Trauma and Moral Injury in Ministry

In this episode, Kristen Hydinger, a researcher at Boston University's Danielson Institute, shares insights into the unique mental health challenges faced by clergy and chaplains, emphasizing trauma, moral injury, and resilience factors. She discusses innovative support programs and highlights the importance of systemic change and community in fostering spiritual caregivers' wellbeing.

Main Topics:

• Definitions and distinctions among trauma, moral injury, and burnout in religious leaders
• Unique risk factors and traumatic exposures faced by clergy and chaplains
• Differences in workplace environments between congregational clergy and chaplains
• The impact of organizational policies, expectations, and external stressors like COVID-19
• The Chrysalis program: a holistic, online support initiative for clergy wellbeing
• Preparing seminary students for the realities of ministry and crisis response
• The importance of community and systemic support structures for sustainable ministry

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction to Kristen Hydinger and her research background
 01:01 - Overview of the Danielson Institute and its interdisciplinary focus
 02:20 - Defining trauma in clergy and chaplains—clinical distinctions
 03:01 - The concept of vicarious trauma and moral injury in spiritual caregivers
 04:27 - Burnout: overlapping but distinct from trauma and moral injury
 05:33 - PTSD prevalence among clergy and how it relates to trauma levels
 07:14 - Exploring the roles of clergy vs. chaplains and their workplace differences
 08:12 - How COVID-19 intensified stressors for religious leaders and support responses
 09:30 - Empirical research on trauma exposure and wellbeing of clergy and chaplains
 11:03 - The unique spiritual and existential trauma experienced by clergy
 12:19 - Physical risks and safety concerns for clergy in pastoral work
 13:07 - Organizational, theological, and community pressures contributing to trauma
 15:14 - Specific scenarios leading to traumatic exposure in ministry
 16:25 - Organizational conflicts, community expectations, and decline pressures
 18:12 - The surge of conflict during crises like COVID-19 and their traumatic impacts
 19:31 - Case examples of acute traumatic exposures and moral dilemmas
 20:06 - Power dynamics, forced departures, and organizational stressors
 21:05 - The latent profile analysis: resilience, flourishing, and risk categories
 22:24 - Study demographics and percentages across resilience spectra
 23:44 - Implications of the high prevalence of burnout and trauma markers
 24:46 - Personal reflections as a researcher and clergy about sustainability in ministry
 25:10 - The role of systemic support—or lack thereof—in clergy wellbeing
 26:03 - Moral injury examples involving organizational mandates and ethical conflicts
 27:04 - Impact of organizational pressures on pastoral decision-making and relationships
 29:18 - The challenge of limited mental health care referral options in ministry
 30:35 - The ripple effects of ministry stress on family and personal life
 32:27 - Practical scenarios involving moral injury in community and rural settings
 34:03 - Gaps in seminary training regarding crisis response and trauma pr

Podcast Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the opinions and viewpoints shared on this podcast are personal to me and my guests, and do not represent the stance of any institution.  This podcast aims to present findings for open discussion and dialogue, inviting listeners to engage critically and draw their own conclusions. While the content serves informational purposes, it is not a substitute for professional advice. Thank you for joining me on this journey of exploration and conversation!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Hey everyone, I have Reverend Kristen Heidinger with me today. She is a research fellow at the Danielson Institute. She has a Masters of Divinity from Boston University and a Master of Arts and Sociology from the University of Texas, Austin. She is an ordained Baptist minister and her research interests meet at the intersection of religion, spirituality, family, sexuality, and trauma. Welcome, Kristen. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Now I already gave you my fangirl reaction this time on. I felt like everybody at the comment table should get that because your paper, your papers and your work has informed my own interests. So I'm really pleased to chat with you today.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

Well, that is very nice to hear. Oftentimes, when we send things out into publication, we know they get published and don't always get feedback on it. So that is very nice to hear.

