Episode 11: Conference Invitation for Pastors and Church Leaders

Being a pastor or leader in ministry can feel like an impossible job at times.

The job includes not just spiritual direction and discipleship, but management, finances, counseling, and lots more.  As if that wasn’t enough, the people in your care often feel an individual entitlement to your time and attention, and rarely understand the scope of the work in front of you.

Add to that the explosion of awareness around spiritual abuse and the many stories and scandals in recent years, and it’s no wonder that those in church leadership are skittish around the terms abuse and trauma. Not to mention that most of us weren’t trained to deal with this in seminary or school. .
How can we best care for those in our congregations who have experienced religious trauma and spiritual abuse? How can we safeguard our own churches and ministries so that we are not (unknowingly) perpetuating harm or abuse?

Desmond Tutu once said, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

For years, I identified as someone wounded and broken by those in church leadership. I told my counselor that it felt like I was at the bottom of a cliff catching and tending to people who fell off or were getting pushed over the edge. About a year ago, she asked me this invitational question: “What if you could go to the top of the cliff and build a fence?”

And that’s exactly what I’m doing today. I want to provide practical tools and resources to help pastors and church leaders to gain trauma informed resources for your churches and organizations so you can grow in awareness of how to protect and safeguard your communities and build trustworthy cultures.

If you're a pastor or church leader, you're invited to the Broken to Beloved Conference on Thursday, September 26.

You'll hear from pastor and author Steve Carter as he tell us how to build safe and trustworthy spaces. You’ll also hear from Attachment experts Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw. You can hear a preview of both their sessions on episodes 8 and 9 of the podcast.

Don't miss this opportunity to attend the first Broken to Beloved Conference. Go to brokentobeloved.org/conference and use promo code PODCAST10 to get 10% off your in person or live stream tickets today.