The Church should ideally be the safest place on earth. For many, it’s where they first encountered grace, healing, and a sense of belonging. But for others, the experience of church can deepen their wounds rather than help them heal. The harm is not always the result of malicious intent. More often, it comes from a lack of understanding, especially when it comes to trauma.
The Spiritualization of Suffering
Elizabeth Bennett McKinney suggests that too many churches quickly turn to spiritual explanations for human pain. Struggling with anxiety? Pray harder. Depressed? Trust God more. Angry? Forgive and forget. While these responses may sound spiritual, they often bypass the deep and necessary work of healing. When trauma is reduced to a spiritual issue, people are not only misunderstood—they may feel ashamed.
The issue isn’t that prayer or faith is ineffective. The issue arises when they are used as substitutes for acknowledging psychological pain. Telling someone to pray away their trauma is like telling someone with a broken leg to simply sprint.
Three Common Mistakes
When churches mishandle trauma, they tend to respond in one of three ways: denial, spiritualization, or ignoring the issue.
- Denial sounds like, “That didn’t really happen.”
- Spiritualizing looks like, “This is just an attack from the enemy.”
- Ignoring whispers, “Let’s not talk about it—it’ll divide the church.”
Each of these responses prioritizes comfort over people, and each sends the message: your story doesn’t have a place here.
Accountability Must Start at the Top
The most painful examples of mishandled trauma often involve leadership. When misconduct occurs, churches sometimes close ranks. The abuser is protected, and the victim is silenced. “We don’t want to harm the ministry,” they say. However, protecting reputation over righteousness fractures the body more deeply than any external attack.
Accountability is not a threat to unity; it’s its foundation. When leaders are held to different standards than congregants, trust is broken. Healing requires transparency, humility, and the willingness to acknowledge failure.
Becoming a Trauma-Informed Church
So, what does it look like for a church to handle trauma more effectively?
First, it starts with education. Trauma-informed churches equip their leaders to recognize trauma responses, understand the brain-body connection, and respond with empathy. They don’t treat panic attacks like spiritual crises or trauma flashbacks like acts of rebellion. They meet people where they are and walk with them toward healing.
Second, it requires prioritizing emotional safety. Churches must become spaces where people can share their painful experiences without fear of being labeled dramatic, divisive, or unfaithful.
Spiritual Growth as the Antidote to Worldly Coping
Elizabeth also acknowledges that there is often a link between spiritual immaturity and poor handling of trauma. When people lack depth in their walk with God, they may lean on image management, prioritizing optics over authenticity. True spiritual growth, however, leads to greater compassion. It makes space for pain and chooses to lean in instead of pulling away.
Healthy churches teach their people how to lament, how to grieve, and how to hold the tension between faith and pain. They model confession and repentance from the top down. They don’t pretend everything is fine. They speak the truth and trust that God is big enough to handle it.
Rebuilding What’s Broken
Healing is rarely immediate. It’s a slow, messy process that often requires more than just prayer. It may involve therapy, time, and a community committed to walking the long road with someone. Churches that want to be agents of healing must be willing to stay the course.
They must also resist the temptation to make themselves the center of someone else’s pain. It’s not about how quickly the church can move on. It’s about how faithfully they can sit in the rubble with the wounded until restoration takes root.
A Better Witness
Ultimately, this is about bearing witness. A trauma-informed, spiritually mature church reflects the character of Christ. He did not turn away from the broken—He moved toward them. He didn’t silence suffering—He validated it. He didn’t protect His power at the expense of people; He laid down His power for their sake.
The path forward isn’t about perfection—it’s about repentance, listening, and having the courage to be wrong, to learn, and to love better.
When churches stop avoiding trauma and begin ministering through it, they become more than just places of worship. They become sanctuaries—places where people don’t just attend, but are truly transformed.