SPEAKER_03 2:03

I don't know very much about the Danielson Institute. Could you maybe share a little bit more with myself and also the audience?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Yeah, absolutely. So full name is Albert and Jesse Danielson Institute. It is a research center housed inside Boston University in Massachusetts. And it began actually as a center inside Boston University School of Theology, which is where I did my seminary work. Somewhere in the mid-90th century, it became its own independently operational institute. But it has always been this, we like to call it this three-legged stool of research, clinical practice, and clinical training. So we we train future social workers and psychologists as well. A few different modalities, but primarily depth-oriented psychotherapy for the type of clinical work that we offer, and with intentional integration of what we call CERT, spirituality, existential, religious, and theological orientation in the in the training and in the clinical practice as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Fantastic. So one of the reasons why I know of you is because you wrote or co-wrote a paper that spoke about trauma in with clergy, but also with chaplains. And I think that was probably one of the few papers that named trauma. Um and trauma's one of those things where it gets thrown around as well. So I was wondering if, before we even speak about what you've discovered and what you found, if you might have a definition that you work with in your mind when you're talking about trauma in this group of people, what is that?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yes, and I think that's a really good point. I think the word trauma can get interchanged with other clinical terms that do have distinct definitions and it's helpful to not muddy those waters. So when thinking about trauma in particular, it can either be an a singular instance, an event, or like vicarious traumatization might be something that's occurring um through repeated exposure. But it it's not, it is a step beyond a bad day or or a or a difficult challenge. It is, it leaves our team likes to kind of talk about like it leaves a residue that lingers and that can come back into your thoughts in the future. One of the other terms that often gets sometimes used interchangeably is moral injury, which is not the same thing and and is not as commonly studied, at least in this religious leader literature. But moral injury is like exposure to things or having to participate in instances that kind of go against your own personal sense of right and wrong. So that could be, for instance, a chaplain working in a hospital who is unable to spend the amount of time that they think they need with a patient at a bedside because in order to keep their own job, they have to like meet a quota of a certain number of patients. And so the the expectations of the institution that they're a part of is in contrast with their own sense of what is constitutes good care of this other patient that's dying in their family, is there and needs needs attention for. That's an example. And then burnout is sort of the third word. And I would like to think of these three words as being overlapping, like Venn diagrams, but none of them are exactly the same. Burnout, as we tend to think about it, is typically what comes after. So burnout is more than just exhaustion. It's more than just um kind of that feeling of I just don't want it today. And it often comes after compounding experiences or repeated exposure to traumatic experiences or morally injurious experiences. So burnout, one of the key factors in a workplace setting is like work performance often starts to become negatively impacted. So maybe feeling like they can't, they need to take more sick time than they used to for mental health days, as opposed to like actually being sick, or maybe physically they're actually getting sick from the stress. So those are three terms that I just I know you only asked about trauma, but I I wanted to kind of talk about those three together because I think they get used in our chat, but they're not, they are connected. They are all part of this sort of religious leader experience, but they're they are distinct.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Yeah. I'm so glad that you've mentioned all three. I absolutely want to find out in terms of what you've discovered in this group of individuals. And also just to ask you, um, I often also think that diagnosis is the other misunderstanding. It's not necessarily that the person has post-traumatic stress disorder, like PTSD. That's not necessarily the type of trauma or the level. Would that be fair, Kristen?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

I think that that is fair, though some of our research has indicated that some of the clergy that we have sampled have are above the threshold for PTSD for clinical concern, or even have higher PTSD scores than post-deployment military. So that may actually be one area where it's not exaggerating. Yeah. Actually, I think it's more of PTSD is a complex diagnosis to make. Um, and uh, I think that there is a lot of minimization oftentimes on the part of the clergy person or the chaplain that their exposure or experience is just part of the job.

SPEAKER_03 7:55

Yeah. Yeah. Now, the title of the podcast is called Clergy Well Being Down Under, but I'm very happy to also talk about chaplains because the audience is wide, and we often find too that clergy are also can also act as chaplains. They may have a dual role in what they're doing. Sudden clergy have moved to become chaplains. I'm curious, in looking at clergy and chaplain, why did you look at both of them? Did it have to do with yes, what's the common denominator there?

