Guest Podcast Reflection: Gravity Commons Podcast

A Ministry Resource based on Trauma in the Pews!

This series of posts is a gathering of resources for Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Faith and Spiritual Practices that will hopefully be helpful in encouraging ministry leaders to become trauma-informed/sensitive/responsive.

Introduction to Trauma in the Pews Resource Content
Trauma in the Pews Resource Index

Gravity Commons Podcast

Note: I have done my best to get the quotes correctly transcribed—it is close!

We talked with Dr. Janyne McConnaughey about her book Trauma in the Pews: The Impact on Faith and Spiritual Practices, which is a practical and compassionate roadmap for spiritual leaders to effectively minister to those struggling with the effects of trauma.

“It was a real connection—she’s a very open-hearted person. We like to have generative conversations where we are discovering and learning together. This was definitely one of those conversations.”

Listen here:
Janyne McConnaughey: Becoming Trauma-Informed Spiritual Leaders

My Reflection:

I have chosen this podcast to begin this series of Guest Podcast Reflections because of one remarkable moment when a host’s vulnerability healed a part of me that I did not know needed healing. While this is not the only time this has happened, it was a turning point for me in accepting that yes, ministry leaders would listen and yes, they would change because they listened.

Here is what was said by one of the podcast hosts:

“I am just reflecting on my own past, I have been in ministry a long time. One of the things that is interesting about your book is that you talk about how trauma informs our faith, but also our spiritual practices. I can’t count the number of times I probably recommended, to someone who was traumatized--I didn’t realize, they probably didn’t realize, but I recommended prayer, you know like, ‘It sounds like you are having a rough time, you know what helps me? prayer.” But what happens if trauma affects our ability to pray?”

Shortly after that, there was a second remarkable moment:

“The move from thinking of shame as a moral deficiency personally for me to thinking of it as a wound that needs to be tended and healed was absolutely transforming. What you are sharing it is easy for us as Christians to think that my inability to read the Bible without being triggered that feels like a moral deficiency. I want to do that, I love Jesus, I love God, I want to do that but I can’t. It is such a huge and healing paradigm shift to think of that as a wound that needs to be tended to be tended to. It is so much more compassionate.”

My response:

“To hear a sermon where it is discussed as a wound and not a judgment is life-giving. If I could just hug you right now. Yes, preach that! When you are dysregulated there is a part of your story that is an open wound and that requires healing.”

“To hear someone stand up behind the pulpit and say, ‘What are your wounds where is it that you need to heal?’ It could be that what you can’t do are the clues to finding where that wound is.”

One can never know what I might say on a podcast—this may be the only time it included saying I wanted to hug a host.

Topics covered:

This is only a small snapshot! There were so many great conversations about the lens through which those impacted by trauma view spiritual practices; what it means to be trauma-informed, sensitive, and responsive; what it means to hold space; what it means to be regulated and the importance of co-regulation. So much in this!

• Why I published Trauma in the Pews: “As much as I can help survivors, if ministry leaders do not understand the ways that they are re-traumatizing people who experienced trauma as children they will continue to retraumatize them and those people will never have the abundant life that Jesus promised to all of us. It was never a book I intended to write but it is the book I needed to write and I accept that.”

• Worm Theology: “Someone who experiences childhood trauma walks into church already believing you are worthless and you have no problem accepting you are worthless because you already knew that. But it does not help you address why you believed as a child that you were worthless and how that is affecting you as an adult.”

• One Practical Way to be Trauma Responsive: “You are able when someone comes to you with a story, you can hold space for them without judging, giving advice, without trying to fix them, telling them where they are wrong in that, without asking them to repent, that you can simply listen and hold space for their story.”

Quotes From the Hosts:

• “As ministry professionals, we are trained to execute a passage but less trained to help people who are dealing with trauma—or to deal with our own trauma.”

• “We have to do the work to be self-regulated before we can hold space for another person.”

• “People being harmful is different from, “Is my nervous system dysregulated?” (I loved this—if someone is dysregulated it may or may not be because the church is toxic.)

• “This is the first book I have ever read where somebody looks at a trauma survivor and says if you feel like you can’t pray or walk in the door of a church, it could be because your trauma is coming online and you are not a bad Christian. The predominant response to church leaders is to police them and agree why you shouldn’t leave the church. What this book does is help people who have experienced trauma and have moved towards taking care of themselves, by walking away from a church where their body is just too reactive to pay attention. Your book basically looks them in the eye and tells them, ‘you are doing a good job taking care of yourself.’”

Final Words

This quote fulfills every hope I had in my heart when I wrote Trauma in the Pews.

“Janyne’s own experience of trauma which as she was relating it—it was deep—I think there is a lot of hope that trauma is not destiny. It is not like it is forever that church and praying will always feel this way. Well, not necessarily, there are ways to actually heal from it. There is a reason you feel this way and there is hope that you won’t always feel this way. There are ways to move through it.”