Jill M. Hudson, Congregational Trauma: Caring, Coping, and Learning. Alban Institute, 1998.
Referenced in: Church Conflict – Congregational Trauma, Ministerial Misconduct
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Not all congregational conflict involves trauma, and helping people through trauma demands not so much conflict skills as specialized pastoral and leadership skills. Jill Hudson’s volume is invaluable in these cases. Hudson wrote this in the aftermath of a brutal murder of a minster and his family near where she lived in December, 1996. She thought also of her knowledge of a tragedy in Scotland where a man murdered 16 five- and six-year-old children the same year. Less violent, but also no less upsetting cases involve situations like sexual misconduct from a respected spiritual leader. These and other crises moved Hudson to assemble a cadre of other professionals who contemplated how best to help congregations respond the devastating events.
She provides a theological response to trauma, discusses the difference between crisis and trauma, and the describes the grief and healing processes following such events. She then presents a case of a congregation responding to an event. This is followed by a description of the needs, resources, and best approaches for congregational care, particularly how to use the public worship assemblies as an occasion for healing. A helpful chapter discusses how to deal with public media should they be involved. For congregations that have denominational judicatories, she offers some insight into how they can provide assistance to those who experience tragedy on a local level.
This is a fine text on a subject not frequently addressed in ministry literature. Any church leader faced with the responsibility of crafting a sensitive response and needing resources for congregational care will find much help here.
From the Publisher
All congregations experience stress. Dealing with the out-of-the-ordinary event or tragedy-a fire, a sexual misconduct scandal, or the untimely death of a pastor, for instance-requires a completely different order of congregational coping skills. This is the first book to address those needs comprehensively, covering care strategies, how to adapt worship, assessment tools for measuring healing, how the judicatory can help, how to handle the media, and how tragedy can give rise to learning. Hudson is executive presbyter, Presbytery of Whitewater Valley (PCUSA), in Indianapolis.
About the Author
Jill Hudson is Executive Presbyter, Whitewater Valley Presbytery. Jill served for thirteen years as vocational staff for the Synod of Lincoln Trails. She is a lecturer, trainer, and consultant with special expertise in church systems. She is the author of Alban books Evaluating Ministry and Congregational Trauma: Caring, Coping, and Learning.
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