Healing the wounds of trauma

Over the past week I have part of a group being trained to use the 'Trauma Healing Course'. The group was an eclectic bunch of pastors, church and voluntary sectors workers as well as lay leaders, coming from the Church of Scotland, United Free, Baptist, Independent and Pentecostal churches. We where ably facilitated by Pearl (Scottish Bible Society) and Dorothy (volunteer trainer), who where being mentored by Rebecca (Trauma Healing Institute).

The course has emerged from settings of deep trauma in Rwanda and other African countries. It was established by some mission societies, before the American Bible Society spotted the potential and sought to develop it for wider use, establishing the Trauma Healing Institute.

Our context is vastly different from war torn Africa, yet there are many people who have suffered trauma (with a big T or small t), leading to wounds in their hearts, who are part of our churches and living in our communities. The course has been contextualized and used in many countries throughout the world, to great affect, the Scottish Bible Society is working to refine the course for a Scottish context. They brought he course to Scotland in 2018 and have already heard and seen the benefit of the course within churches throughout Scotland.

One of the ethos of the course is 'participatory learning', and as such in each session time is given for learning in a large group, small groups, pairs and individuals. As little time as possible is taken by up front teaching, the leader is to truly facilitate the group. The ethos of participatory learning was demonstrated throughout our training, as we spent our first two days experiencing the 'trauma healing course' with our last two days given to being trained in facilitating.

The course

Our time began on Monday evening, with dinner followed by an introductory / get to know each other session. This lead into us participating in the trauma healing course on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The course consists of 5 core lessons:

1. If God loves us, why do we suffer?

2. How can the wounds of our heart be healed?

3. What happens when someone is grieving?

4. Taking your pain to the cross

5. How can we forgive others?

There are many supplementary lessons, these cover topics like rape, domestic abuse, suicide and living in conflict (including church conflict). We covered the supplementary lessons on Addictions and Caring for the Care giver.

Throughout the course we where encouraged to reflect on the topics in light of what the Scriptures say, and to apply this to the hurt in our own hearts. Each session begins with a story, which introduces the theme for the session, and we discussed in small groups. These stories are a way of introducing the issues, a step removed from your own heart, and as such serve to gently introduce how the issue. The stories are fictional, though not too contrived, they have an international flavour, though a set of Scottish Stories is being worked on.

We used active listening, art exercises, reflective practice (writing a lament) and scripture meditation. Many on the course found the exercise of writing and bringing our pain to the cross, watching it dissolve in a bowl of water particularly powerful.

The course is intense, particularly when experiencing it over two days. I valued the extended lunch break, with the opportunity to go for a walk. Our evenings where free, which allowed further time for personal reflection. Indeed, the gift of time was a real blessing on this course - it served as part retreat, part training.

The training

The training part of our time ran on Thursday through to Friday lunchtime. The course has a clear pathway for becoming a facilitator and a well established support network - which is growing in Scotland.

We where required to complete a short test on the content of the course, where trained in facilitation and had the opportunity for a practice facilitation on part of one of the sessions. Having done so, we graduated from the course as 'Apprentice Facilitators'. Once we have run the course twice in a local setting further training will be given which enables you to graduate as a 'Healing Group Facilitator'. (There is a 24 month time requirement on this.) We are encouraged to run local groups with another facilitator and it is good to know that there are a number of folk trained throughout Scotland who are willing to travel and assist in facilitating groups.

Upon graduation you also receive a login for the Trauma Healing Institute website, which has a range of helpful resources. We have already been given a course and facilitator handbook, but group participants aren't required to have these on a course. The website provides things like the stories and bible verses to download, print out and use in each session.

Reflections

When I heard the title of the course, and discover the setting it arose out of, I did wonder, is this course relevant to us?

Having been on the training, I am convinced of the relevance of this material to our culture and the benefit it will bring to the church in Scotland. A change in name is helpful - people have run the course in Scotland under the name 'Restore' or 'Healing Hurting Hearts.' Indeed, throughout our training we tended to think of pain, or hurt in our hearts rather than trauma. The hurt and pain of relationship breakdown, addiction, grief, and abuse is rife in our church and communities - this course can minister to those with hurting hearts. From our time, as far as I could tell, each of us on the course had experiences they could reflect upon, felt pain that was still raw in their hearts and experienced a measure of healing.

It was good to know that the course does not claim to be counselling. It does not set out to fix people. It does not anticipate being a one off solution - go to this and 5 weeks later you'll be fine! Rather it seeks to provide the church with tools, which will ultimately change the culture of the church. The aim of the Trauma Healing Institute is for a 'safe church.' That is one which we don't feel we have to bury the hurt in our hearts, rather we can share, encourage and pray with each other and so experience healing through the Scriptures. That aim resonates with my heart, as too often we paint on smiling faces and pretend all is well in church. Anything which enables us to be more honest and leads us to the One who heals us is to be welcomed.

We were encouraged to think through our next steps - get an action plan for using it in our settings. I have no firm ideas, but could see me using it in the future with the prayer team, a pastoral care team or as a follow up to 'Advent Hope' - a service for those grieving at Christmas. We were also encouraged to use one or two sessions as one offs to address a particular topic - addiction or grief for example, however that can't be used in our practice hours, only complete courses count that way!

In some ways I was surprised at the use of Scripture in the course. I expected it to be more up front and center. Rather it was more gently weaved into the warp and woof of the course. Through the course, incorrect and harmful use of the scripture was challenged and correct use demonstrated. I guess I expected to come away with bible passages to use in different pastoral settings, but that is not the aim of the course - it is much more holistic. Having chatted with the facilitators, they described how the intent is to help those participating see the relevance of Scripture so they will continue to use it turn to the God who heals when they experience pain in the future.

I am still reflecting on the journey of the course - looking at the 5 core modules, I am not sure if it reaches an end point. But then again, I wonder if that is the point! We never reach an end when it comes to healing our hearts. Even if we have dealt with the hurt of the past, we cannot protect our hearts from being hurt again in the future. In one way that is why ending with forgiveness is so important - as far as I know my heart, and my church - I am going to need to seek forgiveness and to be forgiven in the future! The whole course does give good skills to facilitate dealing with hurt in the future.

I also think it is important to see where the course fits within the life of the church and its pastoral care. It is helpful, but not an end. The ongoing ministry of God's people and especially the ministry of his word through weekly worship will continue to heal hearts. I think it is important that we set that as people expectations when participating in the course.

Contact

All in all, I would heartily commend the course for use in church and community settings, and would encourage you to get trained to facilitate this material. If you are interested in this course contact Pearl Liddle at the Scottish Bible Society.