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah, so we wanted to look at religious leaders broadly speaking. And as we were getting into it, we were realizing that these differences in the workplace settings really constituted, like while there is this overlap, they're both offering spiritual care and religious leadership. Doing that within a congregational setting is a different set of experiences than doing it in a secular setting or an inherently inner faith setting where you may not be providing care to someone of the same tradition as yourself, for instance. And so a lot of our impetus for starting this research came from a uh Massachusetts-based uh chaplain support network, like professional resource network, who asked us during COVID, can you help us? These chaplains are saying they're burning out, um, they're ready to quit. Can you help us support them? So we very, you know, my my colleague likes to joke that we built the plane while we were flying in that respect, but but figured out this virtual group uh program with chaplains from around the world to gather every other week. But we did research to also inform how we structured that program and it has developed into this Chrysalis program that's this eight-week US-based program we offer now that's online as well. And part of the reason chaplains and clergy kind of continue to be looked at at the same time, but also are very distinct is because in the literature, there's a lot more on congregational clergy. At least, you know, we did a we did a worldwide literature review. We had over 80 empirical studies that were looking at either trauma exposure, something measuring well-being, or something measuring burnout among religious leaders. And I think only 12 were including chaplains. So just chaplains were so under-researched, um, despite demonstrating unique differences in their results from congregational clergy. Is that answering your question?

SPEAKER_03 10:31

It does. It does. Oh, well, let's let's head there. So you do you found that there are differences between congregational clergy and chaplains?

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Yes. So in many instances with congregational clergy, for instance, um, and this is especially true in the United States where there's no state church and there's there's a lot of separation in terms of regulation around what different um employment practices would be or things like that of the clergy, that pretty much varies denomination to denomination. And because there's that much variation, and also because there's not that much like external oversight, there are some traditions, for instance, where one pastor is employed across three different rural churches, all of which expect that pastor to act as if they have no other church, uh like the congregation there. So congregation, congregant expectations, that is, can really vary and really be different than patient expectations, for instance, or maybe college student expectations. If someone's a college chaplain or if someone's in the military, military chaplain expectations. Where oftentimes chaplaincy is providing spiritual care in a much shorter time period, maybe only once. Like they may only be interacting with their care recipient in one or two instances. Whereas clergy are in the community, both in terms of the congregation and usually geographically, with the people that they're providing care to care to, seeing them all the time, seeing them in the grocery store, in the restaurant, or whatever the case may be. And those differences in exposure relationally can complicate or or at least make very different the types of risk factors for clergy versus the type of risk factors for chaplains.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

Yeah. So let's start with trauma, um, which is essentially about feeling profound helplessness, feeling quite trapped, feeling and I think with clergy, what we don't often realize is that that level of threat can be physical, it can be emotional, it can be about their family as well, it can be reputational, but it's also deeply spiritual and existential. Um, a sense that their own relationship with God, their own standing before him. There are so many times, Kristen, when I've worked with clergy whom I actually think predominantly my clientele have trauma in their in their lives, will say that one of their existential fears is actually when they get to heaven and then God says you failed. Yes, I love you, yes, you're saved. Gosh, what did you do with my cheek in my church? You know, it's quite a common picture. So that sense of trauma for for clergy is quite unique. I wondered what you've found or what you've discovered in in the work that you've done.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Yeah. Um, I would like to say that that surprises me, but it doesn't really, as you're saying that, unfortunately. I think that there is certainly um a a good chunk of clergy who like theologically adhere to notions of like a suffering servant. And almost like, you know, if they're trying to tell if they're doing it right or not, if if it's too easy for them, if if things seem like they're too good, then then something isn't, they're not doing enough. They need to either look elsewhere, add, add on another initiative into their ministry or whatever the case may be. That basically the the struggle, embracing that struggle, almost looking for that sense of helplessness is somehow some notion of of success as opposed to feeling like it's okay to rest. It's okay to delegate. There can also be a lot of lone wolf syndrome. There can be a lot of senses of I'm the only one that can do it.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

