Responding to commmunity crisis without burning out, with Will van der Hart S4E30

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The church can be a lightning rod for community connection at times of extreme crisis,
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when major crisis hits the church often plays a pastoral and practical role,
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caring for victims and the traumatized grieving community,
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what can we learn from national tragedies can we as churches prepare for critical
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incidents and as church leaders how can we show up well and be present without burning out?
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I'm Melanie Cave and today I'm speaking with Will Vanderhart,
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who has experience of both the
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7-7 bombings in London and supporting after the Grenfell Tower of Fire.
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Will's an Anglican priest and co-founded the mental health charity Mind and
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Soul, which is now part of the Clergy Support Trust.
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Will's written an article for Roots on responding to community crisis.
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We talk about how to navigate vicarious trauma, working collaboratively in community
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crisis and the cost and gift of being present to people thanks for joining us
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on the roots for churches podcast here we go.
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Welcome, Will, to the Roots for Churches podcast. Great to have you back.
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Yes, great to be back, Melanie. Thanks so much for having me.
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Yeah. So, you, in your career, you have been involved in supporting communities
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in the UK through some of the most significant tragedies, at least that I can think of in my lifetime.
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So, the 7-7 bombing, the Grenfell Tower fire.
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What have those experiences taught you about the role of the church in moments of crisis?
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Well, first thing to say is it sounds very grand. I've had ambition to do that.
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I think I've accidented myself or the Lord has me into those spaces,
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and I feel very much like I've been making it up as I've gone along.
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The 7-7 bombings were entirely coincidental in that I happened to be at Edgeware
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Road that day and ended up hosting the emergency service response out of a small
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church hall I was responsible for.
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That that experience was very practical it's very much about providing telephones
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toilets trying to offer prayer and be a kind of christian presence in that environment but,
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the subsequent experience i had which was of a ptsd style breakdown was probably
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more formative than the experience itself and that for me was beginning to think
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about the emotional impact of traumatic incidents.
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On clergy, on myself, and on colleagues of mine.
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And when Grenfell happened, it was this big time delay between those two events.
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But when Grenfell happened, I felt more equipped to go into Grenfell with some of the lessons learned.
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And that was a different environment because I was kind of coming in saying,
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actually, what do I know that is going to help you right now.
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And that turned out to be quite timely because.
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If we think about Grenfell as an environment, Grenfell provoked a huge amount of national grief.
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And the sight and sense was representative to our feelings around the disparity
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of wealth and poverty in our nation, an overlooked community right on the edge
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of somewhere that had been so notably popular.
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Think about the film Notting Hill, our sense of Notting Hill being filled with
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these she-she beautiful villas.
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And we had this tower block on fire at the north end of the area,
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very neglected environment. And so I think it provoked a huge amount of heartfelt response.
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Sadly, some of that response was very misguided. So when I went down,
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I think on the second day, people had been dropping furniture off.
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I mean, old mattresses, all sorts of stuff.
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Again, well-meaning, but they were literally turning up in trucks,
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And they're just putting all this stuff on the ground, which someone had to deal with.
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And then as well, suddenly counselling. So everyone wanted to offer counselling
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to everyone in Grenfell.
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We heard about an American outfit who hired a jet and actually imported 12 psychologists
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from America to come and do their thing.
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And my experience with the London bombings had taught me that actually there
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was something called the settlement period, which is a period when in trauma,
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we shouldn't begin to initiate counseling or necessary engagement in the kind of trauma itself.
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And I ran a kind of public webinar, I guess I'd call it, which was called the Do No Harm Plan.
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And I basically was invited to speak to a group of local people who were sort
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of local agents at the time.
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Quite a lot of people came, including MIND and the NHS CNWL for the area and various local leaders.
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And I presented this effective plan to say, look, let's not start counselling
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and hosting counselling now for these reasons.
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That gained quite a lot of traction. And there was quite a strong sense of not
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just collaboration around the idea, but a sense of actually gathering agencies together.
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And Mary, who's the head of MIND for the area, came up to me afterwards and
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said, look, this is really important, not just what you've said,
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but just that we can gather together collaboratively.
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Can I suggest that we host meetings for all the core agencies in the MIND office
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just up the street from now on?
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I was like brilliant you know fantastic i was like this is fantastic great thank
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you and then from that point on for two years we met as a group with the nhs,
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basically working out how to offer a sort of recovery plan,
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as peripheral organizations but also as you know i say as the nhs who were massively
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struggling to know what how to contribute because people didn't trust from the
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north Kensington area didn't trust the NHS.
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So their counselling site was completely, you know, was abandoned.
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No one wanted to go. And it was actually the caring community stuff that they needed.
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So there's a lot of trust bridges that needed to be rebuilt.
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And that's where the church who had pre-existing relationships was absolutely fundamental.
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But just to help understand the linkage between the two things,
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I think one was completely green. The other one, I was coming in with some experience.
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But also...
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An awareness that we often see the wrong things when trauma is concerned. We're often blinded to.
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The things that really will make a difference for recovery. When we think about,
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these sites of terrible tragedy, we're looking at the tragedy directly,
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we're looking at the fire, we're looking at the bomb.
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There's a group of people in sort of circle one who are immediately impacted
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by that they're physically and emotionally,
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dynamically impacted by that and they're nearly always cared for directly by,
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the service agencies that we'd expect fire ambulance police hospitals,
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but but the tier two the bigger group the group who are watching and the sense the community itself,
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are hugely impacted by this trauma and yet they have no access to any of these
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services yeah and that's when i said we're sometimes looking at the wrong thing
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rather than looking at the center of the event,
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it's important to turn around and look away from the event to the community
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that is impacting because these events also become iconographic in themselves yeah and,
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they become they both represent and speak of an experience within the community
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so notably with Grenfell I mean the fire was incredible you know unbelievable tragedy in itself and.
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But the tragedy that people remember about Grenfell isn't just the fire,
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it's the neglect preceding the fire.
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So the feeling that we experienced on the ground at Grenfell within the Healing
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Minds team, which was the team that I described a minute ago,
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was a huge mistrust of government agencies, including the NHS.
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I think the Red Cross tried to initiate something.
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Again people spoke very badly against them maybe unfairly unjustly,
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sense of imposition that people were very much railed against
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there was an idea that sort of wealthy white folk from outside the borough were
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coming in parachuting in care for their own virtue so they would feel good rather
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than because they actually cared about the community the community is saying well,
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well it's all well and good now but where were you when we were struggling with
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poverty issues or with neglect or with schooling or with health and education,
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why are you coming along now,
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and they were hard questions to answer i mean they weren't questions you necessarily could answer but,
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but the the events themselves,
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became in a sense iconographic for the neglect of the community and again that's
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where the church highly invested at local level and.
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Could say something and do something differently and i must also say the the
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mosque the almanar mosque in in notting hill was doing an incredible piece of
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work as well with the muslim community but also with the community at large,
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there was a sense that you've already shown up for us,
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so we we trust you i mean yeah i felt like a something of an imposter because
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whilst we had a we have a small church in the area i was working at hdb at the
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time so i did feel a bit like I was cycling over from wealthy Kensington,
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into North Kensington.
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But yeah, as a group, we recognized the huge value.
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And interestingly, this week, it's just this week that's gone,
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I received a message completely out of the blue from a leader from Latimer Church,
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who I'd spent a lot of time with during that process.
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And I hadn't spoken to her since my period of more intense work at Grenfell,
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but she just reached out.
