Trauma affects every part of a person: mind, body and spirit. Trauma in America, a recent Barna report created in partnership with American Bible Society, points to the special opportunity and, at times, the responsibility the Church has to help people heal from the wounds of trauma. But how prepared do pastors feel to help congregants who are coping with or recovering from trauma?

Most pastors agree that trauma is an issue the Church should address, but many church leaders have had little to no training in the way of trauma care. This article explores how prepared U.S. pastors feel when it comes to helping people heal from trauma, looking specifically at how equipped they feel overall, what, if any, training they have received on this issue and what types of trauma they feel most comfortable addressing.

Few Pastors Feel “Very” Well-Equipped to Help with Trauma The majority of Protestant pastors (73%) indicates they feel “somewhat” equipped to help someone in their congregation who may be dealing with significant trauma. One in seven (15%) feels “very” well-equipped, while 12 percent do not feel equipped at all.

Using regression analysis, researchers examined what elements make a pastor or priest say they were better prepared. Responses are partially explained by factors like: how long the pastor has been in ministry, the size of their church, their type of training for trauma, how many times they have preached about trauma in the past six months and whether or not they have experienced or witnessed any traumatic events themselves.

When all these factors are taken into account, we see the biggest boost in pastors feeling prepared to handle trauma when they have preached on it in the past six months, when they have received a master’s degree program in therapy or counseling and when they have personally experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. This finding indicates that a good deal of pastors’ preparation to handle trauma in their congregations comes from accumulated personal experience and professional training. It also suggests that pastors who have not thought much about trauma (whether via experience, training or teaching) may be at a disadvantage when a person with trauma comes to their church.