“We simply want to better understand people who have experienced trauma so that we can be good friends and can provide wise pastoral care. We want to know how to speak wisely and avoid clumsy missteps.”

I don’t remember encountering the word “trauma” very often in my younger years, yet recently I seem to hear it all the time. What was once deemed a rare experience or one rarely talked about, has become a common experience and one talked about both openly and often. Where perhaps it was once defined so narrowly as to apply to almost nothing, today it may be in danger of being defined so widely that it becomes almost devoid of meaning.

I’m convinced that if we define the term well and apply it judiciously, it can help us learn to understand and come to terms with our own experiences. I’m convinced it can also help us extend love and care to other people through their experiences. Not all of us need to be experts in trauma care or recovery, but all of us would benefit from understanding the language of trauma and the way it manifests in those who have experienced it.

Dr. Steve Midgley has been both a psychiatrist and a pastor, though now he is Executive Director of Biblical Counseling UK. From all three perspectives, he has seen trauma. Particularly, he has seen how churches can help or hinder those who are grappling with the effects of trauma. His desire in his new book Understanding Trauma: A Biblical Introduction to Church Care is to help churches help people.

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