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Sent me a lovely message saying you won't know this but showing up made a massive
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difference which I'm not saying to you now to sort of blow my own trumpet but,
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it feels really synchronistic doing this podcast,
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to recognize that a lot of what you do in these sites in the moment you'll never
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know and just the kindness of this lady to reach out to me and send me this lovely email,
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because I just felt like oh sometimes you look back and think well did I did
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it make a difference yeah showing up consistently makes a difference but that embedded community,
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really asking the question where did where is trust where was trust before this
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happened and where can those trust-based relationships bring some healing to
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this community now those are really really fundamental questions,
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so let me backtrack a little bit and and talk about the the cost of caring maybe
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back to your experience with the 7-7 bombings, but also,
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there is a knock-on impact, particularly for these church leaders who are in
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maybe the church that's nearest the epicenter of these crises.
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There is a huge personal cost in caring for others. And sometimes,
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as there is with these crises, you end up working ridiculously long hours without
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a break because it feels like life and death, because everything is going on.
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Can you talk me through, as a church leader who's been around all of this,
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what is that dynamic like and how can we carry that healthily?
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I suppose your experience of 7-7, you were doing the best you could,
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but it ended up with some mental health challenges afterwards.
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Did you take learnings from 7-7 into Grenfell for you personally and how you were involved?
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Yeah, 100%. And for me, it's not just being, you know, I think about these major
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incidents but also life of 25 years of christian leadership,
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i think back to some of the most costly moments weren't in the grandest arenas
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i did you know i had my mental health really took a tumble after after the 7-7
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bombings but yeah i think about other incidents particularly,
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dealing with death very close proximity particularly surprising death erring
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infants you know walking into the room when someone's literally just died,
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and being surprised by a body those moments are really really costly emotionally
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yeah and sometimes they're,
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sometimes they're more healthy to talk about because then they're more of the
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bread and butter experience of of the clergy you know,
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um i mean i think it sounds odd but the first thing to do is also to check your
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ego and recognize that you are not the healer and i think for me when I think about the 7-7 bombing.
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I wore my clergy shirt a bit like a kind of Superman cape.
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If you put this thing on and people look at you with some respect,
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I guess, some sort of, oh, you're the vicar, you must know what to do.
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And you can hide behind that and pretend that you do know what to do when actually,
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I frankly had no idea what I was doing.
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And you've got to check your ego and ask yourself, why am I doing this?
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And if you don't know, if you can't see yourself as a small part in a bigger
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machine of recovery, and if you feel like it hinges on you, you've got a problem.
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And that huge risk of overworking, overexposing yourself.
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And actually, from a health perspective, you've become a problem.
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Because you need the environment to serve you. You're not really trying to serve the environment.
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So you're best off out of it. If your needs are being met by the environment, you've got a problem.
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And actually, you're probably getting in other people's way.
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Interesting with Grenfell, I didn't go down to Grenfell to day two.
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And I felt a temptation to go on day one.
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And that sounds like an odd thing to say. but I checked myself with a sense
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of like I don't need to be there now this is where the this is where the emergency
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services can do their work,
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but it was not till day two when I thought I now's now's the time when I need
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to I should go and see whether I can offer some help.
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And that was in a sense me checking my ego of sort of saying because again the
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danger is oh I've done I've kind of been in this environment before I kind of
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know what this is like and now I'm going to go and help,
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so that's the first thing it's like why are you there everyone has mixed motives
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as well so it's important to say like,
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you know everyone has a feeling of like but it's nice to be useful and everyone
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wants to be appreciated everyone wants to be a help that's human nature but
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but again you've got to look look out for the i statements and,
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and i think there's a temptation to want to come alongside the notable or the,
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operating leaders in an environment like that, when actually it's finding the
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peripheral people to support.
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And it's about listening, not speaking more than anything.
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That that's crucial i think i think about the idea of long-term care as well,
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like if if you are trying to front load your care to make an impact in a short
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amount of time again it sounds very ego driven,
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if you're going to get involved in an environment where there's been a significant
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incident you have to commit to that environment for a long period of time a
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lot of people show up on day one or two or three,
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but when the media is not interested anymore are you willing to keep on showing
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up and i think making that commitment early takes a lot of pressure off of you,
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to be notably helpful because you're like,
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i might not be i might be completely helpless for a number of weeks here but
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hopefully over time if i can commit and pray and serve i can make a difference and i think again,
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that side of things can be a helpful adjunct this idea that i need to work 24
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hours a day for three days.
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And that somehow i can't take breaks i think with grenfell i was much better at going,
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i feel like i'm getting dysregulated now by the environment and i need to leave
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and that's not a betrayal that's just sensible like every ambulance driver every
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fire person every you know every police person is on some rotation where they're
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going to be off duty and they're going to go home,
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and I think again it's like your Christian duty to,
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Keeps you in an environment until you're dying is completely unbiblical and unhelpful.
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And, you know, I was the member of the Good Samaritan.
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You know, he did his bit. He took the man on the donkey to the inn.
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And then he said to the innkeeper, look after him. When I come back,
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I'll pay you whatever else I owe.
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It's a sense of like doing your bit in care. Yeah, there's some boundaries.
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Knowing when it's right to walk away and actually to breathe some fresh air again.
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And there might be some church leaders who feel like, hey, I don't feel like
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I had a choice. Like this happened on my doorstep or this happened to somebody
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in my congregation or like I didn't get to choose to go and opt into Grenfell.
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I felt like I had no choice. And now I don't know how to step away or how to
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create those boundaries because it does feel overwhelming. It feels relentless.
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How can a church leader know if they're carrying more than is healthy.
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What can we do to support church leaders who are in that epicenter absorbing people's pain?
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Are there structures we could put in place now that would create more strength
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and more stability for when something like this might happen? Sure.
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I mean, I'm well being chaplain to a network of over 200 church leaders,
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so I'm responsible for those people who phone me up and say,
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well, I've got no choice.
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And my response is always, you've always got a choice.
00:18:10.903 --> 00:18:15.253
And that sounds harsh, but just because something's happened on your patch doesn't
00:18:15.253 --> 00:18:21.346
mean that you somehow are now obligated to be entirely present all of the time.
00:18:21.590 --> 00:18:25.502
And again, in fact, if you are, you're probably being a disservice to people around you.
00:18:25.943 --> 00:18:32.264
So when I say disservice, the danger of the church leader is that they can often,
00:18:32.954 --> 00:18:35.984
stifle conflict which is a natural response to threat,
00:18:36.937 --> 00:18:40.625
You can mute conversations that need to happen, which are really healthy,
00:18:40.625 --> 00:18:41.968
even though they might be uncomfortable.
00:18:43.722 --> 00:18:49.932
You can sort of divert people from their immediate needs because they're busy being deferential.
00:18:50.333 --> 00:18:52.718
So there's lots of ways in which you can actually be unhelpful.
00:18:53.375 --> 00:18:56.869
And every clergy person has got a home to go to.
00:18:58.117 --> 00:19:04.952
The key thing is, are you willing to go to it and recognize that this care needs to be interrupted.
00:19:05.225 --> 00:19:12.255
And that's crucial. So whether it's, you know, I've got clergy in my group who
00:19:12.609 --> 00:19:16.109
obviously suffered terrible bereavements in their environment,
00:19:16.428 --> 00:19:18.042
some significant crimes,
00:19:18.855 --> 00:19:24.962
murders, things where, again, the press wants to talk to the clergy person about what's gone on.
