Trauma Informed Ministry
When there is trauma, what do people actually need?
If you’ve been at it for several years or longer, are you finding that leading a congregation seems harder now than it used to? Perhaps in ways that are difficult to articulate?
In 2016, I had already been serving as an associate minister in Albuquerque for several years when the senior minister decided to retire. It felt natural (though not inevitable) when the congregation called me to succeed her. But by the time I was installed, I was taking the lead in a completely different context than I expected.
To recap: that year, Trump was elected, to the abject horror of at least half the country. His chaos and bullying drove up people’s anxiety. His and his followers’ open racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia signaled danger and brought up trauma for survivors of abuse. The Me Too movement exploded and suddenly there were - sometimes graphic- testimonies of sexual assault everywhere. Many involved trusted figures. Such as clergy.
Dreams of an increasingly inclusive, egalitarian society evaporated as the Supreme Court was refashioned by the far right and anti trans and anti-gay laws began to proliferate. Then the goddamn pandemic happened.
We could not gather or hold each other, just when we needed each other the most.
I don’t know about your congregation, but while mine was virtual-only, two dozen of our 840 members died. Twenty-four people whom we did not know we would never see again.
Meanwhile, police were recorded- often on their own cameras- murdering one unarmed black person after another until the streets exploded in protest.
Our hearts broke.
Climate change reached a tipping point: wildfires and storms raged like never before. It hit 116 degrees in Portland. And fucking Murder Hornets arrived in the US.
While these collective and community traumas were unfolding, our personal lives also still included losses, crises, tough diagnoses, mental health challenges, and more.
Colleagues, we led through this.
I have not even touched on our losses. That’s a whole other post.
And then… we saw that things had changed.
When we reopened our physical campus in Albuquerque 2021, the congregation felt different. Other clergy have told me similar stories. Here are some things I noticed:
Members returned with an overwhelmingly urgent need to [fill in the blank]. They wanted to start new programs, reorganize the campus, do justice work, get things back to normal again. Now!
They expressed a lot of anxiety, especially about congregational life. When the vast majority of our 9am service folks decided to keep attending via zoom, leaving, oh, 20-50 people physically present in a sanctuary with 250 seats, many, many members told me the church was dying. Dying. (The 11am service is in-person only, with strong attendance).
There was an increase in complaints that church staff were not communicating enough.
Some people accused the ministers of “not leading,” because they wanted us to be stricter about COVID. Some told us we were killing people.
Others accused us of being overbearing, because they were ready to move on from COVID and our remaining protocols frustrated them. Some of them also informed me we were going to kill the church.
More often than before, I observed folks becoming upset or tearful about things that seemed relatively small.
And people kept asking me if I was going to leave my job. There was in fact a huge turnover rate in clergy serving congregations. But also, I think everyone felt pretty fragile and wanted to know what they could count on, if anything, anymore.
What was it like in your congregation?
This was a lot to navigate.
At the same time, despite all that urgency and concern, it became very challenging to get people to volunteer. Even for things they wanted. Sometimes no one would volunteer. Sometimes they’d agree to show up, and then cancel or no-show. I knew they cared, so this was really perplexing at first.
Then I learned more about trauma.
What even is trauma?
The word gets tossed around a lot.
Some definitions draw a distinction between Trauma with a big T and trauma with a little t. Big T Trauma involves the physical or life-threatening kind. Little t trauma involves those things that cause distress but which do not involve violence or disaster. That little t category is big and vague, which is why the word trauma may seem overused.
Here’s the key thing to remember:
Something becomes traumatic when it overwhelms a person’s ability to cope or causes feelings of helplessness.
It has to do with the subjective impact, not the objective event. A person with a history of adverse childhood experiences or PTSD, will experience things differently than someone whose life has not included these challenges. A person with more resilience factors will find it easier to cope than someone without those. (More about resilience in my next post.)
Acute trauma occurs in response to one distinct event. Chronic trauma comes from repeated events. Complex trauma develops when a person faces is a whole constellation of traumatic events. Indirect trauma comes from being close to terrible events, even if they don’t happen to you directly. Even if they happen to a stranger.
Collective trauma is a shared emotional response to a terrible event that many people experience at the same time. Community trauma is experienced by a particular community, sometimes resulting from systemic discrimination or due to unequal access to resources for recovery.
There are many types, but no one gets to tell someone else whether that person’s (or community’s) experience is traumatic or not.