They can put themselves up on a high pedestal, and sometimes that's self-imposed, sometimes that's imposed by the community. So there, there's definitely and and I I want to go back to when you mentioned the physical harm side of it too. I I think that people view this as a broad brush statement, but I definitely think that people kind of view being a clergy person as a relatively safe career, um, a safe space in life. And I I think that it especially in America, I can't really personally speak elsewhere. I think if you were not a uh white male, that that is not as true as a clergy person in America. I think that there are plenty of instances of stalking of unwanted attention or physical encounters, but in part because oftentimes like spiritual care happens in a one-on-one setting where you know it's considered normal and even preferable to close the door and let there be that privacy. But the the risk that that can put on a clergy person, and then the this notion of like the seal of the confessional or something like that, like what do you feel like you can say or not? So I I think that there are genuine um risks that people don't think about in the clergy profession that uh increase likelihood of trauma exposure.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Yeah. What do you think, what did you find as what contributed to the levels? We'll start with trauma and then we'll we'll go down with trauma, moral injury. Yeah, let's start with trauma. What sorts of situations? Because I think part of the challenge is that it's a it's a job that's so um unique that it's hard for us to use our imagination. But I've personally heard and witnessed very threatening situations that pastors have been in where me watching it, I'm thinking this is gonna escalate to a f to a physical, like this this person is going to hit this clergy person, and the clergy person is wearing that road, that role of service and servanthood. And somehow, if this was outside, it would be so obvious, get out, you know, but in that context, they don't. What are some of the situations that you've heard or discovered through your research that brings about these traumatic exposure?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah, um, we don't have nearly enough time to go into all of them. Um, but I think one of the sets of scenarios that just makes it uh for a possibility of traumatic exposure can be when um, you know, in a congregation, the pastor has authority in that congregation, but not in all, but in many religious traditions, Christian traditions in particular, they also have like a denominational body that they are overseen by. And when there are competing expectations between, let's say, a bishop that's above the minister and the congregation that the minister is supposed to be leading, the minister is trying to figure out how to balance this while also having sort of that like servant service-oriented attitude. I think that there can also be challenges based on things like, let's say you have a very young minister, like fresh out of seminary in a very older congregation. And I'm not saying that people that that's inherently it making a traumatic experience, but if there are disconnects kind of between the way the clergy person is wanting to come in and make some sort of change that they see as being beneficial for the longevity of the community. But the community who's already been there for a while is maybe skeptical or even fearful of such changes and what that might mean. There's only so many times uh one person can repeatedly try to make an effort before someone gets angry enough they might want to hit them, or before some, before like all of your deacons or or administrative staff quit or step down or whatever the case is. So I think when you, especially in the states, there's sort of this decline in mainline Protestantism where there's both a decline in people going to seminary and even just becoming ordained, being interested in doing congregational leadership, as well as a decline in the numbers in congregations. But oftentimes those congregations that are dwindling are afraid to, for instance, combine with another smaller congregation. Um, and they want things to stay the way it's been because it's been meaningful to them in that regard. I feel like I may have gone on a tangent there for a second.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yeah. No. Um, so yes, exposure to conflict, exposure to being the sandwich in between.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And one really concrete thing that's been more recent is like COVID exposure. So there would be a lot of tension oftentimes between masking was a really big example, or even if you continued to meet in person or if they tried to do virtual services. If a congregation on the whole didn't want to do whatever the clergy person felt was right, or even what the clergy person was being told by the people above them they needed to do, that was creating new tension that would often exacerbate whatever existing tension was already kind of present in the congregation. And that could result in churches splitting. That could result in congregations removing their pastors or pastors just saying, God called me to do something and it wasn't this. And I don't know what it is anymore, but I can't stay here while I discern that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it is that compounding of conflict. Um, some of the things we've encountered in our therapy clients are um youth pastors being um that had no previous training or exposure and then didn't have debriefs after being called to self-harm scenes, picking up kids who are actually overdosing, actually being called to minister right when the scene of a completed suicide has has happened. Um and that's not necessarily just youth ministers, that's across or or are women, women in ministry being called to active family violence situations, thinking that it's a pastoral situation and then being exposed to that. So it's it's the exposure, but then I also think there isn't then the downregulating. There's no debrief, there's no sort of containment or processing of those situations as well. I wonder too, another phenomenon, and I can't remember if I've read it in your work about forced terminations. We haven't done research on that per se, but I'm somewhat familiar with it, yeah. Yeah, so there's also that power play, isn't it? Well, actually, I don't know if I should say power, but it is. It's a power move, that's for sure. But um essentially when you're unhappy with who you've got leading you, you create pressure for them to leave. So the the trauma aspect of it, in terms of I think it is in your paper, you were saying, or the paper was saying that did you find four different categories?