00:19:26.065 --> 00:19:29.095
And the treasuring leaders provide press training, by the way,
00:19:29.095 --> 00:19:32.008
there is a kind of sense of how you should interact but,
00:19:33.134 --> 00:19:37.691
knowing the cadence of when to be present and when to be absent is really critical
00:19:38.021 --> 00:19:44.035
and again that goes back to knowing that the response isn't entirely your responsibility,
00:19:44.970 --> 00:19:50.215
you're called to play your part which is about showing up but it's not about
00:19:50.215 --> 00:19:54.372
that one moment and actually far better to stagger your care,
00:19:55.133 --> 00:20:00.965
and your presence over weeks slash months rather than just to show up for three
00:20:00.965 --> 00:20:03.815
days without sleeping and then hope for the best.
00:20:05.335 --> 00:20:08.075
Your quality over three days without sleeping is going to be poor.
00:20:08.675 --> 00:20:14.565
Yeah, but it's again this people, you know, everyone in the caring world knows
00:20:14.565 --> 00:20:16.180
what poor boundaries feel like.
00:20:16.528 --> 00:20:21.364
Yeah. And we all know what they feel like. And it's hardest when you're caring for a family member.
00:20:21.816 --> 00:20:24.505
You love them, you want to be there for them, But also, you know,
00:20:24.505 --> 00:20:26.066
you need space to breathe.
00:20:26.971 --> 00:20:30.435
And you know the quality of care diminishes as you become more and more exhausted
00:20:30.435 --> 00:20:32.097
and frazzled, as you've just described.
00:20:32.759 --> 00:20:35.435
So some of the self-discipline comes from saying...
00:20:36.393 --> 00:20:40.305
I'm a part, but I'm not the whole of this recovery.
00:20:40.868 --> 00:20:43.655
And I'm the presence of Jesus, but I'm not the whole presence of Jesus.
00:20:43.875 --> 00:20:48.127
I think church leaders who get in the mindset of believing that somehow the
00:20:48.127 --> 00:20:51.508
presence of Jesus leaves the room with them, again, have got a massive problem.
00:20:52.477 --> 00:20:55.097
The presence of Jesus in the environment, and yes, you're a part of that,
00:20:55.097 --> 00:21:00.331
you're an embodiment of that presence whilst you're there. But when you leave, Jesus doesn't leave.
00:21:00.813 --> 00:21:05.657
And I think, again, that's critical. I think some increasingly church leaders
00:21:05.657 --> 00:21:12.997
have become nervous about being criticized for absenteeism, almost like the idea of like, oh,
00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:17.317
you just left us or you didn't do enough.
00:21:17.717 --> 00:21:21.777
And I think the reality is if you have real compassion on anyone in a critical,
00:21:21.777 --> 00:21:26.437
instant environment, you'll understand the level of rage and the fact that actually
00:21:26.437 --> 00:21:30.259
sometimes clergy are just a very convenient point of rage expression.
00:21:30.572 --> 00:21:34.767
And that's okay you know we're not expecting everyone in an environment of threat
00:21:34.767 --> 00:21:38.270
to be super polite to us and say we're so grateful for you thank you so much for being here,
00:21:39.137 --> 00:21:43.337
yeah sometimes it's distinctly uncomfortable and that's all right again it's
00:21:43.337 --> 00:21:48.401
this idea of how can we hold prayerfully the uncomfortable feelings in the environment,
00:21:48.877 --> 00:21:50.984
how can we be a presence of peace,
00:21:51.687 --> 00:21:58.497
and comfort and consolation and how can we not divert into trying to you know
00:21:58.497 --> 00:22:02.767
into a fixing ministry where we're busy making everything better for everyone all the time.
00:22:02.817 --> 00:22:07.749
That just isn't a helpful way of us understanding ourselves or even what the gospel looks like.
00:22:09.121 --> 00:22:11.220
So one of the things you're talking
00:22:11.220 --> 00:22:15.329
about a lot is like that ministry of presence, of being with people.
00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:21.519
But often we want to switch to fixing, to doing tangible things.
00:22:22.520 --> 00:22:27.040
Why do you think we are more comfortable with the doing rather than the being present?
00:22:30.157 --> 00:22:34.128
Yeah, I mean, it's a brilliant question. We're also working out what this feels like.
00:22:34.760 --> 00:22:38.058
If if anyone listening is like gone to visit a loved one,
00:22:39.010 --> 00:22:44.500
you'll know how tempting it is to do the washing up you know to go in and you
00:22:44.500 --> 00:22:47.136
know make the beds and start doing some hoovering,
00:22:47.961 --> 00:22:53.840
it feels like we're at least we're doing something and there's a travesty in
00:22:53.840 --> 00:22:57.160
that in that we're being distracted from the one thing that we really need to
00:22:57.160 --> 00:22:59.304
do is show up in present with the person,
00:22:59.965 --> 00:23:04.490
who you know we we have come to visit i was watching this lovely film last night,
00:23:04.943 --> 00:23:09.980
with my wife this is it's called don't say good uh don't say good luck and it's
00:23:09.980 --> 00:23:13.222
story of a woman struggling with cancer and a young family,
00:23:13.884 --> 00:23:17.907
and notably the sort of mother character turns up and immediately starts,
00:23:18.662 --> 00:23:22.946
you know making all the food and kind of cleaning the house and telling everyone how to be,
00:23:23.886 --> 00:23:29.010
when in this woman's terminal experience, she just needs people to be with her.
00:23:29.812 --> 00:23:34.449
And she's just desperate for people to sit down. She's at one point in the film,
00:23:34.990 --> 00:23:38.540
when her mum brings her breakfast and she says, could you just read to me?
00:23:39.838 --> 00:23:44.576
And the mother is, you know, the elderly mother is shocked, you know,
00:23:44.576 --> 00:23:49.566
that her daughter who's in her mid-30s is asking her to read a storybook to
00:23:49.566 --> 00:23:54.681
her. But the woman who's dying just wants this woman, her mother's presence.
00:23:55.122 --> 00:23:56.701
She doesn't want her practical help.
00:23:57.949 --> 00:24:04.625
And I think we are not just the Brits, but I think we are all uncomfortable with mortality.
00:24:05.276 --> 00:24:10.569
We're all uncomfortable with facing the reality of our own mortality and sometimes,
00:24:11.098 --> 00:24:15.226
traumatic and tragic incidents bring our mortality and our vulnerability into
00:24:15.226 --> 00:24:17.536
stark relief yeah you know.
00:24:18.847 --> 00:24:21.976
I it's funny what you know as a as a priest you sort of i don't wear my dog
00:24:21.976 --> 00:24:25.566
collar actually very often anymore some people look at you like the grim reaper
00:24:25.566 --> 00:24:27.036
rather than you're coming with good news,
00:24:27.734 --> 00:24:31.196
because the only time they've ever seen you is when they've gone to a funeral
00:24:31.196 --> 00:24:34.624
and they've watched someone be buried and And for you,
00:24:35.134 --> 00:24:37.543
you're a sign to them of death, not of life.
00:24:39.486 --> 00:24:45.215
You know, in the same way, when we experience our own mortality through the
00:24:45.215 --> 00:24:51.825
lives of others, we become uncomfortable and issuing some sense of control.
00:24:51.825 --> 00:24:55.175
I don't know whether that's the practical thing. I'm like, I'm somehow doing
00:24:55.175 --> 00:24:58.185
something. I'm distracting myself from what's really needed here.
00:24:58.493 --> 00:25:04.434
I'm doing something to fix it. Even if it's completely disconnected, that feels good.
00:25:04.741 --> 00:25:09.008
I find cancer really difficult. I like, I've done a lot of visiting and we I
00:25:09.397 --> 00:25:12.925
was on rotation here for a long time with the Marsden Hospital in central London.
00:25:12.985 --> 00:25:16.705
And we'd get calls from people who wouldn't see a priest.
