Do you know of someone who turned away from God because of hardship of some kind? Maybe it was a prayer that seemingly went unanswered, a sudden and traumatic loss, a violent event, or any one of 7 billion possible scenarios – at least one each per person on the planet – people turn or fall away from God every day because of suffering and loss.
Believing that the Church has a whole lot she can do about this, four local churches spent an afternoon together considering what we can do to better prepare people for suffering. Not only CAN the Church do something about it, we must, because lack of doing so cuts into the heart of our mission Jesus entrusted to us: making disciples.
On Monday, June 24, representatives from four Charis Fellowship churches met to consider how to be better equipped to care not only for suffering people, but to proactively prepare people – believers and pre-believers – for hardship and suffering they are sure to encounter. The churches in attendance were: Osceola (Osceola IN), Grace Fellowship (Pickerington OH), East Side Grace (Columbus OH), Wooster Grace (Wooster OH). These are joining a growing list of local churches ramping up their ability to care for people suffering from trauma and other forms of grief and heart wounds.
THE PLAN: The plan is to train up! In early November, Encompass Crisis Response joins the American Bible Society (ABS) in offering a 3-day basic training in Trauma Healing. Others who have already completed the basic training are working towards completing the advanced training, which will allow them to become certified trainers of this powerful material. That’s the plan; the dream is to have a corps of such trainers who will take this powerful, bible-based and easily reproduceable method throughout the Charis Fellowship and beyond.
Want to learn more about participating (or sending a participant) to the November Trauma Healing Training? Contact Barb by email at crisisresponse@encompassworld.org or call/text (574-453-6479).
We don’t have to stand by helplessly as another turns or falls away; let’s rise up, train up, and serve!