Most of you probably know more or less how trauma works in the brain. Here’s the short version.
During a traumatic experience:
The brain goes into survival mode. The primal part of the brain—”the reptile brain”- is activated. It says, “Fight or run!”
That floods the brain with cortisol (stress hormones).
If we can escape, or at least move our bodies as with exercise, or fight back effectively and become safe again, our reptilian brain and nervous system will calm down. Especially if we have the support of loving people around us, most of the time people recover pretty well.
But if we can’t take care of ourselves, if the situation is overwhelming, or we are trapped, or we are too young and vulnerable to fend for ourselves, or we simply don’t know how, and the trauma continues, then the brain will continue to send stress chemicals out. Even long after the event has ended, the brain’s electrical circuits will keep going. Essentially, we get stuck in the past.
When the symptoms of trauma last longer than a month and cause clinically significant distress, that’s PTSD.
It’s worth noting that PTSD is common. According to the DSM, 6.8% of adults will experience PTSD in their lifetimes- and the DSM has been criticized for defining trauma overly narrowly. For example, it leaves out things like facing down a lifetime of systemic racism as potentially traumatic. And intergenerational trauma.
Trauma can have long term impacts, even if it doesn’t qualify as a full blown disorder. Those impacts may begin immediately, or may be delayed. When going through something traumatic, it’s common that the whole thing doesn’t really “hit us” until we are through the worst of it. For example: right around the time folks were returning to their houses of worship, when the pandemic was finally exiting its excruciating first 12-18 months, and 2020- a relentless year- was in the rearview mirror.
There were so many emotions. So many kinds of trauma.
While they are recovering from trauma, however long that takes, people often experience the following:
They can no longer cope well with normal stresses and strains of living
It is difficult to trust in relationships with others
Memory loss
Distractability
Difficulty regulating their behavior
Difficulty managing emotions
Fatigue, overwhelm
A desire to shut down, escape, or numb
Spiritual distress (“Why did this happen? What does this mean?”)
What helps is:
Understanding
Safety
Empowerment, voice, and choice
Trustworthiness
Transparency
Mutual support
Collaboration and mutuality
Photo by nine koepfer on Unsplash
When we put it all together, here’s what a trauma-informed congregation looks like.
We talk about it.
Address trauma in worship and trainings, including staff trainings. Understanding what trauma is and how it impacts the brain and emotions helps people cope with the symptoms.
Knowing trauma might be the cause of memory and focus problems can help people be gentle with themselves, instead of spiraling into anxiety. Having words to describe what is happening is empowering and helps with processing. Knowing we can build our resilience and heal is a source of hope. Knowing others understand trauma, too, lets us know we are not alone.
We help people learn to identify and name their feelings.
I’m talking about kids, teens, and adults. It’s hard to process what we cannot name. This isn’t just for pastoral care sessions with someone in crisis. It can become a normal part of congregational life, incorporated into sermon illustrations, reflection questions, children’s programming. A feelings chart helps, like this one for adults and youth or the kind with emojis for all ages.
Incorporating mindfulness meditation into worship, classes, or even in the first few minutes of team meetings is another way to support emotion identification. Our bodies often know what we are feeling before our brains do.
Trauma informed leaders should also strive to model congruence. That means being aware and appropriately honest about how we ourselves are feeling. It’s modeling emotion identification and healthy expression. This also fosters trust. Sometimes in meetings, if I don’t know how I’m feeling about something I check in with my body, out loud. As in, “I’m noticing a tightness in my stomach right now. I’m trying to figure out what it’s telling me.” That’s congruence, too.
We are intentional about being trustworthy.
It’s not enough to have an established relationship with the congregation, follow ethics guidelines, or generally be kind, though these things are also essential. Our specific, everyday actions count. A lot.
Do you always do what you say you’ll do? Do you avoid over-committing, and explicitly address it when you cannot follow though on something? Do other church staff also keep their word and is confidentiality appropriately maintained? Are church policies followed? Traumatized people tend to be vigilant- the traumatized brain is rewired to be on alert for signs of further danger. Even small breaches of trust can engender feelings of distrust and lack of safety- and possibly lead to emotional outbursts (or ghosting). But the opposite is also true: keeping our agreements engenders a feeling of safety and trust. It nurtures the community connections that increase our resilience. Think of it as CPR: Consistency, Predictability, and Reliability. A trauma informed congregation is intentional and specific about being trustworthy.