00:25:16.705 --> 00:25:23.795
And I'd go in, and in a way, harder for me than Grenfell or the London bombings,
00:25:23.795 --> 00:25:28.005
going into a cancer ward to pray for someone who's in those last moments of life.
00:25:28.005 --> 00:25:32.055
And it sounds incredibly selfish to say it, and I'm embarrassed to say it,
00:25:32.055 --> 00:25:33.965
but I want to say it because I know it relates to other people.
00:25:33.965 --> 00:25:39.610
Was that part of that was just an anguish from my own body.
00:25:40.092 --> 00:25:43.842
It was almost like the terror of the reminder that here I am,
00:25:44.469 --> 00:25:49.600
saying goodbye to a lovely 40-year-old who's been ravaged by this terrible disease,
00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:52.985
and I'm older than them, and I'm just as vulnerable, and who knows,
00:25:52.985 --> 00:25:55.661
I might be next. You just don't want to know that.
00:25:57.809 --> 00:26:02.645
So this sort of desperate urge not to really connect, but to actually fiddle
00:26:02.645 --> 00:26:08.043
around and to distract yourself by playing with a fruit bowl or organizing the
00:26:08.397 --> 00:26:10.609
bedside cards somehow makes it better.
00:26:11.009 --> 00:26:13.265
I'm just like, yeah, over yourself, Will Van Hart.
00:26:15.195 --> 00:26:20.695
You know, I go back to the promise, you know, when we pray a funeral,
00:26:20.695 --> 00:26:26.325
you know, from dust to dust, ashes to ashes, you know, from the earth you have
00:26:26.325 --> 00:26:29.459
come and from the earth you shall return. Blessed be the name of the Lord. It's that,
00:26:30.802 --> 00:26:35.949
vulnerability that we need to stare our own mortality in the face and i find
00:26:35.949 --> 00:26:40.149
it really hard and i think it's yeah and i'm sure that people are far better
00:26:40.449 --> 00:26:44.396
than i am but i know what needs to happen and that,
00:26:45.209 --> 00:26:51.339
need is for human connection in those moments and that's why we need to think
00:26:51.339 --> 00:26:53.610
not just about care but the quality of care,
00:26:54.849 --> 00:26:58.887
nhs is becoming better at thinking about have the now quality care commission
00:26:59.078 --> 00:27:01.639
it's not just about showing up and doing your job it's about showing up and
00:27:01.639 --> 00:27:07.083
doing your job well yeah and when we're in the caring world showing up is good,
00:27:07.670 --> 00:27:13.033
but showing up well is better and showing up well is not about big splash big impact,
00:27:13.672 --> 00:27:19.349
big you know physical action it's about emotional presence and about meeting
00:27:19.349 --> 00:27:23.474
the needs of one or two people in an environment doing as best as you can,
00:27:24.415 --> 00:27:31.503
but really vulnerability is more important than words 100 being available listening carefully,
00:27:32.543 --> 00:27:37.886
eye contact, real empathy. That's what really, I think, makes the difference
00:27:37.886 --> 00:27:39.631
in those environments more than anything else.
00:27:41.030 --> 00:27:45.454
Yeah. And it means you have to be attentive to yourself to not get in the way,
00:27:45.831 --> 00:27:49.416
but also to stay present because the temptation is, this is overwhelming.
00:27:49.416 --> 00:27:52.211
I'm going to be in the room, but emotionally exit.
00:27:53.343 --> 00:27:56.936
And what are the tricks? Noticing ourselves, what are the things?
00:27:56.936 --> 00:27:57.796
Do you get your phone out?
00:27:58.509 --> 00:28:01.896
What are you doing to self-soothe because you're overwhelmed?
00:28:01.896 --> 00:28:06.136
And quite often it's just that our mind kind of goes somewhere else and we're
00:28:06.136 --> 00:28:08.566
not fully present. And so, you know, that ministry of presence,
00:28:08.566 --> 00:28:11.303
it sounds so simple. I'm just going to go and sit with somebody.
00:28:11.698 --> 00:28:16.458
It's way harder than, as you say, hoovering, bringing a meal. Sure.
00:28:17.056 --> 00:28:20.576
It's harder than anything else. It's the hardest thing. I just remember there
00:28:20.576 --> 00:28:23.996
was an advert for an insurance company and it was called Confused or something
00:28:23.996 --> 00:28:26.645
like that. And there was a robot that went around.
00:28:27.126 --> 00:28:31.614
It was a few years ago now, but it met people in slightly awkward,
00:28:32.258 --> 00:28:36.016
environments and was advertising itself and it wheels itself over to a couple
00:28:36.016 --> 00:28:41.763
who are obviously having an affair in a car in a park and offers its services and,
00:28:42.205 --> 00:28:47.026
it just really struck me then this idea of almost like automated care yeah like
00:28:47.026 --> 00:28:51.800
the idea almost like a robotic or formulaic approach to how we're going to care for people,
00:28:52.323 --> 00:28:55.788
and i think with the dawn of ai there's obviously a threat to that too that.
00:28:57.140 --> 00:29:01.549
We sort of become digital agents of care. And we can be human digital agents
00:29:01.549 --> 00:29:06.299
of care in environments where, like I say, our phone somehow provides an exit
00:29:06.299 --> 00:29:08.234
to the most painful points of life, or,
00:29:09.059 --> 00:29:13.049
we can escape into scrolling social media to lighten the load.
00:29:13.049 --> 00:29:16.469
I go to a hospital waiting room, everyone there is watching someone else living
00:29:16.469 --> 00:29:18.937
their best life, hoping that they're not in a hospital waiting room.
00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:24.299
No matter we're struggling, no wonder we're struggling with our mortality and
00:29:24.299 --> 00:29:28.690
with our vulnerability because everything within us says, don't go there, don't engage.
00:29:30.028 --> 00:29:34.480
But when we engage, when we are present with ourselves and others,
00:29:34.997 --> 00:29:38.679
when we're doing our best prayerfully to bring the presence of Jesus into the
00:29:38.679 --> 00:29:40.549
room, that's where something happens.
00:29:40.549 --> 00:29:44.849
And churches are brilliant at leaning in. Churches I'm part of,
00:29:44.849 --> 00:29:49.179
they all want to lean into the presence of Jesus, but sometimes more in the ecstatic moments.
00:29:49.299 --> 00:29:52.921
And I'm like, actually, we need to lean into the presence of Jesus in the moments which are,
00:29:53.670 --> 00:29:58.689
filled with despair and distress and we need to be good at that too yeah and
00:29:58.689 --> 00:30:04.922
that's yeah it's hard but i think the desire to do that also leans into the fact that,
00:30:05.833 --> 00:30:12.349
the cost requires us to manage ourselves effectively and 30 minutes of real
00:30:12.349 --> 00:30:18.082
presence is worth three hours of fiddling around uh guiding the cards and again
00:30:18.332 --> 00:30:20.131
thinking about Christian leadership,
00:30:21.042 --> 00:30:22.592
showing up intentionally,
00:30:23.266 --> 00:30:27.999
but really showing up regardless of others' criticism, others' belief you should
00:30:27.999 --> 00:30:29.622
be doing something else, something better.
00:30:30.185 --> 00:30:34.019
That's really critical. I always love that story with Mary and Martha,
00:30:34.019 --> 00:30:41.579
that Martha's looking at Mary with disdain, like, why isn't she working right
00:30:41.579 --> 00:30:43.654
now? Why isn't she helping me?
00:30:44.468 --> 00:30:49.530
And Jesus saying to Martha, your sister has chosen a better way.
00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:55.868
She was ultimately choosing to give her attention to Jesus, not give her attention to other things.
