Trauma and Hope
MultiplyingHope is SRV’s trauma healing ministry. As the world continues to experience natural disaster, war, starvation, deprivation, and abuse, missiologists and pastors are finding that the number one obstacle to people accepting the gospel is the trauma that they have experienced. MultiplyingHope has trained 1938 people. Each of these people can start and train others to lead trauma healings groups. We have developed 69 next level trainers in every region of the world.
The World is Hurting
82.4 Million people are displaced.
1 in 3 Women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime.
1 Billion children are subject to domestic abuse each year.
WHO WE ARE
As a ministry based on biblical principles, MultiplyingHope understands that unaddressed trauma creates barriers to hearing, understanding, and accepting the love of God. In other words, trauma can keep someone from truly hearing the gospel and creates barriers to spiritual growth.
Therefore, those concerned with sharing the gospel and planting healthy and reproducing churches must pay significant attention to trauma. We must equip and empower lay people with the basic tools they need to address trauma safely, responsibly, and effectively. As lay people learn to use these tools, healing multiplies alongside the Good News.
MultiplyingHope is led and overseen by professionals within the fields of church planting and psychology. In order to create its programs, MultiplyingHope draws on the expertise of its partners within the fields of orality, church planting, and trauma counseling.
WHAT WE DO
We believe that it is not only possible for people who have experienced difficult situations to create multiplying healing communities themselves, but essential in places where professional help is limited or ineffective.
We do not intend to take the place of professional counseling, but rather equip lay people to draw from God’s immeasurable comfort for themselves, listen well to others who are hurting, and respond to pain in appropriate ways informed by God’s Word.
MultiplyingHope's primary purpose is to help people find healing from past hurts. It does so by providing a comprehensive framework that supports people and organizations who want to integrate a trauma-informed approach into their existing church planting strategy and who seek to multiply God's healing in their unique contexts. We believe a trauma-informed approach should take the following steps:
- Begin by appropriately entering a community.
- Move forward by sharing the healing Good News of Jesus.
- Address trauma in healing groups.
- Provide on-going and trauma-informed discipleship.
- Gather participants into emotionally healthy groups that could seed healthy church plants.
- Develop leaders who have experienced trauma healing for themselves and can then lead well and equip their own communities with trauma healing tools.
Healing cannot take place in 7 or 10 simple sessions - it is an on-going journey. From entry into a community to leadership development, MultiplyingHope seeks to help communities establish environments where healing community, faith, and purpose can flourish.
HOW WE DO IT
As a ministry based on principles of orality, MultiplyingHope uses experiential learning and storytelling to help people internalize and share God’s redemptive stories. People who have survived traumatic experiences, whether literate or not, respond more effectively to an oral environment than a text-based one. MultiplyingHope takes this into account by creating a learning environment focused on the oral presentation and processing of information. This allows participants to learn how to take part in God's overarching redemptive story and pass that on to others. Multiplication is a biblical pattern. God, the source of immeasurable comfort, comforts us so that we can comfort others who are suffering. Every step in our process is reproducing, healing, and participant-driven.
Your Gift...
- enables MultiplyingHope facilitators to facilitate the four phases of training below, traveling to training sites in major US cities, Europe and Asia.
- facilitates on-going projects of continued healing group development, resource development, and leadership training in areas of the world where crisis response and on-going trauma-informed discipleship and church planting are needed.
Crisis Response
Healing Conversations are just the first phase of an on-going, integrated program of trauma-informed discipleship and leadership development.
Healing Conversations Workshops are online webinars consisting of four sessions. Each session is 1.5 hours. In these workshops, you will learn how to assess trauma healing needs in your community and have initial “healing conversations” that eventually lead to on-going healing groups.
Healing Conversations are conversations in a 3-part structure that ...
- Build community and trust
- Point people to God
- Encourage them to help each other
Healing conversations consist of …
- How to listen well
- Initial trauma healing tools for the first conversations
- A Bible story that encourages people from any faith background and points them to the God who is with us.
- Encouraging the very people who are hurting to spread to others the comfort and healing they are receiving.
These workshops are highly interactive. Be prepared to participate fully in each of the four training sessions which build on each other and to engage with others in small groups and pairs. Homework activities between each session build practical skills.
Watch the leader of the first male group in Lebanon tell God's unfolding story of trauma healing in his country.
