of the keys to healing from trauma. Support free online education by making a contribution today. Thank you for your generosity!
The Institute originally published this post by guest blogger, Br. Luke Ditewig, SSJE, on July 26, 2013, on our previous website. Br. Ditewig is a member of the Institute's Board of Advisors. In this post he describes the gift and discipline of silence, a practice that ministers may consider to be restorative following incidents of tragedy. Silence “People were very surprised to hear I was going on a silent retreat at a monastery,” said Carol, a leader in her congregation. “They wondered if I could be quiet, but I felt strongly drawn to it.” At first, she found it hard to not say hello in the hallways, to eat without talking, and to wait in silence for several minutes for worship to begin. Yet through the weekend, Carol experienced a peace in being without talking. She paid more attention to and savored food. She gazed at trees and watched birds. Her inner chatter calmed. Silence in chapel became comforting. God’s loving touch kept surprising her. She met with one of my brothers who listened gently as she shared her burdens and grief. Silence is a powerful healing gift which undergirds our life and ministry.[1] All kinds of people, including many clergy and professional caregivers, come to us to taste or feast on silence and return home to keep nurturing it in their everyday lives. With life at full throttle, always squeezing in one more thing, many of us live at a frenetic pace. Constant sound, 24/7 contact and instant information at our fingertips breeds a body-numbing buzz. Many instinctively turn on an electronic device when entering a room or car or even going on a walk. Our bodies and souls long for breaks. Silence punctuates. Noise is an unending or multi-layered stream of sound, activity and emotion. Music is both notes and rests. Life without rests, without silence is noisy, suffocating and undefined. Silence is stopping to make space in between, to define what just happened, to breathe deeply. When there’s five minutes before the next meeting or thing I have to do, I sometimes stop for a cup of tea or go outside or gaze out the window. Other times I dash to do one more thing. Then I usually realize I am—if not literally—at least figuratively out of breath. It takes me longer to “get there” and focus on the next thing. What do you do in between? How do you breathe? We brothers cherish and offer silence not because there aren’t many good things to say and do. Rather there is so much to hear that we otherwise usually miss. Putting distractions aside, or doing just one thing at a time, one can better pay attention to the present moment. What do you hear? Perhaps birds singing, rain falling, a clock ticking, your breathing. Ordinary, beautiful things you might otherwise miss. Stand in awe of breath, of beauty, of yourself and give thanks. Silence is a doorway to listening. It creates space to be attentive to what is happening inside. It invites listening deep within, to one’s heart with all its desires and longing, its pain and wounds, fears and hopes. As with Carol, we brothers listen to and companion many souls. Silence enables both listening and speaking. Especially on retreat, silence is part of the safe space which invites sharing when one is ready. God often comes, chooses to be known, companions us in silence, including when we are most troubled. Remember Elijah fleeing into the desert because Jezebel was trying to kill him. God came not in a mighty wind, earthquake or fire but in the sound of sheer silence. How long did that silence last before Elijah realized God was in it? It might have been a while. Especially when blowing, quaking and burning inside, it takes time for us to settle down, to become still enough to hear beyond the blowing. A pastor on retreat recently said that after 24 hours, it felt like he could hear four times as well as when he arrived. Retreat is a special time set apart, and it’s very helpful to have a few days because often it takes one just to settle down. Breathing deeply helps all the time. Silence can be a part of every day and not in a monastery. It can be unplugging from electronic devices for certain hours or activities. It could be listening or gazing during a commute or meal. Perhaps it is doing one thing at a time, having tea and truly savoring that cup. Maybe it’s a bedtime ritual not just for kids but for adults; a pause to reflect on the day, to give thanks, and to soothe yourself as with a lullaby before going to sleep. It may be moments without music or conversation before or amid worship or a meeting, time to be together listening. Whether in ordinary life or intensive on a retreat, silence is a powerful healing gift. [1] The Rule of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Chapter 27: Silence Support free online education by making a contribution today. Thank you for your generosity!
The Institute originally published this post on July 12, 2013, on a previous website. "Trauma-informed care" quickly is becoming the it phrase among non-sectarian care agencies. Yet congregations, on the whole, have been slow to utilize the tools associated with the ground-breaking research and irrefutable data associated with trauma-informed studies provided by leading traumatologists like Bessel van der Kolk, Babette Rothschild, Robert Macy, Charles Figley, Don Catherall, Robert Anda, and Vincent Felitti.