00:30:56.881 --> 00:31:01.090
I'm sure Martha felt very virtuous in that moment. And there are people you'll
00:31:01.090 --> 00:31:05.030
meet in your parish who'll feel very virtuous about the practical things that
00:31:05.030 --> 00:31:06.790
they're doing that you're not doing.
00:31:06.790 --> 00:31:09.960
And they'll be very keen to tell you what they think you should be doing.
00:31:09.960 --> 00:31:13.770
But ultimately, Jesus says, look, Martha, Mary's chosen a better way.
00:31:13.770 --> 00:31:20.450
And I think in these critical incidents and in moments of real despair and hollowness
00:31:20.450 --> 00:31:23.976
in life, we have to choose to show up.
00:31:25.320 --> 00:31:29.723
Whether or not people agree with us or not, you know, the way in which we're doing our ministry.
00:31:30.362 --> 00:31:33.640
I just think of the number of ministers I know who are responsible for five
00:31:33.640 --> 00:31:38.297
or six churches, services here, there and everywhere, the PCC, the leaking roof.
00:31:38.750 --> 00:31:42.785
You can literally run from pillar to post and never get it all done.
00:31:43.760 --> 00:31:47.400
This idea of a ministry of presence, they're probably thinking,
00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:48.758
I can hardly show up for myself.
00:31:49.135 --> 00:31:51.922
Like how do we do it?
00:31:52.189 --> 00:31:57.512
And in a world that is full of distraction. And I just like, what is, what helps you?
00:31:57.878 --> 00:32:03.699
And, and, and is this a maturity thing? Is this something we can expect of, of young leaders?
00:32:03.995 --> 00:32:08.040
Or is this like hard earned through years of going through trouble and tribulation
00:32:08.040 --> 00:32:09.601
that, that gets you there?
00:32:10.512 --> 00:32:14.310
I mean, look, I, I'm sure I'm still learning how to do this.
00:32:14.693 --> 00:32:19.007
Like, but I found some comfort in the idea of presence as rebellion.
00:32:20.143 --> 00:32:23.820
I'm, I tend to not react well, silent days and things like that.
00:32:24.860 --> 00:32:27.828
If they tell me to be silent, I want to shout. If they tell me to shout, I want to be silent.
00:32:28.310 --> 00:32:33.808
So the idea of presence as rebellion, I find quite tasteful and quite motivating.
00:32:34.736 --> 00:32:40.680
I like the idea of presence as being a resistant force to what I'm being cajoled
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:43.043
into doing, which is to be busy.
00:32:44.198 --> 00:32:51.350
And I've often, in my work and coaching people, although I've enjoyed working
00:32:51.350 --> 00:32:54.507
with highly agitated and highly productive people.
00:32:55.726 --> 00:33:00.875
Ask those questions that drive home that self-reflection that they're not really hoping for.
00:33:01.194 --> 00:33:06.127
And I find that's where the most gains are often made. So to anyone listening,
00:33:06.533 --> 00:33:10.577
I'd encourage you to see presence as an active rebellion against what you're
00:33:10.577 --> 00:33:13.917
being cajoled into, to see it as a rebellious act.
00:33:13.917 --> 00:33:18.457
And I think many of Jesus' finest moments of ministry are rebellious acts.
00:33:19.634 --> 00:33:25.197
There's a sense with what the world wants of Jesus. And then Jesus acts in rebellion
00:33:25.197 --> 00:33:28.789
against their demands, even the crucifixion in a sense.
00:33:29.688 --> 00:33:33.398
They're clamoring for him, if you're really the son of God, save yourself.
00:33:34.704 --> 00:33:37.967
His choice not to save himself is a choice of active rebellion against what
00:33:37.967 --> 00:33:40.573
the world wants, but what the world instead needs.
00:33:41.916 --> 00:33:47.527
And I kind of invite you, I guess, in environments of care to choose presence
00:33:47.527 --> 00:33:51.736
as an act of rebellion against what the world wants of you, which is to be distracted,
00:33:52.337 --> 00:33:56.878
for what the world needs, which is you to be present and show up for that person or those people.
00:33:58.117 --> 00:34:01.278
Again, it's crucial that we don't become grandiose about what we're doing.
00:34:01.946 --> 00:34:06.184
Because ultimately, being present is only as valuable as the presence of God with us.
00:34:06.843 --> 00:34:11.654
We're trying to be present because we believe in a God who's present with people in their suffering.
00:34:12.275 --> 00:34:15.901
And as soon as we've forgotten that, we've believed somehow that we are the
00:34:15.901 --> 00:34:19.525
important person in our story, we've become useless.
00:34:20.077 --> 00:34:25.211
And I think practicing the presence of God, showing up for people and inviting
00:34:25.211 --> 00:34:28.641
God's presence to be there and thinking about what the Lord wants to say to
00:34:28.641 --> 00:34:32.036
the people, and maybe through you or through your disposition,
00:34:32.391 --> 00:34:33.391
that's really critical.
00:34:33.391 --> 00:34:35.670
So there's active obedience in presence too.
00:34:37.318 --> 00:34:41.226
I mean, I think I read in the newspaper just this week, in a secular newspaper,
00:34:42.450 --> 00:34:46.873
that there are parishes now with single clergy for 15 or 16 churches rurally.
00:34:47.309 --> 00:34:50.286
I've got a very good friend of mine, Craig, from college.
00:34:50.636 --> 00:34:54.451
He's leading in the Cotswolds, and he was leading 10 churches.
00:34:54.451 --> 00:34:59.091
And I bless him, I have no idea how he does it. How is it possible?
00:34:59.091 --> 00:35:01.981
He does it with great serenity, but actually he also does it with a great sense
00:35:01.981 --> 00:35:07.813
of the presence of God. And I think our lives can be absolutely frenetic.
00:35:08.817 --> 00:35:12.573
The difference between them being peaceful and frenetic seems to be our decision
00:35:12.961 --> 00:35:14.709
more than our circumstances.
00:35:16.441 --> 00:35:21.236
It strikes me that if you want to live frenetically, you've got an opportunity to.
00:35:21.788 --> 00:35:26.692
But if you choose to live with some spaciousness that is also within your gift,
00:35:27.923 --> 00:35:30.621
but the difference between those two things is your willingness to go against
00:35:30.621 --> 00:35:31.946
what other people want for you,
00:35:32.794 --> 00:35:37.131
so whether we feel obligated to fulfill the ambitions of other people for our
00:35:37.131 --> 00:35:39.941
lives whether we feel obligated to fulfill the ambitions that god has for our
00:35:39.941 --> 00:35:44.027
lives seems to be the determining fact about whether we'll run hot whether we'll run,
00:35:44.678 --> 00:35:50.704
you know well yeah and i you know obviously I'm counseling clergy who are overextended
00:35:51.116 --> 00:35:55.254
on a regular basis on a call to a clergy person earlier on just today about
00:35:55.613 --> 00:35:57.720
a burnout experience he's going through.
00:35:58.441 --> 00:36:00.384
And that's become my bread and butter.
00:36:02.728 --> 00:36:07.041
But not all my clergy are burning out. Yeah, they've nearly all got the same sorts of demands.
00:36:07.407 --> 00:36:10.432
Yeah. And I think, again, you go back into that deep work of therapy,
00:36:10.432 --> 00:36:13.832
something I've really benefited from and something I really advocate for clergy
00:36:13.832 --> 00:36:18.024
particularly, is to work out, again, what's driving you.
00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:22.032
And I got into all sorts of trouble at a Christian conference because I did
00:36:22.032 --> 00:36:28.092
talk about, there was a book called, you know, The Purpose Driven Life.