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Or in that particular paper, as um statistically, we did uh a latent profile analysis. I'm just on my other screen here, pulling up my categories. Um yeah, so we did in fact come across, and it it had to do with like, are they what percentage is struggling, what percentage is resilient, et cetera. This was clergy and chaplains together. Together. And so there were those who were flourishing, there were those who were like, I'm able to cope, not just cope, but like I'm thriving. I feel really good, I'm happy to show up. Not a large chunk. There were those who were we called resilient, so they're really exhausted. Um, but they also are finding deep meaning in what they're doing. And we found that we have found that across a lot of studies where you'll get like 97% are feeling burned out, and 98% feel like their work is deeply meaningful to them. So something is keeping them coming back and able to function. My bracelet just broke. I'm so sorry. Sorry. And then there was an at risk category that was not quite as high in resilience, but not in the fourth category, which was severely sharp. Struggling. And these were the ones that like are testing above a clinical cutoff for PTSD. Um are reporting the highest levels of burnout or moral injury. And just the ones also most likely to say that they've genuinely thought about quitting their job in the last three months. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Is this um is this national? Is this American? Or is this looking across studies across the globe?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

This is national within the United States. It was 198 chaplains and clergy surveyed over the course of a year, a calendar year. Do you happen to have the percentages in each category? I shouldn't. Again, we had 198 people in the sample, 13 counted as a person or 13. 13 people? 13 people. Okay. 13 people counted as flourishing. Then for the resilient class, that actually was the largest class. Um so it was 85 people.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

So 85 divided by 198.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

198, yeah, just under half. About 40%. Yeah. And then um after that, not too far behind was at risk. That was 74 people. 74 divided by one. Yep. So that's about 37. And then the severely struggling was 26 people.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

That is freakily similar to the Duke percentage. Probably, I think, quite similar to my impressions and also my clergy survey, which I did in 2023. Yeah. It's so fascinating, isn't it? So this is split over time. I'm talking about the various studies. Yeah. Split over time, split over geography. Um, I think we can say it's a pretty much a fact that it's not the vast majority that are actually okay, particularly when you look at clinical markers. Like if you're looking at trauma, I think that's the other thing that other studies have not looked at is actual actual assessment and measurement of trauma markers. So that's very interesting, very sad. Yeah. Yeah. As an ordained minister yourself, when you hear that, what does that do to you?

SPEAKER_02 25:15

It is an interesting position for me because I, you know, my day job as a researcher. I am I'm not a full-time congregational clergy person. And when I have done clergy work myself, I have felt like this is not sustainable for me. Like I have yet to have my own experience of congregational or chaplaincy work. I've I've had experience in both where I felt I could do this full-time and be healthy and happy. And I'm one person, but I don't think that I am reading the room wrong based on the findings across at least three different studies of different populations that are all pretty much finding the same thing. That it is a profession that takes a lot and expects a lot and demands a lot, and and just doesn't seem to be a profession that has a lot of like institutional support. It seems to be more on the clergy person to maintain their well-being, to maintain their mental health, to maintain their spiritual well-being and their spiritual practices. I mean, many clergy pre people will say for them when they're leading on Sunday morning, that's not their worship service because they're on, they're leading. And if they find being a part of a worship community where they can just be in the pew meaningful, it's really hard to find that for yourself as a clergy person.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

Absolutely. What's go to moral injury now? And you this is interesting to me because I'd love to hear what it looks like in clergy. I think you gave an example for chaplains. I did, yeah. You're torn, aren't you, between the thing that you're convicted and deep in you you know you should do. At the same time, there are organizational mandates um that are pulling you from there. What does that look like for congregational clergy?

SPEAKER_02 27:11

I I think it can take some similar manifestations. But the institutional side of it might be more like the example I mentioned earlier of the clergy person, the one clergy person who's in three different congregations.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

And they want to provide care to each congregation as if they are that um only responsible for that congregation in the moment, because for that congregation, they are the only clergy person to turn to. But then if they are expected to do an 8 a.m. service and a 10 a.m. service, they have to leave as soon as that 8 a.m. service is done to get to their 10 a.m. service. So they can't stay and do part of the pastoral work that is expected of them because of this assignment that they've got at multiple congregations. That's an example. Another one could be receiving multiple phone calls in an evening for multiple uh congregants in distress. Maybe one has been in a car accident and you know the family is asking for them to come to the hospital, and then the other is has been stranded by their partner on at a gas station somewhere and needs a ride and needs to be picked up. You're you you can't split yourself and be in two places at once. But there certainly are some congregants who, if the pastor sends someone else to do what they ask the pastor to do, that creates tension and friction within the relationship, which again, these unlike with chaplains, these are people you see week after week, sometimes multiple times a week. If there's tension interpersonally, that's not escaped nearly as quickly or easily. It and it needs to be resolved, and that can be very uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Yeah. Um we've certainly encountered it with missionaries. So again, it's not necessarily Australian, but when they're overseas, things like the organization's policy about, you know, if you have a car accident and you're in a country that is there's security issues, the mission agency's uh policy could be that you actually don't stop to help because that will endanger you. So you drive on to get yourself to security, leaving behind the scene. Um, that was an example given to us of um the type of moral injury you can find in ministry. I wonder in our context here in Australia, or at times at a denominational level, there might be a philosophy for how to do ministry, like how to grow numbers, you know, how to do meetings, how to um deliver pastoral care that doesn't sit well with the minister. You know, that maybe they've got uh a different way of seeing how to do things. And that can also create a real tension for them about what they must do, because that's being obedient and submissive to the denomination, but then really wrestling with your own internal values and belief structures as well as to be as to what is being faithful to God in ministry.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