We critically examine how worship spaces and language might be hard for someone with trauma.
Avoid triggering language. This should be obvious, but when you’re preparing a sermon meant to address life’s realities and to move people emotionally, it’s tempting to include details or stories that may be hard for traumatized folks. Rethink that. Don’t tell stories of victimization- including sexual and gender based violence, gay- or trans-bashing, racist violence, abuse of people with disabilties, etc- in worship unless it is absolutely necessary, and in that case give people a heads up and permission to leave. Some sacred texts are really, really problematic in this regard (Sodom and Gomorrah, anyone?). Those have to be handled carefully, too.
Watch for triggering images. Don’t let the Arts Committee hang art depicting violence or subjugation (anyway, that’s not good for kids either and we are multigenerational communities, right?).
Don’t pressure people to engage in physical contact. Pre-pandemic, my congregation invited people to greet each other during the worship service. That led to expectations of handshaking. Now we do a touchless peace greeting (one hand on our hearts, one extended palm up in “a gesture of peace”). When we offer a blessing ritual that involves touch, we invite people to tell us whether they’d like it on the back of their hand or forehead or somewhere else and we normalize opting out by describing it alternatively as a time for meditation. When you think someone might want a hug, ask (without reaching for them!), “Would you like a hug?”
Asking for consent before touch, every time, is trauma-informed. Not asking, though hugs are an expression of warmth and care, is not trauma-informed. When deciding whether to offer a hug, pay attention to power differences and body language, too. Not everyone feels comfortable saying no. This is often true, for example, with men offering hugs to women their age or younger. We know this. In trauma-informed congregations, we apply it.
What else do you know about how worship spaces and language might be hard for someone with trauma? Tell us in the comments.
We challenge toxic theology.
Trauma is no one’s “cross to bear.” We do not manifest reality with our thoughts. Everything does not happen for a reason. Having survived is not “all that matters.” We do not “get what we deserve.” (If only the universe worked that way!)
Conversely: Our mindset can contribute to healing. We can find meaning in experiences would would never have wanted. And we can be grateful for positive things even when we are traumatized. But there is a time for integrating these ideas. They are not theology. We can support people in getting there, but we should be careful not to prescribe.
We examine power dynamics.
What helps with trauma is empowerment, voice, and choice. Are decisions appropriately collaborative? Are relationships prioritized and do you take time to understand each other’s perspectives? Is there more emphasis on procedure than on process? How we do something is just as important as what we do.
Importantly, are there clear lines of accountability and transparency? I mentioned that I heard more complaints about lack of transparency/communication after the pandemic. We hadn’t changed the amount of communication we were doing, but we should have. We should have increased it, because traumatized people don’t like surprises, need a sense of choice and empowerment, and need CPR: Consistency, Predictability, and Reliability. A trauma informed congregation takes extra care to attend to that.
We encourage and normalize therapy and self care.
Teach about it. Model it. Encourage others in it. Make it the norm on the church staff team and leadership teams.
When assessing someone’s behavior, we consider, “Could this be related to trauma?”
A trauma informed congregation knows how to recognize it, or at least when to keep it in mind as a possibility. To recap, some signs are: difficulty coping with normal stresses and strains of living; anxiety or distrust in relationships with others; memory loss; distractability; difficulty regulating their behavior; dfficulty managing emotions; fatigue and overwhelm (which may manifest as absence or withdrawal); a desire to shut down, escape, or numb; and spiritual distress.
We are ready to help people find help.
Have a clear referral process for staff, including ministers, administrators, etc. to utilize. The referral list should include the pastoral care team, crisis lines, support groups, therapists, community groups, helpful websites, and whatever else makes sense in your context. If you post it on the wall, people can take a picture of it with their phones. It will also normalize the idea that a person might need extra resources.
A faith community can help people heal.
That’s why we went into this work, right?
We speak of the power of faith community with words like love, belonging, acceptance, meaning, and resilience. Big terms that reflect our aspirations and our understanding of the divine. But they don’t have to be vague in practice. We give them form in specific, intentional ways.
Coming up next week: How To Build Resilience.
Additional Resources
SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Association): Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach. https://store.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/sma14-4884.pdf
The North Carolina Council of Churches did a nice training with lots of extra resources that you can find here: https://ncchurches.org/sacred-series-toolkit-becoming-a-trauma-informed-faith-community/