00:36:29.852 --> 00:36:32.772
And what a terrible name it was. I didn't know, but in the audience were some
00:36:32.772 --> 00:36:35.152
people who started a church called the Purpose Driven Church.
00:36:35.152 --> 00:36:38.612
They were really unhappy with me because I basically said, look,
00:36:38.612 --> 00:36:45.092
in Scripture, there is no reference to driving unless God is driving an evil
00:36:45.092 --> 00:36:48.515
spirit out of somebody or unless,
00:36:49.352 --> 00:36:51.254
wild animals are being driven away.
00:36:52.228 --> 00:36:59.659
There's actually not a single reference in scripture to God driving people anywhere, only calling.
00:36:59.907 --> 00:37:02.538
God's calling the people into the wilderness.
00:37:02.921 --> 00:37:05.115
God's not driving the people into the wilderness.
00:37:05.683 --> 00:37:09.486
Jesus is driving the evil spirits into the pigs.
00:37:10.868 --> 00:37:13.619
But God is calling legion into freedom.
00:37:15.052 --> 00:37:20.473
And so often I feel like we get this language of drive really wrong as Christians.
00:37:20.869 --> 00:37:26.372
And you know people celebrate people who've got a great drive and i understand
00:37:26.372 --> 00:37:29.382
i mean this is all semantics i understand what that means someone who's highly
00:37:29.382 --> 00:37:32.495
energized and feels really aligned with their sense of calling,
00:37:33.099 --> 00:37:37.762
but it's the alignment of calling that really makes things work yeah like in
00:37:37.762 --> 00:37:41.282
sports psychology in like the 1980s they used to think you could drive someone
00:37:41.282 --> 00:37:43.943
to run really fast by making them afraid of humiliations,
00:37:45.030 --> 00:37:47.983
They would tell their athletes, everyone's going to laugh at you.
00:37:47.983 --> 00:37:50.881
You're useless. You're terrible. You know, you're a fraud.
00:37:51.258 --> 00:37:56.193
And this person would get so wound up. They were so terrified about being humiliated
00:37:56.193 --> 00:37:57.394
that they'd run really quickly.
00:37:58.555 --> 00:38:01.193
But in the nineties in sports psychology, they suddenly realized that people
00:38:01.193 --> 00:38:05.422
who felt confident and kind of called into the space ran even more quickly.
00:38:06.283 --> 00:38:09.497
That gave birth to the kind of Usain Boltz of this world,
00:38:10.107 --> 00:38:14.861
who still holds the 100 meters world record for obviously,
00:38:15.645 --> 00:38:20.163
if you watch Usain Bolt before his record breaking the guy's having a laugh
00:38:20.163 --> 00:38:22.323
like he defines confidence like arrow thing,
00:38:22.803 --> 00:38:27.343
and he's dancing and he runs and he's even looking sideways to see who's running
00:38:27.343 --> 00:38:30.773
alongside him and then when he finishes he's just having a great dance and a
00:38:30.773 --> 00:38:33.106
joke and he's filled with joy,
00:38:33.903 --> 00:38:38.653
because here's someone who's called not driven and the difference in ministry
00:38:38.653 --> 00:38:42.314
I think between being called not driven is.
00:38:43.728 --> 00:38:47.493
A sense that it's not all on me, a sense that actually God's already in the room.
00:38:47.493 --> 00:38:51.363
And that might be a traumatic room like Grenfell or like the London bombings
00:38:51.363 --> 00:38:54.380
or like a room with a deceased baby.
00:38:55.101 --> 00:39:00.029
Or it might be a room full of jubilant young people celebrating God in different ways.
00:39:00.935 --> 00:39:04.333
But God's already in the room that you're entering and he's calling you into
00:39:04.333 --> 00:39:08.754
that room for a purpose, he's not driving in that room to do his work for him.
00:39:09.073 --> 00:39:13.508
He's calling into the room to collaborate with him in a work that he's already initiated.
00:39:13.880 --> 00:39:19.613
And when you can understand that, a lot of the pressure of ministry comes off your shoulders.
00:39:19.613 --> 00:39:23.353
And I say that with caution because I know any clergy person listening says,
00:39:23.353 --> 00:39:26.823
it was not coming off my shoulders, mate. And you should look at all the PCC
00:39:26.823 --> 00:39:30.686
reports I've got to write. And look, I get it. There's a volume of work that has to be done.
00:39:31.695 --> 00:39:35.281
But the difference between being able to do that work with a light spirit and
00:39:35.281 --> 00:39:38.761
a heavy spirit is the difference between knowing that you've got to do what
00:39:38.761 --> 00:39:41.171
you've got to do, but there's lots of stuff you don't need to do in the way
00:39:41.171 --> 00:39:44.760
that you're doing it if drive is making you do it.
00:39:45.629 --> 00:39:53.835
And the joy of ministry comes in knowing that it's ultimately collaborating with God and his people.
00:39:55.477 --> 00:40:01.031
It's not on you. Yeah. I have a friend who says, whenever you say I have to,
00:40:01.411 --> 00:40:03.639
you should rephrase it as I get to.
00:40:04.388 --> 00:40:07.999
And suddenly it feels like, oh, somewhere back there, I chose this.
00:40:09.531 --> 00:40:14.851
And suddenly you have agency, suddenly you have some power, suddenly you have
00:40:14.851 --> 00:40:19.649
some privilege that you're in this space and we can get overwhelmed.
00:40:19.992 --> 00:40:24.391
And particularly in these crisis response moments, I think you've underlined
00:40:24.391 --> 00:40:28.245
the point many times that this isn't about our ego and we shouldn't be doing this alone.
00:40:28.657 --> 00:40:33.561
And you talked about working with the NHS, with MIND, with the local mosque,
00:40:33.561 --> 00:40:34.953
with the other churches in the area.
00:40:35.279 --> 00:40:39.351
One of my other podcast guests talked about the Holy Trinity of the police,
00:40:39.351 --> 00:40:43.126
the local church and the council, you know, all these people working together.
00:40:43.555 --> 00:40:46.761
It's you've got your first line responders, but you have the church that's there
00:40:46.761 --> 00:40:48.727
for the long haul, who's there for the community.
00:40:49.198 --> 00:40:50.852
It can be really beautiful. Yeah.
00:40:51.933 --> 00:40:58.946
But for these major incidents, is there some preparation that we should be doing
00:40:58.946 --> 00:41:04.678
as churches or as church leaders so that we're not totally blindsided when something like this happens?
00:41:04.968 --> 00:41:09.846
Was there anything like that in place for you in your 7-7 and with Grenfell,
00:41:09.846 --> 00:41:10.784
or have you learned from that?
00:41:11.678 --> 00:41:16.023
Definitely. I've definitely learned from it. And increasingly,
00:41:16.366 --> 00:41:18.781
there is major incident planning. So in the Church of England,
00:41:19.239 --> 00:41:24.616
I was post-77, we had a lot of meetings with the Archdeacon of London around
00:41:24.616 --> 00:41:25.793
major incident planning.
00:41:26.223 --> 00:41:31.216
The Church of England has a major incident plan, and dioceses have a major incident
00:41:31.216 --> 00:41:36.302
plan that they can input whenever there is something of that significance.
00:41:36.604 --> 00:41:42.772
So on a higher level, absolutely, churches and networks of churches typically
00:41:43.097 --> 00:41:48.476
have a plan in place and most of those are available on the intranet of those
00:41:48.476 --> 00:41:49.676
different organizations.
00:41:49.676 --> 00:41:55.026
So at a local level, a parish normally can also access a major incident plan
00:41:55.026 --> 00:42:00.970
and if there is a major incident in their parish, they'll be guided through the core steps.