That I'm thinking would create a moral injury scenario.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah. Um, what is pretty common, I don't know if this winds up being true in Australia, but what's pretty common in many, at least Protestant denominations in um the US, is if someone has a pastoral care need, kind of depends on the denomination, but three to five pastoral care sessions before referring out to a therapist is is pretty much the norm. It is in many traditions not recommended that pastoral care substitute mental health care. It can accompany it. You can certainly continue to see people for spiritual guidance and spiritual direction, but it shouldn't uh go beyond that, you're replacing a psychotherapy or psychiatric intervention. And that can be very challenging if a congregant just doesn't either trust mental health professionals or has had bad experiences with them in the past. Like if a congregant has formed this relationship with the minister, it can be really hard to even feel like you're abandoning the congregant if you say we need to move you to working through this situation with this other person and trying to draw that boundary after there's already been some time and rapport built and trust built. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:47

Yeah, which uh actually what you've just said reminds me of what we hear from ministry spouses, typically the wives, when they don't have the structure around them to care through a structure and they don't have the training, um, and they're told you're over invested now in this person's issue, you need to pull out. They actually feel uh a deep emotional distress with that. So that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that before. I'm now thinking also one of the things we found in our Australian survey a couple of years ago is that um one of the top reasons clergy said that they would leave the ministry is because of their impact on their family. I actually think, I mean, we we look at work-life interference in terms of you know the boundaries, but really in terms of worrying about your family, feeling guilty that you've brought them in. We have clients who worry about the exposure that the kids are having, whether they're doing any damage. And for people who can't see what I'm doing, I've just put the air quotes. Yeah, air quotes damage. I don't think we you know that is true, but they feel a deep sense that you know they they're exposing their family. I wonder if that's a kind of moral injury that we don't think about either. It's just as a parent, you're feeling like you're doing harm when you're certainly torn between these two different roles you have, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Like as a parent and a clergy person or a spouse and a clergy person, even a parent and a spouse, can wind up, you know, being at odds with what's expected sometimes. You know, I used the the example earlier of two distress calls, kind of pulling the clergy person, but that could be you promised your child you were going to their choir performance because you've missed all the other ones. And then you get this call about someone that's been in a car accident. And yeah, the spillover effect, the work to uh personal life and personal life to work as well. If you're if you're going through a divorce, you better believe that that's going to impact how you show up at work. And that, depending on your tradition and how your tradition understands divorce, could put you at some serious odds in your congregation.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

So true. Another thought that came to my mind with rural churches, like if your child is being bullied at school, but there's actually no other option, and not everybody can homeschool. It's like we just say, oh, well, why don't you just homeschool? Well, there's a lot more to it. That's probably another scenario where um you can feel so torn to the point of actually feeling like you're doing harm when when you yeah, golly. Okay. The other area that you're really interested in is is in the formation space of seminary students. Um I'd love to hear what's happening in that space, Kristen.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we were really feeling um was an important avenue to investigate is how are the seminaries preparing ministers in the 21st century to enter this field that doesn't look like it did even in the early 21st century, let alone, you know, 50 years ago or so. Um, and there's a Facebook group called Things They Didn't Teach Us in Seminary. And uh, you know, I have dipped my toe into that group on occasion. And I'm often struck at the amount of lack of, for instance, like bystander awareness training or mental health first response type training. Or basically some of the different training for some of the different crisis situations that everyone knows and expects clergy to respond to, but they aren't being given the tools or the preparation. And this isn't across the board. I'm not saying every single seminary isn't doing that, but that was something that was popping up a lot, like anecdotally in this Facebook group of my seminary didn't teach me how to respond to a teenager who overdosed, for instance. Yes. Now, that's a very heavy thing to train someone up on, but I do think mental health first aid, bystander awareness training, and and networking within your community, even, are some of the tools that are not homiletics, not how to preach a sermon, not how to read the New Testament in Greek, but are still equally as important in the day-to-day boots on the ground type of experience of leading a congregation, of leading a community.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