What are the key traits of a trauma-informed congregation? 1. Trauma-informed congregations acknowledge the vast scope of adverse experiences common to persons today. Exposure to and difficulty adjusting to adverse experiences simply is more common than previously understood. Appreciating the scope of events that can occur and to which persons have been exposed – including and not limited to natural storms, earthquakes, fires, loss of quality of life through unemployment, moving, loss of housing, domestic violence, substance abuse, divorce, mental health concerns, physical or emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, mass violence, gun or knife violence, hate crimes, terrorism, and industrial accidents – is key to understanding the common needs of congregants and their surrounding communities. 2. Trauma-informed congregations recognize the impact that adverse experiences have on persons and groups. Trauma occurs when persons perceive themselves or their senses of well-being (including family, income, housing, and community) is threatened, and their ability to cope is overwhelmed. The ripple effects of emotional affect and biological reactions can be far reaching, having serious effect on a person's or group's health and relational functioning, impacting life expectancy, and even passing through generations. 3. Trauma-informed congregations practice a key perspective shift from previously not being trauma-informed. This shift creates new senses of reality, or new senses of normal. It is practiced by caregivers and faithful neighbors who change their operating questions of those they are serving from "what is wrong with you" and "why are you doing that" to "what happened?" They are compassionately curious, and interested to honestly bear witness to adverse experience from the past that may be influencing fear or defense tactics in the present. They view forms of "acting out" as opportunities for building trustworthy and emotionally safe relationships. 4. Trauma-informed congregations practice self-regulation. Trauma-informed interventions and care practices focus on the more primitive or "lower" parts of the brain, where "fight or flight" chemical reactions are rooted. They understand that trauma induces time-disorientation, when fight or flight tactics from the past are operational in the present when they are no longer necessary. Trauma-informed persons understand that those resources are necessary at times of real threat, and can practice resolving hyper-vigilance and overactive defensive stances through various sensory strategies. Trauma-informed congregations incorporate these strategies into liturgy, fellowship and mission events, including drumming, chimes, singing, dancing, yoga, playful sports, poems, prayer, lectio divina, theater, sacraments, labyrinths, and rituals using water, cloth, oil, or ash. They also incorporate simple practices for acknowledging that emotions exist and can be managed, including patterns for beginning or ending meetings or gatherings. These patterns may include questions such as: going around the room with each person naming in a word or phrase one need they have presently and one hope they have for the remainder of the day; OR in a word naming how they are feeling presently, in a phrase naming a goal they have, and naming a resource they have; OR going around the room and each person in a phrase sharing one need they have presently, one blessing they have received today, and one way they will be helpful today. 5. Trauma-informed congregations actively build and sustain relationships. Relationships are key to healing from trauma. Trauma-informed congregations practice being trustworthy, reliable people for one another, and being hospitable to guests seeking temporary refuge or ongoing membership. Strong relationships help create and maintain resilience. 6. Trauma-informed congregations have senses of purpose. Members of trauma-informed congregations wake up in the morning interested to participate in the corporate meaning-making they share among each other, and this interest and engagement is contagious. They make space to listen to one another and to grow in renewed understandings of what is life-giving to the persons involved in the body of the congregation. Rather than trying to fix persons problems for them, trauma-informed congregations are marked by directing interventions and healing practices that are created by and driven by persons-in-healing being served and growing in their own senses of what truly is resourceful. 7. Trauma-informed congregations recognize that practicing care means being personally impacted by other persons' traumatic experiences. They consistently practice ongoing self-care. They allow themselves to be held accountable by trustworthy friends or colleagues beyond the congregation, they identify specific limits, maintain current and effective referral practices, and they practice life-giving work/life rhythms. As congregations seek to cultivate these hallmarks of trauma-informed practice, they express a sense of living in the world that directly counter traumatic incident by acknowledging the truth of what has happened and creating safe space to heal actively. *These traits are adapted for faith-based congregation settings from a template provided by St. Aemilian-Lakeside, Inc., for providing trauma-informed care in non-sectarian settings, and based on the works of Bessel van der Kolk, Babette Rothschild, Robert Macy, Charles Figley, Don Catherall, Robert Anda, and Vincett Felitti. * Interested in learning more trauma-informed best practices? Visit the ICTG training menu to purchase the Institute’s most popular resource guides, and more. |
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From 2012-2020, this blog space explored expanding understanding and best practices for leadership and congregational care.
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