00:42:02.796 --> 00:42:05.466
That's helpful. These documents tend to be quite a high level.
00:42:05.976 --> 00:42:12.890
And again, my recommendation is that every parish thinks about their own major instant response.
00:42:13.250 --> 00:42:21.412
And we also invest more in pastoral care training outside of the necessity of pastoral care.
00:42:21.743 --> 00:42:26.166
Often churches invest a lot in evangelism, quite a bit in discipleship,
00:42:26.573 --> 00:42:28.221
but very little in pastoral care.
00:42:28.442 --> 00:42:32.216
And what we tend to do is use the same unicorns every week. You know,
00:42:32.216 --> 00:42:37.436
if, oh, you know, Josie is 93 and she's wonderfully caring. And if you've got
00:42:37.436 --> 00:42:39.197
a problem, go and see her and she'll give you some wisdom.
00:42:39.482 --> 00:42:42.986
Now, Josie probably is absolutely amazing, but there are other pastoral people
00:42:42.986 --> 00:42:45.096
in our congregation. We just don't know who they are yet.
00:42:45.716 --> 00:42:49.170
And we tend to stereotype who the pastoral carers are.
00:42:49.501 --> 00:42:54.056
And they tend to be people with an already caring profession or kindly people
00:42:54.056 --> 00:42:56.003
and often women are stereotyped as being,
00:42:56.816 --> 00:43:00.276
the pastoral person you know actually i think a lot of young men are missing
00:43:00.276 --> 00:43:01.825
from that pastoral matrix
00:43:02.260 --> 00:43:06.116
and a lot of professional people and sometimes people with kind of harder personality
00:43:06.116 --> 00:43:10.056
types are often missing from the pastoral matrix and someone said oh you're
00:43:10.056 --> 00:43:14.526
not very pastoral and they thought that i'm out so i'd like to see more pastoral,
00:43:14.991 --> 00:43:18.677
care training initiated in churches generally.
00:43:19.757 --> 00:43:25.498
And a plan, an action plan for what should happen if there was a major incident.
00:43:25.701 --> 00:43:28.946
And that might cover both what our initial response might be,
00:43:29.230 --> 00:43:31.916
but then also what our long-term response might look like.
00:43:32.183 --> 00:43:36.508
And it would incorporate things like the settlement period,
00:43:37.165 --> 00:43:40.506
who we are going to collaborate with locally, local partners,
00:43:40.506 --> 00:43:47.496
an awareness for local provision, and another standing hawk who who are call local officers you know,
00:43:48.396 --> 00:43:53.597
basic information that you you don't you wouldn't want to have to get in a hurry
00:43:53.806 --> 00:43:55.943
should there be a major incident in your area but,
00:43:56.594 --> 00:44:01.237
like all these things policies are only useful if they are living policies and
00:44:01.446 --> 00:44:04.337
the best policies are born out of regular praxis and.
00:44:05.419 --> 00:44:08.188
I ran something when I was running a church in Harrow called Pastoral Net,
00:44:08.629 --> 00:44:14.504
which was effectively a group of self-designated pastors in our church community.
00:44:15.242 --> 00:44:20.876
We met monthly, talk about pastoral issues, invest a bit in pastoral training,
00:44:21.201 --> 00:44:26.455
and stayed on top of what would happen if there was a major incident in our location.
00:44:26.926 --> 00:44:30.434
And actually, I found it a huge source of comfort and fellowship for myself.
00:44:30.998 --> 00:44:34.022
And I know that for many individuals, they felt legitimized by it.
00:44:34.457 --> 00:44:38.222
And also, we uncovered had lots of problems we found out that at one point something
00:44:38.222 --> 00:44:42.131
like seven of the group were all ministering to the same person who'd all told them,
00:44:42.788 --> 00:44:46.932
that she wanted to be anonymous and didn't want anyone to be told that she was
00:44:46.932 --> 00:44:48.352
receiving care from them so
00:44:48.752 --> 00:44:51.762
seven of them were taking her out for coffees regularly which we wouldn't have
00:44:51.762 --> 00:44:56.032
known had we actually not been in this collaborative group we suddenly realized
00:44:56.032 --> 00:44:58.582
there's a lot of similarities between the same contact,
00:44:59.330 --> 00:45:04.262
we realized it was all the same person so it can be super helpful to invest
00:45:04.262 --> 00:45:09.222
in pastoral care and to collaborate together and to build a plan.
00:45:09.222 --> 00:45:11.793
But let's not be too grandiose about these things.
00:45:11.968 --> 00:45:15.869
Let's think, let's have a plan that we can access with all the core bits and pieces.
00:45:16.425 --> 00:45:22.625
But let's invest in what pastoral presence looks like and remind ourselves of what's important.
00:45:22.904 --> 00:45:28.429
So when we get into that big space, we don't fall back into historic mistakes.
00:45:29.892 --> 00:45:33.508
So you mentioned when we sort of started this conversation about this idea of
00:45:33.508 --> 00:45:38.778
vicarious or secondary trauma, that it's not the initial people who are primarily
00:45:38.778 --> 00:45:43.482
affected, it's everybody looking on, the family, the community that's watching it.
00:45:44.311 --> 00:45:48.618
And I wonder if you could speak to the role that the church has as sort of a
00:45:48.618 --> 00:45:53.176
gathering place, a central point for collective grief or processing,
00:45:53.998 --> 00:45:55.658
and that vicarious trauma.
00:45:55.658 --> 00:46:00.757
Because I feel like we talk a lot about trauma for ministry now hopefully we're talking about it more,
00:46:01.576 --> 00:46:06.538
but again it seems to be primarily about the the child or the person who has
00:46:06.538 --> 00:46:11.212
had the traumatic event and not about their surrounding community how can the church,
00:46:12.262 --> 00:46:17.504
hold that space in a in a place of community crisis how can we get better at that,
00:46:18.627 --> 00:46:21.778
that's a great question i mean i think the first thing is about the leaders
00:46:21.778 --> 00:46:25.438
themselves are we okay are we able to hold trauma well?
00:46:25.438 --> 00:46:30.008
And the work I've just been doing with the OU has been around what we call ministering
00:46:30.008 --> 00:46:33.570
associated trauma. So, it's vicarious trauma, it's that secondhand smoke.
00:46:35.192 --> 00:46:40.273
Are we able to manage the trauma that we are facing in Christian leadership?
00:46:40.563 --> 00:46:43.108
And if we are, if we have good systems and processes in place,
00:46:43.108 --> 00:46:45.448
if we have good supervision, we'll
00:46:45.448 --> 00:46:48.596
be better at serving the needs of our communities at large, for sure.
00:46:49.270 --> 00:46:53.838
But I think, again, it's about not overworking this idea. The church as a physical
00:46:53.838 --> 00:46:57.592
space can be a really important place for people to be.
00:46:57.958 --> 00:47:03.148
And it often is a lightning rod for community connection at times of extreme crisis.
00:47:04.877 --> 00:47:10.389
How we as a leader show up and the welcome that we offer, and also the collective
00:47:10.389 --> 00:47:12.970
incompetence that we offer, I think are really crucial.
00:47:13.596 --> 00:47:18.389
And by collective incompetence, I mean, if we show up with a hard plan and we
00:47:18.389 --> 00:47:21.207
start directing people, we're not actually pastoring people.
00:47:22.543 --> 00:47:26.569
We need to join together with others in our collective incompetence and say,
00:47:26.569 --> 00:47:29.739
look, we don't know exactly what to do, but we want to create a space where
00:47:29.739 --> 00:47:32.839
we can get together to share, to be present with one another,
00:47:32.839 --> 00:47:36.707
to work out what to do, that's when you can collaborate.