You know, I've never made this link before. I just did it just as you were talking. Trauma is essentially feeling a deep sense of helplessness, like it's really profound helplessness. And and that vicarious trauma is about watching someone else go through something and then feeling the helplessness. And of course it makes sense if if we're not prepared. First of all, do you are you aware of the range of pastoral situations you will see in your course as a ministry person? And then being prepared to actually respond. So if you don't have that, it's actually going to already set you up for vulnerability to hold that that trauma in you. Um, I kind of smile too because we're actually training mental health first aiders. I might use your snippet on this podcast. Okay. Okay. Even though the episode is coming out much later, come and still come and get equipped for the sorts of situations you find yourself in. I wonder if we could finish with you telling us about the chrysalis program. We'd love to hear about that.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yeah. So the chrysalis program um is uh the I mentioned earlier, like this eight-week online program. Um we started it in spring 2023. So we're right at three years. Oh, that's sorry, that just hit me that it's been three years of this program. We received a very generous grant from the Peel Foundation to do this program. Um it is, we run it quarterly. It is eight weeks, it is online, it is free, currently only available in the United States, but we offer it to congregational clergy, to chaplains, and also to therapists. And basically, we describe it as like beyond self-care. Um, a a massage is nice and helps sort of work out your muscles in the moment, but it is not going to change the toxic system you have to go back to later. We're not saying chrysalis is going to change the toxic system, but we are saying that chrysalis is a space to process and metabolize what the work you do does to you as a person. Both the good and the bad. Like, what is motivating? What makes you so excited to show up to get out of bed? What makes you not ready to leave for the day or makes you be like, oh, the day has flown by and I'm having a great time? Versus what makes you want to never get out of bed because you're terrified to go do that particular task for the day? What is really hard? What lingers with you again? That residue notion of what experiences have you had that other experiences trigger for you or um that you can't quite shake or let go of, or that brought up something from your own past. And everywhere in between, who are the resources? That could be your colleague, that could be your your spouse or significant other. Uh that could be a mentor, your own spiritual advisor or spiritual leader, it could be a boss. Um, and also who gets in your way or what is getting in your way. Now, that could be any of those people I just said. It also could be you. Like there could be certain internal aspects, whether that's um overly self-sacrificial, like kind of just having this internalized, I I call it like the doormat version of self-sacrifice, or it could be that your supervisor is burned out themselves, and basically you're getting all of what they don't have the ability to handle, you know. So it's trying to be very holistic. Each week we run through whether it's in two different formats, either an individual self-directed format where you're answering journal prompts, or a once-a-week group meeting online. And but the the content is the same across the eight weeks. And so the bulk of the program is going through these five different capacities that you reflect on how these capacities show up in your own working self and your personal life, because we don't pretend like your work self is independent from your at home self. Like they all overlap, they all affect each other. So that's the short version of the Chrysalis Vogue.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Wonderful. Well, I'll be sure to put links to that. Thank you. Yeah. Uh Kristen, thank you so much for spending time with me and for sharing your work and your heart in this space as well. And long may your work live.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

For as long as I do hope one day, Kristen, you and I get to have a coffee together when we say, look at the statistics, it's completely changed now.

SPEAKER_02 40:56

That would be amazing. That would be lovely.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

I really hope we don't have to wait till heaven to have that coffee to say. But given that you, you know, you're a millennial, you got more years on you than I do. So I really uh hope that you continue and that your work really gets out there. And I do hope that uh this podcast goes some way in in getting the the message out to the good folk up there who are serving God.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Yeah, I think I think on the whole, uh just a strong, especially with the clergy, a strong reminder, you don't have to do this alone. That you can be called by God and not called by God to do this without help. That God had a community um around Jesus. And then even after the resurrection, there is still community that moves forward together and supports each other when they need it, lifts each other up when they can. Um, and that there is no need to be working by yourself without help from anyone else.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

That's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Thank you so much, Kristen.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Yeah, thank you.