00:47:36.903 --> 00:47:41.003
And I think we can collaborate more effectively across faiths, as my experience
00:47:41.432 --> 00:47:46.249
in Grenfell showed, actually, that secular and other faith partners were a really
00:47:46.249 --> 00:47:50.839
important part of the fabric of our collaboration locally that's given way to
00:47:50.839 --> 00:47:54.372
good relationships in the North Kensington community that have lasted,
00:47:55.173 --> 00:47:58.405
for many, many years subsequent to Grenfell.
00:47:58.859 --> 00:48:06.129
So again we're called to be shepherds not directors and shepherds follow the
00:48:06.129 --> 00:48:09.059
sheep more than they stand in front of them and tell them where to go,
00:48:09.879 --> 00:48:14.609
latimer church did a brilliant job in in creating a memorial wall opening a
00:48:14.609 --> 00:48:20.409
book of condolence lighting a candle creating a really great welcome and publicizing
00:48:20.409 --> 00:48:24.577
that welcome in inviting people without qualification into a space,
00:48:25.065 --> 00:48:28.629
where they can engage with whatever happens to be going on in their community.
00:48:29.366 --> 00:48:33.470
It's an amazing gift. And out of that gift, I think the Lord works.
00:48:34.196 --> 00:48:38.393
But we've got to try hard not to impose something on people.
00:48:38.805 --> 00:48:42.569
And again, particularly those of us from a more evangelical position need to
00:48:42.569 --> 00:48:46.619
be very careful that we're not instrumentalizing a crisis to try and introduce
00:48:46.619 --> 00:48:48.453
people to Jesus in a dynamic way.
00:48:49.559 --> 00:48:53.287
We have to actually be compassionate for compassion's sake.
00:48:53.968 --> 00:48:58.712
And not try and leave an environment to have any other ambition.
00:49:01.215 --> 00:49:05.366
What gives you hope when you think about communities that have experienced profound
00:49:05.487 --> 00:49:11.009
trauma and loss, and you've maybe seen churches in those places ministering?
00:49:11.807 --> 00:49:18.455
I mean, Jesus gives me hope. But in any circumstance, he's promised to offer
00:49:18.455 --> 00:49:20.217
us a peace beyond all understanding.
00:49:20.455 --> 00:49:24.797
Well, that's the doors of death in a moment of extreme trauma,
00:49:25.296 --> 00:49:30.872
that his presence can offer something life-giving and.
00:49:31.779 --> 00:49:36.015
You know i've seen jesus you know really manifestly through the care of others
00:49:36.015 --> 00:49:40.139
as i've observed people in those moments of crisis and seeing,
00:49:40.731 --> 00:49:46.255
seeing just humanity demonstrated in a time of extreme crisis is is humbling
00:49:46.255 --> 00:49:51.679
it brings me to tears it's it's a wonder of the lord it's a it's a universal grace,
00:49:52.260 --> 00:49:56.451
and we see something of God's heart for the world when we see one person,
00:49:57.072 --> 00:50:00.559
showing love and care for another person and I think,
00:50:01.441 --> 00:50:07.285
you know whilst these environments are profoundly hard and painful they are
00:50:07.285 --> 00:50:11.935
also shaping and life-changing and in a sense those environments themselves
00:50:11.935 --> 00:50:14.188
offer hope me and my family just visited the,
00:50:14.774 --> 00:50:19.405
the 9-11 museum in in New York just this last week and It was a hard thing to
00:50:19.405 --> 00:50:20.573
bring my children to, but,
00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:25.331
there was so much hopefulness in the environment itself.
00:50:26.075 --> 00:50:31.842
It was a sense of community, a sense of resurrection, really.
00:50:33.038 --> 00:50:37.398
That filled the environment. But whilst we came out with a sort of sense of
00:50:37.398 --> 00:50:39.633
heaviness, there was also a sense of hopefulness.
00:50:39.790 --> 00:50:45.608
And I believe the cross gives way to a resurrection life. And out of tragedy
00:50:45.608 --> 00:50:50.071
and turmoil, so often we see the loving heart of God.
00:50:50.245 --> 00:50:52.857
And that's most demonstrated when we care for one another.
00:50:53.350 --> 00:50:57.002
And so, following Jesus' instruction, love one another.
00:50:57.495 --> 00:51:01.652
I think that's the heart of Christian mission in a time and a space for trauma.
00:51:02.319 --> 00:51:06.834
Yeah. Wow. Thank you, Will. Thank you for your insight and for,
00:51:07.309 --> 00:51:09.288
I feel like it's hard-won experience.
00:51:09.288 --> 00:51:11.808
And thank you for what you're doing to sort of further this.
00:51:11.808 --> 00:51:16.208
So if people are interested, do you want to give people some signposting?
00:51:16.208 --> 00:51:20.128
Is there some ways that they can learn more about responding to a community
00:51:20.128 --> 00:51:22.039
crisis or they can get some support?
00:51:22.637 --> 00:51:25.458
So if you're a clergy person, I really recommend the Closure Support Trust.
00:51:25.838 --> 00:51:28.798
We ran a charity for 20 years, mine is sole foundation. We've just folded into
00:51:28.798 --> 00:51:29.658
the Closure Support Trust.
00:51:29.658 --> 00:51:33.438
They've got a great bank of resources around emotional health a lot of information
00:51:33.758 --> 00:51:37.558
and stuff awareness and also practical and financial support for clergy too
00:51:37.558 --> 00:51:40.288
in the church of england but if you're not a church of england leader there's
00:51:40.288 --> 00:51:43.913
also resources there that you can access for free so highly recommended,
00:51:44.365 --> 00:51:50.286
again look at your diocese or your organization's national structures for care plan,
00:51:50.838 --> 00:51:54.808
see what they've got available and and some charities like the red cross have
00:51:54.808 --> 00:51:59.278
got interesting care plans that you can access online you know what to do in
00:51:59.598 --> 00:52:03.375
a traumatic incident and they can give you some guidance too so,
00:52:03.953 --> 00:52:08.078
i would encourage you to to kind of plan and work but if you're a leader and
00:52:08.078 --> 00:52:12.918
you haven't done personal work again my encouragement is don't be afraid of
00:52:12.918 --> 00:52:17.246
that space where you can receive counsel or therapy,
00:52:17.757 --> 00:52:22.767
and work out some of your stuff without shame and embarrassment to kind of know, okay.
00:52:23.992 --> 00:52:28.238
How do I get beyond the practical stuff and how can I be present?
00:52:28.798 --> 00:52:32.830
That work will always be helpful for you in your own life and in your leadership too.
00:52:33.391 --> 00:52:35.598
Brilliant. Thank you, Will. Thank you for your time on this.
00:52:35.598 --> 00:52:36.920
Thanks for your time. Great to see you.
00:52:38.430 --> 00:52:41.943
The show notes have links to Will's article, which you might want to share with
00:52:41.943 --> 00:52:46.516
your church leadership team, so together you can make plans for critical incidents.
00:52:47.393 --> 00:52:50.945
And if you're not already a subscriber to Roots, do take a look at what we offer.
00:52:51.189 --> 00:52:55.053
Whether you're leading worship, preaching, working with children and young people,
00:52:55.353 --> 00:52:58.173
serving in schools or supporting faith formation in your church,
00:52:58.515 --> 00:53:01.470
Roots provides weekly and seasonal resources,
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ideas and encouragement to help you lead worship, preach, nurture discipleship across the ages.
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With broad theological input and practical interactive ideas and inspiration,
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Roots will quickly become your starting place for practical church leadership.
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Head to rootsforchurches.com to find out more about our resources,
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